Combat Bug with legendary item "HACK"

The the legendary item item HACK prefix isn’t working as intended, when cubed plus all other thorns add on, primarily attack on a demon hunter only trigger the prefix of hack once on the first enemy hit e.g. evasive fire middle fire one shots T1 mobs but the sides fires only do weapon damage, multi shot once triggers the prefix on the first enemy hit all other enemies only receive weapon damage, strafe on triggers the prefix on the random 1st enemy hit but doesn’t trigger again if channeled

This may well be a bug; however, I can’t imagine why a DH would want to use Hack.
I see that you have other, level 70 heroes. One of them could craft and Upgrade Rare 70 items (bow, quiver, etc.) that the DH could use in the Cube.
Actually, your DH could do it. You don’t have to be level 70 to craft, upgrade and extract level 70 items if another hero already raised the Smith, found the Cube, and obtained the Mats.

Only triggering once per hit is how it’s intended to work, it’s not meant to apply thorns damage to every multishot arrow or strafed shot. Thorns is meant as a retaliation effect when being hit, not as a mass damage multiplier.

As the tooltip describes it applies the effect once upon attack, one time only regardless of what type of attack initiated it.

Even if you did manage to get it to work it would need to be nerfed as that is simply not what thorns was ever designed for.

  • 75% - 100% of your [Thorns]damage is applied on every attack.
    The Thorns damage is simply inflicted to any enemy hit by an attack, as if they hit the character. For [damage over time] attacks, it only applies once, on first hit. (taking from D3 wiki)

I understand that DoT e.g. Strafe not going to work properly but abilities like Evasive fire or Hungering arrow proccing the puncturing arrow.

Maybe D3 team just need to re word the prefix if it intended to only affect the 1st target hit like : Applies 75-100% thorns damage to first target hit from every attack

You can technically use it at range due to the effect of the cube. However the weapon itself is a melee weapon designed to activate it’s effect on a per swing basis. The fact that you can use it ranged by cubing it doesn’t change the item’s overall intended function.

Neither of the skills you mentioned could be used if the weapon itself was worn.

It works as you have stated (single target or 1st enemy hit only) which only leaves it to my 2nd conclusion, just needs the prefix to be re-worded in a way that implies single target or 1st enemy hit by attacks.

EDIT: I went to confirm again on a barb using Cleave with board sweep equip and paladins sweep attack, it only applies “HACK” prefix once to first target hit but all other enemies hit only for weapon damage. The whole original post was to outline that the current prefix for HACK implies that on EVERY attack not single target or 1st enemy hit excluding DoT abilities/items, so you can understand how this can be misunderstood, was this intended by Diablo 3 team I don’t know but if its the case the prefix needs to change.

Yes, they did it on purpose to be confusing and lead to suboptimal builds and playstyles. It may have, originally, been intended to be “all attacks” but then, with the other lack of clarity in virtually everything, it was probably only ever supposed to be misleading. For example, critting with thorns - there’s been hardly ever any way to do it, yet there are many effects that imply it should work, 100%.