Multiple Shot Ability & Melee Monsters

[Rohar]

I was playing Act III Normal, with my Frost Novaress, Elemenara and just switched to the Flayer Jungle Waypoint and came across a Winged Nightmare Unique with the Multiple Shots Ability. I had always figured that Melee Monsters wouldn't get this, that it was an ability that could only spawn with creatures with a bow attack or ranged weapons or an offensive spell.

So what's the deal here ? Does it just get ignored as an ability, if they don't have a ranged attack? or do they get an ability like the Paladin's Zeal or the Druid Werewolf's Fury? (Elemenara killed the one I came across so fast, I didn't think about taking a hit or two to see, or didn't have time to notice, if it got a hit in)I suppose one reason for it being spawned on melee monsters could be due to it combining with the LEB enchanted ability - as we all know to our costs. Then again, that combination of ability's isn't always going to come up everytime- so I'm not sure if that's the reason.
Opinions - or has anyone else had any encounters with a melee MS monster ?

Rohar

[lfd]

Hmm, it _should_ only spawn on monsters that have a ranged (missile?) attack. I wonder if their "take off and fly for a bit" action is treated as such by the game?

*waves hands in the air*

[Shade]

Looks like, game allows spawning of 'Mulitishot' prefix if two conditions are true
1. Monster is not listed in monstats.txt as melee (has blank space in isMelee column)
2. Monster is allowed to spawn with mulitishot (has blank space in nomultishot column in monstats.txt)

All vulture-type monsters (vulture1) have blanks in nomultishot, isMelee, rangedtype and flying columns. Other monsters with such properties are carver shamans, maggots, unravelers etc (ie valid candidates for multishot).
Thus, we can conclude that
1. Vultures aren't flying monsters, their flight is special attack
2. Since they aren't melee monsters and are allowed to be spawn with multishot, well... they are spawning.

[Obi2Kenobi]

Don't forget that MSLE has been fixed.

[Shade]

Indeed it was. So, no big deal here. I've seen such vultures myself,
looks like their Multishot ability doesn't do them anything good. But I do not recall seeing such boss flying.

[Usufruct]

They didn't program monster attributes to be useful all the time. Same deal when a boss pack of melee only monsters spawns with conviction.

[adeyke]

Except that usually MS does only spawn on monsters with a ranged attack. And conviction will still reduce the player's defense, so that's not useless.

[Usufruct]

True, but conviction isn't very dangerous unless it's used by elemental monsters. How about blessed aim/might gloams?