I have been playing Grim Dawn on and off for years. I always seem to get drawn back to it. I love the game.
All in all, I still have a Lot to learn about the game.
Oddly enough having played for years, I have never used a Scepter at all. I am following the Top 20 Build’s #2 Evoker Saboteur which eventually uses Scepters. I know that we can always adjust a build to our own experience but using Scepters has piqued my interest and I have just that one question about it (the title).
The guide’s grimtool shows that there were no points added per level for Spirit. Points were only allotted towards Cunning (mostly) and Physique.
Does adding points to Spirit add to your damage with Scepters? I know that Spirit says that it adds damage to Elemental skills and attacks, so I am guessing that it does but just want to know for certain. Offense according to the wiki adds only to damage when you crit with an attack and Offense is raised with Cunning which, as I noted, is what most of the build has level-points applied to. All of the gear on the grimtool has flat cold damage and sometimes + elemental damage %.
Spirit adds damage to all elemental skills and attacks, including scepter damage. If you are using a build that actively deals elemental damage, increasing Spirit will give you a nice boost
In the case of that build, points in spirit would increase the cold damage. However, the build already has a huge amount of %cold damage on gear. The points in cunning buff its OA (so giving it a higher chance to hit and crit, and more crit damage). Without the points in cunning, it would have only 2.9k OA (you can play with this in grimtools) which would be rather low for that kind of build. So it makes sense that cunning is prioritised over spirit. It works out to ~350 more OA, which is a massive difference.
The use of scepters vs swords etc doesn’t affect this.