Arc

Quickstep — Radiant Dance Machines (Arc Hunter)

Primary-kill dodge engine — near-infinite dodge spam for a neutral-game / PvP duelist

Your gear best achievable Class 140 / 150 target — gear ready

Health 20 · Melee 32 · Grenade 44 · Super 13 · Class 140 · Weapons 118 · armour only; stat mods + fragments add more

Centerpiece: Radiant Dance Machines (Legs) · Subclass: Arcstrider · Role: Primary-kill dodge engine — near-infinite dodge spam for a neutral-game / PvP duelist Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Updated 2026-07-03

Almost every Hunter dodge engine leans on a melee refund. Radiant Dance Machines moves the trigger onto your gun: every Primary-ammo final blow feeds dodge energy back, and once the bar is full the overflow banks extra charges. So you never dodge once and wait — you shoot, kill, dodge, shoot, kill, dodge, saving charges as you go. Be honest about the lane, though: this is a gunplay duelist and add-clear engine, not a boss-DPS build.

The exotic

The Dance: Moderately increases airborne effectiveness and hip fire mobility, range, and accuracy for weapons that use Primary ammo. Final blows with Primary ammo weapons return dodge energy, which can overflow to create additional charges when full.

Two halves, both about the gun. The first is a flat gunplay buff to any Primary — Clarity measures roughly +20 Airborne Effectiveness always, and while the gun is readied and not aimed down sights another +30 Mobility, +5 Range, +30 Stability and a 70% tighter accuracy cone, which is exactly the close-range hip-fire handling a duelist wants. The second half is the engine: Primary final blows return Class ability (dodge) energy scaled by rank — around 34% off a minor, 100% off an elite — and at full energy repeat Primary kills within a short window bank up to two extra dodge charges. The catch, and the reason this is a neutral/PvP build, is that the refund is per Primary kill only: no bodies to drop and the engine stalls.

Loadout

Slot	Pick	Why
Subclass	Arcstrider	Every Arc Hunter aspect and the dodge↔melee loop is gated on the dodge RDM now spams, so the exotic's overflow has the most to spend.
Super	Gathering Storm (flexible)	The build isn't super-reliant; Gathering Storm jolts a pack to feed Flow State, but Arc Staff is equally fine.
Class ability	Marksman's Dodge	The keystone — reloads on dodge and keeps you on your gun, and RDM refunds it off the kills that gun gets.
Movement	Triple Jump	Air control, and RDM's airborne-effectiveness buff rewards fighting off the ground.
Melee	Combination Blow	Melee kill → heal + stacking damage + dodge energy, a second refund source that overlaps RDM so the dodge never goes cold.
Grenade	Flux / Arcbolt Grenade	Cheap jolt-on-demand; with Spark of Shock the Arc grenade guarantees the jolt that starts Flow State.
Aspect 1	Lethal Current	After dodging, your next melee gains lunge, jolts, and an aftershock — and you dodge constantly, so this melee is always charged.
Aspect 2	Flow State	Defeating a jolted target makes you amplified; while amplified your dodge recharges faster and reload is greatly increased, accelerating the engine.
Fragments	Resistance · Shock · Discharge · Ions · Frequency	Close the jolt → amplified → faster dodge loop and add reload/DR so you can live on your Primary.
Exotic armour	Radiant Dance Machines (Legs)	Turns Primary kills into dodge energy and banked charges — the entire resource the Arcstrider kit spends.
Weapons	Any Arc Primary + two flexible slots	Live on the Arc Primary (it is the whole engine and feeds the fragment chain); cover champions on the other two slots.

Fragments

Spark of Resistance DR while surrounded, +10 Melee
Spark of Shock Arc grenades jolt, −10 Grenade
Spark of Discharge Arc weapon kills → Ionic Trace
Spark of Ions jolted/Bolt-Charge kills → Ionic Trace
Spark of Frequency melee hits → reload + stability

Why it works (the mechanics)

The dodge is the build, and your gun keeps it loaded. Every Primary final blow returns Class ability energy — roughly 34% off a minor, 100% off an elite per Clarity — and at full energy repeat kills bank up to two extra dodge charges. On a pack of adds that is a dodge every second or two, and each dodge fires Marksman's reload and re-arms Lethal Current's jolting melee. The loop never waits on a cooldown.
Two refund sources, stacked. RDM refunds off weapon kills; Combination Blow refunds off melee kills. They don't compete, they overlap, so a mixed gun-and-melee fight tops the dodge from both directions. That redundancy is what makes "near-infinite" honest at add-clear scale rather than marketing.
Flow State turns the dodge into a flywheel. Jolt a target (Arc grenade via Spark of Shock, or Lethal Current's melee) → kill it → amplified → while amplified your dodge recharges faster and reload is greatly increased. The build's own output accelerates the resource the build spends most, so the faster you fight the faster you dodge, and the faster you dodge the faster you fight.
Lethal Current makes the spammed dodge offensive, not just a reposition. Because you dodge so often, the "after dodging your next melee jolts and creates an aftershock" window is always live. The dodge isn't only an i-frame and a reload — it arms a jolting melee that lights Flow State, and the jolt itself is your Overload answer folded into the loop for free.
The Arc fragment chain self-feeds. Spark of Discharge turns Arc weapon kills into Ionic Traces; Spark of Ions adds more Traces off jolted or Bolt-Charge kills; Spark of Frequency keeps your reload and stability high off melee hits. None of it is load-bearing, but it means your Primary stays topped and you stay amplified off the kills you are already getting.
Class-agnostic, but Arc earns it. RDM only cares that you have a dodge and get Primary kills, so it ports to Void, Solar, Strand or Stasis. Arcstrider wins because Flow State, Lethal Current, Tempest Strike and Ascension all key off the dodge you are now spamming — build it on Arc, and know it travels anywhere dodge-centric.

Stats & mods

Class 200 → Weapons → Health. Class is king — it reduces dodge cooldown and boosts dodge energy from every source, compounding directly with RDM's refund and overflow. Then Weapons, because you fight off your Primary all day (reload, handling, +damage to the minors and majors your kills come from), with Health as the survival floor behind Flow State's dodge-resilience and Lethal Current's crowd control. Fragment deltas net roughly +10 Melee / −10 Grenade before mods.

Mods:

Boots: Arc Weapon Surge ×2 (straight onto the Arc Primary the whole build keys off) · Recuperation (orb pickup → heal).
Arms: Weapon Font ×2 (reload/handling/damage on your Primary) · an Ammo Finder if you run a champion special/heavy.
Chest: Arc + Solar + Void Resistance (flat DR — your standing survival layer besides Flow State and blind).
Class item: Powerful Attraction (dodge vacuums Orbs, and you dodge constantly) · Reaper (after dodge, next kill spawns an Orb).
Surge: Arc Weapon Surge — match the surge to the Arc Primary that is your whole damage source.
Anti-Champion: Jolt (Lethal Current / Arc grenades) covers Overload; lean on weapon-archetype stuns (Anti-Champion 2.0) on the flex slots for Barrier/Unstoppable.

Artifact — Slayer Baron Apothecary Satchel

The Arc tier mods key off exactly what this build spams — Jolt and Blind — turning them into Ionic Traces, Armor Charge and blinding bursts while feeding the Orb economy your dodge already vacuums. Champions stay covered the build's own way: jolt for Overload, weapon archetypes for Barrier/Unstoppable.

Picks (2/3/2):

Tier 1: Trace Evidence · The Thick Of It
Tier 2: Retinal Burn · Curative Orbs · Debilitating Wave
Tier 3: Arc Compounding · Conductive Cosmic Crystal

Trace Evidence turns precision hits and final blows on Jolt- or Blind-affected targets into Ionic Traces — and your loop applies both constantly, so Traces flow the moment you open fire.
The Thick Of It grants Armor Charge on finals while surrounded and buffs your Primary's handling, fuelling the Armor-Charge spend the tier-2 mods want.
Retinal Burn spends Armor Charge on Arc precision hits to blind at the target, stacking more crowd control onto the Arc gun you live on.
Curative Orbs makes an Orb on shield breaks, paying off the Orb verb that feeds Powerful Attraction and Reaper.
Debilitating Wave fires a blinding Arc wave from a finisher — an on-element AoE reset when a room gets loud.
Arc Compounding and Conductive Cosmic Crystal add bonus Arc damage to Blind targets and harder-hitting Arc abilities, landing squarely on the blinded packs and the Arcstrider kit.

Where it shines

Add-clear and room-clearing: the refund is per Primary kill, so anywhere with bodies to drop keeps the dodge charges overflowing and the jolt loop rolling.
Crucible / neutral-game duelling: the hip-fire and airborne handling buff plus constant dodge availability make it a genuine gunplay duelist package.
Weak against single-target/boss DPS: with one body and no adds the engine stalls — bring a separate damage option for boss phases.
Champion coverage: Jolt (Lethal Current + Arc grenades) breaks Overload intrinsically; bring weapon-archetype stuns on the two flex slots for Barrier and Unstoppable, noting only Primary kills refund the dodge, so the engine pauses while you are on a special/heavy champion weapon.

Verify notes

Exotic element/slot: Radiant Dance Machines is Leg Armor with the intrinsic "The Dance" — confirmed in `docs/encyclopedia/exotics.md` and `docs/encyclopedia/exotic_intrinsics.md`.
Intrinsic quote: `exotics.md` captured only the first sentence (the gunplay buff); the second clause ("Final blows with Primary ammo weapons return dodge energy…") is the well-known verbatim text and its behaviour is confirmed by `docs/encyclopedia/clarity_build_numbers.md` (Primary kills grant Class ability energy; extra charges at full).
Refund numbers (minor 34% / elite 100% / player 20% Class energy, up to 2 extra charges within ~6s at full) are from `clarity_build_numbers.md` (community Clarity data), not the manifest string — treat as tuning values to confirm in-game.
Aspects/fragments: Lethal Current, Flow State, Tempest Strike, Ascension are verbatim from `docs/encyclopedia/aspects.md`; Spark of Resistance (+10 Melee), Shock (−10 Grenade), Discharge, Ions, Frequency are verbatim from `docs/encyclopedia/fragments.md` with the listed stat deltas. Flow State's manifest text is just "Defeating a jolted target makes you amplified" — the faster-dodge/reload clauses come from the amplified buff (`docs/knowledge/subclasses_and_aspects.md`).
Combination Blow is not captured as a discrete entry in our encyclopedia snapshot; its dodge-refund-on-melee-kill behaviour is well established but unconfirmed against this manifest.
Stat targets (Class first, then Weapons, then Health) are a tuning suggestion, not manifest values. The PvE-vs-PvP framing is a design call inferred from the per-kill, Primary-only trigger.

Mod selection (masterworked — full allocation)

Piece	Mod · cost	What it does
Helmet (7/10)	Arc Siphon 3e fill	Rapid Arc weapon final blows create an Orb of Power.
	Ashes to Assets 3e fill	Gain bonus Super energy on grenade kills.
	Heavy Ammo Finder 1e fill	Increases the effect of all contributions towards the Heavy ammo meter.
Arms (6/10)	Utility Kickstart 3e fill	When your class ability energy is fully expended, your Armor Charge is consumed and you gain class ability energy for each Armor Charge used.
	Momentum Transfer 2e fill	Causing damage with a grenade reduces your melee cooldown.
	Fastball 1e fill	Increases grenade throw distance.
Chest (3/10)	Void Resistance 1e	Reduces incoming Void damage from combatants.
	Void Resistance 1e	Reduces incoming Void damage from combatants.
	Arc Resistance 1e fill	Reduces incoming Arc damage from combatants.
Legs (3/10)	Arc Weapon Surge 1e	Your Arc weapons gain a small bonus to damage while you have any Armor Charge. Your Armor Charge now decays over time.
	Arc Weapon Surge 1e	Your Arc weapons gain a small bonus to damage while you have any Armor Charge. Your Armor Charge now decays over time.
	Recuperation 1e	Replenishes health each time you pick up an Orb of Power.
Class Item (4/10)	Powerful Attraction 2e	Automatically collects nearby Orbs of Power when you activate your class ability.
	Reaper 1e	Shortly after using your class ability, your next weapon final blow spawns an Orb of Power.
	Bomber 1e fill	Reduces grenade cooldown when using your class ability.

All 15 sockets used, 10 energy per masterworked piece; costs from the manifest. Core mods are the build's engine; fill mods are strong defaults — swap freely (chest resists should match the activity's damage types).