Hard Light — Chromatic Current (Hunter)

Weapon: Hard Light (Auto Rifle · Primary · Arc — element-switchable) · Subclass: Arc / Arcstrider · Role: Amplified add-clear engine + champion-flexible primary Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Created 2026-06-16

Hard Light's catalyst is a love letter to Arc Hunter: it pays you reload, handling and ADS speed the whole time you're amplified. So build a subclass that lives at 100% amplified uptime, switch the gun to Arc with The Fundamentals, and you have a ricocheting, overpenetrating primary that reloads itself and never falls off range. Dodge → jolt-melee → amplified → Light Touch online → bounce rounds off the walls into the whole pack.

The weapon

Volatile Light (intrinsic, verbatim): "Rounds fired from this weapon have reduced damage falloff, overpenetrate targets, and ricochet off hard surfaces. Projectile damage increases after bounce."

The Fundamentals (perk, verbatim): "[Alternate Weapon Action] : Changes this weapon's damage type." — Hard Light cycles Void / Arc / Solar on the fly. (Manifest tags its base damage type as Void; the gun's identity is that you pick the element, so this build pins it to Arc to match the subclass and the catalyst's amplified clause.)

Hard Light Catalyst — Light Touch (verbatim): "This weapon gains reload speed, handling, and aim down sight speed when you are amplified, radiant, or have Devour."

What it does: overpenetration + wall-ricochet makes a 600 RPM auto rifle a room-clearer — rounds punch through the front rank and bend off cover into the targets you can't see, dealing more damage per bounce. Reduced falloff means it hits like a close-range gun at mid-long range. The catalyst removes the only downside (Hard Light's mediocre handling/reload) the instant you're amplified — which on this subclass is always.

Loadout

Slot	Pick	Why
Subclass	Arcstrider (Arc Hunter)	Amplified-on-demand to keep Light Touch live; jolt + blind for control.
Super	Gathering Storm	Anchored AoE jolt that primes a whole room for the ricochet clear; on-theme, leave for boss/champion burst.
Class ability	Gambler's Dodge	Refunds melee energy near enemies — the melee is the amplified trigger; pairs with Lethal Current's dodge→melee.
Movement	Triple Jump	Air control to reposition for ricochet angles.
Melee	Combination Blow / Disorienting Blow (charged Arc melee)	The jolt/blind tool Lethal Current and Flow State key off; refunded by Gambler's.
Grenade	Flux Grenade (or Pulse)	Big single-target jolt-able burst; Pulse if you want Ionic Traces from Arc Web/Static Charge instead.
Aspect 1	Lethal Current	After dodging, next melee gets lunge + jolts + aftershock; damaging any jolted target with melee also blinds — manufactures the jolted/blinded targets the loop needs.
Aspect 2	Flow State	Defeating a jolted target makes you amplified, and while amplified your dodge recharges faster and reload is greatly increased — stacks with Light Touch and keeps amplified rolling.

Exotic armour — Liar's Handshake (Gauntlets)

Cross Counter (verbatim): "Using your Arc melee ability or being hit by a melee attack will allow you to follow up with an extremely powerful melee counterpunch that will heal you."

Why it's the pick: the build's whole engine is the Arc melee → amplified trigger, and Liar's turns every one of those melees into a free, self-healing double-hit. Cross Counter punch → kills/criticals the priority → Flow State amplifies off the jolt kill → Light Touch lights up Hard Light → you ricochet the rest of the pack → Spark of Amplitude orbs → Gambler's Dodge refunds the melee → repeat. It pays for the exact ability this loop spams and replaces the survival you'd otherwise spend a fragment slot on.

The other two weapon slots

• Special: any Strand or Solar Special you like (e.g. a Glaive or a fusion) — kept off-Arc on purpose so it doesn't compete for the Arc surge; use it for the bullet-sponge Hard Light's primary damage can't chew.
• Heavy: a Machine Gun or Rocket for bosses. Hard Light is the add-clear/champion primary; the Heavy is the boss-DPS the build doesn't ask the auto rifle to do.

Why this works (the mechanics)

• Amplified is a permanent state here, and the catalyst is built for it. Light Touch needs amplified/radiant/Devour; Flow State (kill a jolted target) and the Arc kit hand you amplified on tap. Once it's up, Hard Light reloads, handles and ADSes like a different gun, and Flow State's "greatly increased reload" stacks on top — near-zero downtime between mags.
• The Fundamentals locks the gun to Arc on purpose. Switching Hard Light to Arc makes it benefit from Arc weapon surge mods, procs Spark of Discharge (Ionic Traces) on kills, and means every ricochet kill feeds the same element economy the subclass runs. One element, every system pulling the same direction.
• Volatile Light + a dense pack = the catalyst's best case. Overpenetration and wall-ricochet (with increasing damage per bounce) turn a primary into an AoE weapon in tight corridors; reduced falloff keeps it lethal when the pack is strung out. Champions and majors get overpenetrated alongside the trash.
• The jolt → amplified → orb loop is self-funding. Lethal Current jolts (and blinds) → Hard Light/melee kills the jolted target → Flow State amplifies + Spark of Ions/Discharge drop Ionic Traces → traces re-up abilities and amplify → Spark of Amplitude prints orbs while amplified → Gambler's refunds the melee. Guns and abilities reload each other.
• Liar's Handshake makes the trigger free and survivable. The melee that starts the loop is a healing counterpunch, so you can open every engagement with it without spending the cooldown or your health bar.

Stats & mods

Weapons 200 → Health 100+ → Melee ~100 → Class. Weapons stat is the priority (it's a primary-weapon build and Weapons adds PvE weapon damage in 9.7.0); Melee ~100 to keep the trigger charged alongside Gambler's refunds; Class for dodge uptime feeding Lethal Current.

Mods, by piece:

• Helmet: Harmonic/Arc Siphon (Arc kills → Orbs), Heavy Ammo Finder.
• Gauntlets: Melee Font (→ ~100 Melee), Heavy Handed (melee kill → ammo + energy).
• Chest: Arc/Solar/Void Resistance one each (flat DR under amplified + Resistance fragment).
• Boots: Arc Weapon Surge ×2 (≈+17% to the Arc-cycled Hard Light — straight damage onto the gun) · Orbs of Restoration.
• Class item: Powerful Attraction (dodge vacuums your orbs) · Reaper · Time Dilation.
• Stat tuning: +Weapons where available; Health is the cheap dump stat since amplified DR + Liar's heal + Resistance cover survivability.

Where it shines

• Add-dense PvE (strikes, Nightfalls, dungeons, Onslaught): ricochet overpenetration is built for corridors and packs; permanent amplified keeps the gun and the loop online.
• Champion coverage — flag this. Hard Light is a Rapid-Fire / 600-RPM auto rifle archetype, so under Anti-Champion 2.0 it should stun Overload (Lightweight/Rapid-Fire → Overload) intrinsically — confirm the exact archetype-to-champion mapping in-game (see Verify notes). Barrier and Unstoppable are not covered by this gun: lean on Lethal Current's blind + Gathering Storm's jolt for crowd control, and bring an Anti-Barrier / Anti-Unstoppable Special or Heavy (or artifact mods) to fill the gap.
• Mid-long range: reduced falloff makes Hard Light hold up where most primaries taper off.