Hard Light — Chromatic Current (Hunter)

Centerpiece: Hard Light (Auto Rifle · Primary · Arc) · Subclass: Arc / Arcstrider · Role: Amplified add-clear engine + champion-flexible primary Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Updated 2026-07-03

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 full 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, go amplified, Light Touch comes online, and you bounce rounds off the walls into the whole pack.

The weapon

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

The Fundamentals (Alternate Weapon Action): "[Alternate Weapon Action] : Changes this weapon's damage type." — Hard Light cycles Void / Arc / Solar on the fly; this build pins it to Arc.

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

What it does: overpenetration plus wall-ricochet turns a 600 RPM auto rifle into a room-clearer — rounds punch through the front rank and bend off cover into targets you can't see, dealing more damage per bounce. Reduced falloff means it hits like a close-range gun out to mid-long range, so a dense corridor is its best case and a strung-out pack is still lethal. The Fundamentals lets you set the damage type, and this build locks it to Arc so the gun benefits from Arc surge and the subclass's Ionic economy. The catalyst then removes Hard Light's only real weakness — its mediocre handling and reload — the instant you're amplified, which on this Arcstrider is essentially always.

Loadout

Slot	Pick	Why
Subclass	Arcstrider (Arc Hunter)	Amplified-on-demand keeps Light Touch live; jolt and blind give the crowd control the gun lacks.
Super	Gathering Storm	Anchored AoE that jolts a whole room, priming the pack for the ricochet clear; save it for boss/champion burst.
Class ability	Gambler's Dodge	Refunds melee energy near enemies — the melee is the amplified trigger, so this reloads the loop's ignition.
Movement	Triple Jump	Air control to reposition for ricochet angles off walls and cover.
Melee	Combination Blow / Disorienting Blow (charged Arc melee)	The jolt/blind tool Lethal Current and Flow State key off; refunded by Gambler's Dodge.
Grenade	Flux Grenade (or Pulse)	Big single-target jolt-able burst; Pulse if you'd rather farm Ionic Traces from Arc Web/Static Charge.
Aspect 1	Lethal Current	"After dodging, your next melee attack has increased lunge range, jolts the target, and creates a damaging aftershock." — manufactures the jolted targets the loop needs.
Aspect 2	Flow State	"Defeating a jolted target makes you amplified." — the amplified engine that lights up Light Touch every time a jolted target dies.
Fragments	Spark of Discharge · Spark of Ions · Spark of Amplitude · Spark of Resistance	Ionic Traces on Arc kills and jolt kills, Orbs while amplified, and DR while surrounded.
Exotic armour	Liar's Handshake (Gauntlets)	"Cross Counter" turns the Arc melee that starts the loop into a free, self-healing counterpunch.
Weapons	Special (Strand/Solar — Glaive or fusion) · Heavy (Machine Gun or Rocket)	Special stays off-Arc so it doesn't fight the Arc surge; Heavy is the boss-DPS Hard Light doesn't do.

Why it 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 — near-zero downtime between mags on a build that never leaves the amplified state.
• 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 plus a dense pack is 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. Majors and champions get overpenetrated alongside the trash.
• The jolt → amplified → orb loop is self-funding. Lethal Current jolts (and its aftershock softens the group) → Hard Light or the melee kills the jolted target → Flow State amplifies and Spark of Ions/Discharge drop Ionic Traces → traces re-up abilities and keep amplified rolling → Spark of Amplitude prints Orbs while amplified → Gambler's Dodge refunds the melee. Guns and abilities reload each other.
• Liar's Handshake makes the trigger free and survivable. Cross Counter turns the Arc melee that starts the loop into a healing counterpunch, so you can open every engagement with it without spending the cooldown or your health bar — and the counterpunch itself can secure the jolt kill that amplifies you.

Stats & mods

Weapons 200 → Health → Melee. Weapons is the priority — it's a primary-weapon build and Weapons scales PvE weapon damage in 9.7.0. Health next (amplified DR, Liar's heal and Spark of Resistance cover the rest), then Melee to keep the trigger charged alongside Gambler's refunds. Class ability uptime feeds Lethal Current but rides on Gambler's Dodge more than raw stat.

Mods:

• Boots: Arc Weapon Surge ×2 (straight damage onto the Arc-cycled Hard Light) · Orbs of Restoration.
• Arms: Melee Font (toward the Melee target) · Heavy Handed (melee kill → ammo and energy).
• Chest: one each Arc/Solar/Void Resistance (flat DR that stacks under amplified and Spark of Resistance).
• Class item: Powerful Attraction (dodge vacuums your Orbs) · Reaper · Time Dilation.
• Surge: Arc Weapon Surge — matches the pinned element and the subclass surge.
• Anti-Champion: none intrinsic on the gun; source Overload/Barrier/Unstoppable from the artifact and the Special/Heavy (see Champion coverage).

Artifact — Hunter's Journal

Picks (2/3/2):

• Tier 1: Sustained Fire · Elemental Siphon
• Tier 2: Bad Amplitude · Targeting Autoloader · Radiant Orbs
• Tier 3: Shock and Awe · Shieldcrush

• Sustained Fire grants damage resistance from continuous Auto Rifle fire — Hard Light is your sustained-fire primary, so it stays live the whole engagement.
• Elemental Siphon matches an Arc Super to Arc pickups, feeding the Orb and pickup economy the loop already runs on.
• Bad Amplitude jolts Champions off Arc ability damage — this is the build's Barrier/Unstoppable patch and it also feeds Spark of Ions' jolt-kill traces.
• Targeting Autoloader auto-reloads and boosts damage on Auto Rifle kills, stacking on Light Touch's reload for effectively seamless mags.
• Radiant Orbs makes the Orbs the loop prints turn you radiant — a second Light Touch trigger layered on amplified.
• Shock and Awe turns Arc final blows while amplified into a lightning burst — you are always amplified and always Arc, so it's near-constant AoE.
• Shieldcrush gives faster, harder melee while you hold Frost Armor/Woven Mail/Void Overshield — extra reach and punch for the Liar's counterpunch trigger.

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.
• Mid-long range holds: reduced falloff makes Hard Light lethal where most primaries taper off, so it doubles as your ranged answer.
• Champion coverage — flag this. Hard Light carries no bespoke champion intrinsic in its perk text (weapon_facts lists champion: none), and its base is Void, so it is not an intrinsic stunner. Under Anti-Champion 2.0 a 600 RPM auto rifle sits in the Rapid-Fire archetype, but confirm the exact archetype-to-champion mapping in-game before relying on it in a GM. In practice: lean on Bad Amplitude (jolts Champions off Arc ability damage) plus Gathering Storm and Lethal Current's jolt/blind for control, and bring an Anti-Barrier / Anti-Unstoppable Special or Heavy to fill the rest.

Mod selection (masterworked — full allocation)

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). Flex/loadout-dependent: the Special/Heavy (see Champion coverage).