Touch of Malice — Bloodletter (Hunter)

Centerpiece: Touch of Malice (Scout Rifle · Primary · Kinetic) · Subclass: Gunslinger (Solar) · Role: Infinite-ammo primary engine that outheals its own life tax Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Updated 2026-07-03

Touch of Malice never reloads — its last round draws from your own life force, hits like a truck, and refills itself. The whole gun is a deal: trade health for a bottomless mag of bonus-damage shots. So stop fighting the cost and drown it — Solar Restoration ticks health back faster than the final round chips it away, so you hold the trigger forever. The fantasy is the bargain made free: bleed and never die.

The weapon

Exotic intrinsic — verbatim from `exotics.md`:

Touch of Malice: The final round in the magazine deals bonus damage, drawing from the wielder's life force, and then regenerates itself. Defeating powerful combatants or multiple targets rapidly restores health.

Catalyst — verbatim from `catalysts.md`:

Precision Instrument: Dealing sustained damage increases precision damage.

The last bullet in the mag does not deplete — it costs a sliver of your health per shot but regenerates itself, so this is a primary you never reload and whose self-sustaining final round deals bonus damage. Kills of powerful combatants or rapid multikills heal you back, partially repaying the tax. The catalyst layers a precision-damage ramp that climbs the longer you keep the trigger on a target — which is exactly how you hold the bottomless final round. The two effects compound: never reloading means uninterrupted sustained fire, which means the Precision Instrument ramp never resets. Wrap it in a Solar heal loop and the downside evaporates: you camp the final round on a champion and let the damage climb while Restoration refills the blood you spend.

Loadout

Slot	Pick	Why
Subclass	Gunslinger (Solar)	Restoration + Cure are HoT/burst heals that out-tick ToM's life drain — the only element that lets you camp the final round indefinitely.
Super	Golden Gun: Marksman	On-theme precision burst; pairs with the Solar kill loop. Swap to Blade Barrage for add-clear if preferred.
Class ability	Marksman's Dodge	The reload is irrelevant to ToM, but the dodge is the Wormhusk Cure trigger — an instant top-up between trigger-holds.
Movement	Triple Jump	Maximum aerial control to reposition while camping the final round on a priority target.
Melee	Lightweight Knife	A Solar melee that feeds the heal loop and, via Ember of Torches, procs Radiant on precision hits.
Grenade	Healing Grenade	Cure + Restoration on demand — the panic button that erases the self-damage when a multikill heal doesn't land.
Aspect 1	On Your Mark	Precision hits grant a stacking Weapons-stat + reload buff → PvE weapon damage on top of the catalyst ramp. ToM is pure precision uptime.
Aspect 2	Gunpowder Gamble	Kills charge a Solar explosive → ignitions for add-density; manufactures the rapid multikills that trigger ToM's heal.
Fragments	Empyrean · Solace · Torches · Benevolence	Extend and stack the Restoration/Radiant layer that pays ToM's blood tax (see below).
Exotic armour	Wormhusk Crown (Helmet)	Every Marksman's Dodge grants Cure; Burning Souls scales that dodge-heal up with your Solar kill count — the floor under the whole heal loop.
Weapons	Solar Special + Solar Heavy (e.g. Ember of Torches–agnostic Special of choice + a Heavy DPS option)	ToM holds the primary slot forever; the other two slots keep the Solar kills flowing for Empyrean/Benevolence and cover Barrier/Overload champions.

Why it works (the mechanics)

• Restoration out-ticks the tax. ToM's final round drains a fixed sliver per shot; Restoration is a heal-over-time. Keep Resto live (Healing Grenade → Empyrean/Solace extending it off Solar kills) and your health rises while you hold a bottomless bonus-damage mag. The gun's downside becomes a non-event.
• Never reloading = the catalyst never resets. Precision Instrument ramps on sustained damage. ToM's self-regenerating final round means you never break fire to reload, so the precision ramp climbs uninterrupted on a priority target — the longer the boss/champion lives, the harder ToM hits it.
• On Your Mark compounds the weapon-damage stack. It grants a stacking Weapons-stat + reload buff off precision hits; ToM is a precision rifle held permanently, so you sit at max stacks. Weapons-stat weapon damage stacks on top of the catalyst ramp and Radiant — three multiplier sources from just landing headshots.
• The multikill heal is a real sustain pillar, not a footnote. "Defeating powerful combatants or multiple targets rapidly restores health" is a chunk heal. Gunpowder Gamble ignitions and ToM's own add-clear manufacture the rapid multikills that trigger it, so the weapon partially self-funds its own cost.
• Wormhusk is the floor under all of it. When Resto lapses or a heal doesn't land, Marksman's Dodge is a Cure on a leash — and Burning Souls makes that dodge-heal scale with your Solar kill count. Worst case: you dodge, get Cured, and walk it off. There is no death-by-self-damage failure state.
• Radiant stacks the same trigger-pull. Ember of Torches (precision melee) → Radiant = +25% weapon damage; with Resto already up, Ember of Empyrean keeps both Radiant and Resto alive off Solar kills. One Solar kill refreshes offence (Radiant) and defence (Resto) at once.

Stats & mods

Weapons 200 → Health → Class. Weapons because the build is 90% gunplay and the stat compounds with the catalyst / On Your Mark / Radiant stack; Health for a fat buffer the Resto tops off (it is not the dump stat here — the whole point is having health to spend on the final round); Class to keep the Wormhusk-Cure dodge online. Archetype lean: Powerhouse (Weapons/Super) or Gunner pieces, with a Specialist piece for Class.

Mods:

• Boots: Kinetic Weapon Surge ×2 (surge matches ToM's Kinetic element for a direct damage boost) · Orbs of Restoration.
• Arms: Scout Rifle Loader is wasted (ToM never reloads) → run Heavy/Special Finisher or Melee Font instead · Momentum Transfer.
• Chest: Solar Resistance + flat Resist mods — extra DR under the Resto layer.
• Class item: Reaper (dodge → next kill spawns an Orb) · Bomber/Outreach to keep the dodge — and its Cure — recharging.
• Surge: Kinetic Weapon Surge (ToM is Kinetic — Kinetic surge is the correct element).
• Anti-Champion: ToM breaks no champion on its own; the artifact's Energy Acceleration (a chosen Tier 2 pick) is Strong against Unstoppable. Bring Barrier/Overload on your other two weapon slots or via the activity's champion mods.

Artifact — Implement of Curiosity

ToM is a Kinetic Scout Rifle on a Solar subclass, and this pool pays both halves: Scout-Rifle Armor Charge generation feeds the Kinetic Siphon/Orb economy while the Solar mods carry the Radiant theme, and it covers Unstoppable directly so ToM's never-reload final round can sit on a champion.

Picks (2/3/2):

• Tier 1: Semi-Auto Striker · Fever and Chill
• Tier 2: That Fresh Bullets Smell · Energy Acceleration · Cauterized Darkness
• Tier 3: Radiant Shrapnel · Elemental Overdrive

• Semi-Auto Striker generates Armor Charge from rapid Scout/Bow/Sniper precision shots — ToM is a Scout held at full precision uptime, so it feeds the Armor Charge economy for free.
• Fever and Chill grants Radiant on rapid Solar-weapon precision hits, reinforcing the Ember-of-Torches Radiant layer (route it through your Solar Special/Heavy since ToM itself is Kinetic).
• That Fresh Bullets Smell buffs Kinetic weapon damage on ammo-brick pickup — a direct ToM damage boost.
• Energy Acceleration emits a Kinetic shockwave on sustained damage and is Strong against Unstoppable — the build's single-champion answer while camping the final round.
• Cauterized Darkness amps Solar damage against Stasis/Strand-debuffed non-bosses, compounding with the catalyst ramp on your Solar off-weapons.
• Radiant Shrapnel releases Solar projectiles on sustained damage while Radiant — pays off the always-on Radiant the build maintains — and Elemental Overdrive grants same-element weapon damage on Elemental pickups, stacking with the Siphon/Orb loop.

Where it shines

• Sustained-DPS targets: the catalyst ramp + no reload makes ToM a premium primary damage option against bosses/minibosses that out-live a normal mag — it never stops climbing.
• Grandmaster / -30/-40 content: the selling point is survivability while never stopping fire. Resto + Wormhusk Cure + multikill heals = three heal sources covering the self-damage, so you hold offensive pressure where other primaries force you behind cover to reload and reset.
• Endless-add activities: ToM never reloads and Gunpowder ignitions chain multikills → constant heal procs. The gun feeds its own loop.
• Champion coverage: ToM is champion `null` — it breaks nothing intrinsically. The artifact's Energy Acceleration (a chosen Tier 2 pick) is Strong against Unstoppable; for Barrier and Overload bring an anti-champion weapon in the other two slots (or the activity's seasonal champion mods).

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).