Arc

Worldline Zero — Tesseract Loop (Arc Hunter)

Blink-attack add/major shredder with built-in invis sustain

✓ Manifest Arc · Heavy · No intrinsic champion

Centerpiece: Worldline Zero (Sword · Heavy · Arc) · Subclass: Arcstrider (Arc) · Role: Blink-attack add/major shredder with built-in invis sustain Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Updated 2026-07-03

Sprint to full energy, hold guard, and blink through a pack with a heavy sword attack that — on a kill — immediately refunds itself. Every blink is engineered to end in a kill: kill → free re-blink → kill again, chained across a room on one breath of energy. Arcstrider wraps the chain in Amplified damage resistance and Flow State, and Assassin's Cowl turns each sword kill into invisibility plus a heal — so the most reckless way to play the gun is also the safest. It is Worldline Zero: The Subclass.

The weapon

Tesseract (exotic intrinsic, verbatim from `exotics.md`):

[Heavy Attack] : Use while sprinting with full energy to launch a heavy blink attack. Defeating a target with this attack allows it to be immediately used again.

Worldline Catalyst — Another Dimension (verbatim from `catalysts.md`):

Another Dimension: Reduces the activation time of Tesseract.

What it does: sprint to charge sword energy, then a heavy-attack input teleports you forward and slashes — a long-range gap-closer that hits everything in the lunge. The gun's whole identity is the back half of the perk: a kill with the blink attack lets you fire it again instantly, so against a dense pack you chain blink → kill → blink across the room before the energy bar empties. The catalyst tightens the activation window so the teleport comes out faster, smoothing the chain into a near-continuous string of blinks. Worldline is the only sword that turns its heavy attack into a repeatable, ammo-cheap melee — which means every "powered melee kill" payoff on the Hunter kit reads the sword kill as a trigger.

Loadout

Slot	Pick	Why
Subclass	Arcstrider (Arc)	Amplified damage-resistance/speed plus Bolt Charge keep a melee-range sword build alive and moving.
Super	Gathering Storm	One-and-done staff throw that jolts/blinds a whole room — clears the pack the sword then farms.
Class ability	Gambler's Dodge	Refreshes melee energy and repositions between blinks; the panic button when invis is on cooldown.
Movement	Triple Jump	Air control to line up blink angles and bail over heads.
Melee	Combination Blow	A real powered-melee charge for Assassin's Cowl when the sword is out of energy; jolts feed Flow State.
Grenade	Flux Grenade	Sticks a single priority and, with Spark of Shock, jolts — feeds Flow State without babysitting.
Aspect 1	Flow State	Defeating a jolted target makes you Amplified: faster dodge regen, more resilient while dodging, greatly increased reload — the standing damage-resistance layer for a melee build.
Aspect 2	Lethal Current	After dodging, your next melee jolts and creates an aftershock, and damaging any jolted target with melee blinds it — crowd control off the dodge you already press.
Fragments	Spark of Resistance · Spark of Shock · Spark of Ions · Spark of Discharge	Surround-DR, grenade jolt, and two Ionic Trace sources so blink kills refill abilities.
Exotic armour	Assassin's Cowl (Helmet)	Vanishing Execution turns each sword/melee final blow into invisibility plus a health/shield heal — free sustain on the same kills that refund the blink.
Weapons	Kinetic primary (Barrier/Unstoppable archetype) + Arc energy Special	Primary supplies the champion stun the sword lacks and recharges sword energy; an Arc Special keeps the Surge/Ions/Discharge loop one element.

Fragments

Spark of Resistance more resistant while surrounded — you live surrounded; +10 Melee
Spark of Shock Arc grenades jolt — turns Flux into a Flow State igniter
Spark of Ions jolted/Bolt-Charge kills create an Ionic Trace → ability energy back
Spark of Discharge (Arc weapon kills chance an Ionic Trace; the sword is an Arc weapon, so blink kills print traces). Slot permitting
Spark of Feedback (taking melee damage buffs your melee; +10 Health) is the melee-range cherry**

Why it works (the mechanics)

The blink refund and the invis heal share one trigger — the kill. Tesseract's "kill → re-blink" and Cowl's Vanishing Execution "powered-melee final blow → invisibility + heal" both fire on the same sword final blow. One kill simultaneously refunds the attack and makes you invisible and topped up, so the aggressive line and the safe line are the same input.
Arc keeps you Amplified the whole fight. The sword jolts (Lethal Current's melee jolt, Spark of Shock'd grenades, Gathering Storm), and Flow State turns any jolted-target kill into Amplified — which grants "more resilient while dodging" and faster dodge regen. A melee-range build needs a standing damage-resistance layer; jolt → kill → Amplified is it, and the sword manufactures the jolts.
Lethal Current weaponises the dodge you're already pressing. You dodge to reload (Flow State) and to reposition between blinks; Lethal Current makes the next melee jolt and blinds any jolted target on melee contact. Crowd control falls out of the movement you do anyway.
The ability economy refills off Arc kills, not a rotation. Spark of Ions and Spark of Discharge turn jolted/Arc kills into Ionic Traces → melee/grenade/class energy back, and Gambler's Dodge tops melee. The sword's kills pay for the abilities that make the sword's kills easier.
It is genuinely low-APM. No buff to babysit: sprint charges the sword passively, the perk re-arms itself, the catalyst shortens the activation, Cowl re-hides you on every kill, and Flow State re-applies Amplified on every jolted kill. Charge → blink → repeat.

Stats & mods

Weapons 200 → Health → Melee. Weapons is the 9.7.0 PvE damage multiplier the sword swings benefit from; Health for melee-range survivability on top of the Amplified/invis/heal layers; Melee to keep Combination Blow and the dodge refund snappy. Archetype lean: a Weapons/Health-forward roll with a Melee tertiary.

Mods:

Boots: Arc Weapon Surge ×2 (Arc damage straight onto the sword) · Orbs of Restoration (orb pickup → least-charged ability).
Arms: Melee Font · Heavy Handed (melee kills restore melee energy) · Impact Induction (melee damage → grenade energy).
Chest: Arc Resist + one off-element Resistance (flat damage resist under Amplified/invis).
Class item: Powerful Attraction (dodge vacuums orbs) · Reaper (dodge → next kill spawns an Orb) · Bomber (dodge → grenade energy).
Surge: Arc Weapon Surge — matches the sword's element for the damage bump.
Anti-Champion: none native to the sword — carry an Overload/Barrier/Unstoppable mod on the primary and lean on blind (Lethal Current) plus Gathering Storm's jolt.

Artifact — Encrypted Data Disk

The Arc/Sword artifact that bolts straight onto the Tesseract loop: it buys the Unstoppable stun the sword lacks, turns the guard-then-blink cadence into raw sword damage, and converts every Arc/jolt kill into Bolt Charge, Orbs, and blind for crowd control.

Picks (2/3/2):

Tier 1: Riposte · Press the Advantage
Tier 2: Dielectric · Blinding Jolts · Combination Argent Blade
Tier 3: Elemental Orbs: Arc · Tazer Tag

Riposte makes a guard-then-strike stun unshielded combatants — the Unstoppable coverage the sword can't supply natively.
Press the Advantage grants Sword stability/handling and increased guard, exactly the stat the blink-and-guard loop leans on.
Dielectric turns Arc-debuffed kills into Bolt Charge plus an Orb of Power and a heal — feeding the build's Bolt Charge and orb economy.
Blinding Jolts makes jolted final blows blind the pack, paying off Lethal Current/Flow State jolts and taming Overload-style elites.
Combination Argent Blade empowers the Sword after a light-then-heavy combo for more blink damage.
Elemental Orbs: Arc and Tazer Tag close the loop: Arc weapon kills spawn Arc Elemental Orbs (the sword is an Arc weapon), and Arc-melee hits jolt to keep Flow State's Amplified running off Combination Blow.

Where it shines

Add-dense PvE — strikes, Nightfalls, seasonal/Onslaught, the patrol-and-clear loop. Packs are the fuel: each blink-kill refunds the attack and re-hides you, so a room of reds/oranges is one continuous chain. This is the natural home.
Survivable melee-range play in −10/−20 content thanks to the triple damage-resistance/heal stack (Amplified + Cowl invis-heal + Spark of Resistance) — you brawl in the middle of a pack and walk out invisible.
Not a boss gun. Tesseract's loop wants kills to sustain; a single high-HP boss denies the refund and the invis, so swap to a DPS heavy for boss phases.
Champion coverage: the sword breaks none intrinsically — swords carry no Anti-Champion 2.0 archetype stun and Tesseract has no bespoke stun. Bring a Barrier/Unstoppable primary; the sword's blind (Lethal Current / Blinding Jolts) and Gathering Storm's jolt manage Overload-style elites but do not stun a champion on their own.

Verify notes

Weapon facts (manifest-confirmed via `data/weapon_facts.json`): Worldline Zero = Sword · Heavy · Arc; RPM null and champion null (swords carry no listed RPM or intrinsic champion breaker).
Manifest error corrected: the pre-normalisation build stated Worldline Zero has "no catalyst in the manifest snapshot." That is wrong — `catalysts.md` lists Worldline Catalyst — Another Dimension: Reduces the activation time of Tesseract. Now quoted verbatim in The weapon.
Intrinsic (Tesseract) quoted verbatim from `docs/encyclopedia/exotics.md`; catalyst (Another Dimension) verbatim from `docs/encyclopedia/catalysts.md`.
Assassin's Cowl (Vanishing Execution) quoted verbatim from `exotics.md`. Whether Tesseract's heavy attack counts as a "powered melee final blow" for Cowl is the one interaction not provable from the manifest — sword heavy attacks have historically triggered it; if it does not, Combination Blow becomes the primary invis trigger and the build still functions.
Aspects (Flow State, Lethal Current) and Fragments (Spark of Resistance/Shock/Ions/Discharge/Feedback) quoted verbatim from `aspects.md` and `fragments.md`.
Catalyst activation-time reduction is a manifest/tuning value — `clarity_build_numbers.md` lists firing-delay reductions of 16.7% / 28.6% / 37.5% for this weapon; treated as tuning, not quoted as a fixed in-prose number.
Champion stun: delegated to the primary — stated from the Anti-Champion 2.0 model, not fabricated.

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 (7/10)	Heavy Handed 3e	Your powered melee final blows create Orbs of Power.
	Heavy Handed 3e	Your powered melee final blows create Orbs of Power.
	Melee Font 1e	You gain a bonus to your melee stat while you have any Armor Charge. Your Armor Charge decays over time.
Chest (5/10)	Arc Resistance 1e fill	Reduces incoming Arc damage from combatants.
	Concussive Dampener 3e fill	Reduces incoming area-of-effect damage from combatants.
	Sniper Damage Resistance 1e fill	Reduces incoming damage from combatants that are at long range.
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.
	Orbs of Restoration 1e	Picking up an Orb of Power grants a small amount of energy to your ability with the least energy.
Class Item (3/10)	Reaper 1e	Shortly after using your class ability, your next weapon final blow spawns an Orb of Power.
	Reaper 1e	Shortly after using your class ability, your next weapon final blow spawns an Orb of Power.
	Bomber 1e	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). Flex/loadout-dependent: lean on blind (Lethal Current) plus Gathering Storm's jolt.