Lightning
What it is
Lightning is a common-rarity chain weapon. It picks the closest enemy in range, strikes it, and arcs to additional nearby enemies, with each hop dealing reduced damage. Damage tag is energy. Can hit destructibles.
Stats
| Stat | L1 | L10 | L20 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base damage (per hit, before chain falloff) | 97.89 | 1887.18 | 7341.45 |
| Chain count (additional jumps) | 5 | 60 | 300 |
| Chain falloff per jump | 12% | 12% | 12% |
| Chain range (px) | 93 | 260.88 | 316.21 |
| Fire rate (shots/s) | 0.20 | 0.55 | 0.67 |
| Acquire range (px) | 249 | 334.74 | 363 |
| Warmup (s) | 0.35 | 0.35 | 0.35 |
Chain count is stepped: L1=5, L6=20, L10=60, L15=150, L20=300.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Family | chain |
| Damage tag | energy |
| Damage type | normal (routes through shield) |
| Target mode | closest |
| Rarity | common |
| Scaling curve | front-loaded |
| Area mode | chain radius |
Behavior
On fire, Lightning acquires the closest enemy within acquire range, deals base damage to that target, then arcs to the next nearest enemy within chain range. Each subsequent jump deals 88% of the previous jump’s damage (12% falloff per hop). The chain continues until it reaches the chain-count cap or runs out of valid targets within chain range. Targets are not re-hit within a single chain. The weapon routes through shields like normal damage.
Scaling
Numeric stats use a front-loaded curve: most of the growth lands in early levels, with diminishing gains toward L20. Chain count grows in stepped jumps at L1, L6, L10, L15, and L20. Base damage and fire rate scale continuously across all levels. Horizontal damage modifier rate is 4% per stack; horizontal fire-rate modifier rate is 10% per stack. Area modifiers extend the chain radius.
For shared mechanics see weapons and combat.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: shared “chain weapons” mechanics page (chain falloff, hop-target selection, chain-range vs acquire-range, no-retarget-within-chain rule). EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: shared “scaling curves” page documenting front-loaded / linear / exponential / steep-exp / s-curve / linear-fast formulas and per-level multiplier table. EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: shared “damage multiplier curve” page documenting the L1-L20 piecewise damage multiplier anchors and the early-level damage buff. EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: shared “horizontal modifiers” page documenting dmgPerH / ratePerH / areaMode stacking rules. EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: shared “target modes” page (closest / furthest / flanking / low-HP). EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: shared “damage tags” page (bullet / energy / bomb / fire) and shield interaction rules.