Thunder Storm

> "*Launch an electric orb that emits lightning arcs upon impact with the surroundings.*"
>
>
>

Primary fire briefly charges up before firing a lightning ball that slowly travels forward, zapping every enemy that gets too close with lightning arcs every 0.25 seconds. Each arc deals 100% damage. These lightning arcs can crit, but will not purposely attempt to do so.

Upon impact with an enemy or solid object the lightning ball detonates, dealing 500% damage in a 3 meter  Explosion?. The explosion cannot crit.

Due to the higher potential damage output of the lightning arcs compared to the impact, it may be more practical to aim for near-misses rather than direct hits, letting the lightning ball pass by while constantly zapping every enemy it gets near.

## Impactful Inscriptions

* **Magazine Capacity** is useful for spamming more lightning balls without having to reload.
* **Elemental Procs** are very reliable, due to a good elemental effect chance and high number of hits per lightning ball.

## Ineffective Inscriptions

* **Critical** effects are unreliable due to only lightning arcs being able to crit, which have aim you cannot control easily.
* **RoF** is not very useful, due to the charge time.
* **Accuracy** and **Stability** are mostly unnecessary.

## Possible Exclusive Inscriptions

Thunder Storm has more than one weapon-specific exclusive inscription:

* ◈ The orb can penetrate enemies. +50% lightning arc DMG and +20% Target Acquisition range allows the lightning balls to ignore the possibility of detonating on enemies, letting the lightning arcs deal constant damage to everything in its way, while also dealing higher damage with a longer range.
* ◈ The lightning can break normal enemy's Shield and +100% final DMG of explosion increases damage dealt by the lightning ball explosion, encouraging direct hits rather than near misses. Additionally normal enemies will have their  Shields? completely destroyed, regardless of how much they have. Shields on elite enemies and bosses are not destroyed.

It may instead have a common inscription:

* ◈ *Elemental orb on crit*(full text) can be used to trigger  Manipulation? or  Miasma?, due to its natural  Lightning? damage and decent elemental effect chance.
* ◈ *+65% DMG vs any elemental effect*(full text) is very reliable due to the high number of hits and good elemental effect chance.
* ◈ *+15% total DMG each elemental effect*(full text) stacks at a fast rate, especially when hitting multiple enemies.
* ◈ +10% Lucky Shot Chance for 3s whenever hit an enemy (up to 150%). can stack very quickly if lightning balls are allowed to zap nearby enemies repeatedly.

## Update History

* 10/21/2023 update:
	+ Changed weapon category from Pistol to Launcher
	+ Removed the Weapon Skill. The removed Weapon Skill's lightning ball now replaces primary fire.
	+ Lightning ball can no longer destroy the Shields of normal enemies.
	+ Lightning ball arc damage significantly increased.
	+ Lightning ball detonation damage increased from 400% base DMG to 500% base DMG.
	+ Lightning ball ammo consumption decreased from 2 to 1.
	+ Lightning ball projectile speed decreased from 65 to 5.
	+ CritX decreased from 3.0x to 2.0x.
	+ Magazine decreased from 10 to 7.
	+ Removed exclusive inscriptions "-90% projectile speed of lightning ball, +300% Base DMG of the powered arc, and every lightning ball shot increases powered arc DMG and AoE (up to 4 stacks)" and "The lightning ball will automatically detonate and trigger 2 explosions when there are multiple enemies within the attack range".
	+ Added exclusive inscriptions "The orb can penetrate enemies. +50% lightning arc DMG and +20% Target Acquisition range" and "The lightning can break normal enemy's Shield and +100% final DMG of explosion".
* 06/01/2022 update:
	+ Added exclusive inscription "-90% projectile speed of lightning ball, +300% Base DMG of the powered arc, and every lightning ball shot increases powered arc DMG and AoE (up to 4 stacks)".
	+ Removed exclusive inscription "The lightning ball will self-explode when it's near multiple enemies".
* 12/30/2021 update: Primary fire no longer pierces enemies.
* 07/30/2021 update: Increased the flying speed of  Weapon Skill? lightning balls. Decreased the time it takes to charge the weapon skill from 0.8s to 0.5s. Changed the exclusive inscription from "+100% radius for weapon skill's lightning ball and +100% DMG for its detonation" to "The lightning ball will self-explode when it's near multiple enemies".
* 04/29/2021 update: Adjusted to full-automatic weapon. Optimized the animation during shooting. Increased the explosion range of the lightning ball when it hits the enemy directly from 1m to 3m, increased detonation range when shot to 5m, increased the speed from 16 to 20, allowed the explosion range and damage to be affected by  Ao Bai's ascensions and it no longer removes elite monster shields.

## Notes

* Since it causes an  Explosion?, the lightning ball impact receives bonuses to skill damage and explosion damage. The lightning arcs do not receive the same benefit.