Chain Bolt

Chain Bolt is a projectile spell that casts a bolt of energy which jumps forward in a few steps until it encounters a material or creature.

It will change direction towards a creature if one is within range, but will not seek the same enemy more than once.

Mechanics

Chain Bolt works roughly as follows:

Spawn an initial "Chain Bolt" projectile.
Every 10 frames, repeat the following logic until the projectile expires:
- Get a list of enemies in a 48 unit radius around the projectile, sorted by their id's (generally, enemies spawned earlier have a higher priority).
- Attempt to find the first enemy in the list that the projectile hasn't teleported to the last 2 times this logic was run.
- If an eligible enemy is found in the list, teleport the projectile to that enemy.
- If an eligible enemy is not found in the list, teleport the projectile 30 units in the direction the projectile was shot at.
- Spawn a "Chain Bolt Explosion" projectile at the projectile's new position.

Between runs of the above logic, a "Chain Bolt" projectile still moves like a regular projectile, albeit one with a very low initial speed. Increasing Chain Bolt's speed will cause it to move more between teleports, affecting the position it "looks" for enemies at.

Tips

It can be shot through walls if the walls are thin enough, as the spell only interacts with the world on its jump destinations and phases through it otherwise.
It is very effective against shielded enemies, as the damaging portion of the spell will jump straight through without touching or activating the shield.
Extending its initial reach with (for example) Long-Distance Cast or a Trigger can be especially useful for hitting enemies around corners and obstacles.
Increasing the lifetime will result in additional jumps, e.g. Ping-Pong Path can make it jump about 2 more times before it stops.