The Lightning Bolt is an electric-type rangedweapon which deals more damage if it is channelled for an extended amount of time, and also damages the player if they use it for too long. Like all electric weapons and items, it also inflicts shock damage.
Lighting Bolt requires 0.2 seconds of wind-up before lightning starts to be channelled.
Lightning damages an enemy once every 0.2 seconds with the first tick occurring at the end of the windup.
Ticks 1-4 deal normal tick damage using blue lightning.
Ticks 5-11 deal 3.1x damage (93 critical tick damage). Ticks 5-11 use yellow lightning, tick 12 uses red lightning, and any further ticks significantly damage the player.
When channelling is stopped, the player regains control after 0.25 seconds.
A colorless version of this item can be good with the mutation Vengeance, which scales with Brutality. This is because Vengeance increases the player's DPS (from all weapons, skills, and miscellaneous mechanics) and reduces damage taken by a flat 30%, and is triggered as soon as they take damage from any source. This effectively reduces self-damage from this weapon while still offering high DPS.
Notes
Using this weapon after 10 ticks will influence the locking of a killstreak door, even if the player did not directly take damage from an enemy.
Affixes such as "+60% damage on bleeding targets" apply to this weapon's attacks as well as the inflicted shock status.
Trivia
The weapon and quote in the description are a reference to Star Wars. In particular, it references the character Darth Sidious, who is infamous for his prolific use of Force Lightning.
The fact that the weapon damages the player after prolonged use may reference how Darth Sidious permanently scarred himself with his lightning when he used it to fight Mace Windu in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.