Melting

## B-Skin

Loop without Rhino Skin or Strong Spirit as Melting.

## C-Skin

Reach Loop 3 as Melting on the 1 HP Equality mode.

*Melting is a high risk/high reward character. Starting with only 2 health puts Melting in a disadvantage, but the right use of his ability to explode corpses and gaining the right combination of mutations can make him extremely deadly.*

## Features

Melting has only 2 HP, but he gains more rads per kill. He receives one extra rad from each enemy. Enemies that usually don't drop radiation (I.D.P.D. troops, Small Green Rats, etc.) will drop one rad.

## Special

Melting causes enemy corpses and destroyed objects in the environment (damaged cacti, exploded barrels, etc) that are currently on the screen to explode, damaging any enemy and destroying any projectile caught in the blast. Unlike regular explosions, Melting's explosions don't destroy walls or props. As all Blood Explosions in the game, they do 4-12 damage. That's 4 damage per hit animation up to three times.

Corpses of larger enemies and larger destroyed objects cause his special to emit three explosions instead of one.

## Throne Butt

Melting's Throne Butt causes his special to emit three explosions per body/object instead of one. The body/object size doesn't matter.

## Ultra Mutations

 Detachment |  | Lose half of your max HP.
 Power Overwhelming |  | Increase level cap by 1.
All enemies drop an additional 2 rads (3, with passive).
Ammo cost for all weapons is halved.
 Doomed |  | The type of enemy that dies last in a level will be dead in the next level.
*(For example: If a Bandit was the last enemy you killed, all Bandits will be dead in the next level)*
More blood damage.

## Gameplay

Melting is a high risk/reward character, as he starts with only two HP. This means he can be killed in one hit by everything except a maggot, a single shotgun pellet, or the barest touch from a fire. In order to use his ability effectively, it is best to kill weaker enemies first and then explode their corpses on strong enemies. Killing either Giant Maggots or Maggot Nests with an explosive is a good way to spread lots of corpses around.

It is further worth noting that the Crown of Death doesn't affect Melting's explosive revenge unless the Blood Explosion <=> Explosion Ultra Mod is taken.

## Tips

### Useful Mutations

* Rhino Skin - getting this quickly is key to longterm survival; it mitigates Melting's most significant drawback and provides a crucial one- or two-hit cushion before death.
* Strong Spirit - another survival mutation; saves you from being killed by one projectile while on 2 max HP.
* Bloodlust - really good if you have Strong Spirit; it will bring you back at full health and charge Strong Spirit.
* Stress - If you have Strong Spirit and end up on 1HP, having 40% increased fire rate can help you survive and recharge Strong Spirit.
* Gamma Guts - This mutation prevents contact damage from enemies that have 6 or less health at the moment of impact, which adds another layer of defence.
* Second Stomach - Combined with Rhino Skin, it ensures that you will reach max HP with but a single medkit in almost all cases, which helps if you additionally have Strong Spirit.
* Throne Butt - Triples your explosive power; can make Melting a veritable killing machine.
* Impact Wrists - Allows you to fling corpses around the map, expanding the kill radius of Explosive Revenge.
* Boiling Veins - Makes you invulnerable to explosions and fire when you don't have rhino skin as Melting's HP is below 4. Even with Rhino Skin Melting will only lose 2HP if he is at max health which still keeps him at a good amount of HP.
* Euphoria - Gives you more time to destroy incoming projectiles with Explosive Revenge.
* Hammerhead - Helps with being overwhelmed in open areas by creating cover where there was none.
* Plutonium Hunger - Good for gathering all those extra rads Melting generates, and from a greater safe distance.
* Long Arms -A deceptively useful mutation for Melting; it enhances melee capacity to kill enemies through walls and then detonate them, a strategy which can clear entire rooms without you even having to enter them.
* Tough Shell - When in combination with any max HP increase (Rhino Skin, Bounties), can give melting an extra hit before dying.
* Alkaline Saliva - When in combination with any max HP increase (Rhino Skin, Bounties), may give melting two free hits per stage.

Melting's much lower maximum HP, especially without Rhino Skin or Bounty rewards, diminishes the utility of a number of mutations which might otherwise be highly valued; these include:

* Bloodlust - Without Rhino Skin or Strong Spirit, Bloodlust is effectively useless with Melting. You're either at max HP, or you're dead.
* Second Stomach - Useless without Rhino Skin; it is immaterial for Melting whether the medkit restoring a single HP conveys two or four to any other character.
* Sharp Stress - The fire-rate buff provided by Stress is inversely proportional to percentage remaining of max HP; the lowest percentage Stress can ever reach on Melting without Rhino Skin is 40% increase fire rate on half HP which essentially is a good thing, but that leaves the upper echelons of fire-rate enhancement unattainable. Additionally, Sharp Stress proccing on getting hit is not a good thing with Melting's maximum HP.
* Tough Shell - Damage taken is only reduced by 1 with Tough Shell, and most forms of damage deal 3 or more, meaning that this mutation does not help melting at all.
* Alkaline Saliva - Since this can only activate once you go below max HP, this can mostly never trigger on Melting. If Strong Spirit is taken, this can then give two free hits per stage.

### Unlock method

Melting is unlocked when you die for the first time.

### B-Skin

Since you cannot take Strong Spirit or Rhino Skin, it's important to choose mutations which give you better chances of killing enemies and evading attacks. Mutations like Long Arms, Throne Butt, and Euphoria will help.

Alternatively, the Crown of Life heals you to full at the end of each stage and over heals you 2 HP if you're at max or above. Melting is almost always at that threshold, so using this Crown (either using Crown start or by picking it up elsewhere) can give you lots of free HP to survive.

### C-Skin

The Crown of Life also works in this game mode as well as Rhino Skin. Fast firing/seeking weapons will make clearing rooms very easy. The Muchos sub-weapon type (the room clearers) will also help as they can sweep entire floors in one shot. Taking Crown of Apocalypse and Impact Wrists can cause whole rooms to be taken out in one shot with most weapons as well.

## Trivia

* Melting is really tired and everything hurts him.
* Melting's design came from *"The mix of hundreds of terrible sci-fi books in JW's head."* - Rami Ismail
* When Melting dies, he can use his special one last time which will explode his own body and every other corpse on screen, releasing a sad and hollow ghost.
* Having 1 max health with Melting's second Ultra Mutation and charged Strong Spirit will limit Strong Spirit to save you from death only once. It can't be recharged afterwards.
* If you have Crown of Death, Melting's second Ultra Mutation, and charged Strong Spirit, it's possible to play with 1/0 HP, in which case Melting will die in one hit. He will unavoidably die upon entering the next level ending portal. This is essentially a bug, but JW decided to keep it.
* Prior to update #48, Melting had a slightly different color palette. It was then changed so he looks *"a bit less healthy"* and less similar to Steroids. His b-skin and all mutation icons with Melting also got recolored.
* In update #65, Melting's special was changed to cause three Blood Explosions on larger corpses/destroyed objects instead of one.
* Melting is one of the original five characters.
* Melting's unused race\_back is "Corpse explosions can give drops".