Acrid

Escaped : ..and so it left, with delusions of freedom.
Vanished : ..and so it vanished, taken for the final time.

**Acrid** is a playable character in Risk of Rain 2.

An imposingly large, poison-spewing ex-prisoner, Acrid fights with a potent array of damage-over-time effects and a self-sustaining melee ability. In addition to sporting the highest base damage stat of any Survivor barring the , Acrid’s mix of long-range and crowd control allow for excellent damage potential.

Acrid's unique ability to inflict  or  status effects makes it an incredibly lethal choice when stacking items that inflict additional debuffs.

Completing the ...To Be Left Alone challenge will unlock Acrid as a playable survivor.

## Skills

Misc

 Description
 * Poison ticks **3** times per second for **10** seconds (plus 1 extra tick when it expires).
* Poison deals 1% of the victim's maximum health per second or 100% base damage per second (whichever is greater). Poison damage is capped at 5000% base damage per second.
* Poison damage is affected by armor and has the nonlethal tag.

 Description
 * Unlocked via the Acrid: Easy Prey Challenge. *(As Acrid, land the killing blow on 50 total enemies that have 1 hit point left.)*
* Blight ticks **3** times per second for **5** seconds (plus 1 extra tick when it expires).
* Blight deals 20% base damage per tick, for 60% damage per second. Each stack of Blight increases the damage of each tick rather than adding more ticks.

Primary

 Proc Coefficient
 Description

Secondary

 Cooldown
 Proc Coefficient
 Description
 * . Can be used during Vicious Wounds without canceling it.

 Cooldown
 Proc Coefficient
 Description
 * Unlocked via the Acrid: Bad Medicine Challenge. *(As Acrid, land the final blow on a Scavenger.)*
* For every 1% of health the enemy is missing, the damage multiplier is increased by 2%.

Utility

 Cooldown
 Proc Coefficient
 Description
 * Has 2 base charges.
* The acid pool ticks 10 times per second, but is only able to damage the same target twice per second. It lasts for 10 seconds, giving it a total of 500% damage per target over its lifetime.

 Cooldown
 Proc Coefficient
 Description
 * Unlocked via the Acrid: Pandemic Challenge. *(As Acrid, inflict Poison 1000 total times.)*
* Has 2 base charges.

Special

 Cooldown
 Proc Coefficient
 Description
 * .
* When Epidemic hits anything (enemy or geometry), it spreads to up to 2 nearby monsters, dealing 100% base damage and poisoning them. This process repeats up to 20 times, or until there are no enemies nearby that have not yet been affected by Epidemic.

## Behaviors

*For an explanation of how these behaviors are implemented read about Enemy AI. This section only applies when the character is controlled by AI.*

1. **Use utility (leap away from enemy)**: Acrid must be within 5m of the target and aiming at it. Acrid will sprint and reselect a target after this.
2. **Use primary and strafe**: Acrid must be 3m from the target. This behavior is active for 0.5 and a new target will be selected after this.
3. **Use utility (leap towards enemy)**: Acrid must be within 10-20m from the target, have line of sight, and aiming at it. Acrid will sprint and reselect a target after this.
4. **Use primary and chase**: Acrid must be within 6m from the target. This behavior is active for 0.5 seconds and a new target will be selected after this.
5. **Use special**: Acrid must be within 30m from the target, have line of sight, and aiming at it.
6. **Use secondary**: Acrid must be within 30m from the target, have line of sight, and aiming at it. This behavior does not differentiate between the Spit and the Bite and as such the Bite will be needlessly used even if the target is not within melee range.
7. Chase: no requirements.

## Tips

* Choosing between Poison and Blight is largely a personal preference.
	+ Since Poison cannot stack, it favors a dodgier, fire-and-forget playstyle where the player poisons a group of enemies, leaves them to take damage, and finds some new enemies to poison in the meantime.
	+ On the other hand, Blight favors an aggressive playstyle and rewards using more skills, as each  skill effectively deals 320% more base damage.
		- The main drawback to blight is that it's duration is not reset for each stack unlike bleed for example. This places a soft cap on blight's damage potential without the use of cooldown reduction items such as Purity, Lysate cells or Alien head for example. This is the biggest drawback to blight.
* The damage from both Poison and Blight can be increased with , , , , , ,  and .
	+ and  directly affect base damage and therefore will *not* increase the maximum health damage of Poison, instead only increasing its minimum base damage. Other damage-boosting items will however, as they are applied *after* Poison has already calculated its own damage.
* Although the percentage-based damage of Poison may seem appealing on paper, in practice it will only reach its maximum damage against the very largest of enemies. Experiment with both Poison and Blight to determine which aligns better with preferred playstyles.
	+ It is straightforward to determine when Poison is dealing the least possible damage by observing the damage dealt by each tick. If the damage per tick is Acrid's level plus 4, then the victim's maximum HP is so low that Poison is only dealing the minimum 100% base damage per second (lower than 2 stacks of Blight). This observation can be muddled by the aforementioned damage-boosting items, however.
* Since the  buff from Vicious Wounds and Ravenous Bite is considered health regeneration, it will be massively amplified by . However, this also means that it will not interact with items like ,  or .
	+ Despite being regeneration, it is not affected by the regeneration modifiers from   Drizzle or   Monsoon, and is not removed when .
* Getting a  reduces the cooldown of Neurotoxin and Ravenous Bite to the minimum of 0.5 seconds. This enables Acrid to rapidly fire off ranged attacks, or to repeatedly bite enemies and regenerate massive amounts of health.
* Vicious Wounds' attack animation can be cancelled and reset by initiating a sprint. This allows Acrid to attack extremely quickly with no items. In Development Thoughts #11 it was noted this behavior will likely get removed.
	+ This does not reset Acrid's 3-hit combo, potentially allowing it to regenerate at a greatly increased rate.
* Acrid takes no fall damage while using Caustic Leap or Frenzied Leap.
	+ The player can use Caustic Leap or Frenzied Leap after falling off the map to avoid taking fall damage.
* Epidemic gives Acrid great early-game area-of-effect damage. Even late-game, it can be competent at activating on-hit items like the  and  due to its 1.0 proc coefficient and how it quickly spreads through crowds of enemies.
* Intentionally shooting Epidemic at the floor or walls can reliably hit flying monsters such as .
* Acrid does not spawn from an Escape Pod, making Acrid unable to unlock Power Plant in a single-player run.

## Lore

```
Theoretically, the true contents of the cell were just a mess of atoms. The structure of the contents in each cell – living, weapon, whatever - was categorized, sequenced, and then turned to juice and cured into solid gems. An incredibly efficient and lossless format.

And yet when the cell containment broke – and emergency protocols re-sequenced that mess of atoms back into the creature known as Acrid – he already knew. Maybe he was somehow conscious, in his juice-gem state. Maybe they injected him with information. Maybe he was connected to their psionic network. Maybe he just made it up.

But he knew – that the strange crustaceans that scrambled his atoms and imprisoned him here, in a place unknown – were panicking. Something had gone wrong, in a world where variables were not allowed.

Something was *leaking*.

They may have finally imprisoned something that could not be contained.
```

## Version History

PS4 & Xbox One Patch
* Bug Fixes
	+ Solved an issue where the   would not activate.

Anniversary Update
* Major Content
	+ Added New Lore Entry: Acrid

Early Access Content Update 5
* Gameplay Changes
	+ *Developer Notes: Acrid has always been a melee-ranged hybrid. We want greater rewards for engaging in melee and completing your M1 combo for players who enjoy a more aggressive playstyle.*
		- NEW Buff:
			* Regenerate for 10% health over 0.5 seconds.
		- * Third hit of the combo now grants ‘Regenerate’ buff
		- * Now grants ‘Regenerate’ buff
		- * 🌧Now (properly)
* (Undocumented) Updated description for , , , , , and  to include keywords

Early Access Artifacts Content Update
* Major Content
	+ Added New Skill Variant:
		- Leap into the air, dealing 550% damage and stunning enemies on impact. Reduce the cooldown by 2s for every enemy hit.
	+ Added New Skill Variant:
		- Attacks that apply Poison apply stacking Blight instead, dealing 60% damage per second.
* Gameplay Changes
	+ Add 2 New Skill Variants
	+ Improve Acrid’s poison VFX
	+ - The damage from the acid pool is no longer non-lethal
* Bug Fixes
	+ Fix wrong death sound on Acrid

Early Access Hidden Realms Content Update
* Major Content
	+ Added Survivor: Acrid
		- Acrid is a melee-range hybrid who uses powerful poisons to melt tanky enemies.
	+ Added New Skill Variant:
		- Leap into the air, dealing 550% damage and stunning enemies on impact. Reduce the cooldown by 2s for every enemy hit.
	+ Added New Skin:   Acrid Skin
	+ Added New Challenge:

## Gallery

* Default
* Albino

## Trivia

* Acrid is the only returning character that is the same creature in both Risk of Rain and Risk of Rain 2.
* The challenge necessary to unlock Acrid, "...To be left alone" is a reference to Acrid's victory screen from the first Risk of Rain, which reads "...And so it left, with a new hunger: to be left alone."
* Acrid is referred to internally as "Croco," and the Regenerative buff is referred to as "CrocoRegen."
* Acrid is commonly known as “Poison Doggo” as an internet meme.
* Instead of starting in an Escape Pod, Acrid starts asleep on the surface of the planet. During its wake up animation, it is actually vulnerable to enemy attack before the player is given control if its spawn location is particularly unlucky.
* Acrid originally fell onto Petrichor V, along with the majority of the UES *Contact Light'*s cargo, locked inside of a crate that landed atop the area known as Sunken Tomb. It can be presumed that void creatures managed to imprison it in the   Void Fields between the events of *Risk of Rain* 1 and 2.
* Although Acrid somewhat resembles a , it has been confirmed by developer Hopoo that it is *not* a Lemurian.
* Epidemic's enemy limit is completely unfeasible to reach under normal gameplay circumstances; since it spreads to 2 enemies at a time, up to 20 times, it can affect a total of 1 + 2^20 = 1048577 enemies. For comparison, the maximum number of monsters that can exist at once is 40.
* The last few lines of Acrid’s Logbook may reference the Void Fiend Escaping the Void, as its considerable power could definitely cause a panic as it was definitely ready for vengeance.
* The way Acrid spawns on the 1st stage may actually be a reference to the way he is Unlocked. By clearing the Void Fields, you set Acrid free, and, since being in a prison, Acrid would have nothing better to do than sleep, so when you set him free, he is teleported to the surface, mid nap, and wakes up
* The word Acrid means "having an irritatingly strong and unpleasant taste or smell".