Acrid

 is a playable character in Risk of Rain 2.

A macabre, poison-spewing ex-prisoner, Acrid fights with a potent array of damage-over-time effects and self-sustaining melee ability, as well as a mix of long-range and crowd control options for any situation. It also sports the highest base damage stat of any Survivor barring the, allowing for even greater 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.

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 damage from both Poison and Blight can be increased with, , , , , ,  and.
 * Items that increase base damage, like and, will not always apply their damage boosts to Poison. They only affect scenarios where the poison tick damage is using 100% base damage or capped at 5000% base damage. Items like  and  don't increase base damage and therefore always apply their damage to Poison when applicable.
 * 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 is more effective for your preferred playstyle,
 * It is surprisingly simple 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 won't interact with items like,  or.
 * Despite being regeneration, it is not affected by the regeneration modifiers from or, 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 him 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 surprisingly 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.

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
 * 🌧Now (properly)
 * (Undocumented) Updated description for, , , , , and to include keywords
 * (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.
 * Added New Acrid Challenge:
 * Added New Acrid Challenge:
 * 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
 * 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:
 * Added New Challenge:

Trivia

 * 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 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.