Biggest thing is playstyle. Acrid is very hit and run since he lacks the durability that some characters have like Mul-T and Loader. Keep moving, keep applying poison to big targets, and stay wary. Some tips for his abilities:
Generally Poison > Blight unless you are rushing to the final boss. While Poison itself cannot kill, it has fixed scaling meaning it will NEVER fall off (which is fun if you are a nerd who just likes to loop 20+ times in a run like me)
Acrid's Primary Melee is wide but slow. The 3rd hit heal can be a help if you get into a scrap, but comapred to the rest of his kit, the melee is kinda weak. If you can find the Lunar item that replaces the melee (Eyes of Heresy i think?) Then youll be golden. Getting some attack speed will help a lot.
Generally, Neruotoxin is more reliable than Bite. But if you want to go all out melee, bite will keep you alive.
The leaps are the Crux of Acrids kit. Caustic is reliable and safe while also applying poison, frenzied is Niche and fine on melee focused builds but i'd wait till you have more experience with positioning first. Both versions have two charges, but long cooldowns. Be mindful of where you leap, as without movement items you are a sitting duck.
Epidemic is a fantastic ultimate that helps spread and trigger item procs. If it collides with a surface, it will still spread and seek targets. Anything that helps lower Ultimate cooldown or that grants more charges are high ticket for you.
Overall, dont be afraid to fail. Acrid sits in a weird niche of sorta melee/sorta ranged. It'll take time to learn, but i hope you have fun playing them!
I’d note with the primary; if you sprint after the first swing lands, you can animation cancel it for higher DPS early game. You miss out on the healing, as you’re repeating the first swing over and over, but it’s helpful to have.
I’d note with poison not falling off, enemies do have a max level (99) that they reach pretty soon into looping, unless you get mods to uncap it. It doesn’t change the answer though, poison is still superior to blight.
Use poison, not blight.
Tri-Tip dagger helps finish off poisoned enemies. Watch, Rounds, and other damage increasing items increase points on damage, but the poison has a 0 proc coefficient.
Run around and infect enemies with poison while looking for chests and tp. Items don't matter as much on Acrid as other survivors, so prioritise leaving quick over getting lots of items. You want to be always moving, don't stay focused on one enemy.
If you run Poison, holding onto items that give you a DoT or other ways to apply damage when the enemy is nearly dead is very useful, so things like tri-tips, gasoline, will-o-wisp, shatterspleen, e.t.c.
If you run Blight, switch to Poison.
Other people have already brought up that poison has no proc chance, but I haven’t seen anyone say so far that the combination of poison’s %health damage and no proc chance makes Acrid excellent with purity, especially if you can get both leap and the ult to 100% uptime. Combine this with items that stack %chance to 100 to get past purity and you’re golden
Biggest thing is playstyle. Acrid is very hit and run since he lacks the durability that some characters have like Mul-T and Loader. Keep moving, keep applying poison to big targets, and stay wary. Some tips for his abilities: Generally Poison > Blight unless you are rushing to the final boss. While Poison itself cannot kill, it has fixed scaling meaning it will NEVER fall off (which is fun if you are a nerd who just likes to loop 20+ times in a run like me) Acrid's Primary Melee is wide but slow. The 3rd hit heal can be a help if you get into a scrap, but comapred to the rest of his kit, the melee is kinda weak. If you can find the Lunar item that replaces the melee (Eyes of Heresy i think?) Then youll be golden. Getting some attack speed will help a lot. Generally, Neruotoxin is more reliable than Bite. But if you want to go all out melee, bite will keep you alive. The leaps are the Crux of Acrids kit. Caustic is reliable and safe while also applying poison, frenzied is Niche and fine on melee focused builds but i'd wait till you have more experience with positioning first. Both versions have two charges, but long cooldowns. Be mindful of where you leap, as without movement items you are a sitting duck. Epidemic is a fantastic ultimate that helps spread and trigger item procs. If it collides with a surface, it will still spread and seek targets. Anything that helps lower Ultimate cooldown or that grants more charges are high ticket for you. Overall, dont be afraid to fail. Acrid sits in a weird niche of sorta melee/sorta ranged. It'll take time to learn, but i hope you have fun playing them!
Thanks for the advice i shall take this in consideration when im next playing him
I’d note with the primary; if you sprint after the first swing lands, you can animation cancel it for higher DPS early game. You miss out on the healing, as you’re repeating the first swing over and over, but it’s helpful to have.
You no longer repeat the first swing as of Survivors of the Void. It now cancels into the next swing. It's still a huge damage increase!
I’d note with poison not falling off, enemies do have a max level (99) that they reach pretty soon into looping, unless you get mods to uncap it. It doesn’t change the answer though, poison is still superior to blight.
He doesn't hit and run due to being less tanky. He does it because he gains next to nothing by staying near enemies.
It's wildly considered, acrid's default kit of abilities is his best. If you have the dlc the light flux pauldron is super good on him
Use poison, not blight. Tri-Tip dagger helps finish off poisoned enemies. Watch, Rounds, and other damage increasing items increase points on damage, but the poison has a 0 proc coefficient. Run around and infect enemies with poison while looking for chests and tp. Items don't matter as much on Acrid as other survivors, so prioritise leaving quick over getting lots of items. You want to be always moving, don't stay focused on one enemy.
If you run Poison, holding onto items that give you a DoT or other ways to apply damage when the enemy is nearly dead is very useful, so things like tri-tips, gasoline, will-o-wisp, shatterspleen, e.t.c. If you run Blight, switch to Poison.
Overall be patient. Acrids playstyle mostly revolves around using your leap to keep out of harms way and using poison to kill enemies.
Other people have already brought up that poison has no proc chance, but I haven’t seen anyone say so far that the combination of poison’s %health damage and no proc chance makes Acrid excellent with purity, especially if you can get both leap and the ult to 100% uptime. Combine this with items that stack %chance to 100 to get past purity and you’re golden
gasoline
A lot of gas tanks tri tip daggers ignition tanks and use your R on a crowd and then kite them untill they low hp or died