How to Make Acrid Broken

Acrid was intended to be a hit-and-run character that excels at crowd control. His infectious DOT poison as well as his mixed melee-ranged kit are indicative of this. But what if I told you that Acrid can be played as a close-ranged DPS? With this advanced technique (which hopefully won't be patched out), you can turn Acrid into just that.

The Technique

Acrid's M1 Jank

If you have played Acrid before, you may have noticed that Acrid's basic attack (M1) can be rather janky. That's because it is the only basic attack that is outright cancelled when hitting the sprint button. With other characters, their M1 is not cancelled when sprinting; instead they start sprinting in the middle of their attack animation. In fact, this property generally applies to all moves, not just the M1. This is useful in its own right, however, that deserves a guide of its own.

Now back to Acrid. Since his M1 can be cancelled, his sprint can be used to dramatically increase his basic attack speed

The Process

In order to do this, you must start sprinting right after the hitbox for the first hit of his M1 comes out. Unfortunately, Acrid has a very long startup on his M1 so this can't be spammed and must be timed. You can gauge when his actual hitbox comes out by looking for the yellow claw marks that come out of his attack.

Alternatively, you can also look for the damage numbers from enemies that you hit.

After you cancel the M1 with your sprint, you will (hopefully) be sprinting. However, we don't want to be sprinting, we want to be attacking. As such, right after the sprint key is inputted you can input your next M1. This should also cancel your sprint. After your M1, you can cancel your attack animation again and chain together attacks. If done correctly, it should look like this.

Tips to Make it Easier

Luckily, we don't need to time the M1's after the sprint. All you need to do is hold down M1 and the game should start your next attack as soon as possible. In essence, all you should be doing is holding forward and M1 while timing the sprint button to cancel your attack animation.

In addition, it is recommended to rebind the sprint key to something easier to access (personally I use C) since it will be used very often.

Implementation

How 2 do

Literally all you have to do walk forward to an enemy, hold M1, and time the sprint key. You now attack almost twice as fast and can incinerate bosses in a matter of seconds.

In addition to using your M1, you can also use your M2 and R skill to increase your DPS. Both of them don't play any animation while using the technique so they won't affect your timing. Shift can be used as well for the stun.

Other Notes

Downsides

Since this technique utilizes a melee attack, it has a fairly small range. In addition, you also need to be constantly moving forward to use this. This means you pretty much have to be hugging enemies to use this technique. This leaves you quite vulnerable to enemy attacks and also poses a problem when dealing with fire elites. A workaround with fire elites is to use the "edge" of the attack so that you can hit the enemy while also not walking into them.

Attack Speed

The animation for Acrid's M1 is of course affected by attack speed boosts. This can possibly disrupt your timing or make it more difficult to optimize your DPS so be wary when picking up items like these.

Airborne Enemies

Acrid generally does poorly against tanky airborne enemies, like Greater Wisps. However, this technique can potentially alleviate that problem. When airborne, Acrid's M1 sends him slightly upwards when hitting an enemy. By attack cancelling, you can actually hit fast so that Acrid remains infinitely airborne. Simply use the Shift skill to hit an airborne enemy and repeatedly M1. This also makes getting on top of flying enemies substantially easier.

Unfortunately, at base attack speed, you pretty much have to have optimal execution to sustain altitude. You may want to take a syringe or two if you plan on attempting this.

Note to Hopoo

pls dont patch this out

[k.o kirbe]

its quite simple really, soldier syringe, m1 cancel, shitload of focus crystals so your damage becomes 1 meganigga, leeching seed, aegis, rack, and then literally every item in the game

[♥Strvmpet♥]

I found this out by myself but because youtuber XYZ made a video about this then i must've stolen it

[Deku]

if im correct you can do something similar with huntreses secondary primary

[Mega_Penguin]

Did they patch it out or am i just not good at pulling it off?

[Snoak]

or... do good?

[sev]

that is a rather empty phrase?

[ForKarl]

if you use the same items on any character you get the same result...

[Turahk]

"stole"

[Doctor_Wanks]

you stole it from Woolie

[Xollistrea]

Why would you play acrid as anything but close-range DPS anyway.