Special can hold up to 10,000 charges (though you start each stage with only 1 charge).
In addition to recharging naturally with time and items, all of the Surgeon's other skills can work to reduce Special's cooldown.
If the number of stored charges exceeds four times your level, abilities will no longer charge Special.
Special has by far the highest DPS of any of the Surgeon's skills, so proper resource-management of its cooldown is the key to winning any engagement.
Lacerate (Primary)
A shotgun blast that pierces enemies. Each hit charges special.
Holds up to five charges. The more charges you have stored, the more shots will be fired. Will never drop below 1 charge.
Attack speed will affect the number of shots fired, rather than the rate of fire.
Incision (Alt Primary)
A rapid-fire attack that continues firing until it misses (does not require the button to be held down).
Like Lacerate, charges special each time it hits. The amount each shot charges special increases the longer it fires without missing.
Laughing Gas (Secondary)
Drops a canister that covers the surrounding area in gas for a brief period of time.
The gas lingers in place at the Surgeon's position when the move was used.
All enemies within range are continually stunned and weakened, and dramatically increase the amount Primary charges Special.
Transfusion (Utility)
Over the next couple of seconds, heals a fraction of your max HP.
Healing above full will charge Special.
Any damage taken while this ability is active is stored. Each healing tick, a static fraction of the stored damage is healed back.
Stores more damage than is actually taken - meaning that taking damage may cause you to be healed more than if you hadn't been damaged at all.
The Sanguinator (Special)
A huge laser beam that deals tremendous damage to a single target.
Continues firing as long as the button is held - as long as it has enough charges.
The longer it fires continuously, the more damage it deals per charge consumed.
Blood Bath (Alt Special)
Hold the button to build up power. Once the button is released - or you run out of charges - unleashes a massive explosion that deals light damage to everything in its range.
The damage and radius of the explosion increases the longer it is charged.
Tips, Tricks, and Trivia
For performance reasons, the actual number of shots Lacerate can fire is capped. The damage and special charge of each shot will increase to match the intended total values.
Lacerate pierces through enemies, making it extremely effective against groups. Use the time spent waiting for its cooldown to line up the perfect shot.
Incision's damage also increases the longer it continues firing - though it grows slowly enough that it isn't really noticable.
Watch out for Malachite enemies; they render Transfusion completely useless.
Though Special is most powerful when you allow it to build up a lot of charge, don't feel the need to save it exclusively for the teleporter boss.
Changelog
1.2.0
Lacerate's base damage has been increased, but it's proc rate has been reduced.
Laughing Gas now increases Lacerate's growth rate (instead of applying a flat boost to its special charge).
Laughing Gas' special charge boosting effect now stacks.
Rex's Weaken will no longer increase the special charge of Surgeon's Primary.
Transfusion now stores damage dealt to temporary barrier.
All items that increase max health will now increase the amount of special charge gained from Transfusion's overheal (previously, only shields affected this).
Added brief startup delay for Blood Bath, to make it easier to use only a single charge.
Increased time between each hit of Blood Bath, to make the fact that it hits multiple times more noticeable.
Increased Blood Bath's base damage, but gave it damage falloff.
To-Do List
The Surgeon uses Artificer as a base for a lot of non-gameplay things. The model and animations used aren't going to change, but the ability icons, skins, and ENV Suit eventually might.
As a result, mods that change Artificer may have knock-on effects on the Surgeon. The mod may be restructured in the future to reduce such incompatibilities.
This mod has been rigorously playtested, and I'm currenly quite happy with all of the numbers right now. However, there may still be some balance changes in the future.
There are a couple of known, unintentional exploits, that remain in due to being 1) not that crazy and 2) extremely annoying to fix. Until I get around to dealing with them, you can consider them secrets to discover.
Squishing bugs wherever they happen to emerge.
Other Stuff
This mod is installed the exact same way as every other mod.
Works in multiplayer - though, of course, all players must have the mod installed.
If you have feedback and/or complaints you can hit me up on Discord.
