Adrenal Surge
What it is
Adrenal Surge is a stat-category artifact that fires every time the player crosses a kill-streak milestone. Each proc applies a refreshing luck buff and detonates an adrenal damage ring centered on the ship.
Identity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Display name | Adrenal Surge |
| Category | stat |
| Damage tag | none |
| Trigger | signal: kill-streak milestone |
| Trigger threshold | streak count ≥ 10 |
| Passive flat-bonus stat | luck (flat additive points) |
The kill-streak milestone signal fires at streak counts 10, 25, 50, 100, and 200. Adrenal Surge procs every milestone past the first because of the ≥10 condition.
Per-tier values
The triggered effect carries five named magnitudes (luck bonus, spawn multiplier, buff duration, adrenal-ring damage) plus the per-tier flat passive luck bonus. Tier 1 shares the same triggered-effect values as tier 2; the difference between the two tiers is only in the flat passive bonus.
| Tier | Luck bonus | Spawn multiplier | Buff duration (s) | Ring damage | Flat luck bonus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (common) | +60 | ×1.5 | 15 | 30 | +10 |
| 2 (uncommon) | +60 | ×1.5 | 15 | 30 | +20 |
| 3 (rare) | +90 | ×1.8 | 15 | 45 | +30 |
| 4 (epic) | +130 | ×2.2 | 18 | 65 | +40 |
| 5 (legendary) | +180 | ×3.0 | 20 | 95 | +50 |
The adrenal ring is a flat-damage AoE with a fixed 200 px radius across all tiers; only the damage scales with tier.
Effect
When a kill-streak milestone signal fires and the streak count is at least 10, the artifact runs the following actions:
- Apply a flat additive luck buff to the ship for the tier’s buff duration. The buff source tag is set so re-procs refresh the duration rather than stack additional copies (max stacks = 1).
- Detonate an adrenal damage ring centered on the ship — flat damage to every enemy within the 200 px radius.
- Play the adrenal-ring VFX burst and a flash on the artifact’s HUD slot, accompanied by the artifact’s audio cue.
Per the artifact roll-up, the displayed magnitude on the legendary tier is “+180 luck for 20 s, ×3.0 spawn rate, 95 dmg AoE 200 radius.” The spawn-multiplier figure is the second numeric driver named in the data values record alongside the luck bonus and is consumed at runtime to ramp enemy spawn density during the buff window — feeding more kills back into the streak.
Stacking rules
- The luck buff uses refresh stacking with a maximum of 1 stack from this artifact’s source tag. A second proc inside the active window does not add a second luck buff; it resets the duration timer to the full tier value.
- Each proc fires its own adrenal ring instance — the AoE damage is applied per-proc and is not gated by any cooldown beyond the milestone signal itself.
- Bloodlust shares the kill-streak milestone trigger with Frenzy, Aegis, and Salvager. All four artifacts can be equipped simultaneously and each proc independently on every milestone; they do not share cooldowns or stacks.
- Tier upgrades replace the per-tier values record wholesale. Mid-run tier changes do not apply — tier is set at run start by meta-progression and does not increase during a run.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE flags
- “Kill-streak milestone signal” (thresholds 10/25/50/100/200, banner + bonus XP) is a shared concept used by at least Bloodlust, Frenzy, Aegis, Salvager, and Killstreak Rain. Candidate concept page:
concepts/kill-streak-milestone.md. - “Refresh stacking with max stacks = 1” is a recurring buff-stacking mode across most stat-burst artifacts. Candidate concept page:
concepts/buff-stacking-modes.md. - “Adrenal ring / centered AoE on ship” geometry (radius + flat damage centered on the ship’s position) recurs across the kill-streak ring-bearing family. Candidate concept page:
concepts/centered-aoe.md. - The runtime tier-1-shares-tier-2 values rule plus the linear flat-bonus ramp (10/20/30/40/50) are documented on the artifacts roll-up but could move to a dedicated
concepts/artifact-tier-mapping.mdfor cross-linking from every per-entity page.