Portrait below will be replaced by either a S2FM scene by compsoter or the drawn image by menagarie

Splatter is Viscous' first ability. Casting Splatter throws an arcing projectile that explodes into a puddle of goo when it hits a surface. The projectile itself, and the goo explosion both deal damage (but only one or the other can hit per target). The goo left behind by the explosion applies a 35% movement slow to enemies in its radius.

When Splatter is fully upgraded, it can bounce twice — exploding with three impacts to deal damage and spread slows across the enemy lines. The slow is a secondary effect, as the main advantage of bounces is being able to hit each enemy up to three times. Successive hits on the same player will do less damage (×1.00, ×0.70, ×0.50).

Splatter ’s damage scales well with items with +Spirit Damage, having a spirit coefficient of ×1.77. The explosion radius can be increased with items with +Ability Range. The explosion puddle duration can be increased with +Ability Duration.

The Cube is Viscous' second ability. In it, he encases an allied player in a rejuvinating goo cube. The Cube can be self-cast onto yourself or cast to a teammate. A player in The Cube is inactionable, invulnerable to losing health and is given additional regeneration. It is useful for protecting teammates from large burst damage, ultimate abilities, and killing blows.

The Cube can be punched by anyone (via melee attacks including Puddle Punch) to reposition it. The Cube is resistant to friction (in the air and on the ground), making it slide across the floor and easy to reposition. When The Cube is fully upgraded, it cleanses debuffs.

The Cube’s healing scales with items with +Spirit Damage, and can be further increased using the Vitality item Healing Booster. Cast range can be increased with items with +Ability Range. +Ability Duration increases the duration of The Cube, as well as the Tier 1 upgrade’s Speed/Stamina buff duration. A higher duration cube will yield more health regenerated overall.

Puddle Punch is Viscous' third ability, which (after a 0.45 second cast delay) materialises a large goo fist on map geometry to shove players/troopers and damage enemies/objectives. It is a versatile tool that is used for mobility, damage, and crowd control. It can be used to reposition both enemies and allies. It is a charge ability, meaning additional charges can be held via either ability upgrades using AP or items.

Puddle Punch’s damage is considered light melee damage, allowing it to kill troopers to directly confirm their souls. Its base damage is 69, higher than a standard light melee attack (63). When fully upgraded, Puddle Punch counts as heavy melee damage which means it deals +50% damage, knocks the Soul Urn off enemy players, and procs heavy melee item abilities. Puddle Punch with its Tier 3 ability upgrade cannot collect Runes nor confirm the Rejuvenator. Puddle Punch also deals a 15% movement slow to damaged enemies that lasts for 4 seconds.

Puddle Punch scales with +Weapon Damage, +Melee Damage, and the melee damage gained from boons (offered by the patron when gaining total souls). +Ability Range will increase the Cast Range, as well as the size of the punch (diameter scales more than height). The Tier 2 ability upgrade for Puddle Punch applies a movement slow that can be extended with +Ability Duration.

Goo Ball is Viscous' fourth and ultimate ability. Once channeled, Viscous transforms into a giant goo ball and can roll, jump and bounce on terrain to stun and damage enemies. Goo Ball is an effective way to cancel many ultimates through stun, disrupt groups of enemies in team fights, or leave an area or gank quickly with high speed and some Spirit and Bullet resistance.

Once Goo Ball is fully upgraded, any ability or active ability can be used while in it. This allows for higher damage output, defensive options with The Cube, and makes Puddle Punch an effective way to traverse at high speed. Active items like the Weapon item Warp Stone can be used to secure more hits with Goo Ball.

Goo Ball damage scales moderately with +Spirit Damage, scaling with a spirit coefficient of ×1.10. The hurtbox and visual size of Goo Ball can be increased with items that have +Ability Range. A larger Goo Ball only affects your ability to hit players — you are not easier to shoot while larger, and terrain navigation remains unaffected.

Hitting an enemy in Goo Ball does not count as a melee attack, although there are ways to damage an enemy with your melee whilst in Goo Ball form.

Viscous’ gun, named “Deep Sea Interpreter”, fires slow but large bullets at a rate of 4.76 bullets per second. Each bullet deals a base of 10.3 damage, with an ammo capacity of 20.

Viscous cannot zoom with his gun – right-click is instead used for an alternative-fire option (truncated to alt-fire). While some other characters ( Shiv and Yamato) have their own alternate-fires, “Alt-fire” will be used to refer to Viscous’ specifically. Both the primary-fire and alt-fire have damage dropoff that begins at 25 metres [citation needed]. While the primary-fire can hit headshots, alt-fire cannot.

Alt-fire explodes in a 6 metre radius[citation needed] after a lifetime of 2 seconds (travelling ~32m). It also explodes if it hits an enemy target. The alt-fire is effective at poking enemies behind cover, bursting targets (especially to kill them), and when running low on ammunition. It has a base damage of 63 (over 6x base Bullet Damage), but scales less effectively than Viscous’ primary fire. This means it is most effective during the laning phase.

Alt-fire consumes up to 5 ammo. It does full damage even when used with less than 5 ammo remaining, or while sliding (does not consume ammo).

Using the alt-fire incurs a gun timeout (to both primary-fire and alt-fire) which prevents shooting for 70 ticks (1.16 seconds). When either a light or heavy melee's hitbox comes out (heavy melee’s ‘windup’ doesn’t count) during the gun timeout period, the timeout will be interrupted and extended. [citation needed on this paragraph]

To avoid a timeout extension, after alt-firing wait a moment before using heavy melee (timing depends on if melee connects to come out early). Light melee should not be used at all during the timeout or it will interrupt. Puddle Punch does not interrupt the timeout, so it can be used freely.

This section probably needs a rewrite from a more experienced viscous player, ill leave it for now -compsoter

Needs update too

Counters

Viscous’ abilities struggle to consistently deal damage to flying characters. While it is technically possible to aim Splatter or use Puddle Punch off the skybox or a building, they are not particularly effective. Because of the way that flight abilities interact with the physics engine, Puddle Punch also does not provide as much impulse as one might expect.

Viscous’ ultimate, Goo Ball, once fully upgraded, can harass or kill flying targets. A Floor Puddle Punch can launch the Goo Ball upwards to stun them. Whilst most heroes buy Knockdown to counter fliers, in a Viscous Goo Ball build, options like Warp Stone, Magic Carpet, or Phantom Strike can be used.

Gun builds can also circumvent these issues with flying heroes, but may sacrifice the potency of Viscous’ spirit abilities.

Viscous’ burst damage can make him less effective in 1v1s against tanky characters. Viscous may use up his abilities and have nothing left to finish them off. Avoid close-engagements where you are disadvantaged, especially without Goo Ball available to escape or finish enemies.

When building heavily into melee or Goo Ball, Viscous may struggle if the enemy has too much crowd control (often abbreviated to CC). Silence, stuns, knock-ups, and movement-impairing effects (such as Mirage’s Tornado, Dynamo’s Kinetic Pulse, or Warden’s Binding Ward) can shut Viscous down. Choosing fights more selectively and buying counter items is the best way to deal with CC. Reactive Barrier, Warp Stone, Magic Carpet, Colossus, and Return Fire are some effective options to become more tanky, or dodge and escape.