Rat Monarch

[Tinker]

Hey, awesome radical update on the Rat! So just for the record, the version we're now talking about is:

REGAL HYGIENE: Rat bites corrode enemies. Gains 1 stack of Corrosive Strike per level.
REGAL PERKS: Sensitive whiskers detect deals. All shops are scouted. Buying an item regenerates 50% Health and Mana (may overheal).
REGAL SIZE: Rats are the correct size: small. Lower maximum Health and Mana, all items are large.
Rat Monarch gains +1 Corrosive Strike for every 80 conversion points.

Notes: "lower maximum health and mana" means a per-level 8 Health (-2 health per level) and a 8 base Mana pool (-2 mana). Although not mentioned, base damage is significantly reduced, to 1 per level.

EDIT: Ok, I took the Monarch for a couple of spins. So far I like it very much! I agree that CYDSTEPP is brutal on the rat, L1 bosskills or any L1 kills are just plain simple with that. I guess difficulty starts where you need to kill several powreful monsters. I still think melee should be doable using maxed resists, though.

I'm a bit torn because I liked the old Rat a bit (I liked the idea, and I thought it could go somewhere fresh, even though it was not very much balanced). I think the new Rat is much more "rich", in terms of its abilities meshing together nicely, still doing things nobody else can. I feel instinctively that it's a more balanced, less one-trick-pony class, I do miss a bit the old version (or, more accurately, what the old version could have become).

So far what seems to work nicely is boost Corrosion; poke monsters via resists/dp/overheal; finish them using spells. I kind of feel that Binlor and Mystera will be prime deities, though I can see an argument for JJ's bar boosts offsetting the penalties. Popcorn is unmunchable via melee in one hit, so slowing stuff is generally only useful if you blast them. Flames boon is largely inconsequential. PISORF seems a bit lackluster due to low base damage, but knockback might be a powerful melee solution. All in all, I think this new rat is more skewed towards a more balanced, less caster-only approach, probably more viable in melee and as a hybrid.

[Tinker]

Naga City Ratted! I must say that I really appreciate how the Rat plays and I hope that the final version will be at least this interesting. I feel that it's a unique experience that is out-of-the-box enough to be one of the most interesting monster classes without being too much over-the-top. Maybe just a bit though.
Final in-game screen: http://i.imgur.com/LJT0poI.png
Victory screen: http://i.imgur.com/SrMSLi2.png

Learnings:
- Money is to the new Rat what CP used to be to the old one. I went in with the Fabulous Treasure & Transmutation Seal combination to ensure a steady hoard.
- I effortlessly killed everything topside thanks to early BURNDAYRAZ + BLUDTUPOWA finds. I used shop buys selectively to heal myself (spoon is awesome!).
- I really really appreciate the DD-esque balance - most low power items are cheap, i.e. they are easy to buy and so offer easy healing; however, high-power items are more expensive and so there's a big-big tradeoff there.
- I went straight Mystera, but poking stuff 1-2 times before blasting them proved to be the optimal tactic. Getting 10-20 stacks of corrosion makes fireballs that much more effective. So while I was playing as a pure caster, I couldn't ignore melee, because compared to other pure casters I lacked the items and mana bar to just go pyromaniac on everyone.
- I actually stopped to think on what to bring downstairs. I had the following options (in bold what I finally took): Glyphs: BURNDAYRAZ, BLUDTUPOWA, APHEELSIK, WEYTWUT, CYDSTEPP; Potions: Mana Potion, Whupaz; Items: Hero's Helm, Dragon Soul, Piercing Wand, Battlemage Ring, Witchalok Pendant, Spoon, Viper Ward, Bloody Sigil. Yes, I ended up taking four small items out of the six I could take! For a non-rat, what I took would have been less than 3 inventory slots. But kudos to dislekcia for making the Rat in a way that it really does not matter what's a small item and what's a large one. Witchalok, which I regularly sneer at with my Gnome casters, easily trumps any other caster item for the Rat, given the necessary poking involved. On a Gnome I would never pick Dragon Soul over Battlemage Ring, but for the Rat the Ring is much less useful (given the help he gets from all the corrosion).
- Downstairs was easy as well, I did have actually a lot of trouble with the Mana Burn opponents, Tomithy and The Tormented One (funny how normally these are the easiest ones for real pure casters, but for the Rat they took more resources than Frank SSM or The Iron Man). Maybe next time I need to bring Soul Orb as one of the items!!!

I think the new Rat is quite strong. I really-really like the brand new look on inventory space; and how the whole item buying angle is taking on a completely new meaning. Having lots of money is essential for the Rat, which makes me wonder whether he's too much forced into money-boosting preps like the Fabulous Treasure+Transmutation Seal combo, or the Midas glove, etc. Having access to instant healing (with overheal to boot) is cool, though it did not make me forget that my inital bar values were 20% lower. Still, probably he is more self-sufficient than most classes, thanks to the built-in healing. Still dependent on shop draw, although in a different way than the old version. I don't particularly like the stat reductions, because I like nice round numbers, but I do see why this is needed to make poking more difficult, spellblasting more thoughtful, and healing less obscene.

[Lujo]

1) How playable is it without Vicious Rewards / Fabulous treasure / Titan Guitar and such stuff?

2) Aren't the CP and the first ability a bit redundant?

3) The size/power ratio of items is a bit all over the place in general. Dragonsoul and Witchalok Pendant are stronger than their size would indicate, so are a few other things. If you want them on someone who benefits from them particularly you'd get them if they took up 2 slots. I think the more powerful items that you wouldn't get on everyone/in every stage of a run are generally small so that if you don't need them it takes less inventory management to buy and convert them if your inventory is allready full. BM ring isn't large because it's powerful - it isn't and I rarely ever touch it (and yes, you can go Drac +20 thing + it for silly early kills, I know) - but because it does what it does in any situation and at every moment of the game, while Witchalok can do nothing for you if you mean to fight a magic damage boss (and don't use your health to fight other stuff while fighting the boss for whatever reason).

And people overload on stuff in general, the rats inventory penalty is only really relevant (seems to me) in scenarios where you can get locked off from your stuff, but since it can do Naga City (have to see if he can without vicious stuff), than I guess even that's not that big of a deal. EDIT: Oh, and you also have to have a slot open for mid-situation purchases, too. Doubles as bit of JJ anti-sinergy.

[dislekcia]

[Lujo]

Ah, so that's the thing with the leveling corrosion. Hmmm, still felt like he is too exploration intensive, Naga City might not be the best example for where this causes problems because it divides exploration between leveling and boss fights (and refreshes it on subsequent boss fights), but you can kinda get owned by regular Venture Cave (I sure did). Too early to go all verdicty on it, but it might still be a problem.

Loved the "spoon heals you up thing", though XD

[Astral]

I'm having a blast playing this new version of Rat!
It occurred to me too how wasteful the class can be with exploration on early runs, but if you start focusing only on very high level stuff and try to ding with each kill you will be fine. Rats can start the bossfights very early, in fact they can be the ultimate lvl1 bosskill material. The majority of gods can turn him into a supreme slayer in many different ways, which is quite refreshing. Other classes have samey, dull methods for that.

Though I'm a bit worried about the interaction of Cydstepp and corrosive strike. Warlords with MW and Bearmace pull lvl1 bosskills in pretty much every situation, and they only stack 1 point of corrosion. This guy has way more, so any time you find the glyph you practically win right there. If it stays unchecked, the 'auto-win' glyph may cause scumming.

Also it's kinda funny, but if the class never reached higher than 1 total damage it would still be perfectly playable thanks to all the corrosion. Of course it's good he doesn't work like that, that would defeat the point of many items and boons.

[Tinker]

One thing has been bothering me about the Rat on a meta-game level. The Rat has absolutely no use for Attack Boosters. I understand that the negligible base attack power is a balancing factor on its massive corrosion, but still it kind of sticks out from the otherwise elegant "everyone can benefit from anything" balance. Even the Berserker can benefit from Mana Boosters. The Sorcerer from Attack boosters. Etc.

As much as it pains me, I can see an improvement in making the Rat's base damage non-negligible, even at the expense of some of its corrosive power if necessary.

[Lujo]

Anyone tried the interaction with Compression seal? Sounds stupid because the item would also just occupy a row and everything else would still be large but that's another thing that the rat has 0 use for then unless you somehow score multiples (no reliable way except in VGT as far as I know). Which is kinda funny, because you'd think compression seal would be his favourite thing ever.

And does the same bit about wasting exploration hold for 2-3 boss dungeons which don't refresh it? Mazes, that sort of thing?

[Darvin]

[Astral]

Just for fun I did on my 1st run. Hilariously I also lucked out by finding the exploding signpost sub, so it wasn't for nothing.
If it weren't scummy I'd like to see what happens if you compress a compression seal

I tried the Rat on RG, had a really easy time. Killed 3 monsters, dinged on all, then I moved on to kill my 3 bosses. Funny, but mopping up my popcorn and scoring Unstoppable and Dingmax! was harder than beating the dungeon itself