Rat Monarch

[Lynzkar]

Still waiting for warmonger rat in Gaan-telet.

@Lujo, I found the Chemist in a subdungeon in The Demonic Libary. You need to destory some walls in the subdungeon, bring knockback or ENDISWAL.

[sitnaltax]

Note for the impatient: if you've already beaten DL with three classes, you don't even have to finish it; you can just start the dungeon and escape, and the Rat will unlock.

I found the Chemist subdungeon, but unfortunately on that run I had no way of breaking walls: no PISORF/ENDISWAL, no Bear Mace, no Binlor. Time to keep prepping Bear Mace until I unlock it.

[fall_ark]

I unlocked Chemist in Northern Desert. It probably just needs a dungeon in that direction.

[Lujo]

Right, right, I unlocked him in Venture cave with endiswal.

[Tinker]

Ok, I'm really proud of this one! Last brag in this topic, I promise (unless I somehow beat VGT with the Rat... ).

I was down to cca. 25% blackspace by L4. I wasn't very prudent with the early exploration, and I wasn't really looking to level, which was a mistake with hindsight. Subs were blacksmith (= Bear Mace + 90 cp) and Brandonnn. I blew 100 piety on Brandonnn hoping to get the seals, circumventing the Rat's hindrance - only to learn that they don't work with the Rat anymore! So I killed form 1 and 2 with great difficulty, blowing basically everything I had, corroding - PISORF-ing - using melee Knockback and Death Protection / Quicksilver / Reflex and several mid-fight level-ups, all my heatlh/mana potions and spending all the money I had for shopping restorations.

So when I descended, I had: Hero's Helm, Crystal Ball (with money for exactly 1 activation), PISORF and Pendant of Health (only 4 items because I had one slot locked thanks to JJ prep, and the other used to carry Namtar's carcass). I took 2x Boost Health and 3x Boost Mana previously so my bars were quite presentable. Descending so lightly would spell certain doom for most characters, but not the Rat - it never even broke a sweat. In fact, I'm wondering whether a Rat could do Namtar's if descending with an empty inventory (would probably need Stone Fist boon for itemless knockback, and maybe some Health boost i.e. from JJ/GG/TEM).



Anyway, this marks me Ratting everything except VGT. I kind of grew to like the little buggers, they're really spikey, not easy to appreciate at first because they play radically differently than regular characters, but they do have their charm (even if it's a bit unsanitary... ).

[Lujo]

Congrats!

I'm mostly just running through stuff with Binlor and Alch scroll. Worked everywhere but Gaan'Telet so far, but that's probably because I didn't actually learn how to play him yet, I'm just abusing the pissorf sinergy. Gotta see if it works in vicious, the other places just drop.

[Lujo]

So, I combined the resist stacking (ty, Tinker!) and lifesteal (ty, Astral!) and had a very easy time in Gaan'Telet (regular one). I did land the Vampiric Blade and the Platemail, but no good bloodcows to speak of, lots of undead in a drac game and one of the 3 floors was bloodless. No Pissorf, but positioning is an actuall hassle in GT and VGT so fireball probably works better there.

The binlor approach is bursty, but essentially does the same thing, only temporarily - get you'r resists up via stoneskin either vs the boss or to level you up so you can get overheal hits in on a magic damage boss if both do magic damage. The Drac approach I took was essentially the same thing except the resists/lifesteal were fixed and there was no Alch scroll because I didn't need to boost my health as I was going for resists. Not sure if it would've really worked without the platemail or the vampiric blade in the shops, but considering it was quite an unfavourable setup (at first glance, maybe it could've been worse), something like that might even be able to do VGT.

I'll put the run and the end stats in the playthrough thread.

Also, while I suspect VGT might be doable, I won't rush out madly to try to do it and then brag about it. Wouldn't seem fair if I did it after so much grumbling about the guy. If it's doable, I probably ought to let someone who likes him better show off and be first and all that jazz, if I went and did it (if it's doable) i'd feel like a douche.

[Blovski]

Been blasting through all the Normal dungeons purist with the new classes. Not followed any of the thread really because I want to discover my own approaches first. Elfchemist is my new favourite thing (regen fighting WITH FIREBALLS and doubled piety gain from early exploration ahahahahahaha). It seems like the best approach for a chemist is to use a first level potion to push your piety through the roof, grab a ton of boons from 1 or 2 gods and then leverage that for the later regen fighting. Rat Monarch is a blast to play. Both of them are decidedly tricky and pushing me to do things I normally don't do well (i.e. all things regen) a lot smarter.

[MTaur]

So, rat monarch. I finally unlocked him!

First run in Venture Cave, I saw that the boss was Bleaty, so I just restarted. Sure, CYDSTEP *might* drop, but I don't plan on wasting 20 minutes to find out...

Anyway, next run was just a dragonspawn boss (forget name). No sweat. An early HALPMEH was so useful that I sort of have to wonder if the class is even playable without it! Basically you prep Dragon Shield, spend all your mana on HALPMEH, and then do a hit and a fireball for the kill. Getting your mana up to 12 could help a lot, so you can double fireball (or better, triple PISORF) for the kill. Ideally, you would have Binlor and JJ/Mystera, but good luck with that.

Keg of Health is a lucky find, too. I was screwed with a lot of "small item" drops, unfortunately. But buying a Keg halfway through a boss fight is cool."

I really can't imagine playing without HALPMEH, though. PISORF has good synergy, and APHEELSIK could pick up some slack in a pinch, but HALPMEH is the most efficient way to build corrosion stacks. PISORF is probably the most efficient way to land the kill. But ultimately, the heals rule all. I don't know what I would do otherwise - maybe use enemies just +1 or +2 levels instead and use mana for more finishing blows.

[MTaur]

By the way, do rats have gender in DD? There's no wiki entry and I've only gotten the portrait that I keep seeing everywhere so far. Also, "monarch" did not change to "king" or "queen" upon the dungeon rolling up.