Rat Monarch

[dislekcia]

[Darvin]

Attack Bonus downs are inconsequential. I'm currently auto-prepping the Sword/Transmutation combo with the Rat Monarch, so I'd need -70% before that takes me to 0. The sword is a must to get around the bigger problem: weakning. The Rat Monarch benefits enormously from JJ to overcome its lower stat totals and leverage its item-based restores, so you have to be capable of taking a hit of weakening.

[Astral]

Lol, this gave me the craziest idea.
Prep Bloody Sigil, Bearmace, EM and Burndayraz. Brick some stuff, take some Vineform until you can nullify the damage of lvl 1 foes. Search for the boss, when you find him, push a lvl1 guy next to him. Keep hitting the guy around for applying corrosion. Neither of you should take damage, and if you rack up some CP it will go fast. Once the corrosion reaches the HP of the boss convert the Sigil and knock him into the boss. Finish him with Burndayraz or Entanglement.

If it doesn't work because your knockback deals no damage you can leave the 'punchbag' alive till you level up find some sword etc. You could also try Binlor and the blacksmith shield for similar effect.

[Astral]

Doesn't work as a lvl1 bosskill, stuff still gets hurt from corrosion at 0 damage, but it's a cheezy way to win dungeons.

Maybe it would work with angering MA until she makes everything immune, then resist stripping when you need it.

[Tinker]

[dislekcia]

Hmmm. That shouldn't trigger corrosion, that's different to how it works on players.

[secondserpentarius]

Initially, I felt Binlor was the best god for Rat Monarch, but now I think Stone Skin it's too blackspace intensive to be practical. Other than ENDISWAL, he offers little else to the Rat.
Mystera's Mystic Balance and +MP are excellent, and Flames no longer has a practical downside.
Taurog is...surprisingly viable on low level dungeons when paired with Platemail and Bear Mace. Solve blackspace problems by using your DR to catapult and to eat popcorn again. The loss of Flame is big, but finding Pactmaker and going resistances/HP can make up for it.
Earthmother seems to be the best so far because of Vine Form giving much needed survivability, Desktop Dungeon's answer to the Spirit Bomb, Clearance, and easy Slow for last hits/+exp just synergize so well with this current iteration.
Jehora seems meh to me now. Extra HP/MP and two possible refills, while good, doesn't seem as great as Earthmother's boons.
Dracul's Blood Shield and Blood Hunger is a good deal for fighting high level monsters and saving blackspace respectively. Blood Tithe is a double edged sword for cutting your already precious HP. Convert out of it when done.
Pactmaker's Scholar Pact is very useful for normal Monarching, and as I said before, HP/Resistances is excellent for Taurog Monarch.
Tikki hates watching your pathetic little body slamming against giant iron golems for hours on end and GG's prayer beads are too big to handle.
Oh and did I mention Plate Mail is also very viable on Rat Monarch? With your low base damage, you aren't one shotting anything, might as well shrug off low level hits and bolster your own survivability.

[Astral]

I think Binlor is excellent for Rats. You should only be taking Stone Skin and possibly Stone Soup. Stone Skin practically ~triples your HP, but unlike with regular, permanent health boosts you don't need to explore 3x as much.
It's key with Rat to always fight the highest lvl monster possible ( with SS active) you will level really fast and this saves blackspace. As soon as you can, start tanking hits from the boss. Which could be as low as lvl3 sometimes. When corrosion starts looking sizable go all in, benefiting both from knockback's double corrosion triggers and pisorf hits. If you pushed your boss next to another one you're killing 2 bosses at the same time.

Whenever you play a Rat it's good keeping in mind that your regular damage is meaningless. Therefore gods who punish by ruining damage have no downsides. On the other hand effects that let you ignore your health and sneak in more corrosion are really sweet (Unstoppable Fury, TT's Potions)

Don't underestimate JJ. Shops can heal you too, making JJ's big boosts really valuable.

An interesting thing to consider is that Rats have so little damage that everything starts out as fat popcorn. But if you chew on them long enough everything becomes oneshottable, helping you set up a lot of dings. Lifesteal is golden in keeping your health high for this approach.

[secondserpentarius]

Wait a sec, does Lifesteal work with Corrosion?
Also I just realized Rat Monarch can desecrate Tikki with little penalty.

[Astral]

Haven't checked yet, I assume it does.