Rat Monarch

[Lujo]

Eh, I don't like the rat, but I suppose I'm in a minority (or possibly the only person who doesn't like the rat). Still, let's have it out, doesn't hurt to have it written out, may turn out to have been a fair point.

I don't like the Rat in the same way I don't like the Vampire or the Gorgon - they are wieghted down by their disadvantages and take a shift in how you play to get them to work right, except it never really feels worth it to me. I think I was the first guy on the forums to come up with the Binlor Gorgon, and I'm perfectly capable of using the Vampire, but I always sort of fast-forward through their runs trying my best to ignore what I'm playing and basically never even bothering with their skillset and just using workarounds to still win despite their disadvantages. Everybody else is just a guard with 3 pre-packaged boons and a CP bonus, and that's fine with me, and the Dragon is also that but with always the same CP bonus, other monsters are just too different from the general experience.

With the Rat it's a lot like with the Gorgon, the effort to effect ratio is much different than with other stuff and you have to think about things noone else has to think about, which probably means that if he stays in the current incarnation I'll just wait untill someone finds that one strat/perp/god which simplifies his gameplay to absurdity and use it to get completion once and just avoid scenarios where you'd have to actually figure him out - because the reward is just dead bossess and what works for him probably can't be applied elsewhere.

What's funny is that the previous one didn't bother me quite as much because his gameplay was way essentially that of Pissorf spammers and the Goat, while this guy plays like nothing else, which sounds good in theory but gets old fast, especially if the class has a standard always-same-race package of monsters. With regular classes you can claibrate the complexity of the scenario by choosing a different race and if you run into a dungeon which gives them a hard time you can counteract it with the race choice and play with sidelining your class in the vast majority of scenarios, or if the class is too strong against a dungeon you can challenge yourself by picking an unothodox race. With monster's that's not so, they're always the same and kind of always have the same plan.

And I can see this guy having serious problems with the PQI, much like the Vamp and the Gorgon allready do compared to most other stuff.

[fall_ark]

Isn't the entire point of Monster Class that they play differently to your normal Race/Class combinations? The only one I don't like that much is the Vamp, since his limitations are just too extreme.

I do have some concerns for the new Rat though. Thematically it doesn't feel that unique. It plays like a no-conversion Martyr Wrap Monk. Sure the corrosion is larger and the stats are different, but early game strategy is surprisingly similar, and that's not fun at all.

That said, I do appreciate the high-corrosion shop-fueled late game spike, but the previous "Rat Subject" is such a charming and refreshing take on the game, that the current iteration just feels.... not "Rat" enough.

[sitnaltax]

The Rat Subject is cool, but for what it is--a ding you save and cash in later--it basically does exactly what the Goat already does. And with the high cost (losing a level, where XP is how you get extra rats in the first place) it was impossible to effectively use anywhere but against the boss in one spike. The Goat's conversion is more flexible and interesting in that regard.

(Crazy shower idea: Rats throw small--I mean, proper-sized--fireballs: 3 MP and half damage. That makes them synergize much better with the corrosion, and lessens the pain of having to hit the monster five times before you're doing as much damage as a Human does from the start.)

[Lujo]

I don't think bringing the old one back would be the move, as he really was like a somewhat more inflexible Goat, but the problem I have with this one is that it tries to do two things at once which overloads him with drawbacks you have to play against. The inventory thing is sorta insignificant, but it still changes his gameplay/preps, and the shop scouting and healing on purchases is also cool as it spices things up - but the whole corrosion thing is just off IMO. It's not really worth the penalties - yes you can in theory go nuts with it, but you can also go nuts with just, you know, having base damage. It feels like you have to play him very carefully and in a specific way for just dropping a boss and he feels like he relies way too much on outside features. He feels more like a challenge class than the Goat does, and has way less wiggle room if you just play him somewhat casually and try to work your way to a win out of a situation where you've missplayed a few things - which isn't generally the case in DD.

I'm not sure simply having corrosive strike per level and a different CP bonus would really require this many penalties. The only guys who can abuse it are the Monk (and very specifically because of the health regen coupled with resists) and resist stackers (and those really don't like inventory constrictions). The current guy has to hold off on item purchases which makes leveling difficult, has to hold on to potions which results in more inventory (and prep) issues, gets nothing out of various gods and attack boosters, and again makes it difficult to level, and can't munch on popcorn unless you put in a bunch of work meaning he has trouble dinging. And he eats blackspace like mad. I'd wager just leveling him up in a way which lets you get use the overheal and use your potions/remaining blackspace to stack enough corrosion on stuff would be a fine challenge with a lot better general stats.

Heck, I'm not even sure just having corrosion per level would significantly outweight even the semi-inability to bring Whoopaz in.

[Tinker]

Well, for what its worth, I kind of think the Rat plays nicely. Saying that despite losing today's daily. But I lost because totally missing the Djinn's retaliate, I was on the right track to win otherwise. And I did manage to do L+4 kills in Grimm's by going for what I find to be a right caster/hybrid angle. You poke the monsters once-or-twice, and they become fireballable despite lower bars. ENDISWAL helps a lot in the poking. The refill-on-purchase also helps with this (especially the overheal part). I do think they play differently than any other class, and if there's anything I hate about them, it's not being immune to Retaliate:Fireball (which I kind of hate in everything, mind you, most of my deaths lately are attributable to Retaliate and somehow the death warning not being apparent enough for me or maybe not even working in this case).

[Astral]

I'm open to changes or tweaks in the Rat Monarch, though that said I already like this one too and I don't think it's weak.

I have the opposite taste to monster classes as you Lujo. I prefer monster classes that feel and work uniquely, they make your relearn the entire game and can really change the usefulness of many things. They open up new strategies, introduce new problems and I like it. For these reasons my fave monster class is the Gorgon, least favorite is the HD.

As for flavoring monster classes, I think god choices are more important than your race, if you want variety experiment with those and try unused item combinations as well.

I disagree about Rat needing too much effort to work well, it just requires a different play style. If you play it like anything else you will suffer ofc., because simply that's not the way this class is meant to be played. For example you should ignore the majority of your monsters in the dungeon, go for few, but very high kills to get through leveling easily. Rats can also start the bossfight extremely early, and there are a lot of nuances to boon usage. Gods who specialize in improving damage have something else really valuable for Rats

@fall_ark
If you play more with Vamp, you'll see that his limitations are nothing compared to his advantages. the Vamp is beast who walks over VT Vicious like it's a joke.

Btw to anyone who questions the power of the rat here's today's daily result:

[Lujo]

I'm not questioning his power, I'm questioning his effort/effect ratio. I get the concept of different people liking to do different things, but these things show up in the PQI and count for completion, so anyone looking for that while not looking for gameplay so much removed from the norm is probably going to be sick of the class before too long. It's also likely to cause frustration when he's picked by the PQI while the Flame is somewhere where you don't want to play just to spin it. So if I have everything rainbowed, updating with such a class will mean I have to do about 30 runs with him if I want to have everything rainbowed again and for someone who doesn't enjoy gameplay so far removed from the norm and constricted to always having the same CP this can be pretty depressing. It's like having a class challenge run with different rules that you would otherwise do only once and never again (possibly after looking up a solution on the net to get it over with faster), but you have to do it in every dungeon.

I don't mind him challenging players perceptions in some way, but I feel like it's trying to do too many things at once and that, much like the Gorgon (for me) it doesn't really offer anything special to compensate having to "relearn" the game and put effort and patient play into it's runs. Just swapping the Race on most classess changes things up enough for my taste, and the PQI allready provides challenges and inate penalties to overcome. It's kind of telling that I use the Gorgon to get Hoarder on Vicious dungeons - playing her the way she was meant to be played just isn't worth the hassle, and I get the exact same feeling from the current Rat, except he looks like you can't really do that with him which makes him even worse.

I can see the all-large items, shop scouting, overheal on purchases thing working out, but I don't think huge corrosion stacking and dmg penalty is the way to go with that kind of class. +1 Corrosion per level is probably fine, point of the class - get levels despite the inventory and prep limitations, but the CP and the base dmg penalty - too restrictive.

[Astral]

The effort/effect ratio largely depends on what your goal is and how you want to achieve it. I think you're trying to play it more like other classes, even if the 'template' you use is the MW Monk it's too different to work.

In the current Rat by far the most important thing is corrosion stacking. Everything you do should revolve around that in a way. The class would work even with a 'blank' CP bonus, since it actually does something, further improves your corrosion, it helps you get to your goal sooner, so it saves blackspace.

The damage penalty is absolutely meaningless. It can't stop you from killing a target. All it accomplishes is that you need 2-3 attacks before you deal 'normal' damage, like if you weren't a rat. But after those hits you just keep getting more damaging, eventually surpassing every other class. Also, nothing forces you to commit to straight meleeing, after you stacked up a sizable amount of corrosion you're a truly fearsome spellcaster.

What complicates the class is that it looks weak, any fight you try starts out hard and it can make you think that the class is too hindered to accomplish anything. But it should be taken into account that the power of the rat is 'limitless', what looks hairy now gets easier with each hit to the point of triviality.

Let me give you an example: in today's daily I started regenfighting SMM at lvl 6 with only 7 damage and 11 points of corrosive strike. Killed it in 13 hits, by the end I was dishing ~300 damage. If you judge the fight by the damage that was written on my character it's high effort pampering.
But looking at it from a different angle, you could say I was using a character with ~150 damage so the bossfight was a cakewalk.

All that said I don't think the class is perfect either. While beating every Vicious dungeon should be doable, VGT seems impossible. Being forced to kill those 45 monsters in the subs will waste too much blackspace and most likely make you lose before your reach H. The rat only works now because you're free to make choices on what to fight and when to, VGT doesn't have that.

I think the issues with the Rat are these:
- the health and mana penalty can make purist runs too restrictive at low levels preventing you to leverage your corrosive strike, but on prepped runs they are meaningless
- low basedamage makes VGT impossible. The rat could get higher damage and weaker CP bonus to make it less extreme, or get a completely different CP bonus while receiving corrosive strike from levels, but that would make it too similar to MW Monks. At the moment there are big and important differences, a more balanced rat would work too much like a Monk though.
- Cydstepp is an autowin glyph that eliminates every need for strategy, could cause scumming.

[Tinker]

[Lujo]

^ Reply to both: Make a note of what Darvin complained about in the current daily - depending on what you run into during your exploration your ability to stack corrosion can be anywhere from great/fine to nonexistant. CP reliant guys are exploration hungry, and the rat is REALLY exploration hungry, and god help you if you find the boss late (like I did). I think he'd be much easier to play and much less of a chore if he was calibrated simply with a corrosive strike ability, rather than a CP dependent corrosion strike, and especially not in the current "highly dependent on corrosive strike" state.

It's like as if the Gorgon started with negligable poison strike and had to use CP to get it. But it's only worth anything if you have blackspace left - and if you've found enough stuff to use it effectively, you've wasted blackspace.
EDIT: And even if you killed a thing or two due to poison while it was going on - you simply don't get big enough or strong enough by the time it's time to fight the boss and you've wasted too much blackspace. The Rat is even worse in the same sense, and if you pad out his corrosion with purchases, you're again "stealing" resources from the bossfight.

The reason the Monk, another low damage hit-and-run guy, works is because he starts with 2X blackspace on any map, and health regen is level dependent, so no matter how much you waste, if you get levels the rest becomes more and more valuable.

That's why I think the whole package doesn't mesh well, that's what's wrong with the Rat. If he's supposed to be a hit-and-run class that is this dependent on corrosive strike, the corrosive strike can't be CP based. Too exploration hungry and way too many ways to mess up / die to bad luck. I'd say moderate corrosive strike per level, moderate abilities, and give him gold on CP - so he can buy liberally, but he'll have to convert because of no space.

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As for the gorgon - the CP is meant to eventually balance out the attack penalty, but the problem is the same, CP strats burn through blackspace so that sort of thing is clunky as hell if you're basic mode of attack is also exploration hungry. The binlorgogon works because it completely sidesteps everything about the class, and the caster gorgon sorta works because it also sidesteps everything about the class. It's not that the class can't work, and you can poison stuff and find stuff while you explore and convert it, but the death gaze increase is just too small to matter. I'm not having problems with the Gorgon because I'm not playing her to the template, I'm having problems with the Gorgon because not playing her to the template is both significantly easier and significantly stronger than playing her straight. But that's a different story, let's not go there.

Unless it results in the Devs buffing her CP Death Gaze gain to about 10% pet pop, then by all means XD