Difference between revisions of "Rat Monarch"

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{{s|CYDSTEPP}} can be extremely helpful, allowing you to build corrosion stacks on much higher-level enemies despite having a reduced health pool.  
 
{{s|CYDSTEPP}} can be extremely helpful, allowing you to build corrosion stacks on much higher-level enemies despite having a reduced health pool.  
  
{{s|WEYTWUT}} is hard to justify putting in your coveted inventory space, but given how picky a Rat needs to be about her fights, you may want to leave this glyph on the ground for later just in case - you don't want your progress blocked by a Level 9 monster with {{t|Curse}} or {{t|Mana Burn}}.  
+
{{s|WEYTWUT}} is hard to justify putting in your coveted inventory space, but given how picky a Rat needs to be about her fights, you may want to leave this glyph on the ground for later just in case - you don't want your progress blocked by a Level 9 monster with {{t|Curse Bearer}} or {{t|Mana Burn}}.  
  
 
{{s|LEMMISI}} seems like a good thing to spam and then convert, and {{s|WONAFYT}} can be useful early-to-mid-game with proper corrosion stack management, creating a zoo of stunned low-level monsters who can be one-shotted at will, though it is not so easy to continue this into levels 4-6 as it would be for other classes.  
 
{{s|LEMMISI}} seems like a good thing to spam and then convert, and {{s|WONAFYT}} can be useful early-to-mid-game with proper corrosion stack management, creating a zoo of stunned low-level monsters who can be one-shotted at will, though it is not so easy to continue this into levels 4-6 as it would be for other classes.  

Revision as of 13:15, 28 April 2016

Rat Monarch
Monster Class
Rat Monarch Hero Large.png
Class traits
Regal hygiene.png REGAL HYGIENE
Rat bites corrode enemies. Gains one stack of Trait: Corrosive Corrosive per level.
Regal perks.png REGAL PERKS
Sensitive whiskers detect deals. All shops are scouted. Buying an item regenerates 50% health and mana (may overheal)
Regal size.png REGAL SIZE
Rats are the CORRECT size: Small. Lower maximum health and mana, all items are large.
Conversion
1 Trait: Corrosive Corrosive per 80 Conversion Points
Unlocking
Requires Enhanced Edition. Complete Moving of the Cheese quest in the Dungeon: Demonic Library Demonic Library

Strategy

Not mentioned in the Class Features is that rats gain precisely 1 base damage per level as opposed to 5. Whether this is a bug or intentional, this means their individual hits deal little damage, even Popcorn usually takes multiple hits to kill for them. However, stacks of Corrosion don't go away, and while only physical attacks stack more Corrosion the damage applies to both further physical attacks and to Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ.

The biggest problem for rats is a low health pool, lack of resistances, and needing to survive hits from enemies to stack their corrosion. They're regen fighters that are squishy, and mages who have low mana. Their strength is that enemies can fully heal without losing their corrosion stacks, and against enemies that require a lot of hits to take down anyway (such as certain bosses) Rats are perhaps the strongest class. If they can take a hit from a high level enemy, they can take it down eventually, black space permitting. It is technically possible for a rat with Glyph: CYDSTEPP CYDSTEPP, Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ/Glyph: PISORF PISORF, and some conversion fodder to take down any level 9 enemy (without Mana Burn or Poison) at level 2 or 3, though it is not necessarily recommended since that will consume a lot of blackspace to get enough hits in.

In less extreme cases, the Rat tends toward regen fighting and mage builds, even with the rat's decreased health pool and lack of resistance. Rats benefit greatly from conversions first of all, but need to be careful with their inventory, both because their items are all large and because they need to time their shopping trips to make the most of the refills. Because their base damage is so low, items that increase base damage tend to do very little for their damage output. They are best served by items that increase their durability, allowing them to stack several hits worth of Corrosion then finish enemies off with fireballs that deal increased damage. Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ will deal full damage, although their low mana pool can be a limiting factor, and corrosion does NOT apply to damage caused by the burn debuff. Corrosive damage DOES apply to knockback (separately from the initial hit when knockback is applied as an on-hit affect), so Glyph: PISORF PISORF and the Item: Bear Mace Bear Mace are welcome additions to a Rat's arsenal. Generally, fireballs are good and reliable way to leverage corrosion for regen fighting purposes, but knockback is an extremely mana-efficient and health-efficient way to dish out damage to corroded enemies when positioning permits it.

Regal Perks provides some map scouting early game, revealing 3 by 3 portions of the map, turning the blackspace transparent without removing it. This frequently reveals other features, such as the occasional altar, glyph, and so on without revealing details about them, although the altars can often be identified by closely examining the piety sparkles around them. More importantly, buying items heals both health and mana. Since there are obviously limited shops and gold is limited, this turns shops into another healing resource to save for a late game spike, requiring an empty item slot as well. The Apothecary preparation at the Bazaar can be helpful as it increases the number of shops.

The biggest drawbacks are the limited potion inventory and need to hit a monster many times to stack Corrosive Strike. This combined with popcorn not popping as easily makes it more difficult to preserve blackspace, when the Corrosive Strike lends itself to regen fighting and Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ.

Knockback and corrosion

Knockback's mechanics interact with corrosion in a somewhat unexpected way. If you knock two monsters together, the first monster is dealt physical damage equal to your base damage times knockback%. The damage after resistances is computed, and this amount of damage is applied as typeless damage to the second monster.

This means that, for example, you can apply corrosion stacks to Super Meat Man (the boss who does the least damage), and then use Glyph: PISORF PISORF to knock him into Bleaty (the boss who does the most damage). Both monsters will take damage based on the Super Meat Man's corrosion stacks. Only the "cue ball" monster can be killed by this, while the secondary target can be reduced to 1HP for a quick Glyph: PISORF PISORF or Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ kill afterward. Be mindful that if you use Stone Fist or Item: Bear Mace Bear Mace for knockback, you will be doing corrosion damage twice as often to the cue ball, which may or may not leave it at risk for dying first. In some cases, allowing the cue ball to heal before using Glyph: PISORF PISORF to take them both down may be the efficient choice.

Leveraging the corrosion/knockback mechanic to get twice the mileage out of corrosion stacks is an extremely powerful tool for a Rat Monarch, but it is far from the only way to win. When the luck of the draw lines a suitable pair of monsters close enough together, it is a useful tactic to consider.

Preparations

Extra Mana Boosters is recommended as a preparation. Without it, the Rat will end up with 11 mana after finding all boosters on the map, which is just one shy of casting Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ twice or Glyph: PISORF PISORF three times. The Item: Transmutation Seal Transmutation Seal is a good preparation choice as well, due to their trait of healing from buying items and because it can let a rat pick and choose battles by taking detours on occasion.

Of special note is that potions take up a full slot and the Item: Compression Seal Compression Seal does not work for them. This severely limits potion use. Potion preps are of reduced value, since a full set of 4 is likely to be drank or converted too early to help much. It is often advisable to replace the Item: Health Potion Health Potion and Item: Mana Potion Mana Potion with Item: Reflex Potion Reflex Potion and Item: Quicksilver Potion Quicksilver Potion, which allows the player to get two free hits on the boss to get the corrosion stacks going. Item: Alchemist Scroll Alchemist Scroll is a unique way of getting around the inventory limitations within just the first few levels while getting a much-needed health boost. One of the few small items that may still be preparation-worthy is the Item: Balanced Dagger Balanced Dagger, especially for harder dungeons where it is already difficult to take down higher-level enemies in large numbers. Item: Shop Scroll Shop Scroll also deserves a brief mention, since it can be used immediately to make room for other things.

While Item: Bear Mace Bear Mace is probably the ideal Blacksmith preparation, Item: Shield Shield is good at early levels. Perhaps Item: Shield Shield only wins out if you take Item: Whurrgarbl Whurrgarbl, in which case holding on to burn stacks is a priority and Item: Bear Mace Bear Mace becomes a double-edged prep at best.

Items

Item: Elven Boots Elven Boots is a good prep item, increasing both magic resistance and mana. The Item: Platemail Platemail is possibly better, negating significant amounts of damage from lower level monsters, thus making popcorn monsters easier to use. The Item: Dragon Shield Dragon Shield can be stronger against high level monsters and some bosses, but is weaker against low level enemies. Because it boosts important stats and becomes conversion fodder when you need it to, Item: Troll Heart Troll Heart could be a decent preparation, but it's hard to justify the locker space. Just be warned that if you buy the Item: Troll Heart Troll Heart early enough in a run to stack it up, then you're probably not making good use of your Regal Perks skill. Item: Bloody Sigil Bloody Sigil also is better-than-usual on a Rat and a good level 1 buy, but again it's an early-game item and it's hard to justify the locker space for it.

There are also some non-tanky options, but these may need to be offset with +2 health booster if used as a preparation. One unusual synergy is the Item: Gloves of Midas Gloves of Midas item, due to the Rat's healing when buying items. This can lead to a larger end-game spike, but you will need to ration an inventory slot for rotating out junk items; also, longer dungeons where gold is already plentiful will not see this item achieve much usefulness. Item: Whurrgarbl Whurrgarbl greatly accelerates the pace when fighting monsters 0-2 levels above you, allowing you to seamlessly blend between the corrosion-building and killing phases - you should probably prep God: Mystera Annur Mystera Annur, though, since Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ will be the star gylph while Glyph: PISORF PISORF will disrupt the burning stacks. A Item: Whurrgarbl Whurrgarbl run plays out much differently than defensive prep runs, allowing you to smoothly burn through a larger number of similar-level enemies at the expense of your ability to apply corrosion stacks early to a select few high-level enemies.

Glyphs

Glyph wise, Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ or Glyph: PISORF PISORF is nearly required. Glyph: PISORF PISORF quickly becomes the most mana-efficient direct damage spell with just a few corrosion stacks, making it highly profitable to line monsters up together. The downside is that you will lose burn stacks, but most builds should cope well with the trade-off.

Besides those two, many other glyphs will compete for inventory space while also struggling to justify postponing the benefit of converting them. Most glyphs will not be automatically converted on sight in all situations, however, and a good idea of what challenges your current dungeon and boss(es) present will help you make intelligent strategic choices.


Glyph: BYSSEPS BYSSEPS does little to help - at best, you can use it to remove magic resistance.

Glyph: GETINDARE GETINDARE is somewhat less useful than usual due to how much more damage Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ would do with 3 extra mana, and the value a rat would have gotten from the CP in the first place - but Glyph: GETINDARE GETINDARE still wins in some edge cases and can save a lot of health with the occasional dodge.

Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH is fairly useful, but cuts into mana for Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ - the former is useful for building corrosion stacks, but the latter is more efficient when you're ready to go for the kill.

Glyph: APHEELSIK APHEELSIK has good interplay with Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ thanks to burning lowering regeneration; if you can poison a monster for more than 5 turns, then you will build up surplus mana for the occasional fireball.

Glyph: BLUDTUPOWA BLUDTUPOWA is also useful for finalizing kills with fireball spikes, but you are limited by the rat's inferior health total.

Glyph: CYDSTEPP CYDSTEPP can be extremely helpful, allowing you to build corrosion stacks on much higher-level enemies despite having a reduced health pool.

Glyph: WEYTWUT WEYTWUT is hard to justify putting in your coveted inventory space, but given how picky a Rat needs to be about her fights, you may want to leave this glyph on the ground for later just in case - you don't want your progress blocked by a Level 9 monster with Trait: Curse Bearer Curse Bearer or Trait: Mana Burn Mana Burn.

Glyph: LEMMISI LEMMISI seems like a good thing to spam and then convert, and Glyph: WONAFYT WONAFYT can be useful early-to-mid-game with proper corrosion stack management, creating a zoo of stunned low-level monsters who can be one-shotted at will, though it is not so easy to continue this into levels 4-6 as it would be for other classes.

Glyph: ENDISWAL ENDISWAL combines some mobility benefits of Glyph: WEYTWUT WEYTWUT and survival benefits of Glyph: CYDSTEPP CYDSTEPP in a single package, and in less extreme cases than when you'd need Glyph: CYDSTEPP CYDSTEPP, it can still function like a poor man's Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH.

Finally, Glyph: IMAWAL IMAWAL can reward a dive for big prey in spades, even if you only use the bonus once or twice.

Deities

Deity wise, deities that improve survivability or glyph use are recommended. The unique play style of the rat makes some gods more difficult to piety farm than others. Gods who reward glyph spam are the easiest, while gods who demand kills or blood pools are troublesome.

The Great

God: Binlor Ironshield Binlor Ironshield is a good choice for resistances, and is a good first god or even altar prep because of the free Glyph: PISORF PISORF glyph, and can be used as a piety farm regardless. You can prepare Bear Mace and use it for conversion fodder after you obtain Stone Fist - the extra Corrosion proc on-hit is all that matters in either case. Depending on the boss, you can either stack magic resistance or store piety for Stone Skin boons. You might consider buying Glyph: ENDISWAL ENDISWAL if you want to take on high-level physical damage monsters early, but if inventory is a limiting factor, you might do better (and save coveted mana) through calculated use of the Stone Skin boon. At the bottom of the barrel, Stone Form is only useful if you're up against magic resistance, but then again, you might be better served by lining up Glyph: PISORF PISORF shots anyway.

God: Mystera Annur Mystera Annur is a great deity. The Rat's base damage is terrible anyway, so her Flames boon is all carrot and no stick for a Rat. Mystic Balance favors Glyph: CYDSTEPP CYDSTEPP or Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ while punishing Glyph: PISORF PISORF. Refreshment can compensate somewhat for the rat's poor inventory size in some circumstances, giving you more options as to whether and when you convert glyphs.

God: Jehora Jeheyu Jehora Jeheyu may actually be a better deal for them than most other classes, giving them more mileage out of their potions as well as buffing their low health and mana per level. An early punishment can be dire, and the prep penalty is harsh for a rat - but this god is sure to be a great second deity at the very least, if he spawns.

The Good

God: The Earthmother The Earthmother has a lot to offer. Vine Form helps the Rat's small health pool and provides some damage reduction, in addition to Clearance providing mana for more fireballs or knockbacks. Glyph: IMAWAL IMAWAL is a good leveling tool, but it will be difficult to farm enough blood pools for an end-game spike with Plantation.

God: Dracul Dracul helps with survivability, his boons granting Lifesteal and increasing resistances, although with an already decreased health pool Sanguine can be more troubling than for most other classes to use. It is also difficult to farm up enough blood pools for an endgame spike, much as it is with God: The Earthmother The Earthmother.

God: Glowing Guardian Glowing Guardian is problematic, but definitely a strong choice for a first religion. Humility is even more amazing than usual, since the Rat often prefers to kill a small number of high-level enemies, causing the scaling XP bonus to be that much larger. However, all other boons require taking a large(!) Prayer Bead into your inventory, which is completely out of the question, and you will want to convert out at some point - which is especially difficult to do if you prep his altar. This god is a viable choice if you find his altar at level 1, though.

The Bad

God: Tikki Tooki Tikki Tooki is nearly useless, as rats need to take a few hits before taking much of anything down. This is a pity, since more Reflex potions would work well with stacking Corrosive Strike quickly. Shenanigans with Glyph: GETINDARE GETINDARE, pre-stacked corrosion, and a plan for converting out of the religion might be possible, but spending gold for piety would cut into your regeneration spike from Regal Perks.

God: Taurog Taurog punishes glyph use and so can be challenging to use, but the armor is good. Item: Skullpicker Skullpicker is nearly useless like other base damage increases however, and the hit to mana is a bad deal generally. Also, it can be difficult to farm piety until the late game, given how almost all popcorn will take more than one hit without careful budgeting of corrosion stacks mid-game.

Creation History

Disleksia explains how he designed it :

The design idea around the Rat was always to come up with something that wouldn't synergise with the existing power strats in the game, so I'd play each different build for the Rat until I found it impossible to beat GT without preps. I suspected that Rat VGT would need really careful god usage, I was thinking Earthmother vine form spam + platemail to conserve as much blackspace as possible early on + plant imawal piety and extra xp. I'm super happy to see a Binlor approach work, especially with the Tikki desecration, that's something so many builds would never do ;)

I knew it would be too much to hope for a non-Dracul endgame, but we can all dream. The Rat is the first monster class not to be designed by Nandrew, so seeing it actively complete everything in the game is a big deal for me - means I didn't mess it up too badly.