Rats?

[Robodemon]

Genuine question, help me understand something here. Rats. Looking at the wiki, they're described as a "considerable threat" and the comments are full of people complaining about them. Are they seriously that dangerous in souls games? Maybe it's just my playstyle but they've never given me trouble, and throughout the entire game I've seen bloodstains a-plenty any time rats are about. I mean... They're rats! Hit them like pinatas and sometimes a rune arc flies out!

[zero]

they come in swarms and big ones have high poise, both can affect people.

its not like you've never died to a pack of things.

[Angel]

in souls games? dark souls 1 the first time seeing them maybe with the poison...elden ring? yeah they can kill you real fast if you aren't careful

[LuckyCheshire]

It's kind of a meme. But yeah, rats usually come in packs, so if you get surrounded it's not a good time.

[mpcgannon]

I'm a poise boi. I rarely get stun locked. Rats ain't no problem.

[Key]

Rats come in groups and attack quickly and often with very little telegraphing. They can pretty much prevent you from fighting back with certain weapons if you're surrounded.

[impuretrash2878]

The rats in Souls 1 gave me a lot of trouble and Im sure thats true for many people. Especially that group of them waiting at the bottom of a certain ladder. Of course, nowadays I can swat those same rats down like flies. It's a matter of experience. So I can only imagne how fearsome elden ring rats are to newcomers.

[nfinite.recursion]

Well, rats in Elden Ring are just as a pain to deal with in Dark Souls... until you start using Guard Counters.

[Q1]

Rats are a problem in these games because you can end up in situations where you are just hit with a non stop barrage of attacks without a chance to respond.

[Old Captain Yon]

Rats are the worst, especially the two-legged ones

[Amins]

Every time I encounter rats, I equip my Beast Repellent Torch just because I hate dealing with them. Sure, I can probably kill them all just fine, but they do have a habit of ganging up on you.

[The Icecream Snowman]

Rats are also fast. Their attack animation is too fast to respond to, you have to be ready for them. If there are several (there will be) they're likely to stagger their attacks to keep hitting you.

Generally, large weapons work very well, allowing you to hit them from a safe distance. Halberds, spears, ultra greatswords etc are good choices.

Shield poke is, as usual, a sound strategy to deal with swarms of rats without trouble.

[Artek [General]]

They are an annoying little vermin that counters certain playstyles and weapon classes with hitboxes too high. Heavy bois with poise usually don't have a problem with them - just swing a sword and they die. But some lighter builds get stunlocked by the bastards.

My first character was a halberd user with a shield. Completely f*cking countered by the rats. My counter-attacks were simply too slow and i would often get bitten before the counter lands, and since one-handed halberds provide no poise - that's a bad trade for me.
Most of halberds' moveset also just struggles to hit the damn things. The pokes are too high, the heavies are too slow... It was so bad - i ended up just using my knife to fight them instead.

And the big rats got buffed real good in this game. They used to have no poise and would just get stunlocked, but in this game they got CRAZY poise and will just tank attacks from light-to-medium weapons like nobody's business.
Combine all of this with the fact that rats never attack alone and its always like 3-4 of them rushing you at once, with their AI being dead-set on just B-lining straight for you - and you get a zerg-rush style of enemy that just overwhelms you with numbers, stunlocking and panic-induction. Always hated the damn things, they were a problem even in Dark Souls 3 - particularly the little swarm that inhabits Irithyll Dungeons.
Their frustration-induction ability is only outdone by dogs, which are also still a surprisingly cursed enemy to deal with, after so many games. FromSoft just refuse to give them a chill pill.

[Alby]

Ratcist.

[Rethias]

Pack animals in Elden Ring are deadly because they swarm. If you have sub 60 vigor, your HP is pretty pitiful and lots of rats exist when your vigor is at 10-40, which I believe is close to 500-1,400 hp respectively. If a mob of enemies manages to surround you and one hit connects, you'll stagger into a chain hit and you won't recover fast enough to move out of the HP grind.

Same happens with wolves. Same happens with basic grunt units. Being surrounded is bad.

[Livy]

Worst place is the frenzied flame tower filled with rats.