Honestly, rat is still a frustrating mess. (Yes, it's half a vent post.)

[Umbaupause]

Now, I get it, 'it's hard lul git gud mmmmh' okay, great job if this is your first reaction to these posts. But also, does it feel to anyone else that it's just needlessly complicated to even refight him?
Not even from a secrecy standpoint, but once you know what to do, better be ready to save up 115 casings by floor 2 (which frankly requires oubliette to consistently do) but then also keep a key on reserve and have two blanks handy. JUST to get to the floor.
And then you have to make it through 3 phases of frankly out of tune difficulty, including a weird diversion from normal gameplay that asks you to learn entirely new muscle memory to have a chance, and just. It's just so out of line. On the other hand, the fourth secret floor requires you to throw away two trash items and have a master round. And it's like... Yeah, I can get behind that. Sure that boss is tricky, but at least I don't have to chart out my plan when I start floor 1.
It's just a stupid frustrating mess. So in the end I wanna ask: Who actually bothers to try and go for this dumb floor regularly? And more importantly if you do: Why?

[Codex]

I'm not here to answer your real question, but if you open the first gate, you can chuck your items past the other gate, where they will be sucked up. Saves you an item.
also, the Emmentaler is way, way busted.
I don't see anything wrong with the rat being an out of the way secret boss required for the dragun, imo.

One annoying thing is the rat hole. It should just spawn at the elevator the moment you enter the floor. No need to make us hunt for it each time.

[Kai]

we all hate that rat bastard

[Witch of Lizards]

Originally posted by Umbaupause:

It's just a stupid frustrating mess. So in the end I wanna ask: Who actually bothers to try and go for this dumb floor regularly? And more importantly if you do: Why?

because once you know how to play well, you can consistently get through all secret floors while buying almost nothing, and getting to the rat trapdoor with 2 blanks is easy af considering that you get 2 at the start of the floor and the room can be accessed before the boss; the boss is pretty ok when you learn most of the attack patterns (I usually only struggle with fast knives and the magic ring attack)
and the items you get are very op considering that you can walk over pits, stop enemies from doing anythig for a few seconds and become practically invincible with them

[Umbaupause]

Originally posted by Leffer1337:

Originally posted by Umbaupause:

It's just a stupid frustrating mess. So in the end I wanna ask: Who actually bothers to try and go for this dumb floor regularly? And more importantly if you do: Why?

because once you know how to play well, you can consistently get through all secret floors while buying almost nothing, and getting to the rat trapdoor with 2 blanks is easy af considering that you get 2 at the start of the floor and the room can be accessed before the boss; the boss is pretty ok when you learn most of the attack patterns (I usually only struggle with fast knives and the magic ring attack)
and the items you get are very op considering that you can walk over pits, stop enemies from doing anythig for a few seconds and become practically invincible with them

Great and all. Except not really - if you manage to get through to get those items, then the rest of the run is just gonna be boring in comparison anyway. If you get the cheese wheel or the gun, you might as well restart cause you technically already won with skill and equipment combined.
Really, none of it even bothers me that much, aside from the 115 casings thing that locks me into needing to plan for it from floor 1.

[hentaimaster7]

The bullets to buy the key are a little high. The first two phases of the rat are fine; difficult, but he's meant to be the hardest boss so that makes sense. The third phase is awful, I don't know what they were thinking on that one.

[[いっちゃう~]4nDy:BAdAs5_1.2]

no need to git gud really, just activate rainbow run and turbo, cuts your time down significantly, and no need to worry about saving money since rainbow run means you can't use chests, only need to get two keys for sewer floor, 1 key for rat lair, and 115 is no problem.

[[いっちゃう~]4nDy:BAdAs5_1.2]

with rainbow run you will get to pick from a few random OP items each floor, you can create some seriously questionable builds. Especially if you unlock gunther! He's amazing if you have a quick trigger finger( by that i mean both lichy trigger finger and your own fast clicky finger)

And i'm not 100% on this, but i feel like bosses have less health in turbo mode, might just because of the adrenaline rush, or maybe they actually weaken them somewhat, rat is much easier to dodge in turbo(i know it sounds crazy) but your dodges are incredible in turbo mode, totally give it a shot!

[Umbaupause]

Originally posted by いっちゃう~4nDy:BAdAs5_1.2:

with rainbow run you will get to pick from a few random OP items each floor, you can create some seriously questionable builds. Especially if you unlock gunther! He's amazing if you have a quick trigger finger( by that i mean both lichy trigger finger and your own fast clicky finger)

And i'm not 100% on this, but i feel like bosses have less health in turbo mode, might just because of the adrenaline rush, or maybe they actually weaken them somewhat, rat is much easier to dodge in turbo(i know it sounds crazy) but your dodges are incredible in turbo mode, totally give it a shot!

Huh, that actually does sound like it should work really well! I'll give it a try soon, I think! Thank you.

[[いっちゃう~]4nDy:BAdAs5_1.2]

@Umbaupause
Be sure to pick paradox as your character, i mean, you could pick gunslinger i guess? But you stand a pretty good chance of finding the Bullet eyes from rainbow chests, and if you picked an accessory for your first and second floor, the gunslinger will be stuck with just his starter weapon...which is not optimal...

Paradox always start with 2 weapons and a random accessory, so you can safely pick accessories if you start with a decent enough main weapon
(Like the wooden beam! Which is the best weapon in the game and i will not accept any dissenting opinions, not even Gunther can compete)
The random accessory also in most cases ends up to be pretty good, i've had very few occasions where the starting accessory is so bad that i have to quick restart. It can happen, but it seems like there are restrictions for what accessories you can start with and the pool of candidates are all pretty nice.

So yeah, go wild and push your attention to its limits, when the adrenaline kicks in you'll be wondering if the turbo mode was off by accident, it really feels like turbo mode stacks the odds against the game than you.

Just be sure to take some breaks in between runs, you don't want that adrenaline rush to go the other way, i've had it happen to me once, where i restarted darksouls 3 after beating Slave Knight gale with a shortbow...then the game sped up....by a whole helluva lot, like...it was playing out doubly as fast as it's supposed to...then i even got invaded by a player and they were double speed as well! I was too! And i stood my ground somehow while everyone went at super sonic speed! Still got killed but the fight went on for a really long time in 2x speed!

OH!! And always pick Clone when it pops up, if i'm not wrong, if a normal character get killed with a clone in their inventory, they will just start the floor over until...i dunno, maybe they find where they died? But with Paradox if you die you basically get new game plus, you keep everything but kicked back to the first floor, where another rainbow chest awaits you! And every floor after that! And you get to challenge rat again if you failed! So yeah, even if weighed against your favorite item, the clone should always be picked no matter what. But the hero pig less so...since that just extends your current run, so only pick hero pig in certain circumstances, like right in rat's lair or if you failed the first two master rounds and missed bonus floors.

And if you get the red scarf as the starter equipment...just chuck the computer out the window, Can't dodge roll into slimes, Dodging into enemies will hurt you, You can't roll against the wall as a cheesy tactic against "bullet rings" like what rat mech and lich can do. Just terrible, so yeah, no red scarf.

[XZero]

Originally posted by いっちゃう~4nDy:BAdAs5_1.2:

OH!! And always pick Clone when it pops up, if i'm not wrong, if a normal character get killed with a clone in their inventory, they will just start the floor over until...i dunno, maybe they find where they died? But with Paradox if you die you basically get new game plus, you keep everything but kicked back to the first floor

Clone works the same with everyone, the new game plus type of thing after dying.

You described a different item.
I think it was called Gun Soul or something, it’s a reference to Dark Souls.

[Lumpy]

i always go for him

[[いっちゃう~]4nDy:BAdAs5_1.2]

Good news! I beat the rat in the fist fight! Twice in a row! Then i brought the serpent to dragun and unlocked the holy grail!

That's why I want to share some of my tips about the rat punch out so people can hopefully beat him easier.

First, in the 1/3, you just wait for him to attack, dodge backward and then spam left and right hook. If he blocks your attack then stop attacking and wait. If he crosses his arms, you can punch him right there, or wait for the perfect moment to dish out a stun, i personally don't wait for the flash.
I think if you spam only one of your arms that will make him start blocking earlier...but i'm not too sure on that.

in 2/3, you wait for him to attack, but ALWAYS block the first attack, then react accordingly, So if he does a chain ballet attack, then keep blocking some more.
If he jumps backward for the pounce, then dodge backward.
And if he tries to eat the cheese, wait for just when the cheese gets into his mouth to punch his teeth to stun him.
There's always an uppercut after his left/right hook combo. But you can dodge the entire combo by dodging backward.

Then in the last phase, It's mostly the same.
But if he jumps left and right to throw things at you, dodge toward his direction to avoid it, but ONLY after he throws it, doing it too early could screw you over.
Then if he puts on a knuckle duster, and swing his arms, that's an unavoidable and unblockable attack, for this one you'll have to punch him at the right moment to protect yourself.
And don't forget, blocking should be your first instinct.

Aftermath
If you beat rat completely like this, you should find two golden keys, kick him down the hole in the floor, pick up all the guns he dropped during the fight. And go down to the treasure room. Pick up the BLANK on display, and use it. That will unlock the secret room to a serpent blocked by two locks. Feed the serpent the rat, then your guns, if you come up short, active items will work too. Until the serpent follow you, go down to 4th floor, then 5th.

At this point you'll likely have very little option in arms, perhaps only holding one gun, if you find any ammo, the rat won't be able to take them now, so make sure you use up everything in your last remaining gun before you pick up ammo. And top your gun up before boss fights since you won't have anything else if you run dry.

Beat dragun with the serpent to unlock his secret form(i know, kinda weird that he gets more powerful as a reward for your dedication!) Beat that too then you'll unlock holy grail and an achievement.

[XZero]

You can win more than two Rat Keys from phase 3.

https://enterthegungeon.fandom.com/wiki/Resourceful_Rat#Boss

Rat Keys

During this section of the fight the Resourceful Rat can drop special Rat Keys, which unlock various rewards in his Lair. Up to six Rat Keys can be acquired during the battle. In order to get all six, the player must KO the Rat with a 3-Star Super punch three times.

One key for starting the fight
One key for finishing a round with a super attack (3 keys for 3 rounds)
One key for winning the fight
One bonus key for finishing all 3 rounds with a 3-Star super punch

[HAN #YOLO]

Well... me. I do it every time. Actually it's a piece of cake. On cursed runs you get a lot more money (for the key). Also very often you will end up with item that gives +1 blanks per floor. The store often sells blanks. You can reveal first secret if you have armor (or play as a robot) just by falling in the hole. And can reveal the second secret if you can hurt yourself and have armor (or play as a robot). Also there's a quite a few guns and items that can reveal secret rooms...

[[いっちゃう~]4nDy:BAdAs5_1.2]

Originally posted by HAN #YOLO:

Well... me. I do it every time. Actually it's a piece of cake. On cursed runs you get a lot more money (for the key). Also very often you will end up with item that gives +1 blanks per floor. The store often sells blanks. You can reveal first secret if you have armor (or play as a robot) just by falling in the hole. And can reveal the second secret if you can hurt yourself and have armor (or play as a robot). Also there's a quite a few guns and items that can reveal secret rooms...

Ooh, i never thought of that approach, sounds pretty interesting.