Can anyone explain to me how you are meant to beat the rat thieves.

[marsup]

So I have been trying to find a way to beat the rat thieves fairly but I have been unable to find an effective strategy against them. It is to the point that I have begun to genuinely despise their existence and wish they were never included into the game.

I have tried using damage but they heal their shields, then health and then revive each other every time. And whatever weapon I use the damage is laughably low making it impossible to beat them fast enough. This combined with the absolutely infuriating tendency to stun lock you into oblivion and then using the disarming or blinding effect leaving you completely unable to do anything while they prep the next stun lock, while your paralyzing attacks hardly ever last more than a single turn if you are lucky as they tend to do absolutely nothing most of the time while theirs never seems to fail.

I also tried lust but its the same problem I cannot raise their lust fast enough.

I have resorted to using the debug cheat to give myself 2700 or so health and it is still a close call most of the time. Worst example I had 2700 health and once it was their turn they literally stun locked me until I had 1500 health left and the used the disarming ability leaving me unable to do anything and then proceeded to do the whole thing again.

I enjoy most enemies in the game as they ae fair or have ways to prevent their strongest attacks if they are one shot kos but these guys have no such thing I genuinely hate their inclusion into the game as the run away button is quite unreliable resulting in them getting free shots and unlike most tough encounters they arent optional and are encountered way too frequently.

So if anyone has a good strat against them I would definitely like to hear it I am literally seconds away from smashing my computer out of frustration against these guys.

I am playing as a mercernary with max physique and reflexes the rest is in will power.

 

[sumgai]

If you're going for lust, try wearing really sexy underwear + Bimbo Siegwulfe.

IIRC, the middle rat is the healer. So if you're going for damage, target that one first.

 

[marsup]

If you're going for lust, try wearing really sexy underwear + Bimbo Siegwulfe.

IIRC, the middle rat is the healer. So if you're going for damage, target that one first.

That is what I thought at first yet when I took him down one of the other 2 just got him back up.

 

[William.]

The first and most obvious question: You are playing a Mercenary, but are you specced Melee or Ranged? It's important to lay this out, because there are 6 archetypes of play in the game (7 if teasing is counted) and that is Melee/Ranged builds for the three available classes. Choosing not to focus in either-or deliberately weakens your character and their skill-set.

Being a Mercenary, your survivability comes from wearing better and better armor and shields and your strength comes from being able to do more damage than anyone else in a short period of time. As of Zheng Shi the very best you can be wearing is Augment Weave Armor or Roz's Ramshackle Power Armor, with Urbolg's Prototype Shield. If you're wearing Roz's Power Armor, then they can't even hurt you. They may rob you, but there's no way they can ever win the fight because its values are just so high.

1) You say your damage is laughable, which tells me you're using either Electric or Burning weapons. Once their shields drop, they have high resistances to these damage types, so any weapon with its dominant outputs in Burning or Electric are going to doing you very little good. Mostly burning, though. Electric is still great for dropping shields.

But on to strategies, the fight is set up in counterable ways.

1) Buying Flash Goggles from Nerrasa on Uveto Station will nullify their flashbang attack entirely.

2) The FemRats and MaleRats have separate mechanics. FemRats focus on attacking shields and have higher shields themselves, but are very vulnerable to being stunned. FemRats are also the ones with Flashbangs, so bringing them down ASAP again knocks that element out of the fight. MaleRats have higher HP and physique, making them a little harder to stun and they just hit you without much finesse. They can trip and stun you at any time, and their stun is just getting you hard via RNG by the sound of it.

3) The main strategy to take on is to always take out the odd-one-out rat. If two FemRats, beat up the MaleRat. If two MaleRats, beat up FemRat, and take the odd duck out ASAP. When they're allowed to combine their separate skills is when they're at their strongest.

4) You can beat up the Forgehound and nab his +Aim Eyepiece Accessory which will outright nuke all the evasion the rats have, and their bonuses.

But on to class specific strategies. The rats were tested as all classes with all builds at level 9 and level 10 using equipment gained purely from the main story. If you have any of the Waifu/Husband/Quest gear going into this, then you're in fact over-prepared! Like the Aegis LMG if you were ranged.

Assuming you're melee, because max Physique and Reflex, then you have Cleave. So the first thing you want to do is just get any possible weapon that isn't Burning or Electric damage. Queen Taivra's Spear was the baseline used in testing, but other options include stuff you can buy in the stores on Uveto and Myrellion. Kinetic works best.

Headbutting Female Rats almost always stuns them because of their low physique. Use the stun time to power strike them if you need them down faster. You can also pick up the Vamp Blade from Emmy on Myrellion (or even get her upgraded one) so you can drain their shields into yours as you fight then swap out to more powerful gear. There are plenty of weapons in the game that also have Stun Chance as a flag: you're rolling 10% to stun the rats on every attack at that point with Cleave -- and those are predominantly kinetic weapons!

That's about the end of strategy for Melee Merc due to a lack of special skills that affect the fight, because as said, Mercs just tank damage and do a lot of it as bluntly as possible.

If you manage to defeat a rat while they're stunned, then that stun carries over to them being revived. Rats can only revive one of their number once in the encounter. They also all have the ability to replenish their shields once.

 

[BoyHowdy000]

Can we just take this opportunity to talk about the fact that there's not one single high level kinetic weapon with a bonus hit rate flag in this game? It makes melee mercs such absolute garbage compared to basically every other build out there (aside from maybe ranged smugglers, who are still stuck with the freaking Shock Bow for their stun chance). The Saurmorian Hammer is cool and all with its high crit and stun chance, but I'm pretty sure it's outdamaged by the Dancing Flashblade even on melee merc because of that extra hit. That's just unacceptable. Any other class in the game (probably even ranged smugglers considering at least they're using an energy weapon against shielded enemies) can take down the Raiders with ease once they're decked out with all the best gear and skills by level 10, but melee mercs are still stuck swinging around a massive hammer with an even larger accuracy debuff that can't even deal enough damage to compete with its compatriots when it does land a hit.

Alternatively, we could talk about how ridiculously overpowered the bonus hit rate flag is. Kind of a matter of perspective, really.

 

[marsup]

The first and most obvious question: You are playing a Mercenary, but are you specced Melee or Ranged? It's important to lay this out, because there are 6 archetypes of play in the game (7 if teasing is counted) and that is Melee/Ranged builds for the three available classes. Choosing not to focus in either-or deliberately weakens your character and their skill-set.

Being a Mercenary, your survivability comes from wearing better and better armor and shields and your strength comes from being able to do more damage than anyone else in a short period of time. As of Zheng Shi the very best you can be wearing is Augment Weave Armor or Roz's Ramshackle Power Armor, with Urbolg's Prototype Shield. If you're wearing Roz's Power Armor, then they can't even hurt you. They may rob you, but there's no way they can ever win the fight because its values are just so high.

1) You say your damage is laughable, which tells me you're using either Electric or Burning weapons. Once their shields drop, they have high resistances to these damage types, so any weapon with its dominant outputs in Burning or Electric are going to doing you very little good. Mostly burning, though. Electric is still great for dropping shields.

But on to strategies, the fight is set up in counterable ways.

1) Buying Flash Goggles from Nerrasa on Uveto Station will nullify their flashbang attack entirely.

2) The FemRats and MaleRats have separate mechanics. FemRats focus on attacking shields and have higher shields themselves, but are very vulnerable to being stunned. MaleRats have higher HP and physique, making them a little harder to stun and they just hit you without much finesse.

3) The main strategy to take on is to always take out the odd-one-out rat. If two FemRats, beat up the MaleRat. If two MaleRats, beat up FemRat, and take the odd duck out ASAP. When they're allowed to combine their separate skills is when they're at their strongest.

4) You can beat up the Forgehound and nab his +Aim Eyepiece Accessory which will outright nuke all the evasion the rats have, and their bonuses.

But on to class specific strategies. The rats were tested as all classes with all builds at level 9 and level 10 using pure quest equipment. If you have any of the Waifu/Husband/Quest gear going into this, then you're in fact over-prepared! Like the Aegis LMG if you were ranged.

Assuming you're melee, because max Physique and Reflex, then you have Cleave. So the first thing you want to do is just get any possible weapon that isn't Burning or Electric damage. Queen Taivra's Spear was the baseline used in testing, but other options include stuff you can buy in the stores on Uveto and Myrellion. Kinetic works best.

Headbutting Female Rats almost always stuns them because of their low physique. Use the stun time to power strike them if you need them down faster. You can also pick up the Vamp Blade from Emmy on Myrellion (or even get her upgraded one) so you can drain their shields into yours as you fight then swap out to more powerful gear.

That's about the end of strategy for Melee Merc due to a lack of special skills that affect the fight, because as said, Mercs just tank damage and do a lot of it as bluntly as possible.

If you manage to defeat a rat while they're stunned, then that stun carries over to them being revived. Rats can only revive one of their number once in the encounter. They also all have the ability to replenish their shields once.

1) Why the hell didn"t I think of that.

3) Ok ill try that.

I was using a jolt hammer mostly because when I use kinetic weapons its takes a lot of effort to bring down a shield. Ill try to find a kinetic weapon.

 

[William.]

1) Why the hell didn"t I think of that.

3) Ok ill try that.

I was using a jolt hammer mostly because when I use kinetic weapons its takes a lot of effort to bring down a shield. Ill try to find a kinetic weapon.

There are a lot of moving parts in this fight because I set it up to take advantage of everything gameplay related in the game. Consumables, encourage/forcing skill usage, and to make sure every class had methods of dealing with them promptly. Think about this: Vamp Blade + Cleave... you will never run out of shields. You hit them all at once. Wear Flash Goggles while doing so. Tech Specialists using Vamp Blade and Drone is the snooze version of the fight, for example!

If you were a ranged merc, you would always open the fight with Rapid Fire on the odd-one-out rat, and take them down asap. Then you'd spread Rapid Fire among them all for guaranteed stagger.

Melee Merc is probably the hardest class in the game to play just because you have to rely more on chance than your skills. Second Wind is great and all but it's not being able to throw out Flashbangs as Smuggler and get big boy crit-hits because you're Dante fighting Vergil.

In your case, I recommend buying a Rocket Hammer off Aurora on Tarkus, or a Yappi Strap from the Korgonne, or going out to Kazra and Lorre and buying an Essyran Greatspear. Once you start winning against Rats, they have a chance to drop their stun rods, which are an even mix of Electric and Kinetic (mostly) with high crit and accuracy. You'll be able to smash their shields and be doing reasonable damage in the fight as well as having Stun Chance.

FWIW as well, their dominant HP/Shield values could get dropped in the future; 250 down to 175 or something. That'd make the fight go a lot more swimmingly. Not sure if that will happen anytime soon but it's pretty much the easiest and best solution if they were going to cause ructions.

 

[null_blank]

Can we just take this opportunity to talk about the fact that there's not one single high level kinetic weapon with a bonus hit rate flag in this game?

I've been complaining about this for a while. I utterly despise melee merc because of this as you wind up defaulting to the hardlight katana.

 

[Evil]

My tactic as a Ranged Merc is equip either the Stormbull Shotgun or the Saurmorian Railgun.
Then focus on the Male Rat (middle dude), his heal can restore a good deal of either his health or another rats, but by focusing on him first, he uses the heal on himself and leaves himself rather open to another volley.
Once he's down, headbutt the Female Rat and then focus on the Odd Mouse Out.
Female Rat can't really do too much damage to you, but if you feel the pressure, headbutt her to stun her.

 

[ScarletteKnight]

Mercs should actually go for Fortification over Shields, because their better armor makes their HP last longer and they get a regen power.

Ranged Smugglers are pretty good with the Hirudo Devourer and their base powers. I imagine melee Smugs can be similarly good with the Vamp Blade.

The fight is pretty easy, even as complex as it is by comparison. Personally, I am a melee Shield Techie, and I just use Charge Weapon and spam Attack.

 

[BoyHowdy000]

Mercs should actually go for Fortification over Shields, because their better armor makes their HP last longer and they get a regen power.

Ranged Smugglers are pretty good with the Hirudo Devourer and their base powers. I imagine melee Smugs can be similarly good with the Vamp Blade.

The fight is pretty easy, even as complex as it is by comparison. Personally, I am a melee Shield Techie, and I just use Charge Weapon and spam Attack.

While using Smugglers, it's basically necessary that you use a weapon with a built-in stun chance because they get a MASSIVE damage boost when they land that stun and that boost stacks with the one they should always have active from their flash grenade. The raw damage that they deal actually doesn't matter as much due to how their abilities all stack together when used properly, as a result, the two main builds are Custom Shock Gear for melee (which is far and away the best version) and the Shock Bow for ranged, despite how hilariously bad the Shock Bow's base damage is compared to something like the Saurmorian Railgun. As a massive fan of regeneration builds in almost any game I play, I definitely agree that Energy Drain builds with the Hirudo Devourer and Tweaked Vamp Blade are fun, but nowhere remotely near as powerful as the stun chance ones.

 

[Somebody Else]

Want to clarify a few things real quick:
First, accuracy, evasion, and stats. The game has two separate evasion checks: one that just checks evasion rating, which is only reduced by the -5 of the mk. II eyepiece, and one that compares the enemy's reflex/5 or reflex/3 (melee/ranged) to your physique/5 or aim/5 (melee/ranged), modified by your accuracy rating-10 IIRC. How this all works out is if you have max physique and 10 accuracy, you'll never fail that evasion check (though pure evasion chance still applies as its own separate check that's not influenced by accuracy). For ranged, you'll need progressively more as the level cap goes up, but right now it's 13 accuracy. This is only against enemies with maxed out reflex stats though; if they have less, you'll need even less accuracy.

Second, the bonus damage of smuggler sneak attack breaks down as follows:
attacker.level * 3 + attacker.bimboIntelligence()/2 (bimbo intelligence is the best of either your intelligence, or, if you have the fuck sense perk, your libido if better, though capped to the same max intelligence would be)
Take advantage adds an additional 2*level to damage.
If a target is both blinded and stunned, you get a whopping +level damage, or in other words, don't worry about getting a target both blinded and stunned; either one gets you almost the entire advantage of sneak attack. Chance to stun is nice, but by no means the be-all and end-all for smugglers; mostly it's just nice for laziness, since you can just auto attack rather than setting up combos.

Then just a couple miscellaneous tidbits: The bonus hit rate flag is worth ~25% more damage if you have two attacks. (The game gives "flurry attacks", or any time you get bonus attacks, ~50% chance to hit, not affected by accuracy.)
Damage of special abilities scales off of level and bimbo intelligence universally or nearly so, IIRC.
Flash grenades/pocket sand is an opposed attribute check, your aim versus their reflex.
Disarming shot succeeds if it hits and the target isn't immune.
Mag binders are a reflex vs. reflex check.