Rat enemy line

Rat, Armored Rat and Plated Rat are species of monsters found in Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age. These monsters, resembling small, back-plated rodents, are palette-swapped variants of each other that have differing levels of power and defense and are fought in different locations in the games.

Rat
A Rat is a orange variant with green plating. Statistically, this monster has 49 HP, 52 Attack, 27 Defense, 15 Agility, and 1 Luck. In terms of resistance, it has a Jupiter Resistance rating of 72, a Venus and Mercury Resistance rating of 48 each, and a Mars Resistance rating of 25.

A Rat can use these battle commands:
 * Attack: Used 6 out of 8 times, this is this monster's standard physical attack.
 * Fortify: Used 2 out of 8 times, in spite of the different name that the game's internal code designates it as, this monster skill is identical to the Defend command, which causes all damage the Rat takes this turn to be lowered down to 50%, regardless of how fast your party is.

Felling a Rat yields 14 EXP and 17 coins, and there is a 1/32 chance that the monster will randomly drop an Herb. If felled with the effect of an offensive Mars Djinni, its rewards increase to 18 EXP and 22 Coins, and the chance it will randomly drop its item becomes 1/8. In Golden Sun, they are located in the overworld region of Angara encompassing the towns Bilibin and Kolima, as well as throughout Kolima Forest and Tret Tree. In The Lost Age, it is fought in the southern portion of Indra in the overworld.

As should be evident, the Rat is about potentially taking several extra hits to fell in comparison to the other monsters it is fought alongside, at least in the area it first appears in the first game. Its Defense rating is always the highest wherever it appears, making physical strikes from low-level parties seem rather ineffective. This hardly contributes to its very weak capacity for inflicting damage, since offensive Psynergy bypasses its defense easily, and in later areas it is fought you should be concentrating on far more relevantly strong enemies like the Troll.

Armored Rat
An Armored Rat is a green variant with pink plating. Statistically, this monster has 147 HP, 193 Attack, 79 Defense, 60 Agility, and 1 Luck. In terms of resistance, it has a Jupiter Resistance rating of 72, a Venus and Mercury Resistance rating of 48 each, and a Mars Resistance rating of 25.

An Armored Rat can use these battle commands:
 * Attack: Used 5 out of 8 times, this is this monster's standard physical attack.
 * Fortify: Used 2 out of 8 times, in spite of the different name that the game's internal code designates it as, this monster skill is identical to the Defend command, which causes all damage the Armored Rat takes this turn to be lowered down to 50%, regardless of how fast your party is.
 * Total Defense: Used 1 out of 8 times, this works exactly like Fortify and Defend, but with one important difference: All damage the Armored Rat takes this turn is lowered down to 10%, compared to Fortify's normal 50%.

Felling an Armored Rat yields 77 EXP and 100 coins, and there is a 1/32 chance that the monster will randomly drop an Herb. If felled by the effect of an offensive Mars Djinni, its rewards increase to 100 EXP and 130 Coins, and the chance it will randomly drop its item becomes 1/8. In Golden Sun they are fought in the overworld region surrounding the city of Tolbi, as well as throughout nearby Altmiller Cave.

In the overworld area where it is fightable, it has the best defensive capacity as expected, but is similar to the rat in that its focus on defending prevents it from actually doing any damage a lot of times, so it merely becomes a target. In Altmiller cave it is outperformed in all areas - even defense - by the Clay Gargoyle.

Plated Rat
A Plated Rat is a purple member with yellow plating. Statistically, this monster has 203 HP, 262 Attack, 130 Defense, 61 Agility, and 2 Luck. In terms of resistance, it has a Jupiter Resistance rating of 72, a Venus and Mercury Resistance rating of 48 each, and a Mars Resistance rating of 25, and it regards to its abilities it uses its available Venus-based attacks with a Venus power rating of 100.

A Plated Rat can use these battle commands:
 * Attack: Used 5 out of 8 times, this is this monster's standard physical attack.
 * Total Defense: Used 2 out of 8 times, this works exactly like the Defend command, but with all damage the Armored Rat would take this turn being lowered down to 10% instead of 50%.
 * Counterstrike: Used 1 out of 8 times, this is a monster skill that inflicts a Venus-based attack equal to its normal physical attack with an additional 50 damage points.

Felling a Plated Rat yields 208 EXP and 135 coins, and there is a 1/32 chance that the monster will randomly drop an Elixir. If felled by the effect of an offensive Mars Djinni, the chance it will randomly drop its item becomes 1/8. In Golden Sun they are located in the road to Babi Lighthouse and the subsequent Tunnel Ruins.

The Plated Rat having a somewhat more proper blend of strong defense and occasionally strong offense does not raise its threat level enough that it is not completely outperformed by the Ice Gargoyle, the random monster with the single highest Defense in the first game. It should be relatively easy to defeat this with area-of-effect Psynergy targeting other monsters.