Royal Rat Vanguard Trivia Quiz

Answer: Grave of Saints

This is an entirely optional area whose main purpose is to host Rat King based PvP between interested players. If trying to reach the Royal Rat Vanguard, it is entirely possible you will suddenly be dealing with an Arbiter Spirit, a player who draws you into Rat King based PvP.

Answer: Kill ten Rats

Right from the beginning, a swarm of regular Rats drop from the ceiling. Before the actual boss appears, the player must kill ten Rats. They will know they've done the deed, as the giant boss health bar at the bottom of their screen reading "Royal Rat Vanguard" only appears once the actual boss spawns.

Answer: Its hair

The main boss representing the Royal Rat Vanguard can be identified by the huge mohawk atop its head of hair. Killing any other Rat is pointless, as they will respawn forever and ever. The mohawk-donning Rat must be dealt with, and when it is slain, the others will scurry away and flee.

Answer: Poison

The boss Rat actually has super high Poison build up, and is virtually certain to poison the player in no more than two, maybe three hits. As such, unless approaching it with a huge weapon that will stagger it, such as the Greatsword, the player should not try to trade blows with the boss Rat and should execute a hit and run strategy until the fight ends. Things can get especially dicey if the player tries to trade blows, gets quickly poisoned, then starts getting hit from behind or to the side by the smaller henchmen Rats.

Answer: Alluring Skulls

At the start of one's playthrough, ten Alluring Skulls can be purchased from Sweet Shalquoir in Majula. Only two, maybe three would be needed to close this fight out if they're used well. Once thrown in an area, all small Rats will hoard up by the Alluring Skull, so the player should try to throw it as far away from the boss Rat as possible.

It needs to be seriously noted that, for whatever reason, the Yearn Sorcery which is supposed to replicate the effect of a thrown Alluring Skull, does not work against the Rats. Yearn has weird interactions like this with several enemies that Alluring Skulls should and do work on, so this isn't necessarily a bug or a glitch or anything like that.

Answer: No

Just like with Royal Rat Authority, this boss appears in a covenant dedicated PvP area. As such, the player cannot even summon other players for this fight, let alone receive the services of an NPC.

Answer: Vanguard Rats have more health

The only tangible difference between Rats within the Royal Rat Vanguard, and Rats fought anywhere else, is that Rats fought as part of the Vanguard have more health, and are slightly trickier to kill.

Players wielding huge weapons like the Greatsword are unlikely to notice, as these huge melee armaments can probably just one shot Rats in and outside of the boss fight without breaking a sweat. But, players using lighter weaponry are much likelier to notice the difference, as their attacks can go from two to three hit kills to three to four hit kills against Vanguard Rats. When in such extremely tight, close quarters against several Rats at once, the difference can really start to become apparent.

Answer: Soul Appease

Soul Appease is an extremely powerful Miracle, but the catch is that it only works on enemies which the game considers "mindless hollows." This naturally creates a grey area, as the Rats are indeed considered 'mindless hollows' despite not actually being hollows at all, and clearly possessing enough of a mind to form a small militia.

Nevertheless, Soul Appease completely trivializes this fight. The player can walk into the boss room, refrain from taking a step, wait for Vanguard Rats to get close, then wipe them all out with one Soul Appease. This will prompt the boss Rat to appear, who can be similarly erased in just two more Soul Appease casts.

Answer: Curse

The player cannot actually wield Curse themselves, but it's strange and funny to note that the regular Rats all have a 30% resistance to Curse, yet the boss Rat is fully immune to it. There is simply no scenario in which the Rats could ever be afflicted with Curse, as the boss room isolates them away from anything that could even attempt to do so, not to mention the fact that whatever could do so would be an ally to the Rats anyway.

The only explanation for this is that perhaps at one point during the development of "Dark Souls 2", From Software considered creating a way for the player to wield Curse, then scrapped whatever method that was and didn't bother to change up the resistances on a niche boss in a completely optional area.

Answer: Toxic Mist

When cast, Toxic Mist spawns a large, green cloud that, as per the name, can afflict anything inside of it with Toxic. This is the only spell in the game capable of inflicting Toxic, and it's one of just two ways to do so in the entire game, the other being through the use of Mytha's Bent Blade, a melee weapon.

As such, this spell immediately has a niche of varying usefulness. Some strong bosses in this game, such as Smelter Demon, can be Toxiced, making them far, far easier to overcome. Then again, other difficult bosses like Fume Knight and Burnt Ivory King are immune to Toxic, with other bosses like The Lost Sinner or Sir Alonne not being immune to it, but being so fast that it may as well be impossible to hit them with Toxic Mist.