Difference between revisions of "Strategy:Cerberus armor"

Latest revision as of 20:12, 11 September 2023

Overview

The Cerberus armor may have no protection value, but it carries a massive 70% resistance against fire and acid, and a still tremendous 50% resistance against plasma. All seasoned DoomRL players come to learn that resistances are a lot more potent in damage reduction than sheer protection, so don't balk at the Cerberus armor's 0 protection value. An Arch-vile's attack that deals a whopping 20 damage with no armor, enough to three shot any class with no Ironman investment, will deal a rather palatable 6 damage when you have this armor on, only 1 more than you will take with a Fireproof red armor. But then not only would you be tremendously protected against fire, a Baron of hell wouldn't deal anymore than 6 damage against you at maximum and would usually be dealing around 3-4 damage, when the acid attacks of Barons are notoriously difficult to get good armor to defend against. Then against Arachnotrons, you'll be only sustaining 1 or 2 damage per hit when you would need armor with a protection value of 6 or more to get this same effect, and against plasma-dealing enemies with single strong hits, you'll see a lot more appreciation with this armor than with just pure defense, due to armor having half protection against plasma, while resistances protect to their full value. So essentially with Cerberus Armor, you get an armor to well protect you against all the most dangerous enemies in the game that you would otherwise have a lot of difficulty in achieving.

The Cerberus Armor does come with a big drawback in its very heavy move speed and knockback penalties of -30%. Such a big movement penalty would be the main reason you definitely don't want to ditch all your other armor, as you should be keeping a primary armor for moving around with much better movement, while you reserve this armor for when you're going to get into a big open firefight or otherwise heavily risk walking into the range of one of the aforementioned enemies. Another big potential drawback is that this armor has no innate bullet, shrapnel, and melee resistance, with it inheriting those resistances from whatever armor you used to make this assembly. So if you used an armor without any of those resistances, your Cerberus armor will end up giving you no protection against them. Bullets don't matter much, but Former captains can deal heavy damage when you have no sort of protection against them, and with no shrapnel defense you'll essentially be naked against Former sergeants, whose shotguns are actually pretty threatening without armor, while obviously you will get really hurt if you go into an enemy's melee range without any melee defense. This flaw can be fixed though as covered in the next section.

Which armor to use as a base

When it comes to your standard armors, the Green armor would actually be the best choice, since it does carry a meager 15% bullet and shrapnel resistance, while the Blue armor and Red armor have no such resistance against them nor melee. Now this pittance of bullet and shrapnel resistance is barely any better than nothing, so you shouldn't be using a Green over the much better Exotic armor options and only use it as a last resort if you can't get a good Exotic armor, but in that case it's not going to make a real difference over using a Blue or Red armor, so you shouldn't lug a Green around long after they're obsolete just for this possibility.

When it comes to the Exotic armors, you can immediately cross off the Energy-shielded vest, which covers the same set of resistances of the Cerberus armor and will work much better through conventional modding and other assemblies, and the Bullet-proof vest, which only gives you a bullet resistance, while you'll rarely be threatened by bullets unless you somehow get surrounded by a swarm of Former captains. Phaseshift armor provides a decent 30% resistance to bullet/shrapnel/melee, buts its wonderful movement bonus would be lost if you made it Cerberus, which is the most useful and defining part of that armor, so it's strongly advised to not use it for this assembly unless you really need especially strong armor and lack a better base. It is however worth pointing out that if you have the Phaseshift boots too, a Cerberus Phaseshift armor will still complete the Phaseshift set to provide you with the fluid immunity while the boots will keep your movement speed up, making this an effective combo when it is otherwise normally infeasible to have strong protection and fluid immunity without a severe sacrifice in movement speed. Medical armor provides an ok 20% resistance to the three physical types, which won't give you amazing Cerberus armor, but can be considered the baseline for acceptable Cerberus bases; if you don't have any of the upcoming superior armors, it'll make a decent Cerberus armor that will give you some protection against melee unlike the Green armor. Plus it will still have its ability to regenerate your health up to 25%, as rarely useful as it is.

Duelist armor provides a great 50% resistance against the physical trio, which will give you Cerberus armor that will make you take at least half damage against every damage source possible. However its +15% movement speed would be lost in the process, when the Duelist armor is one of the few armors in the game that improves your speed wearing it at base, while being decent armor at base on top of that. With that said, if you don't have the following three armors, and don't mind losing a movement-boosting armor, the Duelist armor will make a good base for this assembly, and the protection-for-movement tradeoff is a lot more favorable here than with the Phaseshift armor. The Ballistic vest also provides a 50% resistance against the physical trio, so it will result in the same exact Cerberus that the Duelist armor will result in. However with it having no movement bonus and having a lower armor rating than the Duelist armor, the Ballistic vest is the inferior armor by itself and would have nothing to offer you if you made Duelist Cerberus, while in the vice versa scenario the Duelist armor will still have its own use for movement while the Cerberus Ballistic will be just as effective. So in the scenario that you have both of them, turn the Ballistic vest Cerberus, and if you just have the Ballistic, it'll make a a great base while you'll lose nothing important by turning it Cerberus.

Now for the really good bases, there's Onyx armor. Onyx armor provides no resistances of its own, giving you a baseline Cerberus armor, but one other aspect of this assembly that gets carried over is durability. Normally this doesn't matter as you just get the typical 100% durability nearly every armor tends to have naturally. But since the Onyx armor has infinite durability, the Cerberus armor you make out of it will also have infinite durability without you needing to use an Onyx mod, which not only gets you good indestructible armor without an Onyx mod (or saves you a valuable Onyx mod if you already had one), but also nets you infinite durability while saving a mod slot for your Cerberus armor to farther improve it (which will be covered in a bit). With Onyx Cerberus you will never have to worry about Barons and Arachnotrons destroying your armor again, and will have guaranteed strong protection against the VMR for the rest of your run no matter how badly you get beaten up. Then the absolute best choice for a base is Gothic armor; you get the great 50% physical resistances to the physical trio that Duelist armor and Ballistic vest give you, while the 200% durability is kept, so you get great protection against everything, on top of boosted durability. Additionally, using Gothic as a base means the Cerberus' set speed and knockback penalty are actually beneficial, as they're substantially better than the Gothic's, so making your Gothic armor Cerberus will give you a speed gain over twice as much as applying an Agility mod to the Gothic armor would. Making the Gothic Cerberus grants you a better result than every other possible base, while being an unquestionable improvement over the base armor itself. For one more note with the Gothic armor, if you also find the Gothic boots, wearing both together will form the Gothic Arms set, which increases your armor's protection by 4. Normally the fact that set makes you completely immobile makes it impractical, but alongside Cerberus Gothic armor, it'll reduce an Arch-vile's attack down to 2 damage (or 1 if you P-modded it or have any Tough as Nails investment), while providing you the best acid protection any armor can have and the best plasma protection short of an Energy shield, Plasma shield, or Nanofiber skin Energy-shielded vest, thus there are situations where it can be useful (such as an unescapable open fight where you need out to out-DPS a ton of enemies to live) and so is one more perk of Gothic Cerberus armor.

If you're a Technician and happen to find it, the Cybernetic Armor is one more option. It comes with 50% resistance to the physical trio, so it's another possible option to get the coveted >=50% resistance to all possible damage Cerberus armor, plus it already has the -30% speed and knockback penalities of Cerberus armor so it's no loss there. However its massive base protection of 7 is lost, and much more importantly, it's an armor that can never be unequipped while also featuring normal durability with no regeneration. Duelist, Ballistic, and Gothic Cerberus will provide just as much protection while being able to be unequipped if they get damaged, while the Nanofiber skin armor and Cybernano armor assemblies would be better options for an armor you can never unequip, as they still provide great protection while ensuring you won't have to ever worry about being trapped in a depleted armor. If you inadvertently put the Cybernetic armor on though as a Technician and don't have a Nano mod to make those assemblies, you might as well turn it Cerberus as resistances are still king and you'll be a lot more protected against the most dangerous enemies. Otherwise only use the Cybernetic as a base if you don't have any of the good Exotic armors to use and are really desperate for such strong protection over all else. If you decide to put on the Cybernetic to make it Cerberus, you will want to prioritise putting on an Onyx or Nano mod if you have one of them to ensure durability won't be an issue.

Modding

Since you need Whizkid 2 to make Cerberus armor, you will be able to apply a single mod to it.

The Power mod is an obvious choice, as it raises the armor's natural defense of 0 to 2. When the resistances lower the damage dealt so much, this +2 armor can provide a big difference in additional survivability; e.g. with base Cerberus armor it will take an Arch-vile 9 hits to kill a Scout/Technician without any Ironman investment, while with the armor P-modded, it'll take the Arch-vile 13 hits, increasing your armor's protection abilities over 40%. Plus if you made Cerberus with a base that provides no physical resistances, this will ensure you still will have some sort of protection against melee and Formers.

A Power mod is in stiff competition with an Agility mod however, as that Agility mod will make the movement speed penalty of the Cerberus armor a much more tolerable -15% (which for reference, is better than a base Red armor's -20%). For which mod to use, it depends on if your build values damage avoidance or damage tanking more, but the less melee resistance your Cerberus has, the more appealing a Power mod is to help cover up the gaping hole in your protection. Additionally if you already have another armor with much greater movement speed that you primarily wear while you mainly reserve your Cerberus Armor for unavoidable open fights and emergencies, you will probably also find better value in beefing up its protection over making it less slow.

A Technical mod is useless when why would you want to increase the knockback penalty even more when it's already so stiff, especially when you can improve its protection or movement speed substantially instead.

A Bulk mod is of questionable use, when your Cerberus should be able to usually last between Armor shards and making its speed even worse really hurts. Plus a Power mod will indirectly significantly increase durability too through its damage reduction without costing you any more speed. Don't even think about using up your only mod spot on a Bulk mod with the Gothic Cerberus; you'll have to be playing really reckless or have gotten into some deep shit for 200% durability of Gothic Cerberus to not be enough on top of a Power or Agility mod.

A Nano mod will pretty much ensure your Cerberus will never face durability issues and will not be a bad use of your mod slot, but that Nano mod can probably be put to better use elsewhere in making yourself a broken weapon that eliminates ammo concerns or Antigrav boots to get yourself unmatchable movement speed.

An Onyx mod would make your Cerberus indestructible, but good Cerberus is pretty durable as is and you'll have to give up a really valuable Power or Agility mod boost for it. It might be more worth using it on another valuable but more fragile armor instead, it'll depend on the build you're running. Such as if you're running an extreme tanking build that will soak up a huge amount of unavoidable damage like a Vampyre build, then indestructible Cerberus could be more valuable to you over the other modding options. And needless to say, it has no effect on Onyx Cerberus, and would be quite wasteful on a Gothic Cerberus. Omega Tyrant (talk) 18:23, 23 April 2017 (UTC)