Strategy:Fireproof armor

Major Changes in 0.9.9.6

Fireproof Armor also has -30% melee resistance and no longer affects the knockback value.

Main Guide

Probably the most essential assembly in the game after the Tactical boots. Ideally, you'll want to use Red armor to make this assembly, as with its innate 25% fire resistance, doing so will get you armor with a hefty 55% fire resistance on top of a 4 protection value. Wearing Fireproof red armor makes Revenants, Mancubi, and Arch-viles a hell of a lot less threatening, when you can be taking less than 5 points of damage from their fire attacks. No more will you have to fear suddenly losing more than half your health because you stepped into a Mancubus' sight. And if you don't have Dodgemaster nor are running a melee build, this armor will greatly nerf the threat of the Cyberdemon too, when this armor will bring its rocket that normally deal around 21 damage per hit down to 7-8 damage. This armor works tremendously well against the Lava elemental of course, and works just as effectively against John Carmack's rockets.

Don't ditch your other armors though once you get Fireproof red armor. One big drawback of it is that it has a -30% melee resistance, which means you will be taking about 2-4 more damage per melee hit, that will also lead to your fireproof armor taking more damage and weakening it for when you need it. Then it provides no additional protection against plasma, so Arachnotrons and other plasma-dealing enemies will still be hitting you and your armor decently hard. The bane of your fireproof armor though will be Barons of Hell, who will still be hitting you hard as this provides no acid resistance, while their acid projectile deals double damage to your armor; as little as two hits from them can bring your 100% Fireproof red armor to below 50% durability, causing its protection and resistance to drop to half value, considerably softening you up for the VMR. All this considered, you'll want to keep something for when you're going to be in melee or dealing with plasma enemies, and wear any spare armor you can when dealing with Barons, so you can keep your Fireproof armor as healthy as you can for the VMR.

Another perk of Fireproof armor is that it works just as well at protecting you during rocket jumping. With Fireproof red armor, you will be taking scratch damage from rocket jumps, and knockback calculation uses the damage taken before resistance and armor is applied, so you'll be able to fly around with barely any cost. It also works just as well at mitigating explosion damage from exploding barrels, napalm barrels, and your own rockets, so if you're forced to be near barrels or need to use a rocket launcher in close quarters, Fireproof armor is ideal for such scenarios.

Which armor to use as a base?

Red armor is the obvious choice as covered prior, and you're guaranteed one at Phobos Anomaly, while you're likely to have a bulk and technical mod to make it, ensuring you can have one before VMR show up and before the Cyberdemon. And Red armor isn't too uncommon to find otherwise, but lets look at the other options anyway.

Fireproof blue armor will result in an armor with 2 defense, 20% plasma resistance, and 30% fire resistance; this will give you something that provides decent defense against VMR, while also giving you some plasma resistance. However the plasma resistance isn't significant enough to make that much of a difference against plasma attacks compared to red armor, especially against Arachnotrons who will be your main plasma threat; and it wouldn't protect you more against fire attacks than normal red armor would, while with the lower defense, you'll probably take more melee damage wearing it than you would wearing nothing. If you somehow lost your red armor from the Anomaly and can't find a replacement, or are doing Angel of 100/666 and still haven't found a red armor when VMR start showing up, fireproofing a blue armor would still be acceptable as an emergency stopgap to have better protection against the VMR, but even then unless you have spare bulk and technical mods on hand, you might want to try holding out a couple more levels for a red armor before spending your mods on your blue armor.

Needless to say, green armor would be a waste, when you're going to have plenty of blue armor around to use.

For exotic armors, an Onyx armor will give you a 2 defense armor with 30% fire resistance that has infinite durability. Still not more effective than normal red armor, while having an even worse move speed penalty, and you would be a lot better off turning that Onyx armor into Cerberus armor. If your master trait blocks Whiz Kid though, you don't want to invest two levels into it, or you're not doing Angel of 100/666 and it's too late in the game to gather the mods needed for Cerberus armor, making a Fireproof Onyx armor if you got the mods to spare isn't a bad idea to ensure you will always have some sort of decent fire protection when your Fireproof red armor gets weared down.

Phaseshift armor will be just as effective as blue and Onyx armor for fire protection, meaning it too would be less effective than red armor. It does have some caveats though; unlike the other armors that give a stiff move speed penalty, it gives you a great +25% speed boost, and its +50% knockback boost will have your rocket jumps send you really flying. Plus it has an innate 30% melee resistance that will cancel out the -30% melee resistance fireproofing adds. So fireproofing Phaseshift armor would make a pretty good primary armor for moving around and exploring the map if you're not fortunate enough to have a nano mod to make it into one of the nano assemblies.

Gothic armor has no innate fire resistance, so fireproofing it will make it 30%, but it has a massive innate 7 defense. Protection wise this outstrips a regular red armor by a large margin, and fares comparatively to fireproof red armor against fire attacks that deal less than 13 damage and not being too far behind against stronger fire attacks, while providing quite a bit more protection against non-fire attacks and having an innate 50% melee resistance that will you leave you with an acceptable 20% melee resistance after fireproofing. It additionally comes with a natural 200% durability, so that along with its nearly doubled protection value over red armor will leave it a lot more resilient to Barons. It comes with two massive drawbacks though in its very severe -70% speed penalty and a -90% knockback penalty that will make your rocket jumps go nowhere. With such a severe movement penalty, you'll probably want to keep it for enclosed melee scenarios and not weaken that through fireproofing, while relying on Fireproof red armor for open firefights. Additionally, like the Onyx armor, using Gothic armor for Cerberus armor would work a lot better, as you would get great resistance against everything with that 200% durability, while getting a lot less severe speed and knockback penalty.

Duelist armor is another 2 protection armor with no innate fire resistance. It does have a 50% melee resistance, which means you wouldn't go negative with fireproofing, but to nerf that great melee resistance for fire protection that is subpar to a red armor's is questionable. Additionally with that big melee resistance, its speed bonus of +15%, and a -15% knockback resistance (which also means worse rocket jumps), it's an ideal armor for closing gaps into melee range. So it's probably better to just add a P and/or A mod to it to better compliment your Fireproof red armor that will do the fire protection a lot better.

Farther modding

Since Fireproof red armor is a basic assembly you'll want asap, it might not be advisable to put off making it before getting Whiz Kid 2 to put an extra mod on it. But if you get Whiz Kid 2 and aren't too late into the game or are doing Angel of 100/666, you should definitely make another Fireproof red armor that you can then add a mod to. For the available options:

An agility mod would be very beneficial for a Fireproof red armor, as it would turn that steep -20% speed penalty to a barely noticeable -5% penalty, solving one of two significant drawbacks of it. If you decide to make a Fireproof Gothic armor, an agility mod is an obvious choice, but with it turning that ridiculously steep -70% speed to a still really really bad -55%, it's questionable if trying to salvage its speed is a lost cause in lieu of jacking up its defense farther with a power mod.

A power mod is an alright choice to strengthen your fire protection even farther, but since Fireproof red armor already protects so well, you'll get more mileage out of improving its speed or durability than trying to take a couple less points of damage per hit. If you decide to fireproof a blue, Onyx, Phaseshift, or Duelist armor however, you should probably use a power mod on them to beef up their fire protection a bit farther while improving their ability to protect in general.

A bulk mod adds 100% maximum durability, so adding it to your Fireproof red armor really helps in keeping its protection up and mitigating the damage Barons do to it, but dropping the already steep speed penalty by 10% hurts. It depends on your build if you would rather have the much better durability or much better speed, but if you can afford the inventory slots and expenditure of mods, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have one Fireproof red armor you applied an A mod to while having another with a B mod, especially if you're playing on Ao100/666.

A technical mod would be completely counterproductive, when increasing your knockback resistance limits your rocket jumps' distance, and Fireproof armor is the armor you're going to want to be wearing when rocket jumping.

An onyx mod would give your armor infinite durability, ridding you of durability concerns while not costing you any more speed like a bulk mod does. So if you value your Fireproof armor more than the rest of the armor you have and it doesn't already have a mod, use the onyx mod on it. Alternatively though, you could use that onyx mod instead to make a Fireshield that will leave you nigh-invulnerable to fire attacks.

A nano mod would be great, also pretty much solving durability issues by giving you Fireproof armor that regenerates, but there are many other better ways you can put a nano mod to use. Just basic armor wise, you could make a Powered Red armor that is just about as effective at fire protection as Fireproof red armor, while providing one more point of protection against all attacks, adding a 25% melee resistance instead of weakness, eliminating the speed penalty altogether, and regenerating durability on top of that. So if you get a nano mod and want regenerating Fireproof armor, Powered red armor is a completely superior usage of that nano mod.

A final note

If you need to use an already damaged armor for assembling Fireproof armor, apply the bulk mod first. This will boost its durability to over 100%, which when you then add the technical mod to it to assemble, you will get a 100% healthy Fireproof armor. Omega Tyrant (talk) 09:59, 6 April 2017 (UTC)