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 for most builds 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 rockets 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, significantly softening you up for the VMR to finish you off. 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 very likely to have a bulk mod and technical mod by then to make it, ensuring you can have one before VMR show up and before the Cyberdemon. Red armor also 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 protection, 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, fireproofing a Green armor would be a waste of your mods, unless you're so strapped for armor that you don't even have a Blue armor available.

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 vanilla 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 Whizkid 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 worn down.

Phaseshift armor will be just as effective as Blue and Onyx armor for fire protection, meaning it too would be less effective at fire protection than vanilla 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, or aren't otherwise investing in Whizkid in order to load it up with mods.

Gothic armor has no innate fire resistance, so fireproofing it will make it 30%, but it has a massive innate 6 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 greater 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 so much better, as you would get great resistance against everything with that 200% durability intact, while turning it Cerberus additionally replaces the Gothic armor's abysmal movement and knockback penalties to a drastically less terrible -30% for each.

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 vanilla Red armor's would be a shame. 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 to get into melee range. So it might be better to just add a power mod and/or agility mod to it to better compliment a Fireproof Red armor that will do the fire protection a lot better, but it is still a good Fireproof option that's a lot better than many other options if you cannot get a Red armor and need fire protection ASAP; an armor that gives you decent fire resistance and makes you faster is something you would be hard-pressed to get otherwise.

Then there's the Energy-shielded vest. With its innate 50% fire resistance, fireproofing it will give you an armor with a whopping 80% fire resistance. Even with it having 1 point of protection, it'll reduce an Arch-vile blast down to a pitiful 3 damage, while it additionally has 50% plasma and acid resistance, so it'll protect well against Barons and plasma enemies. Best of all, it has no movement penalty nor knockback resistance either, so it won't slow you nor your rocket jumps down at all. However, you may be better off applying normal mods to it; with just a power mod, it'll still protect you well against the VMR, but protect you even better against Barons and plasma enemies, while leaving you a lot less vulnerable in melee. Plus you would still be able to apply an agility mod and bulk mod on top of that if you have Whizkid, when you would be limited to a single mod if you fireproofed it (and only if you did so after Whizkid 2, otherwise you can't mod it any farther at all). Then if you're lucky enough to also find a nano mod, you could make it into Nanofiber skin armor, or Cybernano armor if you're such a lucky bastard that you get an onyx mod too, which are both unquestionably the best usage of the vest. That said, if you are not investing in Whizkid, and want to maximize your protection against the VMR, fireproofing an Energy-shielded vest would give you the best fire protection possible outside of making a Fireshield, finding the Lava Armor, or being so lucky that you get the Inquisitor Set (which is Malek's Armor + Nyarlaptotep's Boots), though if you get an onyx mod alongside the vest in a run with no Whizkid, you should definitely just mod it with the onyx mod rather than fireproofing it.

The Bullet-proof vest, Medical armor, and Ballistic vest are the remaining possible armors you can Fireproof, but they're all bad options that are worse than fireproofing a Blue armor. Well the Ballistic vest's great 50% melee resistance does mean you will still have some melee resistance after fireproofing, and it has no movement penalty, but the Blue armor's small plasma resistance and extra point of protection would still probably do you better for an emergency Fireproof armor. Also if you are getting Whizkid 2, the Ballistic vest works far far better as a base for Cerberus armor, being one of the best bases for it (while Medical armor would also work a lot better as Cerberus armor if you don't have any of the good base armors for it).

Farther modding

Since Fireproof Red armor is a basic assembly you'll want asap, it is often not advisable to put off making it before getting Whizkid 2 just to put an extra mod on it. But if you get Whizkid 2 and aren't too late into the game, or are doing Angel of 100/666, you should definitely consider making 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, you might initially think 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 a strong choice to strengthen your fire protection even farther; it might sound pointless at first since Fireproof Red armor already protects so well, but at such low damage, those extra 2 points of reduced damage sees even more mileage in extending survival. For example, an Arch-vile's attack does 5 damage with Fireproof Red armor on, allowing a Scout/Technician with no Ironman to survive 10 hits and a Marine with no Ironman to survive 12, but after a power mod, it now deals 3 damage, allowing the Scout/Technician to survive 17 hits and the Marine to survive 20 hits, nearly doubling your armor's effectiveness against them, while it'll also reduce many hits from Revenants and Mancubi to 1 damage, increasing your effective survivability an incredible amount. Since you're reducing damage so much, it'll also extend your armor's durability too, while still increasing your general protection against other sources of damage. If you fireproofed a weaker armor, you won't see such a massive increase in survivability from a power mod, but it's still helpful 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 is an attractive option to let it do its job for much longer and ensuring eating a couple Baron balls won't suddenly push your armor below the crucial 50% durability threshold, but dropping the already steep speed penalty by 10% hurts, as well as sacrificing the aforementioned benefits gained by either an agility or power mod. The choice between applying either of the three mods will depend on what the current state of your run values most; an agility mod if you need to still move around well while wearing strong armor in case you do get hit, a power mod if reducing damage as much as possible would be most beneficial, or a bulk mod if you really need to insure your Fireproof armor lasts. If you can afford the inventory slots and expenditure of mods, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have multiple Fireproof Red armors applied with different mods, especially if you're playing on Ao100/666. For one more noteworthy use of a bulk mod, if you are carrying around a Fireproof armor with less than 50% durability and thus has its protections crippled, applying a bulk mod to it will add 100% durability and restore its protection, rejuvenating the armor in a pinch when no armor shards are around.

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. Absolutely do not waste your lone mod slot on Fireproof armor with a technical mod.

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 haven't gotten a particularly great exotic armor or Cerberus armor, and have an unmodded Fireproof armor available, it can make a good recipient of your precious onyx mod to ensure you have eternal protection against VMR that Barons can never take away from you. Alternatively though, you could use that onyx mod instead to make a Fireshield that will leave you nigh-invulnerable to fire attacks, though as covered in its strategy page, this will often be a worse idea than just using the onyx mod normally.

A nano mod would be great, also pretty much solving durability issues by giving you Fireproof armor that regenerates, but there are many 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 above any of the nano mod's other very powerful usages, Powered Red armor is a completely superior usage of that nano mod than applying it to Fireproof Red armor.

A final note

The order you apply the mods has no effect on the stats of the resulting assembly; even if your armor is damaged, it'll still have its full durability restored when made fireproof regardless of if you add the bulk mod first or second. Noting this caveat, you can take advantage of this assembly to restore the durability of a damaged armor that you already applied a bulk or technical mod to, or otherwise deliberately put off immediately fireproofing an armor until it gets damaged in order to restore it without the need of an armor shard (which could come clutch in Angel of Purity, where the powerup restriction normally means you can't restore an armor's durability). You should especially exploit this in Phobos Anomaly, where you'll likely get your first Red armor and already have the mods needed to fireproof it, but the only enemies on that level with fire attacks are lowly Imps (that also only appear on UV difficulty to boot), while it features two Bruiser brothers as bosses, whose acid attacks wreck armors as covered previously. With this in mind, immediately fireproofing the Red armor in Phobos Anomaly isn't helpful, so you're better off using the armor normally in this level, and then fireproofing it after to restore the beating it takes. Omega Tyrant (talk) 09:59, 6 April 2017 (UTC)