Strategy:Red armor

0.9.9.5

Red Armor is probably the single most important item in the entire game. It's nearly impossible to get through the last third of the game without it. With Barons, Arachnotrons, Revenants, Mancubi, and Arch-viles all stalking you in those last levels, the 4 damage (or 8% health, on average) it saves per hit is the difference between life and death. Moreover, the built-in 25% fire resistance (best to be capitalized on) takes the bite out of the worst three enemies. When you add in mods, you have one of the most powerful and versatile items in the game.

So what's the downside? -20% speed isn't fun. And the enemies you could use it against the most, Barons, wreck it the most as well. Ultimately, Red Armor is still only packing 4 protection; against Barons which can deal 20 in one hit--and because it's acid damage, armor damage is doubled--it's not pretty. Barons can reduce its durability by up to 32% in a single hit--more, if it's below 50%. The lesson: Always carry spare armor.

Every mod goes well with this item. An agility mod brings it up to a cool -5% speed. Power mod brings it to 6 protection. Bulk gives an extra 100%--perfect against Barons--but you'll be moving slowww at -30% speed. Still, it may be your best option if you can't find any spare Reds. Technical mod is the only one that's average.

But assemblies is where this armor really shines. Don't want to worry about carrying spares? Nanofiber it. If you find a unique mod pack, even better--+8, nearly indestructible protection, anyone? Of course, the best assembly of all is one of the easiest--fireproof armor. This stacks onto the native 25% fire resistance to create a 4/4, 55% fire-resisting beast of a machine. Since the triple threat of Revenant, Mancubus, and Vile (not to mention the Cyberdemon) all use fire-based attacks, this is the best armor to have in the last third of the game. It's actually more effective than 6/6 armor! (i.e., regular power-modded red armor.) I've even heard rumors of a legendary "cerebus armor", but I'm afraid I haven't found the schematics for that one yet...

There's nothing better than red armor. Even exotics and uniques rarely beat its combination of high protection and fire resistance. It's flaws are easily negotiable as well. If speed is your issue, slap an agility mod on it. Against Barons, always carry a spare red. (Or two.) Even better, keep a dusty blue armor around for those fights...if it gets destroyed, who cares? With Red Armor, the Doomguy truly has a marine's best friend at his side. (Literally.) GrimmC 00:25, 7 January 2012 (CET)

0.9.9.6

Powered Red armor, Nanofiber armor, and many other assemblies have different stats and effects than before. Beware.

0.9.9.7

The above guide is solid but outdated and doesn't go in depth on how the assemblies work for the Red armor, so here is a more up-to-date guide.

At base, the Red armor is still the same as it is in prior versions. 4 protection and 25% fire resistance is solid on its own as covered prior, significantly nerfing weak-to-moderate hits and giving you adequate protection against strong fire hits from the VMR (for example, it'll reduce an Arch-Vile's zap from a crushing 20 damage down to a nearly manageable 11 damage). With just a power mod and agility mod, you can get yourself an armor with 6 protection, 25% fire resistance, and only a -5% movement penalty, which is better than what many exotic and unique armors have. Such an armor would make a decent recipient of an onyx mod if you don't got one of the better exotic or assembled armors available, it's hard to do better than an APO Red armor without getting lucky with finding one of the good exotic armors. Getting a -10% movement penalty tacked on for applying a bulk mod stings and so you probably don't want to apply it to your primary Red armor if you're not playing a build that relies heavily on tanking hits, but applying it to a spare Red armor if you haven't found an onyx mod is a good idea, as Red armor with 200% durability will last a long time and is nice to have when dealing with those dastardly armor-destroying Barons.

As for assemblies, Red armor can be used for a whopping nine of them, which will be covered now (with the required mods being in parentheses):

• Fireproof armor (BT) - This assembly adds 30% fire resistance, in exchange for -30% melee resistance. Fireproof Red armor is one of the staple assemblies of DoomRL, that most players will swear by making ASAP, as getting 4 protection armor with 55% fire resistance is huge for nerfing the ever imposing threat of the VMR; with it you will reduce the Arch-vile's zap from 20 damage all the way down to 5 damage, letting a Scout/Technician with base HP take up up to 10 hits before dying instead of just 3, while a Marine can take up to 12 hits. Having this armor is great assurance when fighting these enemies that can normally wipe out a third or more of your health in one hit, no more will you have to worry about a Mancubus suddenly killing you because you stepped into one's sight. It severely nerfs the Cyberdemon's rockets too, with them averaging 5 or less damage per hit, and rarely being able to deal more than 10 damage against this armor, very helpful for builds that don't have Dodgemaster nor are running Berserker. Not to mention it's also great for rocket jumping, reducing the self harm from rocket jumps down to 1-3 damage without any reduction in knockback. The cheap mod cost and a guaranteed Red armor at Phobos Anomaly coming right when VMR are about to start showing up on UV difficulty makes this an imperative assembly to build. The -30% melee resistance is an unfortunate downside, which will hurt if you get hit by stronger melee enemies like Barons, but considering how much more dangerous those fire attacks are, it's certainly a well-worth tradeoff for most builds. Melee builds are the primary ones who won't want to make this assembly; aside from the obvious reason that they will actively get in melee range of enemies, the +60% resistances from berserk and VMR being great triggers for Berserker means they'll suffice enough with normal modded Red armor, or in the case of Malicious Blades, that master gives them +50% fire resistance at all times as long as they got a blade in their prepared slot, so normal-modded Red armor is pretty much always better for them (either with berserk or Malicious Blades, a base Red armor will reduce an Arch-vile's zap to 1 damage).

• Ballistic armor (AT) - This is essentially the reverse of Fireproof armor, with this assembly adding 30% melee resistance to any armor (in addition to +30% bullet and shrapnel resistance) while subtracting -30% fire resistance. Given how much the importance of fire resistance was stressed just above, you can obviously figure this assembly is often not worth using on Red armor, and if you do desire a very strong melee armor (such as for trying to beat the Unholy Cathedral without having Brute investment, or when you're going to be taking a huge amount of melee damage throughout the game from going for something like the Strongman badges), the Duelist armor, Ballistic armor, or even the Medical armor would be better choices with their already built-in melee resistance this assembly will compound on. That said, if you cannot find any of those armors and do really need something better than a P-modded Red armor for melee, using Red armor for this assembly would do you better than the other standard armors, as that 4 protection will see substantial mileage on top of the resistance, and since it'll only go down to -5% fire resistance after the assembly, you won't get instantly vaporized if you get caught by the VMR in Ballistic Red armor.

• Nanofiber armor (BP) - This assembly gives any armor it's applied to infinite durability, in exchange for cutting its protection and all its resistance in half. Having infinite durability on your armor is very nice, but that's a very steep cost to pay that is usually not worth it; on Red armor you would get an armor with 2 protection and 12% fire resistance, a pitiful amount that will barely make a dent against surviving VMR attacks (it would reduce an Arch-vile zap from 20 damage down to 16, meaning you'll barely survive only one more hit from them than usual), while you'll still have that stiff -20% movement penalty. The main appeal of the assembly is insuring you'll always have a spare armor no matter what, regardless of how badly you get beaten up and how badly the RNG decides to deprive you of armor shards to repair your armor. Generally though, bulk mods on your spare armors should be enough to get you through when your frontline armor gets damaged, and if you're getting hit so much that even B-modded Red armors can't last, you should be reevaluating your tactics as you are probably going to die if you're taking that much damage in Nanofiber armor. If you haven't found an onyx mod though and really want infinite durability armor above all else, Red armor is one of the best bases for this assembly and better than the other standard armors. It should be stated this assembly is situationally a lot more useful in Angel of Purity, where the restriction on powerups makes you unable to restore your armor through armor shards and Megaspheres, or for any run where tanking an extreme amount of damage is unavoidable, such as again with runs for the aforementioned Strongman badges. Even in these cases, you should still hold off on Nanofibering your first Red armor until at least after Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab, where you'll have a good chance to get an onyx or nano mod that will completely obsolete the need for any Nanofiber armor.

• Fireshield (BTO) - An assembly that only the Red armor can be used for, which is an extreme take on the aforementioned Fireproof armor; in exchange for the same ingredients plus an Onyx mod, you'll get an armor with the same 4 protection and -20% movement speed as Red armor, but with 95% fire resistance. This armor will reduce every single fire attack in the game down to 1 damage no matter how strong it is, the only fire protection better than this is the complete fire immunity from the Inquisitor Set (which considering how rare just finding one of Malek's Armor or Nyarlaptotep's Boots is, let alone both together in anything other than in an Archangel of 666 run, the Fireshield will be the more realistically obtainable best defense against fire). This sounds like a no-brainer assembly, but with it requiring an onyx mod and not having infinite durability, there is a huge opportunity cost to it. Furthermore, this armor is a shield, which means it cannot be repaired without a Megasphere, that you might go an entire game without ever finding one of. With 200% durability it can last a while, especially if you are only taking VMR attacks in it that will only ever deal 1 damage, but if other enemies start hitting it, especially Barons, you'll find this armor you spent your onyx mod gone before you know it. You'll be better off just using the onyx mod normally on Red armor, or if you want strong fire protection that lasts forever, make a Fireproof Red armor after getting Whizkid 2 and then applying the onyx mod to it; it would require the same ingredients as the Fireshield and you'll already need Whizkid to make a Fireshield. You should only consider this assembly if you find an onyx mod late in the game after having exhausted the modding slots of your main armors and have no other good use for it, while being late in the game also means it'll much more likely last the rest of the way regardless of Megasphere luck.

• Tower shield (PO) - Another assembly that only the Red armor can be used for, which gets you an armor with a massive 12 protection, the highest protection value any armor can get outside of a P-modded Cybernano Cybernetic Armor (which only Technicians can even make), and the Berserker Armor when you're at low HP. It has a massive -50% movement penalty however, and -90% knockback, so you'll really struggle to move at all in this armor. It additionally has no resistances, and so it won't protect as well from strong hits as you would expect; the Arch-vile zap we been using as a benchmark throughout this will deal 8 damage to you in this armor, a big reduction from its 20 damage but still quite worse than what simple Fireproof Red armor achieves, and barely better than P-modded Red armor. Worst of all however, like the aforementioned Fireshield, this requires an onyx mod, and it is a shield, so it can't be repaired without Megaspheres. The 150% durability is decent, but this will not last long if you try to make any active use of this armor, especially when the slowness of the armor will force you to take hits you wouldn't have otherwise. Like with the Fireshield, only consider this assembly if you find an onyx mod late and have no good armor to use it on.

• Power armor (PN) - An assembly that can only be used by the standard armors, which includes Red armor. This assembly adds a point of protection, doubles the armor's base resistances, adds +25% melee resistance, removes the movement penalty altogether (in effect being +20% movement speed for Red armor), and has regenerating durability. Red armor is unequivocally the best base of the standard armors for this assembly, as you'll get 5 protection and a very valuable 50% fire resistance, on top of the other benefits mentioned. Powered Red armor effectively fuses the fire defense of Fireproof Red armor with the melee defense of Ballistic Red armor, while also completely addressing the Red armor's movement weakness; combined with the regenerating durability, this is very good armor that you can possibly subsist solely on for the entire game. The only drawback is the -25% knockback penalty, which will nerf rocket jumping, while this armor's great fire resistance and regenerating durability makes it ideal rocket jumping armor otherwise. However, this assembly does require a coveted nano mod, which will often be better used on Nanomanufacture ammo, Nano-shrapnel, or Antigrav boots; the former two assemblies allow you to create some gamebreaking weapons, while Antigrav boots give you some gamebreaking movement speed. As good as Powered Red armor is, it's not a game-changer in the ways those other nano assemblies are, and so often it's not advised to be your first or second or maybe not even your third choice to use a nano mod on. The main exception would be if you're playing a build that can't or isn't getting Whizkid, or is not getting Whizkid until late into the game; in the former case, a single nano mod on a weapon is likely not doing much except for maybe a Plasma rifle or BFG 9000, and in the latter case, you may not even survive long enough to get Whizkid to build those other nano assemblies (while there's also the argument of getting more immediate use from Powered Red armor for many floors rather than not getting anything from the nano mod but clogging inventory until those final few floors).

• Nanofiber skin armor (PPN) - An assembly that can be applied to any armor, which adds +25% resistance to all damage types on top of the armor's base resistances, in addition to regenerating durability and being indestructible, but you'll never be able to remove the armor for the rest of the run. Applying this assembly to Red armor will get you regenerating armor that protects nearly as well against fire attacks as Fireproof Red armor, while giving you some much needed resistance against Barons' acid balls and the hard-to-protect against plasma enemies. However, aside from what was said above about using a nano mod for armor, the caveat of not being able to ever remove this armor is a huge caveat; you'll be committed to this armor for the rest of this run, and if you're in a situation where it's not up to snuff, then you're screwed. As is, Nanofiber skin Red armor is certainly good armor, but not so much to be comfortable to be stuck with it; 25% resistance with 4 protection against acid and plasma attacks isn't all that much (Baron balls will still be averaging at least 5 damage and can do up to 11, Arachnotrons can still do more than 1 damage per plasma bolt with max damage rolls, which adds up quick with their rapid-fire volleys, and stronger plasma enemies are still hurting you), and you'll still have the Red armor's -20% movement speed. If you want to commit to this assembly, the Energy-shielded vest, Phaseshift armor, Cybernetic Armor (if you're a Technician), or even the Duelist armor are better, and if you don't have those, you would still be better off with Powered Red armor; it doesn't give you that bit of extra protection against acid and plasma, but it's much faster with no movement penalty, and you'll still have the option to remove it for other armor, such as one with actual good resistance against those acid and plasma enemies.

• Cybernano armor (PPNO) - An assembly that can be applied to any armor, which gives it +4 protection, in addition to infinite durability, but you'll never be able to remove the armor for the rest of the run. The +4 protection is big, double what you can get from a power mod, and you'll still have the option to add one more mod after, whether another power mod to go +6 on protection, or an agility mod to make you faster. This armor is similar to Nanofiber skin armor in the amount of extra defense you get (with Cybernano Red armor being slightly better against hits that deal less than 14 damage, while Nanofiber skin Red armor is slightly better against hits that deal more than 17 damage, and against plasma damage those values are instead 6 and 9 damage respectively), with the perk of infinite durability meaning you won't need to worry about a sudden big beating temporarily damaging your armor. However, it still has all the same problems; using a nano mod for armor is a big opportunity cost, this assembly is a huge commitment, and the Red armor is not an ideal base to be hitching your entire run on this assembly with. Additionally, the Powered Red armor is still better if you want to use your nano mod on armor and you haven't found a better exotic armor to use as a base, as the effective +20% movement speed, protecting better against fire attacks, and the ability to swap it out for other armor is better than 3 more protection points (not to mention that you would then be free to use the onyx mod elsewhere if you actually managed to get both it and a nano mod in the same run).

• Cerberus armor (PPTA) - An assembly that can be applied to any armor, which regardless of what base you use, results in an armor with 0 protection, -30% movement speed, and -30% knockback, but has an astounding 70% resistance to fire and acid attacks, a great 50% resistance against plasma attacks, and will inherent its physical resistances and durability from the base armor. Now Cerberus armor is very good, with the right assembly base you can potentially get yourself an armor with 50% resistance or more against every damage type in the game, but Red armor is among the worst bases for it; with Red armor having no resistance against any physical damage, using it will net you a baseline Cerberus armor that will leave you effectively naked in melee and against formers, while it has no durability perks like the Onyx armor netting you infinite durability Cerberus armor without the need for an onyx mod. Even Green armor would be a better base, as it does have something extra to give the Cerberus armor at least with its meager 15% resistance to bullet and shrapnel. You should hold off on assembling Cerberus armor until you get one of the good exotic armors for it, but baseline Cerberus armor is still pretty good (protecting you nearly as well against fire attacks as Fireproof Red armor, while protecting you much better against Barons and plasma enemies), and so if you cannot find any of the good exotic armors for it, using a Red armor for the base will still be acceptable.

Overall, the Red armor tends to be a good choice for the basic armor assemblies, particularly Fireproof Red armor, but for the more intricate assemblies it can be used for, it's either usually not worth it or clearly outclassed by other armors, or in the case of Power armor, it is great but the opportunity cost is usually too high to recommend it. And on its own the Red armor is far from the best armor, there are exotic and unique armors with a lot more potential than it, but it's certainly the most reliable armor when those better armors require luck to find. Omega Tyrant (talk) 23:32, 11 August 2023 (UTC)