Video Guides (High Definition)

Part 1 (Hell Mode) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF7nnzIY6ws

Part 2 (Hell Mode) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYsL_ayd0ws

Part 1 (Abyss): http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=NDzGG-khyRg&

Part 2 (Abyss): http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&src_vid=sRUpzxyL1dY&

This guide will serve to explain all the skills that you need to look out for while dealing with Cerberus Nest in Hell Mode.

General Knowledge

Difference between Hell Mode and Normal mode is that the boss simply hits much harder with his skills. They are more or less unforgiving, meaning that if you get hit by any of his hard hitting skills, you will probably die from it. There are also extra mechanics for most of the stage bosses that you need to watch out for, which will be explained further below

Area 1 – Minotaur Brothers (White and Black)

The fight to this boss is pretty simple. The only dangerous thing you need to watch out for is getting repeatedly knocked down and thrown upwards but the attacks of both Minotaurs.

The only difference between hell mode and normal mode for this area is that a bunch of Orc Infantries will spawn. Even in a decent geared party, I’ve not managed to kill the 2 minotaurs before they spawn so I’m not sure if you can beat the timing XD

I’ll explain the skills of reach minotaur so that you know what to avoid.

White Minotaur

Stomp – Slows down movement and cast time of all attacks; you definitely want to avoid this. Simple time your tumble/dodge just before the stomp to avoid getting hit at all.

Alternatively you can use a skill that can break the super armor of the minotaur (not advised if the boss has the buff on)

Frontal Roar – This is just a irritating skill that knocks you backwards and deal moderate damage, avoid this by simply tumbling/dodging to either sides

Red Buff/Aura – At 2x HP Bars and less, The white Minotaur will begin casting this buff. It will increase movement & attack speed of allies near him. Once this buff is up, either hit & run, or kill him ASAP.

Black Minotaur

Front Shove -He will nudge you with the handle of his axe, disrupts cast time, usually used when he runs towards you and stop.

Normal Cleave Attack - The same old skill used by minotaur brothers in Minotaur nest. Dodge to the RIGHT not left of the boss to avoid getting hit.

Black Hole Cleave Attack - Only used when the black minotaur is less than 2hp bars, it will suck you closer to the minotaur like the Force User’s blackhole, time your dodge or disrupt super armor to prevent him from using it.

Both minotaurs use the usual charge that will cause them to run in a crazy frenzy. Avoid this at all cost especially if you’re in a corner. If you don’t you might just get infinitely juggled to death

Strategy

As much as possible, kill the White Minotaur ASAP, this will prevent the red buff from being up which will decrease the potential damage from the Black Minotaur greatly since he won’t be able to attack fast and run around like crazy. Obviously if you can kill both at the same time, then go ahead.

For those with lesser DPS like myself, focus on the White Minotaur First until the 2 HP mark, kill irritating Orc Infantries with your other skills, then get back to the White Minotaur once your hard hitting skills cooldowns are back up.

This is the 2nd easiest Mini Boss fight before cerberus.

Area 2 – Dark Element Armoured Sword Master

This Mini Boss is the easiest among all of the mini bosses leading up to Cerberus.

The only difference between hell mode and normal one is the additonal 2 Artillery Guns on the left and right cliffs which will constantly bombard you until you clear everything in the area.

However some key points to take note below:

Be Constantly Moving - To prevent yourself from getting hit by the artillery bombardment.

Use it to your advantage to land the bombs on either mob’s or the boss to keep them knocked down

Clear the all monsters first - Clear all the other monsters in the area before engaging the boss because there are the bigger bombers who throw many bombs/fragments at you that will disrupt your cast time. You already have artillery bombardments on you, so you don’t want more on you during the boss fight.

Clearing the monsters first also helps to ensure that the artillery stops immediately after you kill the boss, because everything must be killed to prevent them from bombarding you.

Don’t lose more than 20% HP here because the next area is going to suck.

Area 3 – Summoner

This fight is especially bad for melee characters i.e arcobats, swordmasters and mercenary.

This is due to the various mobs and skills the summoner casts during the fight. I’ll start with the mobs first.

Before spawning the stage boss, you will need to clear all the skeletons that spawn when you walk close enough to the boss. There aer a total of 4 white skeletons (2 on each side) as well as 4 black armoured ones. Avoid getting hit by the white ones because their attacks have lightning attribute which will leave you in a “shock” state which meant that you will flinch every 5 seconds.

The stage boss will spawn after you have cleared all the skeletons and this is where it gets rough.

Monsters to take note off :

Suicide Bombers (Red Ghouls)

Freezing Ghouls (Blue Ghouls)

These abovementioned mobs are the ones that will cause the most trouble for you due to their abilities. Suicide Bombers will swarm towards you and they explode overtime, which will knock you upwards, dealin significant damage.

The blue ghouls will freeze you and coupled with the suicide bombers you know you’re in deep trouble.

Most importantly, if you get repeatedly frozen and bombed, you might just die @_@ which is why if you watched my video, you will realized that I’ll always ensure that i’m always moving.

This is where the hit&run tactic comes in. Always make sure that you have AOE skill ready before engaging the main boss, this is to clear away all these ghouls so that they will not hamper your chances of damaging the boss.

Skills to take note of (Summoner):

Time Stop - There’s a huge aoe ritual like symbol on the floor, avoid it at all cost, if not you will not be able to do anything for at least 5 seconds or more, coupled with what is mentioned above, this is definitely a skill you do not want to be hit by.

AOE Slow – Similarly avoid this if possible, it is a mini “blackhole” with a aoe radius on the ground that will slow your movement and attacks if you’re caught within it, avoid it as well reasons similar to above.

The summoner also cast some painful single target skills similar to shamans in other dungeons just make sure that you are always moving when tackling this boss.

Use your hardest hitting skills while hes vulnerable at the start of the his first spawn, then keep running until your cooldowns are up, rinse repeat this boss should be fine.

Note that he only casts blackhole when hes 2HP Bars and lower, so if your first barrage of skills bring him to that level of HP, start to watch out for the casting of it and stay out of the AOE range!

Area 4 – Time Sink Stage (Monster clearing Stage)

This stage is merely a time sink and basically a place to catch the complacent unnoticed. Basically, the only hinderance in this stage is the Orc Commanders and Orc Shamans who spawn much more compared to the Normal Mode of Cerberus. They will cause you to spend more time to clear the monsters if you don’t clear them out first.

My strategy to clearing this stage can be seen from my video guide where I tackle the portal with the little ranger dudes and then focus down the first batch of orc commanders and shamans that spawn.

The rest of the fight simply group the monsters up, always be constantly moving, use ur hardest hitting skills and while they are knockdown or damaged, focus down the commanders and shamans that are on the brink of death.

Rinse repeat this and this stage should be more of a “i like to see big numbers” stage XD

Area 5 – Rhino Brothers (Slave & Commander)

Difference between normal and hell mode is that the time interval to kill both brothers is within 5 seconds of the death of the first. Normal mode has a 10 second leeway. This meant that it is mandatory to kill the rhino brothers at the same time as much as possible.

Also the rhino brothers both have a AOE Heal skill which can heal both of them which makes this fight even more tricky if you didn’t dps them correctly.

To recongise who is who in this fight, the rhino with the caged mouth gear is the commander while the one without is the slave.

If you have attempted this before, you will realize that people will have more difficulty dpsing the commander than the slave, my guess is the defence of the commander is higher compared to the slave, this is very important because you will want to use more skills on the commander then!

If you watched my video guide, I will use MLS as a way to close the gap between their HP and always use your hardest hitting skills on both of them as much as possible (I’ve failed to do that but I remedy the situation by focusing the one with more HP to meet the one which has leser)

Also note that both bosses cast the AOE heal in fixed time intervals which is why they usually cast it one after another. To make sure they do so, you need to “Get the attention” of both rhinos once they are spawned if not this timer won’t seem to activate and you have them healing at different and separate intervals, which is not good especially if on the brink of death, one of them cast heal and you will not be able to meet the 5 seconds interval.

I strongly recommend you to save your hardest hitting skills to finish both of them at the same time as this is the safest way to ensure both of them die within 5 seconds of the first being dead, to avoid a respawn of any of them.

We will now move on to talk about skills from Cerberus starting with the 3 most damaging skill

Cerberus- Hell Mode

“Firewall”

This is probably a 1-Hit KO skill if you fail to get away. Unless you have like +10 lvl 32 Rares or better, you will probably not survive it if you get hit by it.

To avoid it, simply recognize the “animation” or “stance” when Cerberus is casting it.

There is a similar animation where Cerberus burns with a red aura but end up simply doing a skill similar to the EL’s hot rod skill (Where a trail of fire is left behind after Cerberus runs to a location)

So how to tell the difference? Simply look at the rightmost head.

The rightmost head will bend down whenever “Firewall” is about to be cast, this is in addition to the burning aura that the boss will have while charging.

Take a look at the screen shots below.

You only have a maximum of 3 seconds to get away from Cerberus once you see him charging, the further away you are from him, the lesser number of hits you will get hit by it as it acts exactly as the Elemental Lord’s Firewall

the closer you are, the more hits you get, the more damage you will receive

Moving on to “Blizzard”

This skill will also probably end up damaging you heavily or kill you if you simply fail to avoid getting hit by it.

Similar to firewall, simply recognize the “animation” when Cerberus is casting it.

To avoid the skill simply keep moving, and more importantly DO NOT STACK on your team mates if you’re doing in a group. These icy shards that blast out from Cerberus basically follows your last location, so by simply moving you can avoid them, however if your friend is ahead of you and you’re following his “last location”, you’re going to find yourself getting caught by those shards and die.

Simply spread away from your team mates during this skill.

Once again screenshots below.

Last but not least, “AOE Lightning”

This skill is basically a damaging + irritating skill (1k++ Dmg per zap). When getting hit by it, you have a high chance of getting the shock debuffs (every 5 seconds you will flinch, cancelling your skill if you’re casting).

There are only 2 safe zones when Cerberus cast it.

<!–[if !supportLists]–>1)      <!–[endif]–>Out-of-range

<!–[if !supportLists]–>2)      <!–[endif]–>Anywhere close to Cerberus

This is a easy skill to look out for as Cerberus will stand on his hind legs while leaning upwards, followed by a 2-paw pounce to the front. After which, the whole area will turn pitch black and lightning will zap in an AOE fashion.

Simply run towards Cerberus (if you’re melee) or get out of range if you’re dpsing from afar.

You have to do this quickly if not you have a high chance of getting hit at least once.

Screenshots below once again.

I’ll now write about the other general  skills that Cerberus can use in hellmode. They do still hurt but is more forgiving, meaning if you get hit once or twice, you will probably lose only 10-20% of your HP.

“2-Hit Combo Paw Strike”

Basically Cerberus will use his paws to strike someone in front of him. If you forgot to dodge the first hit, DO NOT roll back to the opposite side, he will strike from the opposite side next.

i.e Left paw strike will always lead on to a right paw strike. So roll back to the direction you were first hit.

“Glacial Spike & Chilling Mist”

Cerberus will fire out 1 or 2 glacial spikes that are homing towards their targets. They will attempt to close in on you but will disappear after moving a certain distance. They also can’t turn 360% behind, so you can dodge them if you time it well. Just keep moving away from the spike until it disappears.

Do not get frozen by it near the boss as usually the boss might follow through with firewall, which means you will be dead @_@

For chilling mist, it will have similar blue aura before using it but it will basically cast the EL’s version of it in a frontal cone pattern. Its range is not far so you can either stay out of range or stay by the side of Cerberus to avoid getting hit

“Dark Lightning Bolt”

The hell mode version summons an additional 4 blueish electrified orbs around the boss, see the screenshots below!

The centre head of Cerberus will channel a lightning mode straight ahead, getting hit will give you the same 15 seconds shock debuff that you can get from AOE Lightning as well as a poison effect as it the path of the bolt leaves a trail of poison on the ground. You should have no problem dodging this if you are always moving during the fight or staying by the side of the boss

The triple orbs work the same way as Force User’s one so don’t go too close or you will get hit multiple times, can do quite abit of damage. This triple orb skill only occurs in hellmode as far as I know.

“Balls of Fire”

This skill also comes from the rightmost head where Cerberus will fire off many fireballs off this head in a sweep like manner.

See screenshot below for better visual purposes.

This fireballs will knock you off the ground if you get hit and deal quite decent amounts of damage as well. Similarly, stay on the side of the boss to avoid getting hit at all.

“Fire Trail & Air Pounce”

Fire trail is only in hell mode, which basically means that Cerberus will leave a blaze of burning ground after it has used the skill where he will run/charge to a certain location.

For Air pounce, Cerberus will cringe his body inwards without any aura animation, like gearing for a leap. Usually this happens when one of the ranged dpsers has aggro and the boss wants to close in on them.

Both abovementioned skills are easily avoidable which should pose little or no problems for you guys.

“AOE Roar“

Cerberus basically cringes up once again but this time roars in a 180 degree in front of him, meaning if you’re just by the side, you can still be hit. The damage is negligible though so no need to worry too much about it.

After understanding all the various skills Cerberus can do in hell mode.

Basically just find the opening in between the skills he use to deal damage to him.

When he cast “balls of fire” you have alot of time to use any “long casting skills” on him. Always let Cerberus have the initiative because you do not want to be caught by his skills while you’re casting halfway.

Basically,

Wait for Cerberus to cast XXX skill, react accordingly, deal damage, rinse repeat.

Last but not least, most of his skills do not directly hit you if you are on the side of the boss hence I would say that the side of Cerberus is the safest to be at.

Good luck and have fun hunting this boss at 32 CAP (:

P.S Do leave in the comments section below any questions you may have as well. I’ll answer them whenever I can.