Problems with Black cerberus boss fight

[chopper [FD]]

I may have messed up my game after 20 hours of play. Can't get past the Black Cerberus boss.

I didn't have much problem with the game up to this point. Problem is this boss kills me in one-two hits if I make just a single dodge mistake. The first hit stuns me, and the unavaoidable second is a kill. Most of the time it's the stun wave that he follows with a heavy hit. Dead.


My stats:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1420627816

[Dave_Jame]

Wow.. that is some underleveled equipement..
One thing I would suggest is to get your gear up to date.
You have armor even on MK1!
Keeping the gear up to date does a lot in this game if this is your first run.

Few tips.
You can get your self gear up to MK 4 (even Mk 5 weapon if you have the nano cores)
There are 2 enemies at this point who drop MK 4 gear. First is the Bloody Proteus mini boss, you fought him in RnD (he droped the weapon you have on you), he respawns. Then there is one Cerberus Guard, he is in the room with the big door pass the bridge which lead to Big sister (central production B area),
Also, is that the basic Exo suite? in the same room as the Cerberus guard there is an upgraded version which gives you more implant slots. Its in a glassed showcase, you need to break it.
Do you have a problem with the Paxes n this fight? There is a trick to get rid of them after the first one.

[Dave_Jame]

Also.. simple strategy.. Circle strafe, keep distance, when he finishes his combo Dash attack.

[chopper [FD]]

Yeah. I feared it was a matter of grinding better gear. The Lynx is the only full set I have, with a lvl 2 exo suit. Upgrade materials are also hard to come by so that's the best gear level I can have now. The PAX robots are fine, fairly easy to dodge.

I don't know. Griding gear is not very appealing now, just to see the end game.

[Dave_Jame]

Materials are rather easy to get.. Just cut off an armored body part.. you get 3 units of the respected material in the level of the armor set the enemy wares.
Also, you do not need to go Mk1-2-3-4... You can skip a level or two, just chose the MK in the upgrade menu. Read the hints at the bottom.
Lynx is a usable gear set. Gorgona is also recomended., If you have the DLC Walk in the park, Mantis is good too.

[chopper [FD]]

Are there any console cheats to unlock more upgrade materials?
I've been cutting armor parts off all along, with the finishing move, but I rarely get armor drops. I actually have lots of lvl 2 parts, but few lvl3 and 4.

[Dave_Jame]

The MK is limited to the types of enemies. MK 3 are droped by Hazard takers, Proteus and Gorgonas, Mk 4 by Bloody proteus, Cerberos and Chrisalis enemies.
At your point you should easylly get mk3 material from the 3 guards before the Black cerberus boss fight and where to get MK4 i wrote a above, As I do not use cheats I sadly cant help you with that.
Also to get materials you need to focuse your attack on the part you want to cut off, otherwise the finnisher will not give the materials, some paterns do not hit of focused on some body parts.

[chopper [FD]]

Thanks Dave. I'm confused now about mk materials. Are you supposed to cut off non-blue body parts. Because I killed the guard before black cerberus about 20 times each with finishing move and haven't got a single mk drop. Just salvage material.

[Dave_Jame]

Yes.. The idea behind the limb system is that the blue ones are unarmored and therefore you do more dmg to them = It is easier to kill the enemy.
The yellow parts are the armored ones, you do less dmg to them but if you hit them enought and use a finisher then they 100% drop the piece of armor they had on them. Those give 3 materials for that body part and the blueprint for that armor piece if you did not have it.
So if you need 12 units of arm material for each of your arms, you need to cut off 2x4 armored arms with the same Mk.
Each human enemy that has armor gives materials related to that armor (you can find more info on the wiki)

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Originally posted by chopper FD:

Yeah. I feared it was a matter of grinding better gear. The Lynx is the only full set I have, with a lvl 2 exo suit. Upgrade materials are also hard to come by so that's the best gear level I can have now. The PAX robots are fine, fairly easy to dodge.

I don't know. Griding gear is not very appealing now, just to see the end game.

The Lynx suit is actually fine for beating the game if you like Operator gear (I'd say Eagle is slighly better for boss fights but that requires the DLC so you may not have access to it). But as Dave said you should upgrade it to Mk3 prior to fighting the Boss (I'd upgrade your weapon to Mk4 but grindng out the drops for Mk4 armor isn't really worth it before fighting BC).

Additionally, I don't know what your implant selection is but your Health sseems kind of low. For Boss fights I tend to go heavy on Health and Healing implants (the charge-based ones, the one that uses energy is not worth it for most boss fights).

[chopper [FD]]

Thanks all for your help. I played 20 hours without knowing about the armor salvage on executing yellow body parts. I went through the first 4 game maps with just the started armor mostly.

But now I've upgraded Lynx to lvl 3 and it was much better in the fight with the Black Cerberus.

The first time he killed me just before executing him with E (it glitched or something)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1421766587

The second time I came back and beat him on his first return after Pax. Took him down from 90% to 10% with melee robot knockdowns and quick hits between his swings.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1421766621
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1421766638
I took the helmet and a weapon from him.

Going forward, should I go with Crysalid gear if I want to stay Operator class?

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Originally posted by chopper FD:

Going forward, should I go with Crysalid gear if I want to stay Operator class?

Crysalid is good for general fighting since the heal on kill helps keep your health up (about 15% heal I believe). If you combine it with Agression Amplifier implant you get a nice chunk of health on an execute move so it can be a good combo. Downside is it's not great for boss fights since the ability is useless there.

If you're planning to do NG+ with the character I'd definitely recommend getting a set of Crysalid armor since it's really good for clearing the early levels in NG+ so you'll get a lot of use out of it. If not then it's a tossup, Lynx is probably still a better option for the final boss so you may not want to spend the time grinding a second set of armor.