Introduction

The Cerberus is a new Legendary Creature will be added into the game during the upcoming summoning event. Generally speaking, any new Creature should be stronger than older/existing ones due to Powercreep (the slow increase of stronger Creatures over time) and Cerebrus is no exception. However, unlike Astral Watcher, he will not be as irreplaceable as Dark has many powerful competing Creatures for that slot. Furthermore, his awakenings, while powerful, are not as amazing until unlocking the final star (15 Greater Essences) and may often be better left unawoken due to the innate power of their base kit.

In addition to a review of Cerberus, this article will include an updated tier list for Offense and Defense along with his placement within them.

On an unrelated note, I encourage you to join my Discord server as it is filled with helpful and knowledgeable players while also giving you a chance to discuss all things related to Creature Quest.

Video commentary

–video coming soon—



Cerberus at a glance

Cerberus is a Legendary Creature that can come with 3-4 Combo Dots and is able to reach level 90 (or 105 with awakenings). Furthermore, they have 6 Red-Star awakenings that can provide powerful additional benefits; however, while the final awakening is incredibly powerful, the previous ones are poor-average and you may be better off leaving them unawoken (or only using Dupes) and saving your Greater Essences for someone else.

Why to not awaken

Unless you have 15 Greater Essences lying around to unlock the +40% chance for each head to strike again (potentially +360% PWR damage and +120% PWR heal), you are simply better off leaving them unawoken unless you have spare dupes or want to reach the level 105 stats.

Unlike most other Legendary Creatures, Cerberus has relatively weak awakenings leading up to +15 to maximum level. To unlock level 105, it takes 5 Greater Essences which is at least manageable for the average player, but you at least want to have meaningful awakenings along the way. Up to +30% PWR heal is reasonable as the first awakening, but not really needed provided you have a dedicated healer (it will not heal adjacent or other allies) and the 20% chance to counterattack is not really worthwhile. Perhaps in theory the chance to counterattack will provide some additional damage and chance to heal again, but compared to what the Giants/Astral Watcher can do, it feels flat by comparison.

As such, I recommend you do not invest Greater Essences unless they come out as a 4-dot and will be a staple Creature on all of your teams.

How to maximize Cerberus’s potential

Cerberus suffers from random target attacks which is problematic for multi-Creature floors, but is amazingly powerful against a single target as all 3 heads will be guaranteed to hit their intended target.

In fact, Cerberus has one of the highest PWR multipliers for their Special as you can achieve an incredible 360% PWR along with 40% PWR Burn and Poison. This totals 440% PWR damage, but unlike the amazingly powerful Phoenix burn, Cerberus can benefit from combo multipliers.

The Poison and Burn (DoT) components never receive any benefit from combo multipliers, but the 360% PWR can greatly amplified through proper combo dot usage. This leads to Cerberus to become one of the strongest nuking options available that has tremendous applications for PvE and PvP. Furthermore, outside of the final awakening, none of the others actually improve your damage output so he is great right out of the Box.

As such, Cerberus will act as your team’s nuking card as he provides no real utility/benefit to his allies. Thus, you should try and optimize their combo dots to provide as many unique colours as possible to ensure a higher multiplier.

On a final note, Burns and Poisons are able to add amazingly high amounts of damage, but tend to be more effective in PvE as you want to kill things in PvP before they have a chance to hit you.

Ranking Cerberus

These rankings assume fully awoken which may not be truly applicable for the average player. Just remember, that only his final awakening is truly ground breaking and functions almost as well without any investment.

Offense – A

Cerberus boasts average durability, a self heal, and potential for a large single target nuke. However, his damage is random in nature which diminishes his value on the earlier floors (which tend to be the scariest) as you cannot ensure you remove a specific threat. In addition, the self healing component is conditional on actually hitting a previously debuffed target so it can be inconsistent on non-boss floors. It is this inconsistency along with no utility to his allies that dampens his potential to break into the S-tier.

Furthermore, the dark nuking slot is occupied by the much tankier (and potentially harder hitting) Abomination, and significantly more consistent Vampire who can always heal more along with his allies.

With that sounding negative, Cerberus is still a powerful offensive Creature due to the amazingly high damage output that can be heavily multiplier through the final awakening. Furthermore, he can excel at solo-ing a boss due to the strong self healing component along with exceptionally high PWR multipliers. Amusingly, the counterattack component can be very powerful against a boss as you will be self healing and doing modest damage.

Dungeon Offense Tier List Criteria –

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S S-ranked Creatures compose the best of the best from a dungeon offense point of view. These Creatures tend to have an innate tankiness that helps them survive challenging Floor 1’s while offering valuable Special Abilities for your team. In addition, some may have self healing abilities that help enable them to solo dungeons or persevere when others have died. Furthermore, they tend to occupy the strongest colour slot to help ensure your team has a someone comboing for 16x. S-tier Creatures also tend to have very well defined roles on your team as they do not dabble in hybrid abilities. Finally, they are all Single-Target oriented so none of their damage is wasted. –

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A Creatures falling into A are still wonderful cards to own and they are sometimes only a small step down from S-tier. This is because they may simply not offer as much value overall, may be less durable or have a Creature of the same colour who is stronger overall (as you want to be rainbow for 16x). Furthermore, Electric Creatures tend to fall here as they will often die to 4-dot Draconic Templars on Floor 1. However, with that being said, they Creatures tend to have well defined roles that try not to become too much of a hybrid. –

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B B-tier Creatures may be have some wasted damage via AoE, random targets, or slightly more varied Specials that are approaching a hybrid status. While these types of Specials are still meaningful, they may require careful planning and execution to use efficiently. However, some of these cards may excel in one role, but they are lacking in every other department and are often vulnerable targets that may require extensive babysitting to survive. – –

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C Creatures in the C tier tend to be hybrid in nature which means they try to fulfill too many roles without excelling in anything in particular. These hybrid roles may extent to Mends (too slow for PvP), Buffs (LUK tends to be the best), Debuffs that are not applicable, or a melange of anything you can imagine. In addition, C characters may be heavily AoE-oriented which diminishes their potential for damaging a Boss or for sniping a dangerous target in non-Boss waves. –

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D The D-tier Creatures comprise the weakest Dungeon Offense cards as the do not successfully fulfill any required role. They are often AoE in nature while providing less desired secondary effects. Overall their abilities may be too slow for success in PvP as they may require multiple casts to activate an additional benefit.

Defense – C

Strong Dungeon defenders all feature the capacity to wipe out a full HP/Mana team if their crowd control fails to actually land. Furthermore, they also tend to possess either significant durability or simply have overwhelming damage output.

Unfortunately, Cerberus lacks all of those due to the random-target nature of their Special. Against a full 5 team, he will only be able to tickle 3 targets (highly unlikely to hit the same one 2+ times) which would result in no one actually being killed. Furthermore, there is no damage mitigation from debuffed targets and the self healing component only triggers against poisoned or burned enemies.

Cerberus stays out of D due to the fact that if there are Creatures missing, his potency greatly rises as he is more likely to self heal and kill off a single target.

Dungeon Defense Tier List Criteria –

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S These Creatures compromise the best Dungeon defenders in the current meta. They have the potential to wipe/solo your entire team even if everyone is alive due to their high damage/crowd control/sustain. They become even scarier when missing a team member and you become unable to actually kill them in your first swipe. In essence, they have the potential to completely turn the tides of battle in their favour. In addition, they may also have innate tankiness to survive longer and be able to cast additional Special Abilities –

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A Creatures that fall into A are still powerful defenders but lack the potential to wipe your team as easily compared to S-tier Creatures. They may struggle against a full roster of Creatures as they may not kill them quickly enough even if able to cast their Special Ability, but still have the potential to pull off a victory. However, they all possess a certain degree of tankiness and are a force to be reckoned with and you must be cautious when facing them with dead allies. –

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B B-tier Creatures are a noticeable step down from A and tend to only succeed when something has already died. This is because their damage is either too low to kill multiple Creatures, they are too squishy, or they are purely Single Target in nature. They may have a certain degree of sustain and be able to absorb large amounts of damage, but without a second Boss (this list assumes 3-wave), the Attacker will win the long grind as they do not have to have specials for a subsequent Boss floor. –

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C Creatures in the C tier tend to be somewhat lackluster as they often fail to kill something that they are not effective against. They may also be less durable or have random target Specials that further dilute their damage. With that being said, they may still pull off a victory is several members on the Attacker’s team are dead. –

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D The D-tier Creatures comprise the weakest Dungeon Defenders (outside of H-tier) as they are poorly designed for this role. They are often hybrid Creatures that help fulfill an off-healing role, provide supportive buffs, while having some damage output. In addition, other Creatures may be Area of Effect (AoE) in nature that prevents them from killing a single Creature, have random target specials that are only effective if one Creature is left alive, or are DoT in nature. Finally, these Creatures tend to be very flimsy and are often knocked over by a stiff breeze. –

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H The H-Tier represents pure healers who have no offensive capabilities. As such, they are the worst possible dungeon defender as they cannot kill anything outside of Basic Attacks. Due to the fact that I will be averaging all Creatures across Dungeon Defense, Dungeon Offense, and PvE, it would be unfair to negatively weight someone who is not designed for fighting.

Updated Tier Lists

Indicates a Creature has moved up that many tiers since the last posting.

Indicates a Creature has moved down that many tiers since the last posting.

Debut Tier Lists along with further explanation can be found for Offense and Defense through their respective links.

Lists all assume fully awoken and equal Combo Dots.

Dungeon Offense Tier List – July 21, 2017 –

S A –

B

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C

D

Changes

Baroness provides a massive Mend buffs to their allies which can be incredibly powerful when dealing with the current stun meta. Mend provides healing every time a Creature takes an action, but will still trigger even if stunned. Thus, it can provide the largest amount of healing when half your team is stunned and remains there unless dispelled. Unfortunately, Draconic Templars do dispel a buff with their attack so their usage can be limited. Ifrit has a stronger Mend amount, but requires an ATK buff to be present to trigger which is far too slow for PvP applications.

As such, Oculist is bumped up to B-tier due to her ability to provide continuous healing, even if she is dead. Just note that you receive the mend healing at the end of your turn/cycle for stunned Creatures.

Dungeon Defense Tier List – July 21, 2017 S A B C

D H

Conclusion

Cerberus is a powerful Legendary Creature who excels on the offense due to their potential to achieve amazingly high damage and healing potential against a single target that has no additional allies. However, it is this restriction that inhibits them from deceiving S-tier status as scattered damage will not be meaningful along with the healing component being tied to hitting a previously poisoned/burned target.

As a saving grace, most of Cerberus’s power is tied to his base kit so he does not actually need to receive heavy Greater Essence investment as only the final awakening provides additional damage. Thus, I feel that he can be left unawoken (outside of duplicate fusing) and can still function as a powerful nuking option on any team.

Let me know what you think about Cerberus and whether or not you feel he is worth pursuing.

Happy Questing!