Skills
Spirit Of Death
Type: Passive
Healing Steal: 50% of the enemy healing
Healing Reduction: 20% of the enemy healing
Cerberus reduces the healing of all enemies nearby and also steal part of the healing to him.
details
Support and Solo: Useful passive that increases your early pressure. You control the enemy healing and take part of it to you, letting you be more aggressive. If you face a healer, you will be well served with his/her healing if they stay in combat near to you or will force them retreat and play safe.
This skill applies to any kind of healing including
Healing Potions, bracer of undoing, self-healing skills as
Power Cleave, group healing skills as
Inspire and with this, you steal the healing of each enemy in the range. Applies to minions if they are healed too. Does not apply to the Titan or Fountain healing.
Obs.: This skill have a range of 40 units.
Paralyzing Spit
Type: Projectile
Projectile damage: 50/80/110/140/170
(+20% of your magical power)
(and -20% damage per projectile if hit more than 1)
Total damage: 140/224/308/392/476
(+56% of your magical power)
(with all 4 projectiles hit)
Stun Duration: 1/1.2/1.4/1.6/1.8s
Cerberus fire a projectile from his
Snaaaaake. If his heads are on alert, they will also fire and additional projectile. If you hit all 4 projectiles, the enemy will also be stunned.
details
Support: A good ability that provides a wave clear boost to your ADC and also a decent damage and stun for early game pressure. You may have to practice a little to learn how to hit all his projectile well (due the range and projectile velocity). It will be your second priority.
Solo: Your main clear wave damage. Provides an insane damage and will be your 1st priority, capable to clear the entire wave easily. Also the big stun time on early game will help you a lot putting early pressure.
I strongly recommend that you put all Cerberus heads in alert before firing this to get the stun and the high damage. You can put the heads on alert hitting a basic attack with each head or firing specific of Cerberus' skills.
Obs.: This skill have a range of 50 units.
Ghastly Breath
Type: Cone
Damage per Tick: 20/30/40/50/60
(+12.5% of your magical power)
Total damage: 140/210/280/350/420
(+87.5% of your magical power)
Slow Per Tick: 8/9/10/11/12%
Protection Reduction: 5/9/12/15/18
Cerberus launches a noxious breath reducing protections and causing damage 7 times in 2.4 secs. Enemies in the center of this skill are also slowed. This skill puts all three of Cerberus' heads on Alert for
Paralyzing Spit.
details
Support and Solo: Useful skill that increases your early pressure. Provides a good damage allied with a good protection debuff and a slow, making a lot of pressure early game. Remember that you have to hit the center of your skill to apply the slow, and it stacks only 3 three times but the timer is reseted for every tick you hit after the 3rd.
If support, this will be your priority. If solo this is will also be your priority.
Why you recommended upgrade it as first skill on solo? Well, because although most part of solo laners can interrupt it because they have a silence/stun/knockback or knockup the damage allied with the protection reduction is too good to not upgrade it. If you got a solo that interrupts you, try to force the interruption skill first then you use this.
Obs.: This skill debuffs stack up to 3 times.
Max slow: 24/27/30/33/36%
Max Prot reduction: 15/27/36/45/54. (Yeah, you didn't read it wrong, 54 f*cking protection reduction.)
Soul Expulsion
Type: Area
Damage: 60/100/140/180/220
(+60% of your Magical Power)
Heal Per Minion: 15/25/35/45/55
(+25% of your Magical Power)
Heal Per God: 40/65/90/115/140
(+25% of your Magical Power)
Cerberus leaps a short distance forward, dealing damage on impact and severing the souls of Enemies. These souls will not block Cerberus's attacks, and killing the souls heals Cerberus.
details
Support and Solo: Useful skill that gives you some minor sustain. You can jump in the lane and/or enemy god to get some souls and heal yourself but be careful, this jump is your only escape and yes, I know it isn't anything that really helps you escape but, better than nothing.
Stygian Torment
Type: Area
Damage: 160/230/300/370/440
(+55% of your Magical Power)
Cerberus throw all enemies around him into the air for a short time and right after this, the bodies are thrown at
Cerberus aim. This skill puts all three of Cerberus' heads on Alert for
Paralyzing Spit.
details
Support and Solo: Useful skill to bring an enemy back to you/throw him where you want. The damage is ok too, not strong but also not weak. Also you can use to stop enemies running from you, make easier targets to your teammates and of course to force a
Purification Beads (if you have cooldown reduction on your build). Remember that: Cerberus is CC immune while casting this (you will see him yellow) and right after throw the enemies into the air he is immune just to knockbacks/knockups. You can fire
Ghastly Breath while you still casting this. Be careful your movement is penalized while casting this and the area is not soo big (just 35 unities from you). Enemies immune to knockback and knockup WILL BE COMPLETELY IMMUNE TO YOUR ULTI WITHOUT USE BEADS/ANYTHING ELSE, BE CAREFUL!!!.
Skills Combos
Wave Clear (For Solo Only)/Poking your enemy
The combo to clear the minions wave. Usually more than enough to clear the wave and it also provides an Insta clear at end of early/mid game until the late game. Can also be used to poke your enemy. First you reduce the protections with
Ghastly Breath and put all heads ready for the next step, then you apply the (true) damage from
Paralyzing Spit.
Do not use this combo for wave clear as support or you will do the last hit on minions and wouldn't be able to stack your blessing/will make your ADC suffer.
Wave Boost (Support)
This is what you will use to help your ADC clear the wave. This is usually more than enough. If you can, try to hit the wave and your enemy with this skill.
Peel to Kill (Surprise)
This is what you will use to prepare an enemy to die. This combo will bring the enemy to the position you've marked, remove his magical protections and stun it up to 2 secs (If you hit everything) and due the blink, enemies usually don't have coordination/time to avoid it putting them in a situation "Or you use
Purification Beads or you die"
Peel to Kill (Normal)
This is what you will use to prepare an enemy to die. This combo will bring the enemy to the position you've marked, remove his magical protections and stun it up to 2 secs (If you hit everything). This can put the enemy in a situation "Or you use
Purification Beads or you die" but they will see you coming so I recommend you use this if you somehow get the enemy distracted or if they already used their escape or beads.
Killing an enemy (alone, recommended for solo)
You will have to poke your enemy and when he is low life, you go and cast this combo to get a kill.
Take a look at the end builds of the enemy team, find out how much your team has built various types of pen, and what the enemy has built defense-wise. Do the squishies have some of their own protections (e.g. Mantle of Discord)? Do the tanks have protection auras or abilities that provide prots (e.g. Ares)?
If any of the above are yes, then Stone of Binding's protection reduction may have limited effect on your team's damage potential.
Some mitigation change examples at various protection levels, based on some established values at level 20:
Base 48 prot * 0.8 (Ob Shard) = 38.4
38.4 - 20 (flat pen from Divine + Magus) = 18.4
18.4 - 10 (Binding passive) = 8.4 magical prot
18.4 = 15.54% mitigated. 8.4 = 7.75% mitigated. ~7.75% damage increase (roughly equivalent to Magus passive)
If most of the enemy team is building full glass cannon, Binding is a fairly strong keeper.
As Mysterionz asked, for me at least it's less about SoB's relevancy late game and that the boots relevancy just isn't as great.
I would personally always replace shoes before Binding.
Paralyzing Spit features:
In teamfight modes, any of your teammates will gain increased damage due to your protection shred. Even if you can be interrupted, you can usually get at least a couple of ticks off before they react. And of course, you'd also want to try to play around that, and use Ghastly when you see those abilities being used so you can get full effect.
Your other option is to prioritize Ghastly early, but stop before max level and switch over to Spit and max that before finishing Ghastly. This might actually be good early, as getting say 3 points into Ghastly and getting all stacks on a squishy god would probably get you (and teammates) close to true damage.
Overall, I'd say it's okay either way.
As a lone percent pen item (or simply just damage), Reaver > Charon's Coin, against both tanks and squishies.
When you're considering building an average power, high-ish percent pen item like Charon's Coin on a tank, you need to seriously re-evaluate how you build.
Not to mention, you don't build full power on Cerberus, which would get more use out of Charon's against tanks. Still, the passive from Reaver + extra power combined will outclass the extra 10% pen from Charon's. Charon's (or Shard) is more of a complement to typically go alongside Reaver (in a Burst Mage build).
No particular reason, I just wanted to say it. ;)
I have mostly been doing pretty well with Cerebus in arena(only place i play) and i can't remember whose it was, but I modified from a conquest guide that had Tyrannical Plate Helm as core and I have had mostly positive result using that item in my builds. stats for smite is currently under maintenance so I can't show exactly how i've been doing and smiteguru has been completely unreliable in updating with everything going on or i'd give a bit more input into how i've been doing. I will give a few build variations i've used that have mostly worked well for me there.
Edit: stats for smite finally came up for me.
winrate 75% 18/6, kda 3.52, KD 1.64, kills 202, assists 461 deaths 123. just started playing him this season.
Shoes of Focus Void Stone Tyrannical Plate Helm Pridwen Pythagorem's Piece Ethereal Staff(have also gone Ethereal Staff Bancroft's Talon in the last 2 spots and have also gone Gem of Isolation and Ethereal Staff at 5 and 6) have sold boots when able and bought Rod of Tahuti. I have also tried out Bancroft's Talon after selling boots as well.
How does Shoes of Focus, Stone of Binding, Gem of Iso, Thebes, Void Stone, and Mantle of Discord sound?
You plan on putting this up for the contest?
I'd also put Gem of Iso in the recommended and agressive builds for Solo.
About Pestilence, it brings to you something to potencialize even more your passive canceling a very good part of enemy healing (includes the HP5/potions and of course the lifesteal). So this combo counter a lot of characters that build lifesteal, usually the ADC and a big part of the mages. So I guess generically talking, it is a good item to be built in mid/late game for him.
Gem of Isolation is not missing. It is there in both roles as an offensive option in both cases.
I know Gem of Iso is listed, but I meant you should put it in the listed builds, not in the alternative items :p
Remember that Cerb tends to fall considerably late game, so getting the cooldown only late game can be a opportunity waste. I would agree that BoV isn't a good option if it is listed as the 2nd item (right after the shoes), however, in this case, where it is and specifically talking about Cerb, it is a good option, trust me ;)
About Gem, it is really hard to find an space for it on the aggressive builds, maybe as the shoes replacement right after you buy Elixir of Speed and if you are not needing defenses.