The Best Guardian Jungle - Masters Cerberus 7.11 Guide

Guide updated for 7.11

" Cerberus Jungle? Really?" - Yes. Try it, it's surprisingly effective. Here are my stats on him:



Give it a try before you bash it, see how you do.

Full Cerberus jungle gameplay in a scrim if you want to see how I play a full game!

I also have a highlight/montage video embedded at the top of the guide that you'll enjoy :)

I love Cerberus jungle. I really do. But even I will admit the pick has some downsides. Plenty of fun upsides too though!

+ Damage. Do you know how much freaking damage this god does? It's disgusting.
+ Protection reduction. Ghastly Breath reduces enemies protections by FIFTY FOUR. This is even more effective than 55 penetration as reduction also helps your magical teammates do extra damage.
+ CC. Slow on Ghastly Breath, stun on Paralyzing Spit, and a knockup/pull on Stygian Torment. That's a lotta lockdown.
+ Surprisingly good sustain. Soul Expulsion can heal you for a technically infinite, but realistically about 330 + 150% of your power, amount. (thats the value for jumping on a full minion wave.)
+ Did I mention the damage?


- Ghastly Breath is easy to interrupt, as it lacks immunity to, well, any cc.
- Paralyzing Spit is an actual skill shot, which a large part of the smite community aren't great with. Although, even if it doesn't stun, it still does a lot of damage.
- Stygian Torment is easy to beads, and knockup immunities will protect enemies from getting cced by it.

I'll quickly go through Cerberus's kit and go over a basic overview of his abilities:

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Spirit of Death

Spirit of Death is a passive you don't really play around, but can be silently effective. You benefit from 50% of any enemy healing near you, and also reduce their healing by 20%. This makes Cerberus good into gods that rely on healing like Aphrodite and Ra.

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Paralyzing Spit

Spit on the fake queen. Use this one after Ghastly Breath to make it easier to hit, and to do more damage due to the protection reduction. You'll hit for a solid 700+ damage come late game.

---

Ghastly Breath

Mathematically, this ability is, uh... dumb as ****. 420 base damage, 87.5% scaling (really hirez? round it up), and, as I said before, and I will emphasise it again because it's one of the dumbest things in this game, FIFTY FOUR protections shred. This allows your magical teammates to do far more damage to any enemies hit by this ability. Oh, and it also slows. For thirty-six percent. For FOUR POINT FOUR SECONDS.

---

Soul Expulsion

Back to reality for this one. Its a jump with decent range, decent damage, and a good heal after you kill the souls that are spawned when you hit a minion or god with the jump. Pretty straight forward ability overall.

---

Stygian Torment

The ultimate. Normally the strongest or most notable part of a god's kit. In this case? Not so much. Honestly Ghastly Breath kinda steals the show, but that doesn't mean this isn't a good ability too. Stygian Torment is a fairly large aoe that does damage and knocks up any enemies inside it, then funnels them all into one spot after a second or so. It's a good setup, beads burning, and damage tool, but honestly I find myself using it to get the last 500 or so damage off on a kill when I need to.

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Leveling Order

Level 1-5:

2

>

1

>

2

>

3

>

4

OR:

2

>

1

>

3

>

2

>

4

Just depends on whether you need the mobility of Soul Expulsion or the damage spike from an extra point in Ghastly Breath at level 3.

Maxing Order:

2

>

1

>

4

>

3

You clear about the same speed with both Ghastly Breath and Paralyzing Spit at level 1, but its easy to miss part of the stun if the camp minion path strangely, so I like to start with my 2. Afterwards, get Paralyzing Spit for your best level 2 kill potential, as even early game the slow, protection shred, and stun is great setup for your mid to kill someone.

Level 3 is the one time you get a choice in the leveling order, you can get Soul Expulsion if you just want mobility to chase, escape, or a heal when clearing camps. Alternatively, another point in Ghastly Breath is better kill potential. At level 4, just get a point in the ability you didn't level at 3. Hit 5, grab your ult (duh.)

Your starting build will always be the same: Assassin's Blessing, Tiny Trinket, 3x Multi Potion, and Hand of the Gods.

• Assassin's Blessing

  As I said in my previous guide, on Pele, all junglers start this.
  

• Tiny Trinket

  Builds into Bancroft's Talon after boots, which I will talk about just below this.
  

• Multi Potion

  The one part of the build I had to experiment with for a while, as initially I went with Healing Potions, but I found myself having mana problems early game, but if you start with Mana Potions, you have very little early sustain. Best of both worlds. You can't start with both, as you need:
  

• Hand of the Gods

  You ain't clearing **** level 1 without it. Cerberus's abilities have stupidly long cooldowns early game, and your level 1 clear suuucks

All the items in the normal build above are core items in my opinion. Here's why:

• Shoes of the Magi

  The boots that give the most power, which Cerberus loves. I used to prefer Shoes of Focus, but when HiRez added lifesteal to power boots I switched over as it synergises well with Typhon's Fang later in the build.
  

• Bancroft's Talon

  Power. Lifesteal. Power. Once you buy this, you hurt. A lot.
  

• Spear of Desolation

  Picked up for really all of its stats. Power, flat penetration, and cooldown reduction are all amazing stats on Cerberus, making this a great item on him.
  

• Spear of the Magus

  Again picked up for its power and penetration, but the passive also synergises well with your 2-1 combo, as spear passive will activate from the first tick of Ghastly Breath, buffing the rest of that ability and paralysing spit.
  

• Typhon's Fang

  See Bancroft's Talon section.
  

• Rod of Tahuti

  What's a power build without rod?

Quick overview of when you should get each situational item:

• Divine Ruin

  Pick this up if you need more antiheal than your passive gives. If you need it, buy it before Spear of Desolation.

• Magi's Cloak

  This is bought if you feel like cc is either stopping you from getting kills, or is getting you killed. A pesky enemy ***bakharna keep cancelling your 2? This is the solution. Grab it before Typhon's Fang.

• Soul Reaver

  Bit of a weird one, this. If you feel like the enemy team is too tanky and you are struggling to get kills, the extra penetration and percentage health damage on this item will give you an edge against those tanky comps. Pick it up before or after Typhon's Fang.

• Mantle of Discord

  Dying a lot? Let me introduce you to mantle of ********! Just buy it after Typhon's Fang and now you probably won't!

I'll keep this one short.

• Doom Orb

  Didnt buy a situational item? Dont need Mantle of Discord? Buy this.

• Mantle of Discord

  Didnt buy this earlier? Need it now? Buy it.

• Rod of Tahuti

  Bought a situational item? Don't still need mantle? This one's for you.

This is all copied from my Pele guide as it all applies here too:

Purification Beads. Blink Rune. That's it. Order is up to you.

Please don't build anything else. This is true for almost all junglers.

Some junglers can skip Blink Rune for Aegis Amulet, for example gods like Thor who has his ult and hammer to engage, but Cerberus needs blink to engage lategame so he cant really skip it.

Go Purification Beads first if you think cc will either get you killed or stop you getting kills early game (like a ***bakharna), or rush Blink Rune if you are confident you can get kills with it early.

Cerberus's playstyle is pretty simple overall:

Wait for abilities to be up > press 2 on enemy > press 1 > press 4 if needed or press 3 to chase. Repeat. You can also look for blink ults to engage.

Ghastly Breath is also fantastic setup for your magical damage dealers, like your mage, as the protection reduction applies for all damage, not just your own.

All of the cone of Ghastly Breath reduces protections, but only the centre of the cone slows.

Paralyzing Spit projectiles all go through walls.

Soul Expulsion will spawn a soul that you can heal from for every enemy you jump on, whether that be minions, camps, or gods. However, god souls heal you for more than any others. These souls can be killed with your auto attacks, but if you need the heal urgently it can be better to use Ghastly Breath, Paralyzing Spit, or even Stygian Torment to get the heal quickly.

Paralyzing Spit can be hard to hit, but you don't really need to worry about hitting the stun. Getting the damage from up to three of the four projectiles is enough to kill normally.

You can cast Paralyzing Spit or Ghastly Breath while enemies are hanging in the air from Stygian Torment. You can take this time to shred their protections ready for your team's followup when the ult finishes, or walk backwards and cast your 1 as they move for a guaranteed stun when they land once you get the timing right.

Both Ghastly Breath and Stygian Torment activate all parts of Paralyzing Spit, meaning you don't have to auto attack to build it up.

Stygian Torment can be immuned if an enemy is knockup immune as you cast it. Don't ult that Da Ji midway through casting One Thousand Cuts.
Stygian Torment grants you a short cc immunity that you can use to immune ultimate like Ares's No Escape, and then pull him back into your team (if you time it right.)

Stygian Torment can hit enemies through walls, but it won't pull them through walls. Be careful enemies don't hit a wall and bounce in an unexpected direction when you ult.

Hopefully if you've gotten this far you will go and try this out in one of your own games. If not, I hope you at least wont BM anyone in your games that does. As always, if you have any questions, comment, dm me, or find me on twitch/youtube and ask me there and I will do my best to help out with whatever you need. Thanks for reading!