Destiny Weekly Nightfall/Heroic solo guide - Cerberus Vae III

Cerberus Vae III is a strike on Mars that is this week’s (week of November 4th-11th 2014.) Heroic/Nightfall strike in Destiny. It is quite easy to solo because everything up until the last boss – Valus Ta’aurc – is either skip-able or easily kill-able. Your best weapon is a sniper rifle or long range rifles because you want to keep your distance from the enemies appearing during this strike. Last boss can be cheesed quite easily, but if you decide to do him without using unreachable places you can do that as well, you will have to take care of a lot of adds though, so bring weapons with a lot of ammol and some with void damage to take care of Elite Psions (which have purple shields).

Heroic and Nightfall setup (November 4th-11th)

This week we have no boosts for any of the damage types. This is very rare and can make things difficult. Other than having no boosts you have the Juggler modifier in both Heroic and Nightfall (no ammo drops for your currently equipped weapon). Nightfall version also has Lightswitch modifier which makes melee damage from enemies very deadly.

Killing the guards and the tank

To reach the boss and end of the strike you will have to go through a wave of enemies (skip-able) and then you have to kill 3 guards and a tank mini-boss. When you start the strike run past low level mobs inside the Cabal structure. You will be greeted by a large wave of mobs inside a big room/cave after you go through some tunnels. You can actually skip all these (we show you in the video how). Once past that first group of enemies you will enter your first Darkness zone. You have to kill three guards followed by a tank mini-boss. I recommend using your long range primary weapons and sniper rifles to dispose of enemies at range. The further you stay away from the enemies the less you’ll have to deal with them. Using a weapon with solar damage helps you kill Imperial Centurions easier. You also have to worry about Elite Psions that have a shield you can take down with your void weapon. The only thing you really need to pay attention to while fighting the 3 guards is the dropship. After you kill the first guard (who is hiding inside a tower in the middle of the arena) a dropship will appear at one point. This spawns the last two guards you need to kill, but also, the dropship starts shooting at you with its high damage cannons. What you want to do is move back to your starting position as soon as you kill the first guard to easily avoid dropship damage and take down newly spawned enemies one by one from a distance.

Killing all guards spawns a tank mini-boss further ahead. Stay at the area where you fought the three guards and shoot at tank’s wheels from afar for critical hits and less chance of getting hit. One shot from the tank means game over for you so avoid his rockets at all cost. They have huge area of effect damage so scramble if you see a rocket coming your way. Otherwise, this is a pretty basic fight. Shoot with your sniper at all four wheels until you destroy them and this will kill the mini-boss as well.

How to kill Valus solo?

You’ll travel to Valus’ fortress next. After defeating several easy to kill enemies you will enter the room with the boss. There is an easy cheese method of killing him. Run to the left side of the room (left – when looking at the boss’ spawning point) and at the last upwards platform there is a hole between the wall and the platform you can fall into. This will position you behind some crates enemies can’t go past and give you a nice view of the boss. Just shoot at him until he moves to the other side of the room. Once he is there you can position yourself just so that you see his foot. Shoot at it and it will start the last phase of the fight where he roams the room. Use any opportunity you have to shoot the boss and he will soon die and you’ll be able to collect ample rewards. Video bellow shows the whole boss fight along with the cheese location. If you want to fight the boss the regular way, you can, but just watch out for Elite Psions that have that purple shield you can take down with void damage. It will be tougher, but it is doable. Practice during the weekly so you get that strat down before attempting Nightfall.