So, being one of the few remaining Halo games I have left to beat on solo legendary, I went back and picked up were I left off a few months back. And now I am stuck on the 7th level: Scarab. The mission objective itself is pretty straight forward. The Covenant is building a Super Scarab. They are still in the process of building it so the only thing that works is its head and cannon (which is all it needs to completely melt you). Scattered around the map are 7 Power Nodes that are linked to the Super Scarab. Destroying a Power Node slows down the scanning/sweeping speed of the Scarab’s head. The more you destroy, the slower it moves and aims. Now, there are old ruin walls dotting the level as well as blocking your base from the Scarab’s site. But they can be destroyed after taking enough damage.
But, on Legendary, it’s not as simple as just taking out the Power Nodes then pouring everything you have into the Scarab until it is destroyed…even though that is still the main objective. Now, I have seen several tips and guides online and the one that seems to work the best is the “Gauss Hog Method”. For this method, the only thing you want to build is Gauss Hogs, and lots of them. With your base, you want to scrap your Vehicle Factory and build Supply Pads and a Field Armory. Then, you want to fully upgrade your Warthogs to Gauss Hogs, fully upgrade your defense turrets and give them the anti-vehicle rail guns, and make sure you get Reserves and Reinforcements…this way your units train faster and your base population increases. After doing this, scarp the Field Armory and one of your Power Factories (you only need a Tech level of one at this point to use the Mac Blast) and replace them with Supply Pads.
Now that you have this, you want to make squads of Gauss Hogs of about 7-9 and send them out to start taking out Power Nodes. For faster results, as soon as you spot a Node, hit it with a Mac Blast for instant destruction. After that, all you have to do is just have your Gauss Hogs start pouring in the damage on the Scarab, hitting it with Mac Blasts too. Make sure you don’t send all your Hogs into battle since the Covenant will send Hunters and Locusts to counter-attack you. So keep a reserve of Hogs at your base to defend it while sending them out when your attacking forces start getting to thinned out, all the while, constantly building more Hogs to keep your stock full.
But here is where the issue I keep having is. No matter what I do or how many units I have in front of it, as soon as I get the Scarab’s health to the red (about 1/3-1/4 health left) it basically gives me a hearty middle finger and targets my base and nothing else. It easily wipes out the small amount of walls hiding it and as soon as it starts to fire dircetly at my base, it melts the entire thing in about 30-45 seconds while I can do nothing but hope my Gauss Hogs can take it out before it finishes my base off, but at that point, they can’t because it already took 20ish minuets to get it’s health that low…so you’d need at least 2-3 more more minutes to finish it off, but in half that time…the Scarab has already won.
So…does anyone have any tips? Like 90% of the suggestions I have seen are the Gauss Hog way because they are just more maneuverable and can get around quickly compared to Cobras or Scorpions. Also, the little “bug” of putting some Marines in the sniper tower in the middle of the map so the Scarab will target them and can’t hit them doesn’t work. Not once did it so much as bat an eye at them. So yea…any helpful tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.