Know your starting loadout
The sidekick is the superior choice. But this will depend on your aim, if you don’t feel like you’re good at getting those headshots just keep practicing, you will not succeed unless you improve with the sidekick. Not only does it melee super fast but it also reloads super fast. You want to hug the nearest cover so that you can reload and immediately get back into action.
The disruptor is situational, but not entirely useless, you can use the disruptor at far distances. Why? Because once you trigger the shock effect, the enemy shields won’t recharge in the next ten seconds. Then you can move in with the sidekick and finish the kill. Oh, and the disruptor is also FULLY automatic with no loss of accuracy.
Know your surroundings
You want to keep an eye to the bottom of the screen for enemies remaining. If eight Spartans remain then your job is to stick to the outskirts, never sprint unless you’re picking up drops (more on this later).
Keep your back against the walls at all times and CHECK your corners. Picking up Dynamo grenades are essential to make campers come out of hiding.
Skipping Level 2 and Level 3
As I mentioned, the Sidekick is the superior choice. With the recent nerf to the mangler, there’s absolutely NO reason to level up after your first kill. It will only hold you back. Level 3 is a little bit trickier, because this will depend on your aim.
The sidekick and assault rifle are both great weapons, it’s up to you which one to choose.
Level 4 and on
There is no question, the Commando will give you an edge, and in this gametype where encounters are often mid to long range, the commando is better than both the assault rifle and the sidekick. So there is no reason to skip levels anymore.
If you’re getting into tight quarters, then you want to always carry grenades with you. If you don’t have grenades, stick to the high ground or places where you can catch people in the open.
XP Boosts
By the time you have your commando, the Spartan count will be going down. This means two things:
- You will have some intel in the battlefield. Every time you hear an XP boost drop, you will know that somebody else might be close and therefore probably weakened. Use your commando to finish those kills off, but DO NOT expose yourself, remember this is not a kills game, and once you have the commando the next level is the bulldog, so patience is the key here.
- Do not pick up XP boosts unless there’s less than 5 Spartans. Picking up the XP boosts shows up in all the enemies’ HUDs, so don’t do it, or you’ll get easily picked up. Exceptions to this rule are if you have overshield or camo on you.
Drops
Drops will always net you either a camo, or an overshield. But if you have one of those already, you’re most likely to get the other one. I’m not 100% sure on this one, but in my experience it works 9 out of 10 times like that.
You need to keep your ears alert, once you hear the drop immediately spam the scanner (by pressing down on the D-pad). This will reveal the location of the drop, so you can safely approach it before anyone else.
Camping
Camping is near useless in this gametype, doing so will leave you behind on loadouts, just don’t expect to do well if this is your plan…
Interesting places to be
By far the best place to be is the blue frigate, you can easily spot new spawns if you stick to the back (which offers plenty of cover and escape routes). And most importantly, it has plenty of grenade spawns in safe areas, as well as constant Drops.
The middle part of the map (opposite to the vertical man cannon) is an interesting place with a few grenade spawns, but being there means you won’t get a single Drop. The top of the tower with the vertical man cannon and the vents is probably the worst place to be in the map, few escape routes, awful grenade locations, just get away from this place as fast as you can.
The desert part of the map is not too bad, but the main downside is that you will be easy to spot from afar, even if it offers good cover and decent Drops.
General guidelines
If you see an overshielded enemy: run. You cannot win this encounter unless the enemy is straight bad. Specially now that the overshield provides more shield (50% of a bar).
Camos are deadly, you can’t hear them, and the openness of the map means they’re difficult to spot. One more reason why camping doesn’t work, you’ll get picked up by a camo player.
Don’t get discouraged if you die a few times at the beginning of the game. Your goal is to get your commando first. When Spartans start to get eliminated, you’ll have a higher chance of succeeding if you follow these tips.
Good luck!