First off, to avoid flaming let me stress that I am NOT CLAIMING I AM “good” AT HALO. As I will detail, my experience with the game is very narrow and limited, and to be “Good at Halo” I think, demands more capability across all gametypes than I come close to achieving.
I wont even say I’m good at BTB, because I really only look to do one thing, die very little. Killing a lot is good and fun but dying very little is always the goal. Therefore, aspects of teamwork, other important aspects of Halo I almost never attempt. Yet at the end of the day, playing the game this way is how I enjoy it the most.
Here’s some of my general rules/principles to dying less often.
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Know the maps and and know where to go at the start. Every map I have a goal weapon and position to achieve and a plan about how to get there, and what to do once I’ve got it. Most often this involves getting to a vehicle, and then getting the vehicle into he corner of the map (Banshee obviously accepted). This is only advised if you have a high probablity of success. For example, I wouldnt try for the opposing teams Mantis on Vortex. The risk and distance is too great.
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Know the weapon spawns location and timing. Everyone advocates this, but I go one step farther and camp that spot if it’s safe to do so. I do not engage with my spawn weapon set if I can avoid it. You want a weapon advantage even if you have to twiddle your thumbs for two minutes.
3)Never run in the open field. I see this so often it is inexplicable. If you dont know where to go, look for cover and creep away from open space never towards it. The ONLY exception to this is at game start when you know where the enemy has just spawned.
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Snipe from cover. With the exception of the Scorpion and perhaps the Wraith, this is your best means of not dying. Get a decent mid or close range secondary weapon, good cover, and then STAY THERE until you run out of bullets. Dont leave. Be patient.
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Use CLOAKING as your Armor Power. I think this is the most Defensive minded of the armor boosts and when you are killing from long range, it is especially valuable. I use CLOAK 100% of the time regardless of map.
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(Almost) Never get in a Warthog. As a driver, kills are hard to come by and deaths are frequent. As a gunner, kills are easier but you are subjected to the stupidity of a driver. My only “Halo Friends” are randoms that displayed good driving ability.
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Patience. As stated, if you have a poor weapon set, dont go looking for kills. If you have a good weapon and cover, and the action is elsewhere, dont leave your good position to go get some. WAIT. Usually, not always, the game flows around the map, and targets will eventually appear.
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Big Team Battle is the best gametype for all of the above. Everything I do is based on calculations and patience and playing the odds. BTB suits this best.
If you like SPRAY And PRAY and/or loading up a MONGOOSE and jumping into a gravity lift with it, this style of play is not for you. But if you hate dying, give it a try and let me know if it suits you.
Happy gaming friends.
I expect you will get a lot of flaming for your campy AC using style of Halo.
I certainly don’t like to play the way you do (Think repeated but glorious deaths!) but if you are doing what you enjoy then good luck to you.
Personally I love to kill youse guys and the only good thing about the kill cam is to see where you are - and then I’m comin for ya!
> 2) Know the weapon spawns location and timing. Everyone advocates this, but I go one step farther and camp that spot if it’s safe to do so. I do not engage with my spawn weapon set if I can avoid it. You want a weapon advantage even if you have to twiddle your thumbs for two minutes.
Worst advice I’ve ever heard. In the postgame stats, look at the most used weapon for the players with the best K/D ratios. 4 out of 5 times, it’s a loadout weapon.
Not only that, but time spent camping is time you are not useful at all to your team. For every player on the team camping a power weapon spawn, the team is down a player.
You should only use the above strategy if you are not good with loadout weapons.
> 4) Snipe from cover. With the exception of the Scorpion and perhaps the Wraith, this is your best means of not dying. Get a decent mid or close range secondary weapon, good cover, and then STAY THERE until you run out of bullets. Dont leave. Be patient.
Not moving from a position makes you predictable. Control of power positions is good, but when you go 30 seconds without seeing a single enemy, it’s time to move.
Using the tactics above, you may “die less often,” but you will also kill a lot less often too, making you an almost useless teammate. I would encourage you to try sticking your head out more often. Become better with the DMR–it’s the easiest precision weapon to use due to its accuracy, and its combination of damage and effective range is perfect for most BTB maps. If you can become good at aiming while staying in the fray, you won’t just not die, you’ll rule the game.
I will not flame - though I don’t play the way you do, OP. And I’m not that good . . . but I have fun with my playstyle.
Basically, whatever you said, I tend to do the opposite. See enemy, run after him, nade, shoot, charge, punch, desperation nade (in that order). Many engagements end with a mutual kill. Some end with just me dead. Others end with me alive and enemy dead. On the balance, I’m pretty even . . . my K/D is about 1.0 and I’m verrrrrrrrrrry slowly increasing in CSR, so I guess I’m getting better at ending up alive.
I don’t have any tips for my playstyle except don’t charge unless you know you can get into melee range before he kills you.
And I never camp power weapons. Actually, I generally don’t bother with any of them except railguns (my absolute fav), needlers, and SAWs. I almost always just stick with a BR + auto (currently the storm rifle). If I see power weapons, that usually means someone else sees them, too, so I go after the enemy, not the weapon.
> 4) Snipe from cover. With the exception of the Scorpion and perhaps the Wraith, this is your best means of not dying. Get a decent mid or close range secondary weapon, good cover, and then STAY THERE until you run out of bullets. Dont leave. Be patient.
No. I nearly had a perfection a few days back, but I made the mistake of staying in cover. Terrible mistake, sitting still.
Here is my advice. Keep moving.
It seems you have written a detailed guide on how to camp…
In that case you play the same as 70% of all Halo players. It takes little skill and takes the fun out the game for your opponents.
AC users are pretty selfish if you ask me. God knows why it is still in this game.
Thanks to the two respondees so far. I am not great with the DMR but I’m not bad. My DMR specific k2d ratio is above 5 to 1. My overall k2d is 3.9.
Insofar as the 'not helping a teammate" accusation goes: While I understand it on the surface in a sort of “we’re all in this together” sort of way, what’s irrefutable is that (at least in slayer games) i moved us closer to a win with a positive k2d ratio, than with a teamwork-focused negative kills to death approach.
If the argument is that my teammates are out there running around like fools, not using cover, not waiting for advantageous weapons, not being smart and patient and therefore I should be"out there", “helping” them more, I’d respectively say that if they are looking to win, they should be acting more like me.
Again, this is different than someone who wants to take massive jumps in a Warthog and see how high they can bounce. If that’s fun for you, have at it.
> > 4) Snipe from cover. With the exception of the Scorpion and perhaps the Wraith, this is your best means of not dying. Get a decent mid or close range secondary weapon, good cover, and then STAY THERE until you run out of bullets. Dont leave. Be patient.
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> No. I nearly had a perfection a few days back, but I made the mistake of staying in cover. Terrible mistake, sitting still.
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> Here is my advice. Keep moving.
Agreed. Any sniper has to be constantly moving. Camping is the worst possible thing you can do unless you are against complete crap players because after you get your first kill everybody knows where you are. I am a very aggressive sniper user and will constantly push people but then again I am very confident with a Sniper and will do much better than someone who is not confident
Despite my k2d, my CSR is a wretched 7 or maybe 6 now.
> It seems you have written a detailed guide on how to camp…
> <mark>In that case you play the same as 70% of all Halo players.</mark> It takes little skill and takes the fun out the game for your opponents.
On a typical big team game there will be only 1 or 2 AC campers - frequently none.
Even 2 would only be 12.5%. A looong way from 70%. Are you sure you’re playing Halo?
> > It seems you have written a detailed guide on how to camp…
> > <mark>In that case you play the same as 70% of all Halo players.</mark> It takes little skill and takes the fun out the game for your opponents.
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> On a typical big team game there will be only 1 or 2 AC campers - frequently none.
> Even 2 would only be 12.5%. A looong way from 70%. Are you sure you’re playing Halo?
The last game I went into a week or two back there was easily 50% of the lobby using it in multiple games. Pretty clear I was exaggerating before hand though.
> Insofar as the 'not helping a teammate" accusation goes: While I understand it on the surface in a sort of “we’re all in this together” sort of way, what’s irrefutable is that (at least in slayer games) i moved us closer to a win with a positive k2d ratio, than with a teamwork-focused negative kills to death approach.
Perhaps, but how do you think the game would play if all 8 players on your team played as you said? The players with vehicles or power weapons would have no support from the players with DMRs and camo, so they would die very quickly. Then the other team gets all of the power weapons and vehicles, and all that’s left on your team are camo DMR players, who are spread out thinly. Which team do you think is going to win?
The only reason your “strategy” nets you a good K/D ratio is that your teammates are doing the rest of the work for you, drawing the enemy’s fire and distracting them while you pick off the kill. Your K/D comes at the expense of your teammates’ K/D and sometimes even a victory. There’s more to the game than just individual K/D–I would argue that win/loss is a much better indication of how “good” a player is.
To each their own. I don’t play this way, but there is some good tactical advice which I ascribe to.
If the game lets you play a certain way, and you want to play that way, then it is fair game despite what purists or other styles claim.
Until the developer changes/removes it… and then the modified version is still fair game.
Me, personally… I won’t sit still unless I have a sniper rifle in a good perch (which, sadly, is almost impossible to find on H4’s maps).
Vektor0 you make a good case. I suppose it’s a question of degrees. If ALL teammates NEVER venture out of cover, that would make for a slow and quiet game, but not necessarily one I wouldnt enjoy. The weapon drop timing and location serves as incentive to leave cover (risk) for the sake of better killing capacity (reward). I’d come down on the side of caution vs bold, but that’s not saying id NEVER make a run for something, I’d look around, reload and cloak up first, though…
Sounds a lot more boring than me and my bro wheeling around in a warthog shooting wildly then getting hit by a laser.
I like running with a teammate who is using a precision weapon and I am using an AR. I spray they close. Whether it be with buddies or random, stay with your buddy.
Optimal tactical planning would be all four moving as a unit, two automatic, two precision users. Hotspot defensive tactic with two on the door, two covering position.
Offensive unit tactics by utilizing the pincer technical tactic. If the opposed are grouped together. Two man teams flank the opposed by creating a crossfire pattern killing the team for unit regrouping then back to four man hunting party on spawning single opposed.
You’re free to play however you want but players like you are part of the reason I hardly play this game anymore. AC can die in a fire. I prefer the style of engaging my opponents and beating them with skill.
I say this with the no offense meant at all but honestly that is advice that sounds like it is coming from a new player.
All that stuff sounds good if you are thinking in terms of real war where if I die I dont come back but this isnt like that.
If you are playing the odds as you put it and treating it as a numbers game then moving around is a much better option. Its ok to trade kills and its ok to die. Sure the obvious goal is to stay alive as much as possible but the idea of waiting for the game to come to you is a recipe for disaster at higher levels of play and especially objective games
Well I suppose I should say its a recipe for disaster if the map is designed properly. Damnation was a good example in Reach of that style of play you are referring to. There was no incentive to move… That is a flaw in map design not strategy.
I hope you don’t play objective. That is just going to annoy your team!
This is only one of the styles of play that I use, and I don’t use camo as my armor ability. I don’t want to keep monitoring it to see when I have it and when it runs out…I switch it up after it was successful, since that means my enemies are learning my pattern…not that I am the best player (not by far, LOL!)