Gee to the Host here. These are little tips on how to increase your individual skill in Reach. Take note that all of these tips are for ZB, as I can’t really give tips on whether to shoot faster or slower, since that’s completely up to you.
POSITIONING
Positioning is a word I throw around a lot. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot in the competitive scene. To put it bluntly, positioning is probably the key between average and good players. Average players, while they may possess excellent aim, do not have the keen sense of positioning that good players do have. I’ve probably stressed this in my “General tips” and “Invasion” guide, but positioning is extremely important. Especially if you have the high ground, and lots of cover, it gives you a precious few more seconds to get shots off on your opponent before he can react in response.
STRAFING
What happens when your opponent starts shooting back? Don’t stand there. Start moving left and right, maybe even throw a few crouches in there. Anything that forces your opponent to adjust his aim is another opportunity for him to miss, and for you to gain an advantage. The more unpredictable your strafe, the greater chance there is of your opponent missing and you surviving.
AWARENESS
There is more to individual skill than just being able to wiggle around and get to better places than your enemy. You have to be aware of what your opponent is doing. Predict their moves. Is a power weapon coming up? You can bet that if your opponent timed it, he’s going for it. Know where you killed your opponent so that you can get the first shots off on him when he spawns.
AIM
None of the above matters if you can’t aim. I can’t really say anything to improve that. If you want to put in the effort to get good at Halo, then you have to improve your aim. Find a friend of higher skill than you and ask him to play Octagon with you, or better yet, go into MLG and play that exclusively for a few days. That will not only help your aim, but it will also help with the other three points above.
Something from a guy much better at Halo than I am
> what the majority fails to understand is that aside from aiming and basic movement, your individual skill in a team game is how well you help the team achieve a victory. The reason players reach a ceiling is because they think skill boils down to DMRs and snipers, when in reality the skill gap is derived from the discrepancies in mental prowess.
That’s it for this Timeout with Ghost, I’ll see you next time, Halo players!
Well as said above, you aren’t going to be an effective teammate without these skills.
Secondly, just to poke the fire: Reach is far more team focused because you literally can’t do anything by yourself. Due to the bloom, slow kill times and AA’s that allow escaping (Sprint, AL, JP, and even AC), you often need to team shoot to get a kill before the enemies gets out of your LoS. Also due to the dynamic bloom of the DMR (As opposed to static bloom of the NR)and it’s 3x scope, if you challenge someone, their team mate can scope in and put shots into you almost 2 times as fast as you can put into the guy you’re challenging, and on top of that being shot by the player you’re challenging. This pretty much makes challenging opponents to be almost always a death sentence and nullifies a players skill at challenging. (sorry to say “Challenging” so many times, I just don’t want to confused people with other terms like 1v1 and such).
While H3 was very team shot oriented, it still allowed for players to effectively challenge, as 1. your opponent and his team mate can only shoot as fast as you can and due to the spread and 2X scope his team mate will most likely only be of marginal help.
These aspects alone pretty much force players to stick in pairs and always team shoot, resulting in very little challenging, and for many, very stale gameplay.
This is another benefit of 85% bloom, as it allows for challenging to be more effective resulting is gameplay that is more fun and exciting for many. In ZB it is even better. Put that on 120 speed, 125 jump, and 200 gravity and you have yourself a game with some individual skill!
Skill means nothing when you are put into a group of people who don’t use mics, listen to your communication (i.e. they have the rockets, don’t go there) and/or when the matchmaking system puts your team of random singles against a full party.
Doesn’t matter how well you do alone if your team doesn’t win.
The original Arena was all focussed on individual skill, even in team arena it was set up so that you could advance by going beast mode even if your team lost. No more getting dragged down by a scrub team. The armchair pros still rejected it completely so arena became useless and thats how it stayed. And they still complain about lack of individual skill in the game.
> The original Arena was all focussed on individual skill, even in team arena it was set up so that you could advance by going beast mode even if your team lost. No more getting dragged down by a scrub team. The armchair pros still rejected it completely so arena became useless and thats how it stayed. And they still complain about lack of individual skill in the game.
>
> I cant take you guys seriously anymore.
Reach is a team game. You win as a team, lose as a team. It’s your choice to search random or to match other teams with your team.
We complain about Arena now, not because of the system. We hate the jetpack abuse and bad maps that yield poor competitive play. We’ve finally gotten the system down, plus the TU, now we just need perfect gameplay and maps.
> The original Arena was all focussed on individual skill, even in team arena it was set up so that you could advance by going beast mode even if your team lost. No more getting dragged down by a scrub team. The armchair pros still rejected it completely so arena became useless and thats how it stayed. And they still complain about lack of individual skill in the game.
>
> I cant take you guys seriously anymore.
This is why they need a ranked FFA playlist. So people who don’t have teams/friends can stop being mad.
The Arena is a team playlist. Teamwork > Individual skill. You should not be rewarded for -Yoink!- all the power weapons and camping while your team is left out to dry.
> The original Arena was all focussed on individual skill, even in team arena it was set up so that you could advance by going beast mode even if your team lost. No more getting dragged down by a scrub team. The armchair pros still rejected it completely so arena became useless and thats how it stayed. And they still complain about lack of individual skill in the game.
>
> I cant take you guys seriously anymore.
No, we complained about Arena because it was a selfish, stat padding style of gameplay that doesn’t fit in with a team playlist. You’re basically playing FFA with team colors. As such, people developed extremely good cheeses and camping spots, which eventually made it’s way into the later w/l Arena seasons.
> > But what if I want to AR rush people while walking in straight lines?
>
> Then you will think the DMR is OP and the sandbox is broke.
The sandbox is broke. The DMR isn’t OP, though. It’s actually UP as far as I’m concerned, but that’s mainly because I prefer a 4sk over a 5sk.
The rest of the sandbox besides power weapons are all useless. They’re only really decent in Invasion, and even then…
> > > But what if I want to AR rush people while walking in straight lines?
> >
> > Then you will think the DMR is OP and the sandbox is broke.
>
> The sandbox is broke. The DMR isn’t OP, though. It’s actually UP as far as I’m concerned, but that’s mainly because I prefer a 4sk over a 5sk.
> The rest of the sandbox besides power weapons are all useless. They’re only really decent in Invasion, and even then…
Agree with DMR 4sk Gold pro FTW.
The only weapons I honestly do not/can not use are the AR and friends.