Hey guys and gals,
As you all know this week’s campaign challenge is to complete Forerunner on solo legendary. Here I’ll post some tips and tricks to get through one of the game’s longer missions a bit easier. The key to this mission is to take the path of least resistance. Remember this is the mission where you have to deactivate 2 interference pylons, release the didact from his cryptum, and then escape the crumbling core in a ghost.
The 1st part of the mission is the hardest in my opinion. For the 1st pylon you’ll be fighting only forerunners and spawn with a pistol, AR, and hardlight shield. For your 1st enemy encounter rush at the closest Knight that spawns right in front of you with your AR. By pulsing the trigger you should be able to kill him with less than a clip and a well timed melee before he does too much damage. Knights are at their most vulnerable when they stop to throw pulse grenades at you. You can bait them into doing this by hiding behind your hardlight shield periodically.
After this knight is dealt with ignore the 2nd knight that spawns with a light rile to the right and TAKE THE LEFT SIDE PATH. The left side leads to that cathedral looking arena that holds plenty of light rifle and suppressor ammo boxes and helps avoids about 3-4 knight battles. Kill any crawlers and watchers with your pistol, and later your light rifle, before engaging any knights. You’ll have to kill 3 more knights on the left side path before you get to the next area. In general if there are two knights in one area you want to kill one long range with the light rifle before engaging the other short range with the suppressor. The last knight in this area should have a scattershot which is one of the most effective guns at taking those big forerunners so make sure to grab that. Before the next area look for the mixed ammo crate that has more scattershot and light rifle ammo in the antechamber.
In the next area you have to deactivate 3 power cores before moving on, and each power core has a knight to defend it. Take out the crawlers and watchers with your light rifle 1st again then take on each individual knight with the scattershot. Inside each core tower there’s lightrifle ammo and in the 1st tower there’s also more scattershot ammo. Once all three cores are down 3 more knights will spawn: 2 on the ground and 1 with a scattershot on top of the light bridge you have to cross. By circling around towards the 1st core tower you went to you can avoid fighting the 2 knights on the ground. Once you run past them and climb up to the light bridge they won’t chase after you. Dispense of the knight on top of the bridge and that’s one pylon down.
Now things get a bit easier because the covenant jump into the fray and you can now run past nearly all of the rest of the major enemy encounters in the game. In the 1st area take the high middle road that splits two arenas where covenant and forerunners are fighting. For the most part if you don’t shoot at them then they won’t shoot at you. In the 2nd arena the covenant form up on your left and there’s a knight and some crawlers on the right. The exit to this area is on the right behind the forerunners so wait for them to become preoccupied with the covenant and sprint past them. If you need to you can turn around towards the end of your run with the hardlight shield out but once you get past them again they won’t chase you.
The next part you’ll see a knight stabbing an elite. This is one of the few chokepoints where you have to kill everything so sprint up to the knight with your scattershot and show him whatfor. Then you just have to take out a forerunner turret and 3 watchers with your light rifle. From here you see a knight decimate a covenant ghost squadron leaving you with a quick escape route. Ignore the knight, jump in a ghost, and quickly boost past anything and everything that moves. If you remember exactly where the exits are up ahead you’ll boost through the fray with most of your ghost and limbs intact. There’s two entire battle scenes that you can skip through quickly with your ghost without having to fire a single shot.
Then we come to one of the hardest areas in the entire campaign. This is the arena where you have to deactivate three cores again and its full of covenant, 2 ghosts, and 2 banshees in the air. If you try to kill everything here it becomes quite a challenge. Fortunately you can also skip this area! Once out of the antechamber splatter the elite who starts running for the empty banshee. Forgo the banshee and boost with the ghost to the 1st core tower that sits to the right. Drive to the entrance of the tower and quickly jump out and destroy the 1st core. If your shields have dropped you’ll find that the ground covenant forces won’t push into the tower after you so stay inside the tower until your shields return. Then quickly jump back into the ghost and boost towards the left to the 2nd tower. After that’s dealt with bring your ghost left again to the 3rd and final core. At this point your ghost may be getting beat up since there’s quite a bit more firepower here. No worries though because you earn checkpoints after the 2nd and 3rd cores are destroyed so if you blow up just try a different route. After the last core is destroyed boost back behind the 2nd tower and go up the ramp where an empty banshee is waiting. Hop in the banshee and boost directly to the arena exit at the end of the Lightbridge. Then that’s pylon #2 disabled in less than 5 minutes.
The final challenge to the mission has you again skirting around covenant and forerunners fighting each other and not you. Pick up an auto sentry after exiting the 3rd portal, kill the paltry covenant ground forces at the entrance and load up on lightrifle and scattershot ammo boxes that are present straight ahead inbetween the fork in the road. At the fork take the left side path again which provides less resistance again. The next battle has you walking in behind the covenant as they fight off a forerunner barrage. 1st kill the forerunner turret that’s probably been set up already. Then walk up a few feet in the center and set-up your autosentry to provide covering fire, and proceed to run along the right side of the map until you by pass everything. The next area do the same thing but hug the left side of the map. You will probably have to take down a jackal and elite and possibly a knight if you attract its attention, but you can still bypass 75% of the action.
The final area before releasing the didact you’ll have to take down 3 elites and 3 knights. Be wary of the one elite who carries a fuel rod and the knight with a binary rifle towards the very back. Unfortunately you will not survive if you try to run past everything here, but atleast there’s plenty of ammo available on the side walls of the spiral walkway. The elites will have their backs to you and even if you get their attention eventually they will turn their backs to you again. Once you take down all the elites look for that fuel rod cannon on the ground. It should have just enough ammo to comfortably take out the remaining knights and you’ll be free to awaken that ancient evil.
A cutscene and one death-defying ghost romp later and you’ll be richer one more challenge and one step closer to that Lone Wolf achievement. Happy hunting!