Spartan OPs Enemies by Difficulty

Games Other Halo
1

I have created an excel sheet listing all enemy types by difficulty. I was using it for myself to help target the difficult enemy commendations, but thought I might as well share it in case it’s of use to anyone:
Link to online excel sheet
Alternative version showing an Episode per tab
There is already an excellent topic on here by TheSchnitzelMan which I highly recommend as it offers lots of useful info/tips on Spartan OPs in general. However, I believe his enemy counts are for Easy difficulty only, hence my reason for posting this. I have found the difficulty setting makes a large difference to the enemy types and their numbers.

Mods, if you consider this to be a duplicate thread, feel free to lock it down, but I hope you agree it’s bringing something different to the table.

Below, I have listed the best mission/difficulty combinations I have come across so far (all of these numbers are obviously for Solo play).

Also, note that the commendation name and waypoint stats names are sometimes quite different. I have put the commendation name first, and the waypoint stats name in brackets afterwards. The ones in red are not needed for any commendations, but have been included for completeness.

The list is particularly useful if you need to kill 20 Hunters/70 Jackals/80 Elites/100 Grunts etc. to meet a challenge but don’t have much time.

Some of the numbers are averages from multiple playthroughs and are not a guarantee that you’ll get that number everytime. For example, Ep1 Ch3 on Legendary I have had 11, 7, 11, 11 for Crawler - Snipers, averaging 10 as shown on the spreadsheet.

Tips: Let Watchers spawn Crawlers from the ground before killing them. Also, Knights can be respawned once each, so if there are Watchers around leave them alive until they’ve respawned a Knight or two!

On Episode 5, Chapter 1 “Spartan Miller”, if you do not activate the Jammer at the end straight away, several waves of Knights & Crawlers will continue to spawn (try to keep a Watcher alive as well to respawn Knights).

Grunt (Storm Grunt): Ep5 Ch4 Easy = 53
Grunt Imperial (Imperial Grunt/Grunt Ranger): Ep5 Ch4 Legendary = 58
Grunt Ultra (Grunt Heavy): Ep7 Ch4 Legendary = 88
Jackal (Storm Jackal): Ep3 Ch4 Normal = 23
Jackal Major (Jackal Heavy): Ep7 Ch4 Legendary = 33
Jackal Ranger (Jackal Ranger/Jackal Sniper): Ep7 Ch3 Legendary = 60
Elite (Storm Elite): Ep3 Ch4 Easy = 44
Elite Zealot (Elite Ranger): Ep3 Ch5 Heroic = 21
Elite Officer (Elite Commander/Elite Zealot): Ep 3 Ch4 Legendary = 54
Elite General (Elite Warrior): Ep10 Ch1 Legendary = 21
Hunter (Hunter): Ep 3 Ch4 Easy/Normal = 14
Crawler (Crawler): Ep2 Ch5 Easy = 78
Crawler Sniper (Crawler Snipe): Ep5 Ch1 Legendary = 16
Crawler Prime (Alpha Crawler): Ep2 Ch5 Legendary = 72
Watcher (Watcher): Ep5 Ch1 Easy/Normal = 40
Knight (Knight): Ep5 Ch1 Normal/Heroic = 35
Knight Battlewagon (Knight Battlewagon/Knight Lancer): Ep5 Ch1 Normal = 29
Knight Commander (Knight Commander): Ep6 Ch5 Legendary = 7
Ghost: Ep10 Ch3 Legendary = 12
Banshee: Ep3 Ch4 Easy/Heroic/Normal = 28
Wraith: Ep1 Ch1 & Ep5 Ch5 All Difficulties = 5
Phantom: Ep4 Ch5 Easy = 12

If it’s of use to anyone, great. If not, that’s fine too but I thought I’d share :slight_smile:

If you come across any better mission/difficulty combinations let me know. I’m slowly working through them all as a personal goal to complete the spreadsheet anyway.

I’ll also be tackling Episode 6 which launched today as well.

Good luck Spartans!

Roll Call: A Blues fan

2

This is really a nice sheet. Thumbs up :slight_smile:

3

Seeing as how you have much more information rather than just the Easy difficulty, you’re good.

…though now you got me looking forward to the numbers from Episode 6.

4

Awesome resource. Thanks for sharing!

5

I altered A Blues Fan’s worksheet so that each episode is on its own sheet making seeing the individual enemy types easier to see in the web version:

Modified Spartan Ops spreadsheet

6

> I altered A Blues Fan’s worksheet so that each episode is on its own sheet making seeing the individual enemy types easier to see in the web version:
>
> Modified Spartan Ops spreadsheet

Hey that’s really cool and seems much quicker/smoother to navigate. I will add a link to it in the OP. Please keep it updated.

I am slowly but surely working my way through Episode 6.

EDIT: I’ve created my own ‘by Episode’ version so you don’t have to worry about updating it all the time.

7

This is of great use! Well done.

Tip for Backstab: Play on easy and melee Jackals right in the shield so it pops, many times they will jump up and do a 180 for easy assassination. You have to hit shield though to pop it or you will just kill them.

8

Ep5 Ch5 Easy/Normal/Heroic doesn’t have 9 Ghosts? I got that one by grinding Easy and there’s always the group of 5 and then 2 pairs of 2 no matter the difficulty. Same for the Wraith, which also shows up on Ep5 Ch5 in 5’s

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> Ep5 Ch5 Easy/Normal/Heroic doesn’t have 9 Ghosts? I got that one by grinding Easy and there’s always the group of 5 and then 2 pairs of 2 no matter the difficulty. Same for the Wraith, which also shows up on Ep5 Ch5 in 5’s

Thanks. I think it’s just because I’ve only played that on Legendary so far. I’ll update the OP to say ‘All Difficulties’.

10

oo gotcha, didn’t notice you were missing those difficulties

I’ll post more if I come across anything. Thanks a lot for putting this all together, very useful

11

Grinding for Elite Zealots atm and have this so far

Ep3 Ch5 - Hunting Trip
96 Elite Zealot
110 after first run, on Normal (14)
126 after second run, on Normal (16)
136 after third run, on Easy (10)
148 after fourth run, on Easy (12)

Haven’t done Heroic and probably won’t but these numbers have been consistent with my last few runs yesterday too. Considering how much easier and faster it is to do a Normal run than Legendary, I would suggest doing them even though you miss out on 3-5 Zealots

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> Grinding for Elite Zealots atm and have this so far
>
> Ep3 Ch5 - Hunting Trip
> 96 Elite Zealot
> 110 after first run, on Normal (14)
> 126 after second run, on Normal (16)
> 136 after third run, on Easy (10)
> 148 after fourth run, on Easy (12)
>
> Haven’t done Heroic and probably won’t but these numbers have been consistent with my last few runs yesterday too. Considering how much easier and faster it is to do a Normal run than Legendary, I would suggest doing them even though you miss out on 3-5 Zealots

Great, thanks. I’ve added those into the spreadsheet, (their averages appear).

I know what you mean about difficulty/mission time versus extra few kills though. It is a trade off. If you were to calculate kills per hour or something like that you might be right - an easier difficulty with slightly fewer of a certain enemy type might be more productive in the long run.

13

> This is of great use! Well done.
>
> Tip for Backstab: Play on easy and melee Jackals right in the shield so it pops, many times they will jump up and do a 180 for easy assassination. You have to hit shield though to pop it or you will just kill them.

Another good way to get backstabs is against Crawlers. Use a non-headshot weapon like the AR, get close, fire a couple of shots to stun them, and while they’re flinching or doing the “shaking head” animation, run around the back and hop on. Actually, while they’re stunned you can often just jump over them, turn 180 in the air, and assassinate when you land.

My brother maxed out his Backstab just playing Galileo Base over and over with Hologram. Hide around corners, send out a hologram, and then backstab the elite that chases it. Grunts run away? Backstab them too. Jackals still there? Shoot them in the foot and circle around to their backs while they’re in pain. He averaged 40+ backstabs per playthrough doing this.

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I request a sticky for this (no not a blue spider) as long as you can keep it updated.

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Hey thanks for referencing my post I appreciate it. Also I see you’ve been hard at work on your own chart, nice work. I’ll reference your stats on my own post just in case people want to see the legendary counts.

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Please let me know if you would like me to keep track of my findings as i experiment with different chapters, episodes and difficulties. I noticed you have quite a few empty difficulty columns blank on some very promising legendary and or easy levels youve already posted numbers for.

Ill gladly work backwards from chapter 5, chapter 6 is annoying so id rather do that last.

Anyways please reply to this message so that i know to keep track of my numbers, then ill update you with my findings. Otherwise ill just not keep track or post my findings if i do wind up trying to fill the rest of the spreadsheet out for myself.

EDIT: Just figured out i can check the number of each type of enemy killed in my stats, so i wont have to keep track using commendations, yay less work for me XD

Just ran thru chap 4 ep 4, the chase on easy. While i just blasted my way thru and didnt care for the prometheans reviving knights and spawning watchers/crawlers heres what i got this run. Pls note i did not skip any covenant, just some possible revives/spawns of the prometheans.

35 Storm Grunts
22 Imperial/Ranger Grunts
18 Storm Jackals
3 heavy jackals
5 storm elites
4 ranger elites
8 zealot/commander elites

9 watchers
6 knights
4 battlewagons/knight lancers
and 1 knight commander

EDIT: Just finished The cualdron base ep 5 ch 4, and i noticed i got more storm grunt kills on easy than you did, fewer imperials/rangers, way less storm elites, 1 more commander/zealot elite, an extra ranger, and the rest was the same. I made sure to kill off all the marines, and not activate the turrets. Are your numbers averaged or is something a midst? :stuck_out_tongue:

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> Please let me know if you would like me to keep track of my findings as i experiment with different chapters, episodes and difficulties. I noticed you have quite a few empty difficulty columns blank on some very promising legendary and or easy levels youve already posted numbers for.
>
> Ill gladly work backwards from chapter 5, chapter 6 is annoying so id rather do that last.
>
> Anyways please reply to this message so that i know to keep track of my numbers, then ill update you with my findings. Otherwise ill just not keep track or post my findings if i do wind up trying to fill the rest of the spreadsheet out for myself.
>
> EDIT: Just figured out i can check the number of each type of enemy killed in my stats, so i wont have to keep track using commendations, yay less work for me XD

Yes, any help would be greatly appreciated. If you’ve run through any episode/chapter difficulty combinations I haven’t yet done myself feel free to mention them here and I’ll add them to the spreadhseet.

Yes, thankfully the kills are all recorded on this website so we don’t need to manually keep track using our commendation values - that would have meant much more work!

Important: Don’t use any values from game stats where you restarted the mission as the original kills get added to the new kills giving totals which are too high. Just use stats from games that you played through normally and didn’t restart.

> Just ran thru chap 4 ep 4, the chase on easy. While i just blasted my way thru and didnt care for the prometheans reviving knights and spawning watchers/crawlers heres what i got this run. Pls note i did not skip any covenant, just some possible revives/spawns of the prometheans.
>
> 35 Storm Grunts
> 22 Imperial/Ranger Grunts
> 18 Storm Jackals
> 3 heavy jackals
> 5 storm elites
> 4 ranger elites
> 8 zealot/commander elites
>
> 9 watchers
> 6 knights
> 4 battlewagons/knight lancers
> and 1 knight commander

Thanks, I’ve added these to the spreadsheet. Total 117 kills (nice number!).

If you do get the chance to let Watchers spawn Crawlers from the ground before killing them, or respawn Knights it would be appreciated as it would help the numbers, but sometimes it’s more trouble than it’s worth trying to avoid killing the Watcher just so it can revive a Knight.

> EDIT: Just finished The cualdron base ep 5 ch 4, and i noticed i got more storm grunt kills on easy than you did, fewer imperials/rangers, way less storm elites, 1 more commander/zealot elite, an extra ranger, and the rest was the same. I made sure to kill off all the marines, and not activate the turrets. Are your numbers averaged or is something a midst? :stuck_out_tongue:

Yes, the numbers do vary slightly from mission to mission so where we have more than one game recorded I include an average calculation to make it more representative of what to expect. For example, I had 53 Storm Grunts displayed on the spreadsheet for this mission but it was actually an average of my two run throughs (I’d had 51 & 55). I notice you got even more (59).

That’s why your numbers are slightly different to mine. (You had 9 Storm Elites, only 2 less than mine, I wouldn’t say that’s way less).

Anyway, I have also included your numbers for this game as well so the averages have changed slighlty.

Thanks for the help!

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Are your numbers for Ep5Ch1 correct? They don’t have numbers anywhere close to what TheSchnitzelMan’s is saying

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> Are your numbers for Ep5Ch1 correct? They don’t have numbers anywhere close to what TheSchnitzelMan’s is saying

It’s funny you’ve posted this as I came across the issue last night in another thread and have just posted about it in TheSchnitzelMan’s topic to try and get help about it.

[Here is a link to one of my games.](https://app.halowaypoint.com/en-us/#Halo4/A Blues fan/spartanops/match-c2028090677ef2a6)

I’ve played it twice on Easy and I can’t figure out why my numbers are so different. Both of my games have been like this.

EDIT: I have found out what I was doing wrong - I was activating the Jammer at the end too soon. If you leave it inactive several waves of Knights and Crawlers will continue to spawn.

20

> This is of great use! Well done.
>
> Tip for Backstab: Play on easy and melee Jackals right in the shield so it pops, many times they will jump up and do a 180 for easy assassination. You have to hit shield though to pop it or you will just kill them.

There is a much easier way to complete the backstab commendation. I think it’s Chapter 4, Episode 5 on Cauldron Base where you have to defend the generators. Play on easy and wait for the covenant to come in and start attacking the generators. Do not shoot them. They pretty much all ignore you. Just walk behind them and assassinate them all one by one. That’s how I got it.