Theory as to why grenades are so good in Reach

Games Other Halo
1

I’m thinking that the reason why grenades are so powerful in reach is because people can’t get out of the way in time. in halo 3 you could easily jump out of the way of incoming grenades but in reach… unless you have armor lock (or evade, if its available) you kind of just have to take it. The classic playlist feels a lot more fun with the speed increase, and i notice i’m killed by grenades far fewer times overall.

simply removing grenades isn’t an option because they’ve been a part of the halo experience since the first game… it’d be like removing the warthog or the sniper rifle. I do think that 2 grenades is a bit much, though, and maybe they should decrease it to one starting grenade in squad slayer or bigger playlists.

what are your opinions on grenades in Reach?

2

I say this. They don’t bounce as high as Halo3’s because the have a larger blast radius and don’t need to bounce high. Combat has also increased in the vertical plane due to Jetpacks and levels being built with near equal height as they have width. So the less bouncy grenades that already have a larger blast radius to compensate, get an added benefit of not bouncing to the moon when tossed from appropriate heights/speeds.

Playlists with AAs have reduced movement speed and height to create pathfinding variances that attempt to keep the AAs within their designed advantages and disadvantages. Playlists without AAs should have at least increased movement speed. CE and Reach are nearly equal in relative jump height. Both are less than 2 or 3, so jump height doesn’t have to be tweaked without AAs to compensate. That they bounce less but have an increased blast radius means a quick Sprint followed by a quick jump should avoid a frag blast like CE’s. Meaning you sprint for half a second or just slightly more, get to the edge of the blast zone, jump and the blast damages you slightly with a push to your momentum. In CE, we compensated for the fuse time by bouncing the grenade farther from the target for the similar effect. In Reach, increased movement speed without increased jump height would have the same result.

So as far as I the upper end of play I see a battle coming down to the options of 2 players engaging. They have a choice with their precision weapons to first engage with them or grenade first (out of sprint range for melee but in frag range). Now if a player tosses a frag, the other play can opt to shoot the grenade or sprint in a direction to avoid the blast. If the player opts to shoot the grenade, they have the advantage of the other player having to finish their animation before they can engage with their weapon. They have the added benefit of exploding the enemy’s frag close enough to cause damage to them. Or the 2nd player can sprint in any direction, negating the advantage they had with enough time to get 1 to 3 shots up on the enemy, but also avoiding all/most grenade damage. This puts both on equal grounds if there is no other factors to consider. Now they can engage with weapons or toss a grenade again and repeat. Or said 2nd player could toss their own grenade and both could get severely damaged and both can end in a simultaneous headshot or engage in an open-field firefight which is almost always a random encounter. And it almost always leads to the winner being picked off by an enemy teammate.
So I see frags as an option that if played first can lead to a huge advantage or a huge disadvantage, dependent on the skill level and yomi-thinking of the enemy.

As far as grenades being too easily used, Grenades are told to me to be part of a Trifecta (now Tetrahedron). They’re suppose to be effective and they have a range. They don’t just have a range, they have travel time. They can be shot out of the air, out of the enemy’s hands, avoided by AAs or destroy those that are not prepared for them.

A plasma-grenade is a mini-nuke. Always have been.

3

I’m going to make a quick note here and say that halo 1 grenades were only dodgable because of their really long fuse time, otherwise they were mini-nukes just like now.

4

They were made like that to give Armor Lock more of a purpose.
/thread

5

Grenades are much of a problem when I’m playing. They could be quite helpful when I’m about to die in Elite Slayer if I get a lucky stick or something. Overall. I enjoy using them :wink:

6

good analysis thy reaperMC, i think you nailed it pretty well

> I’m going to make a quick note here and say that halo 1 grenades were only dodgable because of their really long fuse time, otherwise they were mini-nukes just like now.

true, but i’m finding in reach that theres very limited ways of dodging them as they have pretty fast fuse times. or maybe we never really noticed it in Halo 2 or 3 because of the regenerating health?

> They were made like that to give Armor Lock more of a purpose.
> /thread

inputing one theory doesn’t just end the thread

7

I’m not going to say whether things should be changed or not. I will say however that grenades rely heavily on any follow up action. This is because they don’t do any permanent damage by themselves. Which is funny because it could be exactly like halo 3, it’s just that health doesn’t regen completely in this game.

Anyway yeah unless I’m doing it wrong, I felt like saying that.

8

If you play long enough with the abbility armor lock, you can see it have’s more purposes. U can block mellee use sword hammer and even bazooka, the armor lock is brilliant in my eye’s i am using it for my attack and not cowardly if you realy know how to use the armor lock its realy fun. But all the other abbilitys have some nice tactics

9

Sorry what? I read bazooka then you lost me

10

> If you play long enough with the abbility armor lock, you can see it have’s more purposes. U can block mellee use sword hammer and even bazooka, the armor lock is brilliant in my eye’s i am using it for my attack and not cowardly if you realy know how to use the armor lock its realy fun. But all the other abbilitys have some nice tactics

You listed all the reasons why Armor Lock was made into a Armor Ability. That is its exact purpose to protect against ordnances and vehicles. However, gaming is always a competition. If you have ever played split screen 1v1 against a friend who wasnt as good as you, you gave him a second chance. Maybe gave him some advantages for being less skilled then yourself.

This is why Armor Lock fails for the competitive nature of Halo. It gives a player a second chance when they should be respawning. This is a quote from a Bungie employee, “Two men enter, the better man goes on, and the lesser man is left respawning. That is what Halo is about”. So with the inherit abilities of Armor Lock, where does that fit into Halo? You get surprised by a Sword wielder thats about to kill you, instead of learning to be more situationally aware of players and use team work, you press a button to block him. Lets do one more example; you go up against two other players, they obviously have the tactical advantage on you, but instead of losing the fight and learning how to deal with multiple enemies you mange to take one down, Armor Lock and wait for your shields to recharge and then attack the second.

For the illiterate: Armor Lock allows players to be invincible at the cost of learning how to overcome their own weaknesses in skill. It doesn’t let players grow and become a better player.

11

It was put there for the people that suck, so if you go with a friend that isn’t good at Halo or hasn’t played it, go straight to team slayer and tell him to use it. It protects him from everything because during the six seconds (5 secs + frosting), he is invinsible, and invinsibility has no counter.

One thing is for sure, Armor Lock won’t be in the next Halo. Even Bungie takes it out from the competitive playlists, such as Squad Slayer, Double Team, Team Classic, The Arena, MLG…

12

Bungie says “Thats why we made Armor Lock”…

13

Two men enter, the better man leaves…

Too bad you don’t believe in baiting or being had. Then perhaps that statement would still hold true. I personally hate AL just because I can’t move. AL has never robbed me of a kill. NEVER. Has AL saved my target’s life? Yes. But robbed me of my kill, no.

Speed and Agility are my best friends. Evade, Sprint and Jetpack are my Reach BFs.

I wish Evade was available more. If AL and Evade were able to meet more frequently amongst the general games, I think both would be viewed with less problems. They’re the antithesis of each other and if 1 uses theirs, the other is a great counter to either block or get away. Having just 1 or neither has helped to skew some minds… In my mind of course.

I wish Infection would vary more. Do they have a radar-less humans, active-camo infected gametype out? Hell, imagine an Alpha Zombie match where the Alpha gets active while its minions get another AA? I think Infection needs more inspiration from the movies and how the humans are the hunted, not the hunters.

Off topic that went but it was derived from an observation of AAs only now being realised in potential (and in some, lack).

14

> Bungie says “Thats why we made Armor Lock”…

if they really made armor lock to specifically counter grenades then i’m kind of dissapointed… making a weapon incredibly powerful to encourage an ability that isn’t in half the playlists was a terrible idea.

15

Two Words

Armor Lock

That is all…

16

first of all i just wanna say that making grenades mini nukes without the options to change them in custom games has to be one of the biggest fails for halo, ever. people always say ‘armor abilities’ as reasons for them to be nukes but really, the only 2 armor abilities that help against these mini nukes are armor lock, and evade, both of the ‘god tier’ armor abilities. balancing grenades based off of the idea that you will have these 2 armor abilities in your game is just stupid. you shouldnt have to pick a god-teir armor ability so that the mini nukes dont matter as much, thats just ridiculous.

> I wish Evade was available more. If AL and Evade were able to meet more frequently amongst the general games, I think both would be viewed with less problems. They’re the antithesis of each other and if 1 uses theirs, the other is a great counter to either block or get away. Having just 1 or neither has helped to skew some minds… In my mind of course.

i dont agree at all. if you are adept at evade, armor lock simply does not beat you, ever. when you learn how to evade armor lock is not a problem at all. dont get me wrong, you have to be pretty amazing, but once you learn it, its essentially the direct counter to armor lock. which is also why its the best armor ability, hands down, when used correctly. no other armor ability enhances a good players abilities like evade does.

17

“Antithesis (Greek for “setting opposite”, from ἀντί “against” + θέσις “position”) is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition. In setting the opposite, an individual brings out a contrast in the meaning (e.g., the definition, interpretation, or semantics) by an obvious contrast in the expression.”

So when I said Evade is the antithesis to Armour-Lock, and then you tell me I am wrong and then proceed to state " but once you learn it, its essentially the direct counter to armor lock." I said to myself, Self, that’s the SECOND time he’s done that.

And when you said that Evade will always beat an ALer. No, I said what I said and I meant it.

An evader can close to distance on an enemy and attempt a beat-down, toss a sticky or try any other CQB tactic that may be available at the time, only to find their target had AL. Not just that, when you do use evade, you lunge quicker and relatively far from your position.

An ALer can only “walk” around the maps at best. They have 3 bursts or one 5 second use. If they use their AL too close to an evader, the evader simply yet quickly jumps to safer ground in any direction chosen without taking their eye of the target. Sure the ALer has 360’ view and maybe some friends coming, but evade made that problem a memory. If the ALer uses it too often, too soon or for too long, the evader gets to shoot from their new found safety OR can opt to get in close for the kill. AND the ALer stops in their tracks when locked down.

But of course a description of skillful tactics has not just occurred in the past 2 pages. It’s all a cake baked out of cheap strategies and lies that only work when executed properly.

18

> So when I said Evade is the antithesis to Armour-Lock, and then you tell me I am wrong and then proceed to state " but once you learn it, its essentially the direct counter to armor lock." I said to myself, Self, that’s the SECOND time he’s done that.

the word antithesis is synonymous with ‘exact opposite’. i never once said you were wrong. i said i didnt agree with your statement (i never even specified, so sorry about that). the statement i didnt agree with was the following:

> if 1 uses theirs, the other is a great counter to either block or get away.

then again, i was specifically talking about the level of halo play where both players have become proficient with their AA’s.

> And when you said that Evade will always beat an ALer. No, I said what I said and I meant it.

you mis-quoted me. i said

> if you are adept at evade, armor lock simply does not beat you, ever.

which is completely true. not trying to be cocky, but im VERY adept with evade, and when i use it, armor lock is not a problem in the least. i damn near never die to armor lockers when i have evade.

> An evader can close to distance on an enemy and attempt a beat-down, toss a sticky or try any other CQB tactic that may be available at the time, only to find their target had AL. Not just that, when you do use evade, you lunge quicker and relatively far from your position.

when an adept person uses evade, they dont evade up to trade melees putting both players at no shields. thats not a smart use of evade at all. the best way to beat armor lock is actually to just out play them, get them to armor lock, then evade off and kill the rest of their non-armor lock teammates. that, or manipulate them by baiting things like melees, then evade behind them and assassinate them. heck, a lot of the time you can even wait out their armor lock because if their teammates come you can still get away relatively unscathed, or at least pull off some evade tricks to ninja behind them and juke them out epic hard. my personal favorite is evading pretty close to someone and behind them when they are about to come out of armor lock, then make a V with your evade rolls having them in the middle. this jukes most people out so hard you can basically spin in circles 2x then start shooting and still get the first shot lol.

tbh i really wouldnt call armor lock the antithesis to evade either, but thats just because im a very literal person, and the word ‘opposite’ doesnt really apply to most things.

heads is the opposite of tails
winning is the opposite of losing
armor lock is not the opposite of evade.

19

> iQ II URZA: if you are adept at evade, armor lock simply does not beat you, ever.
> which is completely true. not trying to be cocky, but im VERY adept with evade, and when i use it, armor lock is not a problem in the least. **i damn near never die to armor lockers when i have evade.
[/quote]
**I am not the one with the problems with language. Nor did I use your words incorrectly. Hell I even gave you the Wiki-definition that contains the pertinent information to eliminate confusion, yet you still ignored even that.
>
> Not only have you just corrected yourself to match the words I purposely used, you said I was wrong in correcting what you just corrected yourself. Now that’s messed.
>
> I said I used antithesis as I meant it as I said I MEANT IT. Antithesis is not synonomous with exact opposite. A counter-attack/proposition to something is not an exact opposite to something in itself. Actions done during the day contrasted with actions done at night that show direct or polar opposition are examples of an antithesis. Night being the opposite to day simply because 1 is dark, the other light, is not an antithesis.
>
> What I am loving right now is that you are now contradicting yourself from previous topics where you state there is no skill to Reach, AL is the most OPed AA and there is no balance in Reach. Yet there is always a way.

20

why have guns when you can throw nades and AL all day?