The thruster pack really sucks in multiplayer. It really is completely useless and I never see anyone using it. It launches you like a foot and it’s extremely slow. The couple times I tried to use it, it got me killed.
But I feel like it could be really good. When I first heard about it I thought it was a really cool idea, its really unfortunate that it sucks so bad though.
When I used it in campaign though, it actually helped and worked really good. If the Multiplayer thruster pack was more like the Campaign thruster pack I would definetly use it.
I started using thruster pack, but it really is just a long, disorienting strafe in which you are unable to shoot. Thrusting in just about any situation is simply putting yourself at a disadvantage.
It probably won’t get buffed though. Switch to promethean vision and enjoy breaking the game.
In fighting games I have a penchant for picking the most unused and usually weakest character just to be different. Low tier warrior, road less traveled and all that jazz. Naturally I gravitated towards the thruster in H4 when I noticed how few people used it in all the matches I played. So I gave it a go. For nearly an entire day I did nothing but try to find some special niche the thruster pack excelled in. My conclusion?
What a stinker.
Yeah, I’ve heard rumors of invincibility frames and assassination/sticky escapes. So what? I’m not going to waste a valuable mod slot on the chance I might stumble into a rare circumstance and need to call upon an otherwise useless ability. The thrust is too slow, the distance traveled too short and the recharge time too long to make it a viable skill relative to the other available options. Because, remember, every time you choose the thruster you’re choosing not to pick the HLS, pro-vision, hologram or camo. It simple isn’t worth it.
I actually disagree. It works really great when your near a corner and need to escape a sticky situation. Sure it can be a bit slow, but if you learn to use it correctly its usually pretty helpful. half my classes use thruster packs and i generally do pretty well in matchmaking. It works really well in avoiding vehicles. Especially using it to jump, throw a sticky grenade at a ghost and thrust yourself right over the top of it. I dunno. Your right, it is a niche armor ability, but I find it very useful for my playstyle. Also, if used with AA efficiancy, the cooldown is less than 6 seconds, so I’m thrusting like crazy in heated firefights. Just my two cents.
It allows for insane lift manipulation, lots of CQC mix up and houses the games BXB style move (BXcB) which allows for the melee to be cancelled into thruster (which automatically ducks head shots) followed by a second melee. Far from useless, simply need to be creative with it.
I don’t even use it for Campaign or Spartan Ops, the only time I see it used is Flood. It is pretty useless compared to the other abilities. I really only say its useless because I’ve never seen it be used outside of Flood.
Agreed. If it was just a tad shorter than it is in campaign mode it would be perfect. Me and a friend were running together and he used thruster pack forward and actually lost ground on me.
I have found that it has saved me more than it has killed me. It can be great for thrusting into cover when turning and sprinting would take too long and just strafing would take too long. I have evaded plenty of grenades in tight hallways that were thrown at me because I thrusted backwards when I saw them and completely avoided them instead of getting obliterated.
It takes quite a bit to get used to the thruster pack and learn how to use it properly. It has a learning curve, that’s for sure. The first wack of games that I used it, I didn’t use it properly and got killed while trying to use it.
And I see less people using the auto-sentry than the thruster.
I had it in my Lo’s initially, but after using it for a while and seeing it didn’t help the way I thought it would, I had to swap it out for other AA’s.
I’m still messing with them all to see what enhances my play style. I really would like to add it to my ITS LO, but only if it gets a buff.
> It allows for insane lift manipulation, lots of CQC mix up and houses the games BXB style move (BXcB) which allows for the melee to be cancelled into thruster (which automatically ducks head shots) followed by a second melee. Far from useless, simply need to be creative with it.
Useless relative to the abilities you’re choosing it over. The risk/effort/reward balance does not skew in the thruster pack’s favor and your post exemplifies that. You have to “be creative” and find some extremely niche circumstance to take advantage of it. And even then I suspect you would have been better off with another AA in tow.
You’re not going to have “lots of CQC mix ups” with the thruster pack in anything out of Flood, either. At best you might avail yourself to quickly dashing behind a wall (provided you’re a foot or two away from it) or maybe surprising your opponent by unexpectedly thrusting behind them. But then it isn’t too difficult keeping a lock on a thrusting enemy thanks to the mediocre speed of the t-pack (and with the sudden camera change most will find themselves at a disadvantage after using the pack, to boot).
I agree with you on one point, though. You can do some nifty stuff with lifts using thrust. …Of course, it isn’t quite as cool (and not nearly as useful) as the guy watching your aerial gymnastics through several walls using Pro-Vision, the other guy who just negated your Spartan laser with his HLS, or that guy who just saved half his team with a well timed and strategically placed R-Field.
The t-pack is overwhelming outshined and outclassed by every other AA and you can only really begin to speak of its (few) positives when you decide to ignore that fact.
I thought it would work more like the Elite’s Evade in Halo Reach MP. Which used to be pretty effective (you could use it twice in quick succession too) it doesn’t though and after persevering with it for a while I had to switch to other AA’s because it just felt like a wasted slot.
I’m thinking for the thruster pack to be effective it at least needs to have 2 uses before you have to recharge. Maybe that would make it overpowered or something, but as it is, it’s simply not very useful compared to the other AA’s.
It’s no Active Camo, but the amount of Grenades I’ve dodged in those tricky places due to it is endless. It’s good in a class built to use it, but on it’s own as part of something more passive like a DMR with ammo and a plasma pistol it won’t work very well.
I always use the thruster pack on my BTB loadout. It is great for that last minute dive for cover when outgunned. Sprinting becomes slowed when under fire and the thruster saves me a lot from long distance DMRs.
I also use the thruster with jump to dodge incoming Ghosts and Warthogs. If you hear them in time you can jump, spin, sticky grenade, and then thrust away in style.