Frequently Asked Forum Questions
Search the HBO News Archives Any All Exact		Search the Halo Updates DBs Halo Halo2		Bungie Webcam HBO XBL Gamertags *Ar's Simple HTML Guide Shishka's Guide for Newcomers The Lowdown on Download Accelerators Red Loser's Anti-Spamming Guide Egg FAQ | More Egg Stuff c0ld's Movie Starter Guide Shishka's HaloPC Pre-Release FAQ 3.1 AutoMagic 117 StripzMaker
Search Older Posts on This Forum: Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts

Melee Tactics
Posted By: Chilton <chilton@tca.net>	Date: 1/29/03 2:51 a.m.
I thought it would be interesting to create a thread on melee tactics for Legendary. Mainly because I'm betting more than a few old-skewl Marathoners are still around, and if so, probably have tried to finish as much as legendary as possible only using Melee attacks. First off, I haven't checked out one thing yet that I'm curious about. Do all melee attacks do the same damage? I've noticed that all attacks with the exception of the plasma pistol knock the adversary forward, away from you. The plasma pistol attack appears to clock them upside the head, and bounce them to your left. Is the range greater for a melee attack with the SPNKR? Anyway... Grunts -- three hits to the head, two from the side, or one from behind. Grunts can and will fire back during a melee attack if you don't keep pounding them, or if you move away from them. But bearing down on them, and raining hit after hit, usually keeps them reeling long enough to finish the job. Jackals -- two hits to the torso, or three to the shield, or one from behind. Jackals will return fire unless you stay on their exposed side during a melee attack. Elites (blue) -- Two hits to the head, or one hit to the midsection from behind. Blue elites hit the fastest, but do the least damage up close. You can usually defeat one in hand to hand combat with only one hit to your shields. Elites (red) -- Four hits to the head, or one hit to the midsection from behind. Reds are the hardest to beat in hand to hand, but are slower than the blues, and you can usually sidestep their punches. Once you hit them the first time, they'll usually do that 'I'm quite unhappy with your shinanigans!' groan, during which time you can stride around behind them and bring them down. Elites (gold) -- Five hits to the head, or one to the midsection from behind. These are the slowest of the Elites. Take a lesson from your soldiers--when in close combat with them, duck when they swing that sword. They'll miss. Well, they'll miss if they swing left to right. If they swing down or pull an uppercut, you're skewered if you don't move quickly. Also, they tend to dive at you with about a 1 second delay. You can avoid them if you watch your timing. Elites (purple?) -- Frankly I don't know if my monitor was playing tricks on me or not (I use a monitor with a crappy a/d converter for my Halo'in most of the time). At any rate, it might have been a gold or a red. Took about 5 hits. Elites (light blue) -- The invisible ones. These are a trip. I'm not sure why, but they have crap for vertical vision. Get higher than its head, and it will wander around below you. My favorite spot is just before the hallway leading to the last room on AOTCC (wasn't that the starwars movie also?), there's a raised doohickey in the middle of the room. If you run past it, and into the corridor, then fire a shot or two, all of the invisos will run at you. Scamper back down the hallway, run up the slanty platform, and wait. In a few seconds, you'll see their swords wandering around below you like dorsal fins on sharks. Just duck down, and punch them. Two hits to the head and they'll drop. This room, when you do this, takes on the eerie feeling of some kind of ceremonial death thing. It's almost like they're saying, "In exchange for not opening the giant can of whup-ass on the rest of our forces, we will let you sucker-punch our invisible elites." Elites are also easy to sneak up on. Just watch their heads--that's how you know where they're looking. If one is on patrol, you can easily walk right behind him and to the side, then jump forward as he turns, and he'll miss seeing you entirely. Then it's lights-out. Hunters -- 7 - 12 to the head, 4 to 7 to the torso, depending on the impact. These are the most interesting sparring partners. If you walk backwards from in front of one that is charging, and if you punch right when he does, you will deflect his punch. Do this enough, and he'll drop. That's right, you can actually take down a Hunter head-on like this. Otherwise, their spin speed is equal (slightly slower, actually) to your running-in-circles speed. So if you let one past you, just hang around behind him and punch the orange gunk. The more disgusting the sound you hear when you hit, the worse the hit was to him. Again, I suggest the plasma pistol, as it seems to do 'hook' damage, so if you're tight in, you can just keep pace with his spin and score hits at the same time. Vehicles: Stationary guns -- For some reason, they won't fire at you close up. But you can't hit them, either. However, you will move the gun slightly with each hit. So if you're really bored, and have lots and lots of time and no other baddies trying to sneak up behind, you can just keep wailing on the turret until you knock them off a cliff. Or get them stuck to the side of one, which is also quite funny. Ghosts -- You *can* do this. You have to stay near some object you can race around, but you can melee the driver. This isn't easy, and will almost certainly end in an unpleasantly for you though. All he has to do is strafe. I'm not sure about ducking here. I didn't have any luck with it, but your ground forces buddies do it to avoid the ghosts, so it might work for you. Banshees -- Yeah, good luck with that. The Flood -- Melee works well on the little suckers, especially if you have one at a time to hit. But this becomes rather futile very quickly, especially with the larger flood, whose reach greatly surpasses your own. I'm still compiling notes on these. Actually I'm currently trying to see if I can create a strategy for beating the gold elites every time, so it may be awhile before I finish my notes on the flood. Anyone else have any luck with the flood and melee attacks? The drones -- I forget what they're called. This is futile, EXCEPT for one case. If you can hit the tiny control point on the rear, top, of the drone, you can take it down with one hit. Otherwise, by the time you land your second hit, it's all over you with that oversized laser pointer. I believe this is the key to the Flood's ability to defeat them at all. The only times I've seen the flood really quickly take down the floating bots was when one or two would attack by jumping high, and behind the bot before attacking with a melee attack. Guilty spark. There's a reason he's called 343 guilty spark. You have to hit him exactly 343 times with the melee attack, from behind, before he explodes. Did I leave anything out? -Chilton

Message Index

Melee Tactics	Chilton	1/29/03 2:51 a.m.
Re: Melee Tactics	Random Hero	1/29/03 6:48 a.m.
Can I post this as a TIP??	CYBRFRK	1/29/03 8:24 a.m.
Re: Can I post this as a TIP??	Razorback	1/29/03 8:27 a.m.
Re: Can I post this as a TIP??	Chilton	1/29/03 9:33 a.m.
Re: Can I post this as a TIP??	Chilton	1/29/03 9:33 a.m.
Re: Can I post this as a TIP??	CYBRFRK	1/29/03 12:21 p.m.
Re: Can I post this as a TIP??	Chilton	1/29/03 2:13 p.m.
Run Punch!	poena.dare #CP#	1/29/03 12:42 p.m.
Re: Run Punch!	Miguel Chavez	1/29/03 2:10 p.m.
Re: Run Punch!	Chilton	1/29/03 2:20 p.m.
Re: Run Punch!	g-money	1/29/03 2:56 p.m.
Validate and I'll update the TIP *NM*	CYBRFRK	1/29/03 3:36 p.m.
Re: Validate and I'll update the TIP	Exogenesis	1/29/03 5:10 p.m.
Well done! *NM*	Miguel Chavez	1/29/03 9:21 a.m.
Tip Posted Here	CYBRFRK	1/29/03 12:41 p.m.
Melee Tactics - Jackal Flavors	poena.dare #CP#	1/29/03 12:57 p.m.
Oh, what have I done?	poena.dare #CP#	1/29/03 1:22 p.m.
Re: Oh, what have I done?	Wyvern	1/29/03 3:31 p.m.
Re: Melee Tactics - Jackal Flavors	Chilton	1/29/03 9:58 p.m.
Re: Melee Tactics - Jackal Flavors	Scalrag	1/30/03 1:13 p.m.