How not to suck Halo Infinite
The Halo Infinite multiplayer game (a surprise released earlier this week) only took one game to remember the difference between Halo and all other multiplayer shooting games. When I was wearing slow and heavy Spartan boots, the last few hours of muscle memory I got from “Rainbow Six: Siege”, “Battlefield 2042” or “Warzone” did not do me any good. For example, if you are an old player like me, you may have forgotten the importance of grenades.
But even if you are a brand new Halo player, Infinite seems to be a good place to become a fan. It has everything I like about Halo fighting, and more. The only problem is that it can be very ruthless. If you are from another shooter, here are my best techniques for familiarizing Halo combat.
Familiar with grenades
Grenades are the basic pillar of Halo combat. You will quickly notice that players are constantly throwing at each other for good reason: Halo’s high TTK (time to kill) means that both players have a chance to gain an advantage when shooting at each other. The first Spartan to break the opponent’s shield may win, and the burst of grenade is one of the best ways.
The standard fragmentation grenade has a high hit rate, fly far, and high bounce. If you are new to Halo, learning its flight path is a bit tricky, but after about an hour of practice, you will begin to learn some common techniques to bring your fragment close to the target (bounce from the fragment) and place it in front of you Sending forward from the ground is a good start).
Likewise, know when the enemy is most likely to throw grenades so you can dodge them. If you are in a firefight and the enemy stops to reload, please be prepared: they are about to throw away the fragments to stop you.
Learn to shoot melee combo
Another pillar of Halo’s combat is melee attacks. Compared to any other FPS, many Halo battles start or end with melee attacks. One shot will destroy your entire shield, two hits will always be death.
Melee is best combined with your gun: One of Halo’s proven strategies for the past 20 years is to use bullets to cut enemy shields to nearly zero, and then use a melee attack to destroy them.This tactic does not have an official name I can find, so we call it Shoot melee combinations. This situation is not uncommon, and it is not uncommon for two players to fight and kill each other at the same time.
Close combat is great, but there are also wrong timings. If you don’t intend to kill someone, it’s usually a bad idea to fight with them, because if you don’t, you can easily be attacked at the end of the animation. You can usually judge whether the enemy’s shield is low enough to die in close combat based on your feelings, but you can also refer to the brightness of the shield itself. In Infinite, damaged shields will get brighter and brighter until they finally burst. In my experience, right before that pop music, you can safely engage in a melee.
Remember: it doesn’t matter if you have a headshot before the shield is down
Generally speaking, a shield strike is a shield strike. Shooting a masked head will not cause more damage than shooting a masked leg. With this in mind, don’t make your own battles more difficult for the sake of heavy blows. Halo Infinite’s assault rifle is so good for a reason: it can quickly tear the shield through a relaxed torso shot.
When the shield finally ruptures, a single headshot of the precision weapon can solve the problem (but for maximum satisfaction, I recommend the Sidekick pistol).
Have A major exception to this rule, That is the S7 sniper rifle. The sniper is (and will always be) a single blow to the head from full health. This is what it is all about. It is also a powerful two-shot kill on the body, so you don’t have to do some harm to it like a god.
Remember: plasma can break shields, bullets can break people
There are many new ammunition types in Halo Infinite, but the two main types to keep in mind are Kinetic (normal bullets) and Plasma. Kinetic guns like assault rifles, combat rifles, and partners do more damage to enemies without shields. Plasma guns (such as plasma pistols, pulse carbine and needle guns) will cause additional damage to the shield. Naturally, if possible, it is good to have one in everyone and swap between them as needed.
Crouching and disappearing on the radar (motion tracker)
Each Spartan warrior is equipped with a motion track in the lower left corner of the screen, which periodically sends out ping signals to the enemies around the player. You can attract more attention on the motion tracker by shooting and sprinting, but you will completely disappear from it when you squat. Use it to sneak into the target location and get brazen melee killings!
Replace grenades where appropriate
Halo Infinite currently has four types of grenade, each of which is good at different things:
- Fragmentation grenade: Flexible high-range explosion damage
- Plasma grenade: The explosion is small, but very sticky. If the enemy gets stuck, one hit will kill
- Spiked grenade: The damage is low, but it sticks to the wall/vehicle and shoots bouncing spikes
- Generator grenade: Will not explode, but will continue and cause electrical damage to anything in the area over time (and paralyze the vehicle)
You can hold both types at the same time and swap between them, but the default binding on the keyboard is garbage (B and N). I recommend swapping it immediately (I mapped it to one of my mouse thumb buttons).
Use AI scanning to find power weapons
Mapped to Z by default, your personal AI can scan the area around you to conveniently mark available powered weapons, vehicles, or power-ups. If you find yourself running in and dying from the spawned weapon, use it often.
…Then start learning weapon generation
AI scanning is a great help, but once you learn the map, you don’t need it anymore. The map knowledge in Halo is very rich. Power weapons are either spawned at controversial choke points, or spawned on inaccessible roads, it is best to understand all of these.
The team that controls the map’s power weapons has a great advantage, so don’t give up easily. Grab that rocket launcher, even if you don’t plan to use it. If you don’t care about it, please use the new “Punch” button (I remap mine to G due to the old Counter-Strike reaction) to give it to teammates.
Use the device to quickly escape
The Spartans may be a little slower than the sports heroes of Apex Legends, but the pickup of new equipment provides you with many potential sports options. The sweet grappling hook is definitely the most flexible way to travel, but don’t sleep on thrusters or repellers. The thruster is great for repositioning immediately around corners or gaining extra distance from the jump, and blowing the Repulsor to the ground during the jump, which is basically a temporary double jump I often use.
Keep in touch with one or two friends
Single players cannot survive in Halo for too long. Unlike “Rainbow Six: Siege” or “Call of Duty”, without the miracle in the shape of a small plasma grenade, you are unlikely to win 1v2 battles, so it is vital that a friend nearby ignites and exchanges fire with you .
If you are driving, don’t stop
When driving a warthog with a partner in the gunner’s seat, the best service you can provide them is not to stop in the middle of an open field. You want to be a moving target, but you don’t want to turn the steering wheel so sharply that they can’t aim straight.
the best choice? Walk around the map on the main road and only slow down when your gunner shoots at someone and needs to complete the kill. Then speed up and get out of there! There may be a rocket launcher nearby, or worse, an enemy is waiting to drag you off the truck.
Press the horn twice to tell your teammates that your warthog is available
The best feature of Halo Infinite’s low profile is a new notification that will tell the team that your vehicle is available when you hit the horn twice. As a long-time Halo fan, he spent a lot of time honking his teammates. They didn’t realize that I wanted them to jump into my Warthog. It’s a godsend, and what’s cooler is that the notice is obvious, but it doesn’t have. Intrusive.
Now there is a ping, you should use it
Speaking of non-intrusive notifications, Halo now has a ping button. It defaults to X, which is a good place for a tool you should use frequently. Ping is most useful when you’re still in the game or talking with friends on Discord, but it’s great to be able to say “combat rifle is activated” while also pinging its exact location. You can also use it to ping the location of a normal enemy, which is much better than just saying “there is a guy on the rock”.
Halo Infinite changed old Halo rules
- Plasma pistols no longer emit electromagnetic pulses to vehicles through charging shots. This is what the new Shock Rifle, Disruptor pistol and Dynamo grenade do.
- Unlike Halo 5, the sprint will not interrupt the charging of your shield. Run!
- In Capture the Flag, the flag bearer will only show it to other teams when sprinting.
- The Halo 5’s ground impact and Spartan charge have disappeared, but the thrusters have returned in the form of limited use equipment.