Single Player Legendary All Skulls On

[chip sandwich]

Anyone here tried the ultimate challenge mode for Reach? There was a weekly challenge recently where you had to do Winter Contingency (co-op was allowed), and Bungie mentioned in their weekly update that about 100,000 players completed it.

There is a guide on halo.bungie.org by Daniel "The Tyrant" Morris and a few other videos on the youtubes by that mlg guy shadowstrike if you're interested. I've done Winter Contingency with the help of shadowstrike, but I'm determined to figure out ONI Sword Base without watching a video . Bungie hinted that this sort of thing would pop up in weekly challenges in the future.

As for the previous Halos, you can do flood levels fairly easily. Covenant levels, depending on the level of fight skipping allowed, are significantly harder, although liberal noob combo usage should see you through. No such luck in Reach though, Elites take 3 overcharged shots to become vulnerable, and it's highly likely that they will dodge them, which means you'll be shit out of ammo and shit out of luck.

Apparently, Long Night of Solace on SLASO is the hardest challenge in the entire series. I think the only thing that could possibly be harder would be if they allowed this in Halo CE, on Truth and Reconciliation. Massive waves of enemies, buttloads of elites, an escort mission at the end and completely useless teammates would make this an absolute hell. Plus you don't get the pistol, which means either you'd need to be spot on with sniper headshots.

[mannon]

I did the Winter Contingency LASO challenge. In fact I did it solo without using the save and exit cheat so I did it on true "Mythic Difficulty". ;3 Though it is probably the easiest level to do it on.

I should mention that I didn't bother looking at any guides until after and did it all the hard way, actually doing all of the fights with no skipping. heh (You can skip prolly 2/3 of the fights in Winter Contingency.)

It's definitely a challenge, but it was damn fun. And it felt soooooo good when I finally completed it.

A few general tips... Use a dry erase marker to mark where the reticule is on your tv/monitor. You will then be able to stay accurate even without a hud. (Keep in mind that in first person the reticule (and where shots are fired) is about 1/3 from the bottom of the screen and NOT in the center like most FPS games. But when you are in third person such as using a turret the reticule IS in the center of the screen. So you may need to mark both depending on the level and your strategy.

Taking any damage at all even from single needles, ect, is a bad thing. You should always prevent any damage you can and not trade shots with enemies since you can only recharge shields by melee attacking enemies or using a health kit when your shields are down completely and you have health damage. (Otherwise you cannot use the health kit, but they will actually restore both health and shields when used.)

Teammates are nearly useless against Elites due to tilt+mythic, but are good for keeping them distracted while you work on dropping their shields. Sometimes they are helpful in keeping Elites shields from recharging as well, but often will simply let them go hide and recharge.

Teammates are grenade magnets, do NOT stand next to them.

You pretty much HAVE to carry a plasma weapon and a precision weapon anytime you face Elites. Sadly the noob combo is useless, though. Plasma pistols will only get you about 3 overcharged shots which is only enough to drop the shields on a single Elite. However the plasma pistol is still one of the best tools for dropping Elite shields due to it's great shield damage. (I'm not kidding, I tend to prefer them to plasma rifles because the rifles often go dry quickly while normal shooting pistols I rarely used one up before I find another with more ammo.) Once the shields drop swap immediately to DMR/NR/Pistol and headshot FTW.

Zooming increases accuracy, use it for headshots.

I generally found it best to clear out grunts, jackals, and skirmishers first from a safe distance, then start whittling down Elites' shields. You may have to chase them a little if they run away to recharge.

Stay paranoid of grenades at all times.

Noble Team = Meatshields They can't die until their appointed cut scenes so don't feel bad.

It is difficult, but possible to drop Elite shields with bullets. Sometimes it may be your best bet, though. (I find that in the final sequence of Winter Contingency when you are fighting int he dark halways and start next to the DMR rack it is useful to clear out the cannon fodder grunts and jackals then sit back all the way at the end and use 2 to 3 shot bursts from the AR to drop the Elite's shields. It takes a while, but doesn't risk getting hit by him since he won't rush you. Swap to DMR and headshot him and you've saved yourself the headache of him retreating and having to fight him and the zealot at the end.

I think with tilt on needles do better than bullets vs shields, but really you need plasma.

Headshot, headshot, headshot!



I will note that after doing Winter Contingency LASO it made the regular game feel like easy mode! lol I mean srlsly it made me a LOT better at the campaign. Now even heroic without skulls feels easier than normal used to. It's still a challenge on Legendary with some of the skull combos as I've found doing some of the other 2 and 3 skull challenges lately. But not as bad as LASO. And Legendary with no skulls just feels like normal to me now. heh

I'm definitely going to try doing all the levels on "Mythic Difficulty" at some point now. Hopefully without having to resort to the guides unless I just get completely stuck. I still need to do my first complete Legendary playthrough as well. I've been reluctant to start that for some reason. Should help prepare me for the eventual SLASO push, though.

[chip sandwich]

Yeah, I tried Legendary Winter Contingency with all of the skulls on except black eye after I did ONI sword base and WC SLASO and it was pretty easy, skipped one fight because I was out of pistol ammo but hey, it's not that hard anymore anyway.

And yeah, plasma pistol primary fire is awesome. You can drop shields faster than the plasma rifle. It also rules in MP, and not just for noob combo-ing.

From what I've heard, Nightfall is the easiest, since every fight can be skipped; and elites with concussion rifles are bastards. There aren't any compulsory concussion dudes in WC, which is another reason why it's easier. The one at the start of ONI sword base is a real wake up call.

[mannon]

Well there is one concussion Elite in WC, at least with LASO. That's the first Elite I mentioned inside the facility, in the dark hallways area where it's just you and Jorge. The others you can skip, but he just retreats if you don't kill him and then you gotta fight him later with the sword toting Zealot. (And If you play co-op there is another one back there too.)

They are sons of beyatches. I stay far back from them! heh Sadly those concussion rifles so effective against you aren't worth dropping a laser pistol or precision weapon to pickup. heh (Unless you know you won't be facing Elites for a bit.)

I played Nightfall on Legendary with about three skulls on for a challenge and had a hard time at the spot where you keep coming up on turrets manned by grunts and guarded by Elites. I didn't see any way to skip that. The turrets weren't an issue, but the Elites were a PITA. I did, however, find it quite useful to kill off the grunts but not destroy the last turret. One of the Elites would pop into it and then he would no longer dodge around or run away to hide and recharge so I could just duck in and out of cover and pop him with plasma pistol until his shields popped... Nice stationary target. Too bad the other two Elites wouldn't fall for it too. heh

With mythic and tilt I find Elites a mixed bag on Legendary difficulty. Sometimes they aren't that bad, and other times they are motherfrakers! Getting in close and mixing it up, even when using cover tends to end badly. But trying to stay at a distance sometimes means they can dodge or hide too much to be effective against their shields unless you're lucky.

Having the damn hologram armor ability at that point didn't help much either, though I'm not sure what would have been more useful except maybe armor lock. (On the other hand camo was AWESOME in some places for getting me easy assassinations I sorely missed it.) Mebbe that is the means by which even that section can be skipped? It seemed a bit too long to camo through the whole thing, though and there weren't many places to hide unless you had cleared out the enemies first.

[chip sandwich]

I think "every fight on nightfall can be skipped" involved some trickery with a forklift, I know that you can use it to jump over the gate during the hunter part and the rest of the enemies won't load, lol. Not sure about the lead up to that section though. The only guide which I actually read and can recall fairly well is Long Night of Solace, because the author seemed pretty foreboding about it. Blocking corridors with crates is a handy hint that was mentioned a lot.

I find that the biggest cockblockers, apart from concussion elites, are the Jackals. I'm not sure which skull has the effect, but they don't flinch when you shoot them in the hand. You have to wait or flank to get a headshot. It's really annoying.

[mannon]

I hate them anyway. I don't mind having to snipe precise locations but those bastards are also rather twitchy and if you even nudge the shield instead then it's basically wasted effort because it takes five beeellion shots to destroy those. heh I often enjoy using NR on them just because it's easier to shoot them in the butt for the supercombine after they dive away from your first shot.

Though my old and still favorite way to kill Jackals is running them over. heh

Since I can usually stay at a distance with cover from them Jackals aren't usually a huge threat, but I hate the fuckers for wasting all my priceless DMR ammo. heh Especially when I finally do get a flinch but fail to connect the headshot, or they turn and run all exposed, but I don't react in time and then have to wait and aim carefully all over again.

Even with Togh Luck I still toss grenades at them just to dick with them. Then again the nice fringe benefit of Catch is that you have a steady supply of plasma grenades, so you might as well use them, even if every damn thing can jump out of the way anyway. ;p (I use them more to reposition and distract enemies than for doing damage, though I do get the odd lucky kill even so.)

[chip sandwich]

A few other things that I picked up or remember seeing:

CLIPPING IS YOUR FRIEND. It's not perfect, but peeking out above an obstacle and shooting guys with your face works a lot better than circle strafing behind a waist high wall. It's even better if you can aim through a very small crack through which the enemy can only see your face, since they always aim for centre mass. They MAY hit your head because their guns aren't 100% accurate, but it shouldn't be anything drastic. If possible, try to get high ground, and back up a little, lining up your view so that you can see the enemy but they can only see your face, it's much better than crouching behind stuff.

I've noticed that some wraiths will explode if you hijack and melee the driver (drivers may have a lot of health, so you end up meleeing one too many times). If the situation allows it, disable the wraith with the plasma pistol, then jump on top of it (don't board it) and beat the driver to death normally. Be careful in Wraiths though, cockblocker concussion elites are still dangerous. If you see a plasma launcher elite, kill everyone else first, from a distance, then after EVERYONE is dead, kill the launcher guy on foot.

If you're out of shields but can't pick up health, use a plamsa pistol overcharge next to a wall and immediately pick up the health pack. Obviously, you should try to pick up the pack first before you try this. If you're in the red, this may give you a quick ticket back to the start.

For sword elites, try to jump to weird spots where they can't get you. At the end of WC, you can stand on some pipes on the left of the passage to the computer room. At the end of Tip of the Spear, I accidentally discovered that the passage leading to the controls has a very little ledge you can stand on, near the roof. I like to kill all the grunts in the room, then have the sword elite chase after me. If you're lucky, you can get him to fall off of the platform, but I usually just fall back down, jetpack to avoid getting pancaked by gravity, then take the lift back up and jetpack up to the little weird spot. Although you probably won't know where it is until you know where it is .

Sometimes you can use the crazy physics. If you have cowbell on, you can use the rocket launcher or fuel rod gun to send elites flying off ledges. This is only applicable in certain situations, obviously. Likewise, you can use the tough luck skull to make enemies "evade" a grenade to a lethal drop. Try to make them evade left or right from your point of view. For those with balls of molybdenum-hardened steel, you can also make Wraiths boost off ledges.

For your precision weapon, try to reload after every kill. When you can't reload, you know you're down to your last mag. Plasma weapons tend to stutter before they run out of ammo, but it's usually during your last 10 or 20 shots, so it's not that helpful.

Some situations may benefit from manning a warthog gun. Just make sure the soldier who was on it previously is very far away, otherwise be prepared for awful AI driving. I say DIY because the AI for whatever reason needs to be at a certain proximity to fire, but you don't. Also, some things which the AI will not fire on can still be destroyed or moved. Try to get vehicles past barriers, they can really come in handy in areas where they're not meant to be used.

For the Mass Driver section at the end of the game, you can evade phantom shots by panning steadily in one direction, then back and forth. This should be enough to throw off their homing ability. Good luck getting up to that part though, the rest of the level is crazy. If you're REALLY cheap, you can just get on then off, hide behind it and wait until you have to shoot the cruiser.

[mannon]

I can wholeheartedly endorse taking the high ground and firing over the edge. I've been using that in shooters for ages, but it works quite well in Halo. I started using it when I found out RL tanks use it. They call it the hull down position where only the turret is visible to the enemy over the top of the hill and the rest of the vehicle is protected. Hills are much better than crates and crouching for cover especially because you can walk forward and back to reveal just as much as you need to. That way you can usually take on a group of enemies but only have line of sight on one at a time. You will have to slice the pie horizontally around cover at times as well, but it's definitely not as effective. For a LASO run I would not recommend taking any damage you can prevent, though. So even if firing through a small crack with great cover it's good to duck behind full cover when fired upon, just to be sure. Good news is most enemies even on a LASO run have somewhat slow reaction times, and on top of that nearly all their weapons are projectile instead of hitscan, so that gives you just a little more time. Beware needle rifles, though. They are pretty much instantaneous and in the hands of skirmishers very very accurate. Don't assume good cover will protect you. If they have a line of sight on your chest they can hit it.

Another tip I've seen mentioned about using explosive weapons, concussion rifle particularly, and I think it would really apply with cowbell on... you can often do more damage than the weapon it-self does by using the blast to throw an object at your enemies. I'm not sure how often there will be a conveniently placed hunk of something laying about, but it's a good tip, none the less.

For hijacking wraiths I definitely recommend the method mentioned above. I played through the whole game and was sad I could never hijack one until eventually I just tried it that way on The Package. It's easy as pie and you get a wraith with full health. Hell you don't even have to disable it if you're careful not to get run over by it. Of course you DO have to kill the gunner on top first, but that goes without saying.

At the end of WC when you're standing on the balcony thing where Jorge stops an overlooking the gap and the pistons you can jump on the railing, then jump on the wall to the right. You can walk all the way up and down the wall and even take potshots at the zealot in the room. I tried this first to kill him and unfortunately he ran and hid when I finally got his shield down. It recharged damn near instantly too... T_T Then I got scared when he started tossing grenades at Jorge and I remembered catch was on. I REALLY didn't want a grenade in my face. heh Best way to handle him is to lure him to Jorge then you should have no problem either dropping his shields and head-shotting him or assassinating him, but it is good to know there is such a safe spot that you can harass him from if you choose.

I'll have to play with evading the phantom shots at the end of The Pillar of Autumn. The last time I played through it I had a dropshield so when my shields were down and I had some damage I just got out and plopped my dropshield down to heal, then jumped back in with full health and shields... mileage may vary.

Oh and for the section just before where you have to defend don't forget the secret weapon cache you have to knock out of the wall. The DMR ammo is very handy indeed. On my first playthough with my girlfriend the damn thing got knocked out before we even got to it and it fell off and tumbled over upside down where we couldn't get to the weapons and couldn't flip it over. I was very sad panda... It's in the back wall of the second to top floor of the little building in the middle. Just melee all the walls from the outside and it should fall out. You might have to jump out the way so it doesn't smash into you and hurt your shields. It can be found easily on youtube.


I actually got to kinda like having the hud turned off. heh My little marker spot was perfect for an aiming reticule, and I didn't really mind the lack of ammo counter and shield display all that much. It makes you keep track of things mentally a lot better, which just makes you more aware. Having to listen to all your own weapon sounds and such made me much more aware of the reload times on my weapons, and of course the dreaded click when it doesn't reload anymore. heh I really like the clear view, though. A lot of the weapons tend to block quite a bit of your view, especially in some of their animations.

I'll have to try out all these suggestions and go for a comeplete SLASO run... but that can wait. First I plan to go through on Legendary, though I think I'll do it without any skulls even though that will remove most of the real challenge and keep the points multiplier lower than it could be. But for now I just want to get through the whole game on L and look for the data pads. I'm hoping I can find most of them on my own without having to look them up, but we'll see. heh Too bad there's not an achievement for it. I actually had fun searching for all the laptops in MW2 and was rather proud of the fact that I only had to lookup 3 of them to find them. (Srsly that one on the snowmobile escape! I've driven over that spot so many times and never saw it, even when I picked it up finally.) Halo's a lot more wide open, though. Could be much more of a challenge. (Even the outdoor maps in MW2 are claustrophobic by Halo standards.)

Anyway, sounds like fun.

[chip sandwich]

Oh boy, ONI LASO is this week's weekly challenge. *cracks knuckles*

[mannon]

OOoohhh! Sweet! I'm there, should be a challenge! heh

[mannon]

Haven't gotten to it until today. Definitely more challenging than WC, but looks like FUNN! Especially once I live long enough to jack one of those Wraiths. MWAHAHA!

PS. Brotip, I JUUUUST realized that you don't have to use the Blind skull! DOH! Although technically it doesn't qualify as "Mythic Difficulty" if you don't, it does qualify for the challenge despite the description. I found this out by simply activating the challenge as a shortcut to setup my lobby and it didn't have Blind on, but the challenge was still active. It's been confirmed online as well.

[chip sandwich]

Yeah, I noticed that and did it too, but I'm pretty sure WC's one had to have the blind skull on. There were a couple of tense moments, I got pinged down to one bar of health by those concussion elites at the AA gun, and that other concussion elite at the top of the elevator to ONI Sword Base's lobby was kinda annoying. Can't wait 'til they decide to do Long Night of Solace. I think about 120,000 people did WC LASO. I think about 10% of them would be able to do Long Night. Good thing the skulls don't affect the space flight section.

[mannon]

Found a new and wonderful way to screw myself out of the challenge... First of all I got all the way to the end then was stupid and let one of the cloaked spec-ops elites stick me with a grenade just off of the narrow hallway... I wasn't expecting him to be so close.

Pissed as I was I just went right back at it. It takes me a few tries to assassinate the first elite, but then I was off to the races for the long grind. I was very careful so it took a while, but I finally made it back there and finished it off. ahhhhhh! But, no challenge complete?!

Duh-oohhhh! It was all my fault... During the game my internet disconnected temporarily. It came back on and my PC got back online automatically of course. I then called my girlfriend back as we were on skype while I played. But... oh man do I feel dumb... I forgot to reconnect to xbox live!!!!

So I actually did the damn challenge, but didn't get the reward. Geez... I tried to make another run, but my time was running out and I guess it made me rush too much, because I kept dying to little dumb mistakes and just couldn't finish it before the challenge expired... feh!

T_T

I'm not waiting until the weekend to do LASO challenges anymore. Hopefully ONI:LASO will roll back around at some point.

It was fun, though. And even though I didn't get the cR or challenge complete on my record at least I know that I did it. (Though I didn't have Blind on so it wasn't quite a Mythic run. I'll do that eventually, though.)

[chip sandwich]

Nightfall LASO this week. 12000cr and all you have to do is run past dudes.

[mannon]

Still sad I didn't get the challenge for completing Oni, but oh well. I'll get it next time it rolls around. Definitely hitting this. I thought it was gonna be hard until I read the Mythic Guide... lol Now I'm thinking that maybe I shouldn't read that thing until I've at least tried the level on my own. The guide for Nightfall definitely ruins any perceived challenge from the... err... challenge. I'm still totally getting that 12,000 cR, though. heh

[chip sandwich]

Yeah, I just followed the guide straight through for this one. By the time I got around to playing any xbox games, it was the weekend, and all of my controllers' battery cases were screwed and I had to fix that up. It was Sunday night about 18h before the challenge was due, had some stuff to do the next morning, so I just couldn't be bothered slogging it.

[mannon]

MiniLASO challenge today for 5 kilocredits (5kcR). ;p

L.D. Spear
"Complete Tip of the Spear, without dying, on Legendary with Mythic, Thunderstorm, Tilt, and Tough Luck on."

[chip sandwich]

Cool, but I don't think I have time to do it. 5000cr for a single player level would be nice though.

Also been lurking your combat record. Just how long have you been doing the target locator thing anyway?

[mannon]

I only did the target locator thing like twice, then didn't like all the penalty points so I gave it up. But man that thing builds up kills so gosh darn golly gee whiz fast I'll never erase it from my record. lol I did it on Heroic with lots of skulls on to give even more points, not that it really matters. It did max out some of my commendations though. Can't really decide if I regret doing it or not. I do regret the penalty points, but it's not that big a deal. I just didn't want it to totally screw my stats. It pretty much did for my Heroic record, but I never play on Heroic anymore anyway. Generally I either play normal just to knock out a challenge or Legendary. Though I do wonder if I could somehow accrue bonus points to try to offset the penalties... it would be a LONG haul to overcome all that, though.

Now if I feel like farming credits I prefer to do Sniper Attack on Courtyard. Usually get ~2400 points off each and build some commendations. Though I really need to hit multiplayer too. Whole new pool of commendations to work on there. ;p

[chip sandwich]

But you can't boost them very easily >_<

For firefight, I usually pick 2x Score Attack. The rounds go by pretty fast and you can get a lot of kills and points at a high rate for very little effort.

[mannon]

Nice part about sniper attack on courtyard is the infinite ammo so I don't have to go back to the spawn room, and I can just hang back at the end of the walkway and nail 3 and 4 enemies at a time as they come at me single file. ;3 Plus jetpack hopping for the medals.

But it's definitely worth mixing it up. Just doing that over and over is major boring. I'll have to try 2x some more. I've played a few and had fun. I don't actually know what all the gametypes are, there's a bunch of obscure ones. I know one thing... I played that skirmishers one once on Glacier and OMG... I hate those fuckers! >,> Was a royal pain, but I didn't quit. heh

[mannon]

Dammot I missed both the LD Spear and LD Winter challenges. ;-( I was doing Spear, but started it too late... DUH. I should know better than to wait until there's only a couple hours. I thought I'd have plenty of time so I wanted to finish my Legendary run on Long Night of Solace since I was halfway through it. Shoulda just let it go. I did make a run on LD Winter since I'd failed to do LD Spear in time, but I got really frustrated when I made the mistake of picking up the energy sword and trying to kill the final elite with the concussion rifle with it. ARG! I dunno why I was thinking it would still kill him in just one hit! lol That was dumb... I coulda just sniped him with my plasma pistol and DMR and been fine. Hell I probably could have sprinted around behind him for an assassination. But no... I got frustrated and turned it off, then didn't have time to try again later.

Hopefully we'll get some more challenges like these soon. I love doing them... but I HATE missing them! Another 10k cR down the tube. heh

I did get several thousand cR off the challenges the other day, though. heh Like just 3 games of score attack and I had all 4 challenges. I tried to tell my friends it was a good day to pickup the achievement for doing all the daily challenges, but they don't listen. Too into BO right now.

[chip sandwich]

My TV is broken so I cannot into xbox atm.

Also, Tip of the Spear. 13000cR. Be there or be raised to the power of 2.

[mannon]

Looking forward to it. Now I can make up for missing LD Spear!

[mannon]

Looking to do TotS: LASO this week. I'm trying to talk my bro and friends into doing it co-op. If any Bro's want to do it in co-op mebbe we could hook up too. Halo's been too much of a solitary thing for me thus far. >,>