Hey guys. By now we are all playing the Beta. Halo 3 and MW2 seem to have next to noone playing them. only 14,000 were on Halo 3 when Reach went live, and my mate said MW2 went from 341,000 to 67,000.

So are you getting wasted? Are you unsure?

Heres where we can post our tips and tactics guys. This game is amazing.

Reach improvements over Halo 3 that are much better for the game are as follows:

Melee is no longer overly powerful. This results in much more thought about when to make the attack, but also leaves you vunerable for someone else joining the attack.

Jump is less powerful. This is vastly better because traversing the maps requires more thought especially in chasing an opponent.

Weapons are more balanced. AR34 is more robust. DMR is vastly better than BR, it makes more sense at distant to. Plasma launcher is a great weapon for modes like Oddball or Head Hunter. Generally, there isnt really a weapon you dont want to use, like in Halo 3 noone would want to use the pistol or plasma rifle over a BR or AR34. Reach it's just tactics that change.

Modes. Headhunter is gods gift to any Lone Wolf lover. Stockpile is awesoem if you get a team that will talk on chat. Generator Defense and Invasion are pending.

Ok. Some tactics guys.

Abilities:

Spartans have 4 loadout options. ( Slayer Pro is different ).

Sprint is excellent for modes Oddball and Head Hunter. Carrying 6 Skulls and being 6 feet from the safe zone is when Sprint comes in very very handy. Same with Oddball ( Although when you have the ball you cannot use your ability or you will drop the ball ). With Oddball it's great to throw 2 grenades into a battle around the Ball carrier and then Sprint straight in just as the explosions go off. Hopefully everyone is dead and you are there to pickup and make your move.

Armour Lock. Do not use this in a 1on1 confrontation, unless you really must. A good player will normal grenade kill you when you deplete yout Lock. Noobs wont know about this though, so take use of this method on players that use Armour lock in 1on1. Remebr only use normal grenades against AL. It will literally sit beside them and wait to blow. Throw it at them about 3 secs after AL is used.

Using AL yourself comes into play when your in a room and 4 or so guys plus you are fighting it out. Use it then. They will all have to keep fighting to stay alive from each other. When your EMP charge goes out, they all will have no shields ( and not even notice you because they were fighting ) then just get yourself a triple kill. So basically AL is to be used in a big close fight.

I will post more later. Please by all means post some things you have found that work well.

Me and my buddy have 1 Flag on Sword Base down to a science. It literally only takes like 30 seconds for us to capture the flag each round provided we have at least 1 other decent teammate.

Here is how you do it:

On offense, someone uses the Sprint loadout and rushes to the edge, jumps over and lands at the entrance to the flag. He immediately tosses both grenades towards the far right corner where the other team is coming from, then grabs the flag and runs out the way he came, turning left to head towards the grav lift. One other person can help by jumping down and throwing more grenades/covering the flag guy.

The other 2 team members rush the sniper and then cover the flag guy as he runs for the grav lift. One of these people should use a Jetpack loadout. As the flag guy takes the grav lift heading towards the flag capture point, he should toss the flag once he reaches the highest point. This will get the flag literally 2 steps from the capture point. Then the Jetpack person who was helping cover the flag guy and protect the sniper should take the grav lift, fly up to that level, grab the flag and score.

On defense the key is the rush the center and guard grav lift rather than actually rush the flag. Rush outside to the grav lift and toss grenades/shoot your weapons towards your flag spawn and they will never be able to reach the goal. They may try to take it the long way, but it is easy to stop them those ways and return the flag.

The scout class seems pretty much useless in slayer matches. I love the new alien sniper (don't know what's it called), it's like a laser beam. It's so awesome, been getting a lot of killing sprees with it. I was so close to a killing frenzy. But I don't see the difference in using the grenade launcher and throwing grenades.
Overall I'm impressed, quite an improvement over 3.

scout class + hammer equals many many kills if you don't run around like an idiot.

Only in closed levels though. Also have they made the sword weaker because it took me to 2 hits to kill someone and I was like wtf? O.o

I could write a short story about this so I'll try to break it down into more basic points.

- Weapons have bloom now which means the faster you shoot the less accurate your bullets become. Accuracy can be sacrificed with distance, as the player gets closer to you he affords you the opportunity to shoot faster. This is the most crucial concept to understand as an elite player will always outshoot a novice as he spams his shots at long range. I can go into much more depth with this but for now this is enough.

- The plasma launcher only requires one sticky to kill so don't bother charging it completely in a fight, charge one grenade and let it fly.

- Fall damage exists now but if you crouch right before you hit the ground you can lessen or even completely nullify the damage.

- Movement is key to this game. Unlike Halo 3 almost every area in a map has multiple entrances, being aware of your surroundings is essential. Make sure to use the new 3-d radar to track enemy movements.

- Remember that melee's do not damage health until the shield is completely gone. If even a sliver of your opponents shield remains they will not die when you go in for the melee. A good tactic when encountering an enemy player is to keep shooting a bit longer as they come in for the melee to knock their shield down and then go for the kill as their melee animation is resetting.

I could post so much more but thats probably enough as most people won't even bother reading through all of that :P

Thats because you can block the swords lunge if you melee at the exact same time.

Oh right sounds cool, at least you're not totally helpless against a sword. I also read through your other post, I learnt a lot. Thanks =D

Hey thanks for all these tips.  I've been getting pretty well shit on today in the beta (seems like everyone who plays has already learned how to be perfect at everything they do)

I needed to know tips like these.

Are you kidding? I looked at your stats, your doing beastly in the beta.