Halo 3: Improvement Techniques 11.) Isolating your Targets and Yourself

Fetal

Shared on Fri, 10/19/2007 - 15:54

Isolating your targets is probably one of the things people don't really understand. In Halo 2, in rumble pit games, isolating your targets and keeping yourself from being someone else's target were paramount in victory. Many people didn't realize this and were all too happy to rush after the poor soul who didn't see them coming only to die by the hand of someone else who was stalkling them. Halo 3 is no different. Sometimes that easy looking kill just is too good to be true.

This blog deals with two objectives, isolation of your target from others, and isolating yourself from anyone looking to kill you. We'll deal with the former first.

Isolating others really isn't all that hard. Tossing a grenade behind someone charging away from you, or from your left to your right, or just sitting patiently and waiting for your target to commit to running towards your position are all acceptable ways of isolating your target. What people don't really get though, is that you are trying to isolate them for yourself to kill. Herding them into areas only you have a shot at killing them is key to this strategy. You don't want someone else to take credit for your hard earned work. Take this example: A guy is running on guardian in the dish, but he has two choices; run to the blue room to his right, or head straight into the sniper area. If he's got a brain, he'll be hesitant about heading to snipe because generally that is where people whore the use of the hammer. You should give him some incentive to abandon his thoughts of going to the blue room by tossing a nade in his immediate path to the blue room. If he runs to the blue room still, he's an easy target because the nade took away his shields. shoot him from your position, just don't follow. If he turns to run into snipe, rejoice! You've just successfully made him commit to an area you now control and have almost garunteed yourself a kill.....so long as you don't screw it up. :)

Isolating yourself is equally important to isolating your prey. It isn't a winning strategy to be shot at while shooting someone else, much less die before you manage to kill your target and having someone else pilfer your kill. If you are getting shot by someone, you don't have to run, or turn and ignore your target. You just need to move yourself around cover to stop bullets from hitting you. After some time of doing this, you'll get a feel for where the fire is coming from. Once you know this, you can move your body to cover from the offender, and continue shooting your target. Continuing use of  the example I gave above....So you've managed to kill the poor guy you pursuaded to charge your area, but you also noticed that during that battle a red dot was moving underneath you. You have to assume, since you don't have the hammer, this guy does because his trajectory has just carried him through the hammer's spawn point. What should you do? Your shields are already a bit damaged from your first encounter. Waiting for him to come is not an option because he has a one hit insta-kill power weapon. Running away is not an option because you really don't know what else is out there, and you could just as easily run into more trouble by fleeing. So, you can really only do one thing. Drop below to snipe 1 to try and stick him and try to shoot him before he closes the distance and Maxwell can kill you with his silver hammer.

Basically what I'm trying to convey here is generally, the devil you know is almost always preferable to the one you don't. This doesn't mean running away is never an option....If you saw three red dots closing in on your from multiple positions, by all means run like a little girl, and be proud of it. But it does mean when you have limited information, work with what you have instead of running into an unknown situation.

You assignment tonight is, when playing team slayer or lonewolves, to find an area of the map you can control  that has at least three areas of entry and egress with decent cover available to you. Try holding onto this area as long as you can by using cover to shield you from bullets coming from everyone else but your target. Use your grenades, isolate your targets and herd them to where you want them to go. If someone refuses to be herded, even better, kill them with your grenades. Remember the tendencies of your opponents. Player X always runs away, Player Y likes to always strafe right and then charge in. Use all of this information to hold your ground. You are not allowed to run away, or charge out of your area. You probably won't win (although it is possible if you choose a good spot) any lonewolf games, but your kill/death ratios should be good. Good luck!

Comments

Boulder's picture
Submitted by Boulder on Fri, 10/19/2007 - 17:53
Again, excellent information. Thanks!
OldManRiver48's picture
Submitted by OldManRiver48 on Fri, 10/19/2007 - 20:12
Thanks Fetal, I always forget to get a nade out when someone is moving away-I dont know why. Thanks for that tidbit and your other great insights. :)
SPEEDBYRD's picture
Submitted by SPEEDBYRD on Fri, 10/19/2007 - 20:30
Good post man. The best for me has been the play style one, it has really helped my k/d ratio.

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