Halo 3: Improvement Techniques 13.) Beat-Down Strats and Discussion

By now most of you know that the beat-down is no longer host driven. In other words, the first one to press the B button does not always win beat-down encounters. Instead, Bungie has decided who has received less damage is the winner of a beat-down confrontation so long as they press the B button within one second of their opponent pressing it. You'd think the way everyone has been complaining or lauding this change that Bungie has dramatically changed the way this game will be played.

They haven't.

What Bungie has done is move the host advantage away from in close encounters to distance shooting. If you think about it, this isn't as dramatic a change as it seems, but it does force you to change your approach just a little bit. We'll discuss the changes first, then we'll talk about how to tweak your gameplay to account for these changes.

First of all, instead of host having the advantage of quickest B-button, the host now has the quickest trigger advantage. This can, and will, eventually lead to host having an advantage in up close, beat-down, situations as soon as these idiot Timmies realize it. I'm going to help you realize it first though.

The "It" I'm speaking of is now, whoever gets off the first shot, will always win the beatdown. Why? Because if you get off the first shot, your opponent will always have less health than you so long as you don't run out of ammo on the approach for your beatdown.

First shot means you should always move in for the quick beat-down kill. Maybe you're a good shot and you kill your opponent before you reach them. Fine. No loss for you, you still win. But if you should get close enough to hit that B button and connect, you should have no problem getting the kill because you got off first shot, your opponent has less shields and you win.

If you didn't get off first shot, you should dance just out of reach of a beatdown and make sure to PULSE your AR. If you pulse your AR just out of beatdown range, the chances of your opponent running out of ammo before being able to kill you increases. The fact you are pulsing your weapon to increase accuracy and save ammo will give you the extra time you need to finish off your opponent just out of reach of his beatdown. You'll win these types of encounters every time because if you pulse your AR, you only need about half a clip to kill someone. If you don't, it might take a full clip and a bit of your next clip after you reload to do the job.

Be quicker than your opponent and get the first shot off to get beatdown kills. Be smarter than your opponent and stay away from his beatdown and pulse your weapon to avoid his beatdown. This may seem like simple advice, and it is, but since so much of Halo 3 revolves around this Rock-Paper-Scissors mini game, it is probably the most important basic advice to follow.

So remember, Host now has advantage over first sight, which should = first shot which should = winning beat-downs. Keep this in mind. Host advantage hasn't gone away, it has just moved to somewhere most people won't think to notice it.