Halo 3: Improvement Techniques 14.) Oddball and KotH strategies

Lonewolf games can sometimes be frustrating. The only person you have to blame or congratulate for your failures and successes is yourself. Hopefully previous blogs have helped you become a better killer by helping you stay away from camping bad areas with no escape routes; pulsing your weapons; choosing weapons to use in certain situations; remembering to look at your radar and most importantly; not getting tunnel vision. All of those tips will help you be a better killer. What they might not help you be, is a better lonewolf objective game player.

Lonewolf objective games might seem a bit straight-forward at first. Killing the most while holding onto the ball the longest, or staying in the hill, or holding onto the ball the longest leads to objective gametype victories in lonewolf. This can be true, but only if you are a very skilled player against much lesser skilled players. When you start to play others with similar skill levels, your strategy in the game must change.

Let us speak of Oddball games first. We all know the object of Oddball games is to hold onto the ball longer than anyone else until time expires, or you reach the maximum time alotted for the win. This definition of winning is important to know. Many people think the object is only to get the maximum amount of time alotted to win. Not so. If time expires and you are in the lead with only 3 seconds of ball time, you win. Playing keep away is just as important as getting the ball for yourself.

In an Oddball game, you must get some time with the ball. The best way to do this is to hold the ball without being molested by other players, or keeping their ability to attack you to a minimum. How do you accomplish this? By doing just the thing you wouldn't want to do in a regular slayer game: Move the ball to an area with the least avenues for attacks...preferably near a ledge you can drop the ball off the map for a playball should you need to.

By moving the ball into an area where you can dictate and force your enemies to attack you from only one or two vantage point, you hold the advantage, even when holding onto the ball. Doorways are great examples. If you sit behind a dorrway and wait for enemies to run through it to come at you, you can kill them easily with one swift beatdown with the ball. (the Ball has a super powerful beatdown effect ...as do flags and bombs...that pretty much garantees you an instant beatdown kill on anyone)

Should you see on your radar more than 3 enemies attempting to attack you from the same direction, you should think about jumping off the edge to your death at the last possible moment. This accomplishes three things for you...1.) you get 2 or 3 precious extra seconds with the ball while you are falling to your death 2.) you deny your attackers the ability to grab the ball in your prime defensive spot and rack up even more time 3.) you make the ball head to the playball spawn point, which should allow you easier access to it when you respawn. This is probably one of the more important aspects of dropping off the side while holding onto the ball. When you die, you respawn, as long as someone has hit your with a bullet or two, in 5 seconds. The ball will respawn immediately after falling past the "point of no return". If you left the ball in your original position, you could possibly spawn so far away from the ball, just getting to it in a timely fashion would be hard to accomplish. By letting it drop, you now ensure your spawn point will be equidistant to the ball no matter where you spawn.

Knowing when to grab the ball is also an important aspect to Oddball games. It isn't alwaysd the person who gets the ball first who holds onto it the longest. Try eliminating the enemies near you first, then grabbing the ball and running to a defensible area without having to worry about being harrassed by enemies immediately. Another trick is letting two or three others fight for the ball first, and then finishing off any survivors and then taking the ball.

You should also not be committed to always holding onto the ball. If you have rockets as a weapon, and you see two or three people charging you, drop the ball and kill those guys with your rockets. By giving up 2 seconds of molested ball time, you could gain 6 to 7 extra seconds of unmolested ball time. 2<6 or 7.

Another strategy is playing keep away with the ball by not allowing anyone to grab it. Take epitaph as an example. The ball spawns in the middle of the map under the rocket spawn. Try staying above the ball and shooting rockets, throwing granades, or shoooting with a br anyone who attempts to grab the ball. By doing this when you have the lead, you deny anyone the opportunity to grab the ball and take the lead. This is a great strategy to use if there is less than 1 minute left in the game and you have a good 20 second lead. By denying anyone the ball for 40 seconds, you ensure yourself a victory.

And even another, often frowned upon but still valid, strategy is killing the leader, or anyone ahead of you in time before they even reach the ball. By doing this you deny him any further attempts at garnering mroe time. If you are in second place, I would encourage you to molest no one but the leader, and then go after the ball. Since he is in first place, he must die so you can advance your cause of winning. If you are in any other place except first, try chaing your mindset from winning the game, to not allowing the first place person to win the game. Try doing this until you at least give him some other competition besides yourself in the game. If you keep everyone interested in getting time on the ball, instead of just sittiing back and killing, you increase the chances of you slipping in and doiong mass damage to the lot of them which will eventually lead to your taking ove first place. As soon as this happens, your strategy must change to one of the previous ones listed. Hopefully this will help you win some of those pesky Oddball games.

King of the Hill games can be similar, but tend to be easier in my opinion. The definition of winning a KotH game is almost the same as an Oddball game, except insdtead of being able to move the objective (like the ball in Oddball games) the objective stays staionary. You must have the most time spent in the hill by the end of regulation time, or reach the maximum amount of time spent in the hill first to win the game. This gametype can be easier to control because there are less varibles to work with when playing. You must assume everyone is trying to get into the hill. Use this to your advantage. Don't kill anyone until you are either in the hill, or about to take over the hill. I would even suggest not firing a shot until you know you can stay in the hil for any amount of time unmolested. Once you are in the hill, don't be afraid to step out of the hill...especially if you see a ton of grenades coming your way. If you have a lead in a KotH game, consider only trying to kill the second place person to help your lead increase. If you are in Second place, go out of your way to kill the leader before he even reaches the hill. Be aware the hill moves every minute. If you look at the time and se it is close to a minute change, don't attack the hill, sit back to find out where the hill will move to, then make a bee line for it. Use your grenades to keep people out of the hill when you are in it, or force people out of the hill so you can become king for a few precious seconds or two.

Once again, don't fall in love with always staying in the hill. If you see 3 people gunning for the hill, back off and let your shields recharge so those three can fight over the hill for 3 or 4 seconds, then kill the winner of their battle. You'll get at least another 5 or 6 seconds of unmolested hill time instead of just holding onto the hill for 2 or 3 seconds and then respawning so far away from the hill it will take you more time to get to the hill than it would have to just sit back and chill for a few seconds.



hope this helped. Have a happy halloween!