Halo 3: Improvement Techniques 8.)Plasma Vs. Bullets and avoiding tunnel vision

Today we're going to talk about the difference between plasma and projectile weapons and how to avoid falling in love with only looking one direction.

Welcome to the wonderful world of plasma (covenant) weapons. Plasma weapons, even though it isn't always readily apparent to you, take down shields much faster than projectile ones. If you were to take a plasma rifle and shoot someone, you'd find that after 3 hits their shields are toast and they are left without protection. What hides this great power is the fact that once those shields are down, these very same plasma weapons have an extremely hard time finishing off your foe. Try shooitng a buddy with the plasma rifle until his shields dissappear. Now shoot him until he dies. Notice how it takes quite a few shots to end his miserable life.

Projectile weapons suffer from the opposite effect. Projectile weapons are horrible at taking down shields. What took you three shots to accomplish with a comparable plasma weapon will now take you double that with your projectile weapon. Where the human weapon shows its usefulness is in the finishing kill. Projectile weapons are great at ending lives when shields are down. What took you four shots with a plasma rifle only takes one with a human weapon.

The lesson to be learned here is to dual wield a covenant weapon with a projectile one. They are almost always lethally quick combos, and an enemy at short range generally doesn't stand a chance against you as long as you dance out of range of a beatdown.

Now we're going to talk about avoiding tunnel vision. I know for the past week i've been extolling the virtues of the radar, but i don't want you to become too enamored with it. It is limiting, and often doesn't show you the guy with the ranged weapon, like the sniper, out of the radar zone. So don't fall in love with just looking straight ahead all of the time. Quick scans to you left and right while runing forward can do a lot to inform you of the biggest threats on a map.

You can fall prey to tunnel vision by ignoring information on your screen as well. If ytou are running in a direction and you see a grenade come flying into your screen, but it is heading to your left and you know no one on your team is to your right, then you now know an enemy is to your right. The same can be said for sniper shots you see whizzing past your screen in front of you. If you ask your team if anyone has the sniper and a negative reply follows, you now know where the enemy sniper is by following his bullet trail back to his location.(if this is the case your first impulse should be to find cover from the sniper and direct a team mate who is closer to the offending infidel to attack.

Hopefully this helps explain in a bit more detail how to use, yet not fall in love with , the radar. Your assignment tonight is to try running to your objective while always moving your screen (head) left to right and scan for enemy movement. don't forget to look at your radar though. Quick glances at it are all you should need by now.

Blogs from here on out will be situational blogs that will have video demonstrations or examples added in to help further explain a situation. Some blogs will also be of actual gameplay by myself and a few other 2old2players with voice over work by myself and guest hosts. Occasionally I might add one in with no video , but that will be the exception to the rule.