Halo: The Master Chief Collection – Tips & Tricks (for Multiplayer)

More Halo: The Master Chief Collection Guides:

• A Monument to All Your Sins & Gods Must Be Strong Achievements.
• Forza in the Fall Achievement Guide (Reach Racer Easter Egg).
• Club Errera Easter Egg Guide (New Alexandria Mission).
• Jorge Can’t Have All the Big Guns Achievement Guide.
• One Final Firefight Achievement Guide.

A guide to not suck for pros and noobs alike.

Strats for Every Game

All credit goes to The Unknown Soldier!

• When a person has no shields, they are vulnerable to headshots which will kill them in one hit by any precision weapon, AKA, weapons that AREN’T fully automatic. So things like pistols, battle rifles, DMR’s, snipers and anything similar. Assault rifles, plasma rifles etc. will not kill in one headshot and do no noticeably more damage. Whether they have shields or not though, precision weapons DO do more damage with headshots, just not enough to kill in one hit like as if they have no shields. So maintaining perfect aim on a target’s head is ideal for winning firefights when you have a precision weapon.
• Plasma pistol’s overburst fire will take down enemies shields in one hit.
• Back whacks are one hit kills.
• One grenade will take out a target’s shields leaving them vulnerable to a headshot or to another grenade which will kill instantly if detonated close to them when they have no shields.
• Plasma grenades stick to targets, killing instantly even at full shields (though not necessarily if they picked up an overshield powerup). They don’t bounce off walls very well though and tend to just drop to the floor at impact point.
• Frag grenades will not stick to targets nor are they ever one hit kills at full shields but they are much better at bouncing around corners and they detonate noticeably faster.
• One shot to the head or body if unshielded by a sniper rifle is a one hit kill. Two to the body if shielded.
• One hit by the rocket launcher directly at your feet or on you is a one hit kill even shielded.
• Halo’s all about headshots and non-headshots. When I say ‘body’, I’m just saying ‘not in the head’, because whether you get shot in the pinky toe, the pinky finger, your ♥ or in the chest doesn’t matter, it all does the same amount of damage.
• Plasma weapons do more damage to shields than other weapons. They’re not all that strong against blood and bone AKA no shields though. The impact of this on gameplay differs on the game.
• Bullet based weapons are the exact opposite, and also depend on game whether it’s all that noticeable or not.
• You can only hold two weapons.
• You unscope if you get shot.
• There’s no aim down sights on none scoped weapons.
• Plasma weapons overheat if fired too much too quickly.
• Plasma weapons run on batteries, not ammo. This means they don’t require reloading and if you walk over another plasma weapon of the same type as the one you’re currently holding and it allows you to pick it up then it means it has more battery percentage. If it doesn’t, then it means it has less battery percentage so the game doesn’t allow you to pick up any with less battery.
• The ‘noob combo’ is a good way of taking out enemies thanks to the plasma pistol overcharge’s tracking ability. It exists in all of the games but you’ll most likely encounter it in Halo 2 because of its incredibly strong accuracy in tracking that was nerfed later on. This when you use a plasma overcharge to take down someone’s shields and then instantly swap to a battle rifle or use a pistol, or a sniper rifle to shoot them once in the head killing them instantly. It’s a valid tactic. Don’t whinge.
• Overshields double a persons shields.
• Active camouflage makes you translucent for 30 seconds and disables auto aim on you for enemies until you fire which makes you slightly visible and re-enables it.
• Some weapons like the needler and the plasma pistol overcharge track targets.
• In all games except Halo Reach, your shots will go where your crosshair is. Halo Reach has bloom, which means if you fire too quickly your shots become less accurate. The others do not.
• There is no bullet drop off in any Halo game. Explosives may differ.
• All first-person animations can be interrupted in all Halo games with melee attacks, grenade throwing etc. How easily you can do so and how helpful that is depends on the game.
• Deep water will kill you. So don’t jump in it.
• The turret on the back of the warthog cannot be fired by the driver. Also, it never overheats with continued fire and has unlimited ammo.
• Picking up an overshield while invisible will make you visible as the overshield armour effect still kicks in.

Halo Reach Tips

• There’s now fall damage again.
• There’s health and health packs again. It regenerates a little bit now though to certain bars given how much damage you take.
• Armour abilities replace equipment.
• There are now loadouts, which allow you to pick your armour ability and weapon. These aren’t custom loadouts like CoD (unless you made the map), they’re picked by the game mode (or map I think), so everyone’s sort of still on the same playing field. There’s no gun customisation either.
• The jetpack armour ability has a short timer on how long you can use it to fly.
• The sprint armour ability is the same except with extra speed with your gun lowered.
• Armour lock allows you to be invulnerable for a short time and slows down players who melee you, takes their shield down if they’re close and blows up vehicles if they hit you at speed. It’s over-powered and annoying as ♥ and yes that’s a fact fight me irl on Sanctuary.
• Evade allows you to roll/dodge in any direction instantly.
• The DMR essentially replaces the battle rifle except it’s a one shot weapon not three burst.
• The pistol is great again, not Halo CE OP levels of greatness but now a viable weapon and it has a zoom and fires faster.
• There’s now redicule bloom. This means if you fire too quickly then the gun becomes much less accurate. Most noticeable with DMR’s and pistols. This has been severely diminished or removed entirely (not sure) in most game modes now as far as I know coz people suck.
• You can now assassinate enemies if you’re behind them. It’s a back whack kill except it takes longer and leaves you vulnerable for a short time, but man does it look cool and feel rewarding as hell to do. You can still do normal instakill back whacks by pressing the melee button instead of holding it down to assassinate.
• You can assassinate at any time, including in mid air or by landing on them. Experiment for different badass animations.
• No more dual wield.
• Elites now have more shield but less health than spartans. Their loadouts are different too for the Invasion and firefight game modes.
• You can’t play as an elite in matchmaking multiplayer besides Invasion and firefight, but you can in customs.
• Elites don’t have fully customisable armour like Halo 3 or the spartans. Just presets you can unlock.
• You can use the banshee bomb again.
• Despite taking place almost immediately prior to Halo CE, plasma pistols still drain power when holding the overcharge down.
• The needler is an absolute beast of a weapon.
• The plasma repeater is like the plasma rifle except… different? Somehow? Idk. They’re both in the game.
• You can’t assassinate hunters.

Halo Combat Evolved Tips

• Melee attacks are still powerful but not as powerful as in later games. They will not kill in one hit to someone unshielded for example.
• You might not expect the pistol you likely start with as your secondary is helpful but oh boy, it sure is. It has a zoom function and kills in three shots to the head. It’s OP by every definition except you start with it so everyone’s on equal player fields. Getting good with hitting headshots with this thing is the key to success. You can kill and will get killed by this thing incredibly quickly. The only weapons that really compare are the rocket launcher and the sniper rifle.
• You can hold up to 4 frag grenades and 4 plasma grenades at once.
• The shotgun has longer overall range than the other games in the series, but you have to be even closer than later games for it to be a one shot kill at full shields.
• There’s no zooming down binoculors in this game if you try to zoom in with a gun that doesn’t have a scope.
• You can’t crouch at full speed if you have toggle crouch on. For some reason it makes you stand up. So if you want to move whilst crouched you have to move slightly up on the stick, not fully. Not sure how it’ll work with PC controls.
• Plasma grenades act as EMP’s as well unlike in later games. In gameplay terms, this means if you’re in the blast radius, even if you’re a little far from the grenade, your shields will be drained completely. In later games, shield and health drainage depends on how close you are to the grenade, just like normal grenades.
• There’s a healthbar unlike in all games besides Reach. This means health is more important and you’ll survive longer without shields when not shot in the head by headshot capable weapons or are shot anywhere by the other types of weapons. You can pick up health packs to regain health.
• Spawning is ♥ing awful in this game. Similar to the new Modern Warfare. Expect to spawn on firefights or next to enemies who might kill you instantly with a grenade or three shots to head.
• Weapons spawn on strict time limits. Unlike later games, they don’t spawn with player location in mind or whether someone already has the weapon, so expect people to easily camp weapon spawns.
• If you fall from a certain height, you will be stuck in spot walking for a couple seconds. This is meant to simulate your spartan recovering from a heavy fall, I guess. Otherwise you can just keep walking like usual after a fall.
• There’s fall damage in this game. Not all high falls = death though. Depends how high you fall how much damage you take, as you’d probably expect.
• The needler is absolutely awful.
• Swapping guns is instant, even if there’s a cocking animation of sorts after swapping guns unlike later games.
• Unlike later games, the plasma pistol overcharge does NOT disable vehicles momentarily.
• You cannot hijack vehicles unlike all later Halo games.
• For some reason vehicles will kill you even if you get gently nudged by them. Including friendly vehicles.
• The rocket launcher’s rocket moves much slower than later games.
• You can easily be shot out of a scorpion since your head’s visible.
• Human vehicles can’t be destroyed. Covenant ones can (although I’m not sure if this is still a thing in multiplayer. I know it is the case in campaign).

Halo 2 Tips

• The battle rifle or carbine is your best friend. It’s the weapon/s you’ll likely use most. It’s not a three hit kill like Halo CE. It takes more so people more often still stand a chance if they shoot second. Maintaining headshots even shielded is key to victorys as it still does more damage. As usual though, one shot to the head is a one hit kill, even if one shot from your burst fire hits them (not all three shots from your single trigger press need to make contact in order to kill an unshielded opponent, just one).
• The plasma pistols over charge burst which you can do by holding the button down will take down shields in one hit and has extremely good tracking in this game.
• You can now dual-wield weapons. Good combos include dual needlers, a plasma pistol and pistol combo and that’s about it. Using others will just get you killed more often than not.
• One of the most unique things about this game which makes it much faster than the other Halo’s (arguably) is that animations are very lenient in how much you can interrupt them and get away with having reloaded. What this means is that, if you’re reloading, you can swap guns or throw a grenade or melee attack at any time. You don’t have to wait for the animation to finish first which is the same for all Halo games. More importantly, reload animations last longer than when you actually regain that ammo. Learning when to interrupt the animation or shoot is important. Often, if you see the mag hit the gun then you’re good to go, you don’t need to wait the extra second for your character to put the gun back in his palm or whatever. Sometimes you can get away with having regained your ammo even before you put your mag in the gun, so it depends a little on each weapon. It’s a bit glitchy and you get the idea it wasn’t intended to be so easily manipulable but you’ll get the hang of when it’s the right time to interrupt the animation so you’re not vulnerable whilst reloading. Swapping guns is also instant unlike some other Halo games.
• You can crouch at full speed with toggle crouch on.
• The health system is gone. You still have health when your shields are gone, but there are no more health packs and health regenerates when your shield does. Health is now less important for surviving firefights overall.
• You can now play as an elite. Elites have bigger hitboxes. There are no other differences in shield, health or abilities (from what I can tell, so it’s not obvious either way). I personally don’t find the hitboxes are that big or a difference that I seem to kill elites more easily than spartans. Some may disagree.
• Shotguns have pitiful range, but are one hit kills close.
• The energy sword has been introduced and has a fairly long lunge ability. If your crosshair turns red when looking at an enemy, you can essentially ‘fly’ towards them with a devestating attack which will kill them in one hit even at full shields. If you’re looking at an enemy and your crosshair doesn’t turn red then you can’t lunge towards them. Get closer.
• You can also melee with the sword which doesn’t lunge but does less damage and isn’t a one hit kill.
• The energy sword doesn’t run out of ammo unlike the campaign… for some dumb reason.
• The SMG replaces the assault rifle in practicality but can be dual wielded.
• Spawning isn’t as ♥ anymore but it still isn’t perfect.
• Weapon spawns aren’t just on timers now, they take player locations and whether someone’s holding it already into account (and perhaps more things idk?)
• There’s no fall damage. Hitting a wall or the floor at a very fast speed can still hurt or kill you though for some reason. You’ll probably only ever notice this if you have the sputnick and feather skull on.
• Deep water will kill you. So don’t jump in it.
• This game has a fall timer, meaning if you fall for a certain time the game will kill you. There are also kill boundaries in long pits that aren’t deep enough to kill you with the fall timer.
• Pre-Halo 3 plasma pistols don’t drain power when you hold down the plasma charge.
• This is the only game in which you can use skulls in multiplayer.
• SWAT is a game mode where you spawn with pistols or battle rifles and no one has shields. It’s all about shooting first and most accurately to score insta-killing headshots.
• Overshields double your shield capacity.
• The needler is absolutely awful unless dual wielded.
• The brute shot does slightly more melee damage.
• The red plasma rifle does slightly more damage, fires slightly faster and overheats slightly faster.
• Swapping guns is instant and there are very few cocking animations for weapons.
• Unlike later games, the plasma pistol overcharge does NOT disable vehicles momentarily.
• You cannot use the banshee bomb in this game’s multiplayer. Only the primary plasma attack.
• You can now hijack vehicles if you get close to them.
• Unlike nearly all later Halo games, the rocket launcher has a vehicle homing ability if you hold it down.
• All vehicles can now be destroyed but vehicle health is now (mostly?) tied to player health and not the vehicle itself. Any damage before explosion is only cosmetic.
• The pistol sucks and no longer has a zoom function.
• The pisol and plasma pistol have no limit on how fast you can single fire shoot them.
• The single fire mode on the plasma pistol is the most useless attack in any video game ever now.

Halo 2: Anniversary Tips

• Unlike the campaign’s remade graphics, this isn’t running on the same gameplay engine (or graphics for that matter). It’s using an updated Halo 4 engine and therefore gameplay is quite different. It’s like a mix between Halo 4 and 2.
• There’s a silenced SMG for some reason.
• There’s a mongoose with guns on it for some reason.
• The assault rifle was reintroduced for some reason.
• Plasma pistols have a limit on how long you can hold the charge now.
• Weapon swapping takes longer than Halo 2.
• There’s a hornet for some reason.
• You can use EMP’s in the Coagulation remake to disable aircraft.
• Shooting the stalactytes on the Lockout remake will make them fall and blow up.
• Shooting the red thing above each side of the map in the Sanctuary remake will activate a waterfall that obscures vision of anyone behind it.
• The needle is still awful.
• Dual wielding’s a thing still.
• There are three elite models and three spartan models to pick from.
• You can pick your loadouts for some reason (picking from three basic weapons).
• You can still home in with the rocket launcher.
• I believe the energy sword now depeletes

Halo 3 Tips

• The needler is an absolute beast of a weapon.
• There is still no fall damage.
• You can now customise armour for both spartans and elites.
• Animations can still be interrupted but often with delay. Interrupting reloading animations isn’t nearly as lenient as in Halo 2. Even if you see your character throw in the mag, you will still not have finished reloading and thereby regained ammo if you interrupt the animation too early or at all depending on the gun.
• The energy sword’s lunge attack has been decreased from here on.
• Weapon swapping takes longer.
• Dual wielding was re-introduced for the last time.
• The battle rifle, sniper rifle and carbine now use projectiles instead of instant hitting bullets. This means you have to now slightly lead your shots when aiming at targets, dramatically changing firefights with these weapons.
• You can now no longer BXR or do any other glitch combo, nor in any other Halo game except Halo 2.
• Halo 3 introduced ‘equipment’. By pressing a button you can drop a piece of equipment you picked up from the battlefield to benefit you.
• The flare blinds everyone.
• The radar jammer adds red dots to everyone’s radar.
• The power drain disables vehicles and takes down everyone’s shields.
• All equipment stuffs up friendlies too.
• The bubble shield is a stationary shield that can’t be penetrated with bullets, only physically with vehicles or by walking inside. It blows up by itself after a while or once inside the bubble you can whack the source of power.
• Your mum gay lol.
• Vehicle health is no longer tied to player health for now on.
• The mine will blow up if someone gets close it. It’s very good against vehicles too.
• The spartan laser was introduced and after being charged up it can blow up vehicles very nicely and will one hit kill enemies on foot with a direct hit. Sometimes if only part of the laser hits someone it’ll just do damage though, and not kill them.
• The pistol has again been changed and fires very slowly but is stronger than in Halo 2 and still has no zoom function unlike Halo CE.
• There’s no homing in ability on the rocket launcher anymore.
• I believe you can use the banshee bomb in multiplayer again, don’t remember.
• The golf club is essentially another gravity hammer.
• You can now sword clash. If two players have a sword and lunge at each other at a similar time, they will clash swords instead of whoever lunged last dying like as in Halo 2. You will lose shields for each clash. Pressing the melee button will not clash.

Halo 4 Tips

• You can assassinate again.
• Still no more dual wield.
• There are loadouts again except now you can choose make custom loadouts in the main menu. And there’s like two options of skins for some reason idk.
• No more bloom.
• No more playable elites.
• Armour abilities remain but armour lock’s gone. Yay. Now everyone can sprint too, it’s no longer an armour ability, just a movement feature like as with in other games.
• The needler isn’t just a beast of a weapon, it’s a bloody power weapon like the rocket launcher and SAW.
• The assault rifle’s back, the SMG’s gone, and now there’s the SAW which is a faster firing assault rifle which massacres enemies with its big magazine capacity and fast fire rate.
• This game plays more like Call of Duty then Halo. I like Call of Duty. But I like Halo a lot more, so get stuffed. Hang on, isn’t this meant to be factual and not opinionated?