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by Overswarm
Home | Advanced Combat Techniques | Articles and Extras | Map Guides
Matchmaking Gametypes | Movies and Commentary | FAQ
Advanced Combat Techniques
Main | Aiming and Manuevering | Anti-weapon Guide | Jump Techniques
Movement Techniques | Vehicle Guide | Weapon Guide
Movement Techniques
". . . Those skilled in war can make themselves invincible, but cannot cause an enemy to be certainly vulnerable. Therefore it is said that one may know how to win, but cannot necessarily do so." -Sun Tzu
He's right. You can't make the enemy vulnerable. However, you can make him more LIKELY to take actions that make him vulnerable. You can't do it straightforwardly though. Saying "Come out here, I'm going to make you vulnerable to that I may damage you" won't work. You have to deceive them. Only through deception can you cause the enemy to make himself vulnerable.
There are a million ways to deceive enemy players, and a million cues you can look at to guess whether or not you yourself are being duped. I couldn't possibly go over them all. So to shorten things up, I'm going to use the most basic (and popular) trend of deception, maneuvers. Keep in mind as you read this, that for each maneuver listed (and those not listed), there will always be one of two things true if the maneuver is any good. You will do the maneuver either because you know how the enemy will react (or be forced to react), or you do the maneuver because the enemy cannot react to it in a hostile manner, thus endangering the enemy and keeping you safe. In short, you do the maneuvers to give you a distinct advantage.
- Wounded prey
Everyone knows the "wounded prey" maneuver. Hell, even some animals will use this in the wild. It's simply being injured (or feigning it), and prompting a chase. You then wait behind a corner, on a ledge, whatever, and when the enemy comes around you attack with the first move. In team games, it sometimes leads in your entire team unloading a clip into the hapless predator that was following their teammate. This is a natural instinct in humans, and most pick it up without knowing where they learned it. Some of the more progressive thinkers will move past the obvious spots, and go to a place that is totally unexpected. Doing things like passing up the first wall in the library in lockout while being chased only to use the maneuver at the second wall is a sign that you have played a lot of halo. It can get very advanced as far as this maneuver goes, but all of them follow the same guidelines.
- Aggressive Wounded Prey maneuver
After hiding behind corners and blasting people with a shotgun (or being on the receiving end) for so long, people start to catch on. At high levels of play, you often see this technique much more than the original, despite that this is much more advanced. Instead of waiting behind a corner to attack an enemy so that you are in a kill-or-be-killed situation, you position yourself so that you have several escape routes, while your enemy has none. An example of this would be to climb up the BR tower in lockout to the top floor, and when you get to the top, jumping on the sides of the wall. When your enemy comes, you can unleash clip after clip into him, and you have both the height advantage as well as 100% visibility and maneuverability, while he is confined to a small space and his only escape route is a long narrow walkway. You, on the other hand, can easily drop down to the second or third floor BR, jump to the library, or jump to bottom glass. This is a highly situational maneuver, but the pros (especially Zyos, as of late) seem to constantly make sure that they are in these positions.
- Camping
Lots of boos and hissing come with this age-old maneuver, but it is also natural. It's effectiveness increased twentyfold when Bungie decided not to include powerups in many of the stages, and even more when they made the power weapons not respawn. That said, a camper usually does either the wounded prey or the aggressive wounded prey maneuver, but long before the enemy actually comes. All camping ever has been is staying in one general location to prevent surprises and gain an edge regardless of circumstances.
- Out of sight
The out of sight maneuver is easy to understand. You simply move to a place where you can hide where the enemy is unlikely to see you, and then you wait for them to leave. This will often be the reaction when the enemy is toting a rocket launcher, you an empty sniper rifle and an SMG.
The following maneuvers are a bit more advanced in the fact that you have to be consciously thinking of them BEFORE you start to act, otherwise they just will end up being sloppy maneuvers that lead to easy kills. These maneuvers are generally less common as the previous as well.
- Geronimo
Jumping off of a high place (easy to do with no fall damage), and then turning around to attack the enemy who will more than likely follow in suit. As you get up to higher levels of play, the enemy generally just waits at the edge and then proceeds firing, but it still gives you an extra shot in advance.
- Dust Cloud
Throwing a grenade in the line of fire, so that the resulting explosion and smoke can give you a bit of a headstart in a run to a safer location. This can often be done as an offensive maneuver when playing an all snipers match. Throw a nade, make the explosion, step out into it and fire on the enemy. The reticule still turns red, so this doesn't help as much as you'd think, so be careful.
- Moonjump
Simply put, jumping straight backwards. My friend with 10 sensitivity can do this quite well. You jump straight backwards when an enemy is following you, and then melee as you are coming down. Sometimes you get an assassination if you're lucky, but generally you just get a jump melee in. This is a fairly suicidal maneuver, but chances are if you are running from someone who is right behind you, this is all you've got. Sometimes a variation of this technique is used when running right at an enemy. You jump forward, spin around, then melee the enemy. This variation is fairly uncommon, and that's because it doesn't really work. If the person does anything (including running forward) other than stand there and turn around, they won't be hit. The Moonjump is hard to pull off, but since your enemy has less room to move (moving forward helps you do a lunge melee, moving backwards doesn't really do anything), you have a better chance to pull it off.
- Suicide rush
To anyone doubting the effectiveness of such techniques, search "Iraq war deaths" in google. The suicide rush doesn't gain your team anything numbers-wise. Your team gains a point, the enemies team gains a point. Sometimes, you do this not even expecting to gain a point yourself, but to get an opening for your teammates. This maneuver does have it's uses though.
When the enemy team has just cleaned out all of your team but one or two, it is not unreasonable to believe that an eye for an eye is the best course of action. This prevents the team from getting ahead one more point. Another use (and more common than anything else) is someone with sub-par weaponry (SMG, empty power weapon, etc.) running and attacking someone that has better weaponry, expecting both players to die. Their team loses a rocket, your team loses an SMG. Anyone can see the advantage there.
The least common, and most effective, use of this maneuver is to create an opening. Have a member of your team rush through the portal in Beaver Creek and start throwing nades, only to have him quickly shot down by the combo and BRs. He dies, gaining no points, but his teammates all have clear access now to run through the teleporter and attack. To anyone who watched St. Louis on VoD, you might have seen a very strong team use this maneuver. You will also see this soon enough in higher levels of play on the map "Gemini". Most people control the back room on Gemini, and most haven't figured out that it is a flanking nightmare. If only teams would learn to split up and go through every entrance at the same time, they could maybe break through the enemies "defense".
There is a variant of this that head to head players probably know, where instead of rushing at the enemy, the player simply camps with rockets and plans on killing both players instantly. I won't go over it here, as it is simple enough to figure out.
Most people associate this with explosives, but suicide rushes can easily be rushing and firing with various weaponry, or even just meleeing nonstop. Just keep in mind when you do this maneuver that you are hoping to at LEAST break even.
Hopefully, you've read this and will say "well this was useless", and go back to playing as normal, but notice that you are a bit more crafty and are surviving more often. If you didn't know these maneuvers until reading this (or hadn't acknowledged them as maneuvers), you still need a bit more time playing under your belt until you can effectively use them.
Home | Advanced Combat Techniques | Articles and Extras | Map Guides
Matchmaking Gametypes | Movies and Commentary | FAQ
Advanced Combat Techniques
Main | Aiming and Manuevering | Anti-weapon Guide | Jump Techniques
Movement Techniques | Vehicle Guide | Weapon Guide
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