A list of general tactics to use for the legendary difficulty, as well as level specific tips that will help minimize or skip the most difficult parts of the game.
General Tactics
- On missions where you have Noble team allies, always let them push up in front of you and grab most of the attention. They can’t die, so don’t feel too bad.
- Abuse the noob combo. Always carry a Plasma Pistol unless I specify otherwise. There’s no reason not to, and you’ll just be making things harder for yourself by not doing it. And always carry a weapon capable of an instant headshot kill in your other slot. That means a DMR, Needle rifle, Magnum, or hell, a Sniper Rifle. Whenever you encounter an Elite, dip behind the nearest cover, charge your Plasma Pistol, pop out and shoot them, then quickly switch to your headshot weapon and tap them once on the head. If you don’t use this combo, you’ll be wasting ammo and time on Elites, both of which are valuable on legendary.
- Use headshot weapons for all the normal infantry. Tap grunts on the head once or twice and they die. Always aim for the exposed hand on the left of a Jackal shield, then tap them on the head while they’re reeling. Optimally, this means that you’ll be using 1-2 rounds on Grunts and 2 rounds on Jackals.
- Find a piece of cover and stay back. More times than not, there’s no reason to push in. You can almost always take out most of the enemies from a safe distance with your precision weapons.
- Brutes are hilariously weak, and you should consider replacing the Plasma Pistol with the Needler and the DMR with the Needle Rifle on areas where they’re the dominant enemy. That means all of Exodus, the hospital in New Alexandria, and the final wave defense segment in Pillar of Autumn. Since they’re mostly unshielded, you can kill one with 6 Needler rounds or three body shots with the Needle Rifle. Note that the DMR tends to take 1-2 headshots to pop their helmet off, and 1 more headshot to kill. The Needle Rifle is just as efficient except you need to aim a whole lot less.
- Grab the drop shield when you can, and use sprint otherwise. Other than some very niche situations, there’s very little reason to use the other abilities.
Mission 8: The Package
- The opening part is the most annoying. Headshot the grunt in the ghost on the right, then quickly headshot the marksman on the floating platform, and the two shade turrets. Use the ghost you freed up on the right to clear the area out. It can be pretty iffy, so feel free to restart however many times you need to get it right.
- The Scorpion segment is pretty simple. You can use the Tip of the Spear strategy on the two cannons and just shoot them from outside. It won’t get difficult until the area right outside Sword Base, where there are two fuel rod shades and two plasma shades. I don’t have any recommendations other than “memorize where they are and kill them before they can kill you”. Be sure to have a plasma pistol on hand before entering Sword Base – otherwise, the firefight you get into when you enter will be annoying to handle.
- When you reach the wave defense segment, Plasma Pistol a Banshee out of the sky ASAP. You can do it before the waves spawn, or during the first wave. It makes this mission a hell of a lot easier. The only real threats you have to deal with will be other Banshees, and the ghosts that the Phantoms drop in. Prioritize the Ghosts, and there will be nothing stopping you from dominating this segment with the Banshee. If you want, you can activate the turrets, but they aren’t too useful outside of some distraction.
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