Going from being a casual fan to a tournament competitor can be a very daunting endeavor, yet as our tournament attendance showed this season, that didn't stop anyone from trying. Although competitive Halo 2 has been going on for over a year now, we are still seeing a lot of first-timers and new members to our community all the time. With that in mind, we have decided to create this guide to help the newcomers get acclimated to the MLG-brand of competitive Halo 2, and help make their transition into the tournament scene go as smoothly as possible. Obviously, MLG veterans will already know most of what is found in these guides. With the 2006 season right around the corner, these articles are expressly intended for those new to the community and looking to get their competitive careers started this year.

There is a lot of Halo 2 knowledge out there to be found. In fact, one could probably write an entire book just about the ins and outs of competitive play. What we have done here is compiled and summarized the most important things that newcomers need to know about how MLG-style Halo 2 works and is played. This multi-part guide will take you on a strategic tour of the weapons used in MLG gametypes, comprehensive combat tactics, teamwork and even how to prepare for and play at an actual MLG tournament. Understand that this guide covers only the aspects of Halo 2 that are pertinent to MLG gametypes and tournament play (for example, we will not be mentioning anything about vehicles, as they do not appear in any MLG gametypes), but nearly everything that one would need to get up-to-speed on the MLG Halo 2 scene can be found in the installments of this guide.

In Part I of this guide, we will be covering the weapons that are employed by MLG gametypes. While it is assumed that you know the basics of each weapon, there are still many nuances to each of them, and a big part of using the weapons effectively is taking advantage of their strengths while understanding their weaknesses. Naturally, future installments of this guide will delve into the more complicated aspects of combat, including advanced uses of these weapons. The next installment of the guide will cover combat tactics, so we will be saving some of the information about certain weapons until next time, as they pertain more to tactics than weapon basics. In the meantime, check out this weapon guide—the first step on your way to getting into the MLG tournament scene.

Battle Rifle

The weapon you spawn with, the battle rifle, is the mainstay of the MLG arsenal, and is the most versatile weapon in the game, able to kill effectively at close, mid and to a slightly lesser extent, long-range. The key to the BR is landing that all-important head shot, which will kill an opponent instantly once their shields are depleted. When you shoot perfectly, it only takes four trigger pulls to kill an enemy (the last pull must be a head shot), so this weapon can bring you down surprisingly quick. Head shotting with the BR is not especially difficult, because only one of the bullets from the three-round burst must hit the head in order to kill. However, it is extremely important, because it takes much longer to finish an opponent with body shots, and failing to hit the head will cause you to lose many battles in MLG games.

At extremely close range, people often find it difficult to land a head shot, because of how quickly opponents can move in and out of their field of vision, but a trick that many employ to combat this is to “sweep” their reticle from side to side over the area of the enemy's head while they fire a burst from their BR. This will cause the three-round burst to spread horizontally across the sweeping area, increasing the likelihood that one of the bullets will connect with the head and land you a kill. This is not an advisable tactic at mid to long range, as the spread would be too big and likely miss altogether.

Due to a combination of Halo 2's auto-aim/magnetism and the BR's three-round bursts, it is not very hard to make contact with BR shots. However, this does not mean that there is no skill to using the weapon, and you will see clearly that an expert player will win a great percentage of their BR fights against an intermediate player, even though neither player is having trouble connecting with their shots. This is largely because a great deal of the advanced combat tactics (and even glitches) center around the BR, and the experts really know how to put them to great use. In fact, since the BR is easily the most commonly used weapon in MLG play, you will find that most players have a very, very accurate BR shot, and you cannot afford to miss hardly any of your shots if you intend to win a straight-up battle. It is very important for you to develop solid skills with the BR, as it is the meat-and-potatoes of MLG Halo 2 combat.

When you get into a one-on-one BR battle with someone, the main focus should be on finding a way to get a “shot ahead” of the opponent. As previously mentioned, since it's easy to hit someone with the BR, you should assume that your enemy will normally only need the minimal amount of shots in order to kill you, so the way to win the fight is to find a way to make them miss a shot or two, allowing you to get ahead in the race to to get that shield off and nail a head shot.

There are generally two main methods of aiming with the BR. Some people like to aim exclusively for the head while they shoot, ensuring that they are already in position when the shields come off to finish the kill with a head shot. However, since the head is roughly half the width of the body, others prefer to shoot for the body until they visually see the shields come off, and then aim upward toward the head to finish the kill. This gives them a better chance of the bullets from their bursts all making contact with the enemy, because they will spread out a bit, especially over distance and while you're moving your reticle. However, some people would rather not have to deal with adjusting their aim mid battle, as that extra split second could cost them or possibly throw them off. Plus, if some random outside damage comes into play (from a teammate or stray grenade), it becomes hard to tell just how much further you have to go before their shields are off, so it's nice to already be aiming for the head. In the end, it comes down to what you're most comfortable with, but you will find that more people aim constantly at the head than use the body/head method.

Be careful not to use the 2x scope too much at close or mid-range (mid-range is OK if nobody's shooting at you), as it slows your ability to follow the enemy's movement. On top of that, every time you are damaged you are knocked out of your scope, so if you are too reliant on it you will find it difficult to shoot well when under heavy fire. Learning how to aim effectively without the scope will help greatly in the long run, as you will not have to constantly struggle to re-enter your scope in a two-way battle.

Carbine

The Covenant's answer to the BR, the Carbine serves the same general purpose, yet has a number of key differences. While each bullet is weaker than a BR burst, the Carbine's rate of fire is much quicker and has the potential to kill someone faster than the BR. Ending in a head shot, it only takes seven rounds from the Carbine to land a kill, and with the rate of fire so high, this can happen very fast. So what's the catch? Well, for one thing, the Carbine has extremely limited ammo and it can be used up rather quickly. With only 18 shots per clip (and two clips total per pickup), you will find yourself quickly looking for another weapon as the Carbine sits empty in your hands.

Additionally, the BR has the potential to produce more start-to-finish kills per clip than the Carbine. If you were to just line up dummy players and kill them exclusively using the Carbine (not missing any shots and ending in a head shot), you would be able to get two-and-a-half kills before you had to reload your weapon. However, if you were to do the same thing with the BR, you would be able to get three kills with just the one clip. While this doesn't sound like much of a difference on paper, this little scenario leaves out one key factor: the BR is much easier to shoot in a real combat situation, making its realistic killing power per clip much higher.

A skillful and accurate player can do a lot of damage with the Carbine and its quick killing ability, but in order to take advantage of this, the player cannot miss many shots before it would have been faster to kill the opponent with the BR. This issue is compounded by the fact your aim has to be much more precise with the Carbine than the BR to avoid missing any shots. The key to this lies in the BR's burst fire. Since each shot fires out three bullets, the amount of time that your target area is exposed to incoming fire is increased. For example, you may have shot your burst too far ahead of an opponent who is running across your field of vision, but even if the first bullet misses, they will likely step into at least one of the other two bullets and still take some damage. This is not the case with the Carbine, which has an all-or-nothing single shot. Therefore, you must be considerably more precise with the Carbine, making it a weapon that requires more skill and offers only a marginally better performance in return.

Overall, the Carbine is technically a better weapon than the BR in that it can kill you more quickly, but it's not necessarily a better choice. In fact, it's often not the way to go. The increased risk of using the Carbine against a BR user is often just too high. The player with the BR will not likely miss many shots (if any), whereas you are required to hit almost all your shots in order to take advantage of your weapon's strengths. Many people find the risk vs. return factor of the Carbine to simply be too great when going up against BR opponents. The ammo issue is also a major hindrance, because there is often only one carbine pickup on a given map. In the 1v1 matches during the MLG Conference Championships, players faced-off on Warlock and started with a Carbine and no secondary weapon. While many of the pros were able to put the Carbine to great use, we saw that more often than not they would gravitate toward the nearest BR pickup and use that instead, favoring its longer-lasting clips and ease of shooting.

Energy Sword

The sword is an extremely powerful weapon that has the ability to turn the tides in almost any game due to its combination of speed, power and unlimited use. There is always only one sword per map, so obtaining and maintaining possession of the sword is often critical. The sword is a close-range weapon, useful from about 10 simulated feet away from the opposing player. Since it's a melee weapon, the sword is absolutely useless from any distance longer than its lunging range, so you will want to keep it put away at all times when no enemies are near.

The act of killing someone with the sword is mind-numbingly simple; just press R to lunge when your reticle turns red to let you know that you're within range for an almost-guaranteed kill, or just press R (or B if you don't want to risk engaging a sword lunge, but it's a slower attack than pressing R) repeatedly at very close range until they die. Simple, eh? The difficult part of using the sword often lies in judgment. There are many cases where you are at an awkward distance from your opponent, just outside of your lunging range. You must then decide whether to try and close the distance to go for a sword kill or to just have a distance battle with them (most likely with BRs).

This dilemma trips up a lot of new players, because it's so tempting to go for the sword lunge since it's so powerful. Many players will get excited and pull the sword out immediately and start charging toward the enemy, swinging like mad and hoping to catch their reticle while it's red. This will almost always prompt the enemy to back away while pumping round after round of their BR into the sword user while laying grenades at their feet -- probably killing them. Because of this, it's very important to have a solid feel for the exact range of the sword lunge. If you decide to close the distance and go for the sword kill, don't pull it out until you know you are in range, and be sure to be firing your secondary weapon as you inch toward them. If they see you just charging forward with your BR without firing, they'll know you're about to pull a sword out and will likely back off.

Turning the sword over to the enemy team is often a big deal, so as with all power weapons, you need to be thinking not only of racking up kills, but also of preserving your team's control of the weapon itself. If you find yourself battling at that awkward range and you don't think you can pull off a sword kill or win the distance battle, your best bet is just to get the hell out of there. Abort the fight and scramble around a corner. If they're dumb enough to follow you, you'll be waiting there with your sword and win the battle after all. If they don't pursue, then at least you avoided giving up a kill and turning the sword over to the other team, which can really bite you in the ass later.

Do not ever run around with your sword out. You will become an immediate target for mid-range shooters and will likely be ganged up on as you helplessly try to escape. The sword is best used as a surprise weapon, kept in your back pocket as a secondary. This way players will likely not know that you have it and won't be afraid to engage in close range fights with you, at which point you can pull it out and use its ridiculously long lunging ability to make quick work of them. Any player that sees you have a sword before it's too late to escape will keep their distance from you and pummel you with longer ranged weapons and grenades, so it is always best to keep it put away until you've lured them in close enough to use it.

There is no added delay in pulling the sword out and then lunging as opposed to already having it out. This is because as soon as you hit the Y button to switch to your sword, your reticle will become that of the sword even before you pull it out, enabling you to engage in a lunge before you've even gotten it all the way out. Likewise, you can put the sword away immediately after killing someone with a lunge (assuming that you weren't going to use it again right away), both eliminating the recovery animations of the lunge and once again concealing that you have it from the other remaining players.

Shotgun

Often considered a power weapon without really performing like one, the shotgun's wildly inconsistent performance lends it a reputation as an infuriating gamble. Obviously intended for extremely close-range use, the shotgun can mow a player down in a single shot—if you're lucky, that is. While playing online, the connection differences between the host player and the other players makes a huge difference in the shotgun's performance. The host can run around and use it as it was intended, while the other players find it to be almost completely ineffective in their hands (often shooting people point-blank and not even taking down their shields).

Thankfully, the shotgun is much more consistent on LAN (where the host's advantage is minimized due to lightning fast data transfer between Xboxes), which is how all MLG tournaments are played. It's hard to practice with the shotgun because most players won't even bother to pick one up while playing on Xbox Live unless they are the host player, but don't let that stop you from grabbing one on LAN and tearing things up. When used properly, the shotgun can be an extremely potent weapon that can completely destroy an opposing player, and can be a great counter-weapon to an Energy Sword user. When you turn a corner and encounter a sword user at close range, you will often be able to kill them with a single shotgun blast before their sword lunge takes effect.

To temper the shotgun's still sometimes-inconsistent performance (that's partly the intended nature of the weapon), always be sure to hit the melee button immediately after firing. This can be performed very quickly and serves as a great two-part combo attack to tack on extra damage if the shotgun blast didn't kill them. This should be something that you do automatically and universally unless you know you are out of melee range, in which case you should probably put the shotgun away and use something else anyway.