- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Hello, this is Reaver225’s guide to helping newbies at 1v1 matches. While I’ve been playing Halo for fun for a long time, I’ve never actually done a 1v1 before… until recently. I’ve mostly played CTF, and team slayer, and the occasional KOTH, FFA slayer and oddball on public servers and managed to come out on top for most matches, but on my first solo match I was amazed at the different skillset you need to use. So, this guide is meant to help people who have played Halo for fun, mostly in team games, learn how to do better in 1v1 matches.
I recently played Nessy (a very good competitive player on KlanWars) on my first 1v1, and after my crushing defeat (25-1 on Rat race, 25-3 on Chill Out, 25-1 on Hang em High, have liberally used examples from the match to show the difference in playing styles.
Aim and dodging
Well, this bit’s easy enough. If you’ve played Halo for any length of time you’re probably got decent aiming skills already, and hopefully good dodging skills. From what I’ve seen so far (and it’s not very much, so take this with a pinch of salt) competitive players have a certainly better aim than normal players, though the difference is not huge. Of course, with all else the same, one player only needs to have a slight edge in aiming to kill his opponent over and over. Accurate weapons are a must, so nearly all competitive players will go for sniper rifles and pistols first – they are the most accurate instant-hit weapons in the game.
I noticed on Hang em High I consistently got Nessy’s shields down but failed to make kills (mainly because he had control of the high ground and he was able to get to cover easily). A quick analysis shows roughly 2 of my shots hit for every 3-4 of his. He did not get many 3sks – if there’s one thing I’m decent at, it’s dodging. Of course, my dodging is optimized for public servers, meaning it’s supposed to make me hard to hit from ANY angle, not just from the front. In a 1v1, you only need to worry about facing your opponent and lateral dodging, instead of forward and backwards movement as well. Nessy certainly didn’t have aimbot-level aiming skills (making me suspect a lot of other people I’ve played on public servers who apparently had better aim than him) but he was still at least a third better at hitting and killing me than me hitting him. Which in the end, was all that matters in a 1v1.
I’m unlikely to get much better in aiming, but of course, you need to have basic leading and targeting down already to be any good. Dodging erratically will also help greatly.
Map control
Map control is the ability to remember map layout, how to get from one place to another, where weapons and powerups were and how long it takes them to respawn. This is most easily done by playing the maps a few times. If you really want to know a map, run around the map on LAN on your own a few times, find where the teleports lead, the good sniping spots etc. Playing with other people will show you common tactics and routes. Nessy showed excellent map control, on Rat Race he knew where the two main powerups (O/S and active camo) were, how long it took them to respawn and further he seemed to be able to plot routes to be there when that happened. This gave him a distinctive edge, where he had the overshield at nearly every other encounter. On Hang em High, the only time I was able to get a kill was when I jumped right in front of him with a shottie, at the beginning. Once he got to the top, he was effectively unstoppable (well, for me anyway) by controlling the routes upwards I couldn’t get to the top without being hit by a grenade on the ramps or being pistolled at range. As well, several times he grenaded weapons to himself (mostly the sniper on Hang em high). I frankly don’t play on the smaller maps that much and found it much harder to get to the right place at the right time, which certainly helped Nessy a lot. (Those freakin’ teleports really throw me on Rat Race…)
Predicting your opponent
This can be moderate to a very advanced skill. It’s pretty easy to know that if you throw a grenade slightly to the right of someone he’s going to strafe left, and it’s easy to hit get a series of hits on them when they go in a straight line. But when your opponent is round a corner and running towards a teleport it takes a bit more experience to know he’s going to try to flank you from behind… On Rat Race Nessy was able to work out which teleporter I’d be coming through and lob a grenade at it just before I went through using the motion sensor. He managed to do this quite a few times, and once on hang-em-high managed to glitch a grenade through a wall (or a stupidly impossible throw through the windows at the corridor round the corner, either way it was impressive). I only managed to surprise him once, with the shotgun (as above). I don’t use the motion sensor nearly that well (I find it hard to judge how far away an opponent is with it and my ‘nades usually fell short), and admittedly play on servers where you don’t have it at all or it’s teammates only, but it would be an invaluable tool with a bit more practice. Of course this only works if motion sensors are on, but always try to use them if they are, as they tell you which way your opponent is moving in regards to you, and how far they are away. Don’t forget you can hide your position from the sensor by not moving. NOTE
Advanced tricks
Kind of like the BXB or BXR of Halo 2, there are a number of advanced glitches in Halo that makes you more efficient at playing. Stuff like backpack reloading (hitting reload twice then changing weapons immediately means that you can fire with your secondary weapon while your primary reloads ‘in your backpack’ as such), double-meleeing (melee, grenade, melee means you can get off two melees in about half the time. You also throw a grenade, so it’s a desperation move – if you do it, remember to back up after the move) and grenading weapons to yourself. I noticed Nessy using this kind of thing quite a bit as opposed to my, like one double-melee. Being able to pick up weapons fast without reloading is good too, by holding X and running over the weapon you want you grab it fast. You can grab weapons out of the air, too – jump as it passes and hold X or E and bam, midair catch. Don’t forget frag grenades bounce – I got Nessy with a rebound off the wall behind him that he wasn’t expecting.
Other stuff.
Make sure someone else can answer the phone if you’re playing a serious match. No, really. I had to grab mine on the third match (not that it really mattered) and went AFK for about 15 seconds, during which Nessy killed me once, shot me twice then noticed I had gone and waited before I got back to the keyboard and started moving again.
Play on a decent server that both you and your opponent have a decent connection to. Both Nessy and I are in the UK and so were kind of lucky there, but it’s certainly more fun when both players are fighting without handicaps and it’s purely down to skill (of which he had, and I had less of).
Make sure you’ve got good equipment. An optical mouse is a basic need, a laser mouse is even better. Get a decent keyboard that can take several different key presses at once, so you can strafe diagonally, reload and pick up a weapon while changing grenades at the same time. On that note, make sure you’ve got a good keyboard layout to start with. Your first finger on your left hand in the normal layout is assigned to use (e), reload (r), flashlight (f) and talk (t). It’s probably easier to reassign some of these.
Obviously, don’t rely on backup. It’s just you and the other guy. And, because of that, if you are in a weak position, for example you start with bad weapons or no grenades, you should try to get better ones before attacking again (On the second map, Chill Out we started with assault rifles only, no grenades, so the person who dies is severely disadvantaged vs the survivor). Conversely, if you are in a strong position, go on the offensive! Don’t let your opponent have time to recover! I was constantly on the defensive vs Nessy, and rarely managed to attack from a stronger position – really when I spawned behind him when his shields were still down and got a kill there.
If you are facing an opponent much better than you, try to get one-hit-kill weapons (sniper rifle, shotgun are the main ones). Your variation of damage dealt/damage received will go up and you’re more likely to get a few more kills by luck on each encounter.
Remember the rules of the engagement: If you’re playing no heavies, don’t pick up a heavy weapon. When dueling, I grabbed a flamer by reflex, and remembering ‘no heavies’ while wasting time changing back to pistol, got killed. Yeah, pretty stupid.
Use everything in your arsenal! Don’t forget grenades, melee, your secondary weapon. If you’ve got 4 grenades and are near a bunch more, throw them! Don’t let your opponent get the chance to use them before you!
So, to review, here are the four main points you need to focus on in a 1v1.
Aim and dodging – pretty straight forward. Practice it.
Map control – know your way around the map, how long you need to wait until the powerups comes back, where the good weapons are. Where the teleports go to.
Predict your opponent – think what you would do in your opponent’s situation. How much ammo does he have? Is he on low health? Has he still got grenades? Does he do better at long or short ranges? How can I use this to kill him?
Advanced tricks – Use them. Backpack reload. Whack your opponent in the face twice. Know how to throw grenades accurately and how to bounce them off walls, make them stop on slopes and get them at the feet of your opponent, how to throw weapons using grenade explosions.
Don’t forget all the basics, either.
And last of all, Nessy’s advice to me, “Play more good people”. certainly self-explanatory – and my advice, have fun! I know I did.