The News
This topic has moved here: Subject: Get the Most Out of Skulls
  • Subject: Get the Most Out of Skulls
Subject: Get the Most Out of Skulls

Support our video!

Lol nice
Another idea is play with Cowbell and Catch on Serra 117...
Nothing more because the grunts will pwn you...
Its a wonder there are so many of them chucking grenades at you...

  • 10.03.2007 8:01 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

fantastic explainer on skulls. thanks guys. it helps =)

  • 10.03.2007 8:02 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

btw, (3+1.5)= 4.5. so 4.5 x 100 = 450. plus the time bonus of x3 is 1350. i hope you're not out of highschool yet.

  • 10.03.2007 8:04 PM PDT

You splattered a dumb cat

I still haven't found a single skull... :-(

  • 10.03.2007 8:05 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

CrixNMix , i'm not so sure about easy, but i know that according to Bnet stats (not sure if it says the same thing in the post game lobby) your total multiplier is calculated as follows:

(difficulty multiplier+sum of skull multipliers)*time multiplier

So for your case of normal Normal difficulty (1x) + Mythic, Famine, Thunderstorm, Fog (7x) your multiplier should be 8x. According to Bnet, the sum of the diff. mult. and the skull mult.ers is called the subtotal, which you multiply by the time mult. to get your total. Here's an example:

I played Sierra117 Solo on normal the other day with Iron, Black Eye, and Mythic (pretty good combo). So, Normal difficulty (1x) + Iron, Black Eye, and Mythic (6.5x) = 7.5x. Then factor in my time multiplier of 1.5 and you get 7.5*1.5 = 11.25x.

Overall, the difficulty you play doesn't change the way the meta game calculates your subtotal, its always a sum of the multipliers (if it was ever a product of the difficulty and the skulls, then if you weren't playing with skulls your multiplier would be 0 and your score would come out to 0) multiplied by the time bonus multiplier.

[Edited on 10.03.2007 8:34 PM PDT]

  • 10.03.2007 8:29 PM PDT

The F3w. The Pr0. The 1337.
Gamer Army.

I say turn on everything but black eye(and iron if your solo)

Thunderstorm and mythic just make it harder to kill people, so it's funner.
I don't even notice Fog, usually the enemies are always in front of you.
Tough Luck is easy too, you can still get good grenade kills when there are 3+ enemies, especially when you catch them off guard.
Famine is challenging, but when you get weapons from drop pods and the purple crate things, they usually have enough ammo. and you can always take your ally's stuff.
Tilt is tough, you have to be prepared with the right weapons.

If you do all these (and iron) on normal co-op you can get like 100k points with the time bonus multiplier.
On heroic(2x) + skulls (15x) and a time bonus of 2x, you'd get 34x multiplier.

[Edited on 10.03.2007 8:35 PM PDT]

  • 10.03.2007 8:32 PM PDT

Muerete Dot Org

Mines wasnt much of an explination but more of.. Reasons Why To Use Them! :-)

  • 10.03.2007 8:57 PM PDT

I was able to get a bunch of the campaign scoring achievements by playing on heroic with Fog and Tough luck turned on. There were a couple missions that I wasn't able to reach 15,000 points... so I turned famine on also. but Fog and Tough luck are the easiest of the two skulls imo, I can play through with them on, with few problems.

  • 10.03.2007 9:03 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

The best and easiest way to score the 15000 - 50000 points needed for the meta game achievements BY YOURSELF is heroic with thunderstorm and famine skulls on. worked for me...

  • 10.03.2007 9:19 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: TheBritish117
You can take your time with the levels aswell b/c the Iron Skull will give you an automatic 3x multiplier replacing the timer multiplier.

Posted by: Ultra DeeDer
The skull multimpliers are added together as a subtotal and the multiplied to the time bonus.

So if you had a score of 100 and had iron and catch, (3 + 1.5) x 100 = 350
If you had a score of 100 and had catch and a time bonus of 3, 1.5 x 100 x 3 = 450

Posted by: TobiasFox20
btw, (3+1.5)= 4.5. so 4.5 x 100 = 450. plus the time bonus of x3 is 1350. i hope you're not out of highschool yet.


While DeeDer is incorrect in his calculations (3 + 1.5 is 4.5), his point is valid. British117 is not correct in assuming that the 3x time multiplier and the 3x Iron skull multiplier are equal, and DeeDer was just trying to demonstrate that difference. The importance of a time multiplier is noticeable with more skulls, so lets compare Black Eye, Tough Luck, and Iron vs Black Eye, Tough Luck and a 3x time bonus.
(1.5+1.5+3) = 6x multiplier
(1.5 +1.5)*3 = 9x multiplier

With more skulls (I've added tilt and mythic), the time multiplier becomes even more important, even if your taking a while and its fallen to only 1.5x;
(1.5+1.5+3+2+2) = 10x
(1.5+1.5+2+2)*1.5 = 10.5x

So, obviously the time multiplier and the iron skull's multiplier aren't interchangeable (time has a much greater impact), and DeeDer simply made an absent minded mistake (it doesn't matter what level of education he's in, he's just human like the rest of us). Hope i cleared that up

  • 10.03.2007 9:29 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

WHEN i play with skulls on, I play with Tough Luck, Catch, and Fog no matter what, and I have been known to play with famine too. I usually play heroic like this. Never really experimented with tilt, thunderstorm or mythic though, and black eye sounds scary. And GBP and cowbell and IWHBYD

When I play Legendary on co-op I play with Tough Luck, Catch and Fog again, and then if we decide to add more, then we do. Catch doesn't make much of a problem, and who actually pays attention to Radar in campaign?

  • 10.03.2007 9:37 PM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

***Aberrant Designs***

Finished the fight on September 26,2007, 10:49pm EST
Remembered Reach on September 15th, 2010 9:30pm EST

although i am on normal, for now, i like ....

fog, catch, thunderstorm, and mythic.

i also turn on cowbell and grunt bday skulls.

the grunt bday is useful since it helps let me know if i killed the grunt or not (in legendary, they are down right annoying...)

  • 10.03.2007 9:39 PM PDT

First things first, you guys are f*ing crazy. I've played with Thunferstorm, Fog, and Iron and it wasn't as bag as I thought. I've only taken the time to get two of the scoring achievements so far but I've only played on solo too and I can only be so careful for so long. Legendary was way too easy and I do miss the CE days of resource and fantastic beat down and assasination shenanigery. But you really can't beat down hunters and I've yet to try taking them down with the pistol so the whole Famine thing for me, is for now, out of the question. But masochism, lunancy, and elite skillz aside the skulls combined with the scoring is brilliant and gives campaign a much greater replayability value. Kudos Bungie.

I now play with Fog on no matter what and Thunderstorm is a favorite as well. I've used Iron on the first two missions but there weren't that many snipers or tanks or even brutes for that matter. I'm rethinking my Tsavo Highway run cause I'm only going for the achievements for now.

P.S. I saw the flaming armor in the Bungie team V.I.P. game, is that unlockable and how would one go about it if it is?

  • 10.03.2007 9:55 PM PDT

I'd die to become immortal,
That's why I play Halo Reach

After finishing Halo 3 the initial time on Heroic by myself, I set about searching for skulls.

Initially I found the Blind, Tilt and Mythic skulls on my first run through, but i wanted to do a real search. So far I've found 5 gold skulls and Blind, all by myself. Before finding those last 3, though, i decided to try out the campaign scoring. I put on Tilt and Mythic (the only two gold ones i had at the time) and got my 5 year old half-brother to play as Arbiter/Bullet Magnet. I knew that Mythic gave all the enemies heaps of Health, but i had no idea what Tilt did. Anyways, i got the scoring achievements for the first three levels, which involved a lot of profanities towards phantoms with Chopper-resistant guns and me yelling "WHY ARE YOU NOT DYING???" It was fun. Eventually my half-bro started catching onto my plan and started letting me go into the fight alone while he'd hang back. That became quite useful as It allowed me to use him as a respawn station while i went about chipping away at the brute resistance. I found the terminals with the assistance of the Halo 3 Guide, but I want to find the skulls myself.

  • 10.03.2007 10:02 PM PDT

No.

Because I'm a pansy, I can only play on Normal with skulls active- the usual skulls consist of Catch, Tough Luck, Fog, and Thunderstorm.

  • 10.03.2007 10:06 PM PDT

I'm still a "member" on the forum? :(

omg i suck at halo 3 i were flying through halo 2 on normal but i took nerly a hour on cortana on normal :( on halo 3 lol
ps:i jest finished cortana and watched the movie so i know how bad i am at it
i got all skulls except for 3 becase of my dang xbox it distroys or jest wont read my games (i havent got blind or iorn becase i cant play siera117 and the catch skull jest wont appear >.< ) (it distroyed my crackdown and thp8 also)
any way i always play with IWHBYD and GBP and cowbell and if i had catch i whould play with that also dang xbox!!!!
when the holidays end im gona start thinking of geting my xbox repaired >.<
EDIT:and the dudes above me less calculateing more fighting thats what i say let the game figure out how much you got :D

[Edited on 10.03.2007 10:21 PM PDT]

  • 10.03.2007 10:16 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

I play on heroic with thunderstorm, famine and fog enabled (and of course IWHBYD)...

  • 10.03.2007 10:39 PM PDT

To get the achievements I played on heroic with Tough Luck, Fog, Famine, Thunderstorm, and Catch. Never had a problem breaking 50-60 k and ran through the points achievements first try. Great combo of 5 skulls without making the game play so hard that its annoying.

[Edited on 10.03.2007 11:03 PM PDT]

  • 10.03.2007 11:02 PM PDT

Vanquisher 2000: "They're everywhere!!!"
___.............._______/```````````````:::--..
|.==,-.~;. ____:._______ __’__’__’_ _ _\=
|................--:---:--:--‘---:,, ,,, ,,, ,,,:---: /=
`-.,.__._._,,...---:::"/

Super easy 15000 points, Normal, Catch, Mythic, Fog. 3.00x multiplier, headshot everyone with the BR and your laughing! (as long as you finish quickly.)

  • 10.03.2007 11:03 PM PDT
  •  | 
  • Exalted Legendary Member
  • gamertag: GS 059
  • user homepage:

00111011

Posted by: Ultra DeeDer
Posted by: TheBritish117
You can take your time with the levels aswell b/c the Iron Skull will give you an automatic 3x multiplier replacing the timer multiplier.


The skull multimpliers are added together as a subtotal and the multiplied to the time bonus.

So if you had a score of 100 and had iron and catch, (3 + 1.5) x 100 = 350
If you had a score of 100 and had catch and a time bonus of 3, 1.5 x 100 x 3 = 450


I have been noticeing that when you use two skulls of 1.5 or more of them they seem to add up instead of 1.5 +1.5 = 2, it is 3 for some reason, idk if this is a glitch, but it seems to be happening a lot, kind of like when you kill a brute with a few skulls on and stuff and get a head shot on him I can get over 700 for the kill, but if I do charge pp shot and a head shot I can get over 1500 for it.... so instead of getting the 1.25x2=1.5 I seem to be getting 1.25+1.25=2.5

  • 10.03.2007 11:23 PM PDT

I like to play on heroic with Tough Luck, Catch, Fog, Famine, Thunderstorm, Tilt, Mythic, Grunt Birthday Party, and IWHBYD skulls. Makes the game feel more tactical but not impossible. On campaign levels i can always score 50,000 or more points. Check out my file share of my finesse in action on Crow's Nest

  • 10.03.2007 11:24 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

okay, easy is .5 times score, normal is 1.0, heroic is 2.0, and legendary is 4.0. If you have a 1.5 skull on normal it is a multiplier of 1.0+1.5=2.5 thus if you have a 1.5 skull on normal, it actually doubles and more you score.

  • 10.03.2007 11:26 PM PDT

Pwning newbs since 01.
Spartan, assist!
Posted by: doctor woot
how the hell did you manage to join the site before the internet existed
did you submit your application by mail

which one gets us ur 1337 flaming helmet i saw when i played u in Lone wolves Ske7ch?? hahah i almost choked on my Starberry Fruit Loops when i saw that... long time since a chat- Darkhelmet

  • 10.03.2007 11:31 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

my favorite skull is Catch...i always have it on when i do campaign

when i was going for the 15k achievements i used Catch, Thunderstorm, Fog, Black Eye, and Famine, plus all the silver ones except Blind. I think those skulls make getting points real easy.

everyone should try Catch + Cowbell on Legendary for a few laughs and possibly incredible rage lol

  • 10.03.2007 11:36 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

When i beat it solo for the metagame points achievments I played it with Famine, Thunderstorm, and fog.

  • 10.04.2007 12:01 AM PDT