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Subject: As if some things weren't hard enough!
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I have all skulls going except Blind, Black Eye, Assassins and Famine, started Cairo and couldn't even make a dent in the first hanger, Mythic just makes life tough when the noob combo is a main strategy for that many elites! Well tougher than I had patience for, so I decided might as well play levels that I like with a brutal skull combo and loaded up Outskirts. Not too bad so far, but there are just a ton of grenades going off! Many time I have found myself dead from chain reactions, GBP will make life tough when mixed with Catch and not watching how many grenades you are standing around and foolishly head shooting a grunt at close range.

Got through the alleys, and figured just for -blam!-s and giggles I would see if IWHBYD spawned...........sure enough it did (I dont consider that a game changing skull, so it is not listed in non-actives above). I have yet to get past the third wave, that skull is a -blam!- to get to begin with, adding Mythic, Ghost and Cowbell just makes it even tougher. It should be interesting to see just how long it takes me to get this thing with this combo. I have a feeling that I may be at it for a week! We do live for these challenges eh!?

  • 01.21.2012 3:00 PM PDT
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Whatever you do, WHATEVER YOU DO, do not turn on Blind! Black Eye is highly recommended. You should be turning that on for levels like CS. Famine is negligible on CS because only dropped weapons from AI are affected afaik. That may make noob combo more difficult but it's pointless to use it on Mythic enhanced Ultra Elites. It's better to save some plasma pistols for the Zealot, who still has susceptible shielding.

OS is much more horrifying for me. I suck at speedrunning so I always get shot down or sniped by Jackal snipers.

And I considered doing the Jackal sniper alley and the IWHBYD challenge on SLASO. I have never done that and never will because I fear OS.

  • 01.21.2012 3:17 PM PDT

Lol, are you doing it with forts or trying it freestyle?

Tonight I'm going to try defeating them all without killing any of them, lol. If I can do it, I will try it SLASO. Heh heh, more than one way to skin a cat (so I've been told).

  • 01.21.2012 3:29 PM PDT

It pains me that I do not have all those darn skulls! I really want to experiment with things like this, but sadly I cannot today. This means I must go faster! And continue my collection without stop!

  • 01.21.2012 3:39 PM PDT


Posted by: InvasionImminent
It pains me that I do not have all those darn skulls! I really want to experiment with things like this, but sadly I cannot today. This means I must go faster! And continue my collection without stop!
I remember the first time I actually got all the skulls. It was a milestone, an accomplishment in itself, I scrolled down my beautiful list and was happy.

Then I turned them all on...

  • 01.21.2012 4:02 PM PDT
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To SG: I don't speedrun, its fighting all the fights for me, all enemies die. That is one of the reasons I have such fits, and post them, because I am stubborn.

To Grumps: I haven't gotten far enough in to get to the fort part. I don't think I will be able to take that approach due to cowbell and thunderstorm being active. The first few tries, all three of the waves, those damn elites followed me everywhere. Normally if you go out of sight long enough one will stay put, and that is when I can put forts together. In this case it seems like I will have to run and gun the whole damn way. One strategy that may get me half way there is to overcharge an elite and immediatly stick him, which has worked out a few tries already. The OC takes the shield down, and the nade to the balls takes him down. The lack of PP's will not allow me to do that very long. I have a feeling that I am going to have to get to a rooftop with a sniper and BR in order to take out anything over a 4 spawn. I am not sure that I will be allowed that far off the ground by the way the game pulls you back to the "arena" when you exceed the limits of where you can go. That may actually save my butt a few times, to get away from enemy fire for a few seconds, vanishing and re-appearing elsewhere until cowbell brings them a calling.

Envy will help for collecting weapons, but I am only about 15% positive that I will ever see that text appear on the screen. I love this battle so I am willing to take a week or two, but after that, I am 85% sure that I will have to move on to the rest of the level and forget the skull, or to Delta Halo and see how far I can get there. Not being overly negative, I just know how this game can bust my balls immensely when I set it up to great a challenge that my patience may not be up to.

We shall see!

  • 01.21.2012 4:53 PM PDT
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Grumps and SG--both of you alluded to your ability to turn on and off skulls. Am I mis-reading that or are you actually able to de-activate a skull you picked up wihtout losing any of the others?

  • 01.21.2012 4:54 PM PDT

Have you seen my mind anywhere? I seem to have lost it...

0x0 x0x 0x0 000 000 x0x 000
x0x 0x0 0x0 0xx 000 0x0 000
x0x x0x x00 0xx 0x0 x0x 0x0

I have seen you future

Posted by: womyfts
Grumps and SG--both of you alluded to your ability to turn on and off skulls. Am I mis-reading that or are you actually able to de-activate a skull you picked up wihtout losing any of the others?

What you do is make a whole bunch of accounts, each one having a checkpoint right before you pick up the skull. This lets you activate them at will.

  • 01.21.2012 4:59 PM PDT
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Posted by: womyfts
To SG:  I don't speedrun, its fighting all the fights for me, all enemies die.  

That is one of the reasons I have such fits, and post them, because I am stubborn.
:D Neither do I.

It's quite the opposite for me. I don't get fits because I fight all the fights and do everything slowly and painfully but because of how lucky speedrunners are to evade them. I envy and respect them at the same time.

Posted by: CTN 0452 9
Posted by: womyfts
Grumps and SG--both of you alluded to your ability to turn on and off skulls. Am I mis-reading that or are you actually able to de-activate a skull you picked up wihtout losing any of the others?

What you do is make a whole bunch of accounts, each one having a checkpoint right before you pick up the skull. This lets you activate them at will.
I don't think it works in Vista.

@womy I think you're misreading that. I haven't been able to turn off a skull at all. I got 2 profiles that were right at the Blind skull and it didn't turn off. I also tried to do Double Blind (no messages) but it didn't work either.

  • 01.21.2012 5:28 PM PDT


Posted by: womyfts
Grumps and SG--both of you alluded to your ability to turn on and off skulls. Am I mis-reading that or are you actually able to de-activate a skull you picked up wihtout losing any of the others?
Once a skull is activated, you will have it for that session. I can turn the snow on SI and QZ on and off but you already knew that. The only other thing that I know of is getting rid of perma-cammo by activating Envy but that works only if you restart and you have a perma-cammo save and you start at that save.


I just got what I thought was a beautiful save for the Ghosts. It came from the first map but when I went to go admire my handywork, 10 had deloaded. I'll have to do the no-kill fight without a CP.

Edit: To womy - You can't get up on the rooftops. The highest you can go is the covered balconies, otherwise you get yanked back.

[Edited on 01.21.2012 7:34 PM PST]

  • 01.21.2012 6:10 PM PDT

@ womy - In this vid of rehearsing to try to win the 28 Elite battle, Invasion pointed out that the second Elite spawned with a BR. You would know...is this common for the fight? I've never noticed it before.

[Edited on 01.21.2012 11:30 PM PST]

  • 01.21.2012 11:04 PM PDT

HDHDEWFNBEWUFIHEWFNVIV IDUBDEVBF; VBIF

ZOMG!

  • 01.21.2012 11:18 PM PDT


Posted by: InvasionImminent
HDHDEWFNBEWUFIHEWFNVIV IDUBDEVBF; VBIF

ZOMG!
Lol, I forgot to post the vid. Thanks man.

  • 01.21.2012 11:28 PM PDT


Posted by: Grumpy1

Posted by: InvasionImminent
HDHDEWFNBEWUFIHEWFNVIV IDUBDEVBF; VBIF

ZOMG!
Lol, I forgot to post the vid. Thanks man.

I offer my services free of charge :)

  • 01.21.2012 11:31 PM PDT
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Posted by: Grumpy1
@ womy - In this vid of rehearsing to try to win the 28 Elite battle, Invasion pointed out that the second Elite spawned with a BR. You would know...is this common for the fight? I've never noticed it before.
Just wait till you see the ones that dual wield human weapons.

  • 01.22.2012 12:10 AM PDT


Posted by: Sliding Ghost

Posted by: Grumpy1
@ womy - In this vid of rehearsing to try to win the 28 Elite battle, Invasion pointed out that the second Elite spawned with a BR. You would know...is this common for the fight? I've never noticed it before.
Just wait till you see the ones that dual wield human weapons.
Dayum! Sounds cool.

  • 01.22.2012 12:18 AM PDT


Posted by: Grumpy1

Posted by: Sliding Ghost

Posted by: Grumpy1
@ womy - In this vid of rehearsing to try to win the 28 Elite battle, Invasion pointed out that the second Elite spawned with a BR. You would know...is this common for the fight? I've never noticed it before.
Just wait till you see the ones that dual wield human weapons.
Dayum! Sounds cool.

I believe today is a threshold day!

BTW grumpy, any skulls you had on besides blind?

  • 01.22.2012 12:19 AM PDT


Posted by: InvasionImminent

Posted by: Grumpy1

Posted by: Sliding Ghost

Posted by: Grumpy1
@ womy - In this vid of rehearsing to try to win the 28 Elite battle, Invasion pointed out that the second Elite spawned with a BR. You would know...is this common for the fight? I've never noticed it before.
Just wait till you see the ones that dual wield human weapons.
Dayum! Sounds cool.

I believe today is a threshold day!

BTW grumpy, any skulls you had on besides blind?
Just Sputnik, by habit.

  • 01.22.2012 12:25 AM PDT
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Grumps: several of the 28 will spawn with a BR, and I have seen dual wields of magnums and smg's before, though usually it is PR and needler for that occurrence.

Currently:

Got to wave of 6.

Recap of getting there:

I got lucky and got a checkpoint after the 2nd wave and was able to do my fort thing. Of course I died, then forgot to rebuild the fort and died again! Then I started to remember each time I died, BUILD THE DAMN FORT! Fortunately the checkpoint put me at a spot where one had spawned on a building top and couldnt see me forting up. Kill him and start the dance again (Noob combo to get him).

The current situation got me past 3, 4 and 5 due to the elites only coming through a gap they created one at a time allowing me to hide in that little niche in the hallway by the end of the arena that Goldie spawns during normal play. That hiding spot allowed them to get close to me, then me pounce out and slay them wickedly with a sword. If I had blind active, there is no way that I would be able to do it that way as I could not keep track of them on the motion tracker to see when one was just about on me. Cowbell is great, it seems to lure them individually to me.

Just a matter of being patient. I give myself better odds now, maybe 50% that I can get these last two waves. Good thing there are a ton of swords laying about now, I am gonna need em!

  • 01.22.2012 7:31 AM PDT


Posted by: womyfts
Grumps: several of the 28 will spawn with a BR, and I have seen dual wields of magnums and smg's before, though usually it is PR and needler for that occurrence.

Currently:

Got to wave of 6.

Recap of getting there:

I got lucky and got a checkpoint after the 2nd wave and was able to do my fort thing. Of course I died, then forgot to rebuild the fort and died again! Then I started to remember each time I died, BUILD THE DAMN FORT! Fortunately the checkpoint put me at a spot where one had spawned on a building top and couldnt see me forting up. Kill him and start the dance again (Noob combo to get him).

The current situation got me past 3, 4 and 5 due to the elites only coming through a gap they created one at a time allowing me to hide in that little niche in the hallway by the end of the arena that Goldie spawns during normal play. That hiding spot allowed them to get close to me, then me pounce out and slay them wickedly with a sword. If I had blind active, there is no way that I would be able to do it that way as I could not keep track of them on the motion tracker to see when one was just about on me. Cowbell is great, it seems to lure them individually to me.

Just a matter of being patient. I give myself better odds now, maybe 50% that I can get these last two waves. Good thing there are a ton of swords laying about now, I am gonna need em!
Lol, swords galore alright. Wow, wave 6, I think that's better than I could ever do with that skull combo.

That open hallway is great except when I used it I had Blind on and what you described happened to me. Just when I was about to win, I got hammered.

I would love to see the action, I wish you had a cc.

Here's the result of my latest no-kill run there.

[Edited on 01.22.2012 8:09 AM PST]

  • 01.22.2012 7:48 AM PDT
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That was a very interesting watch, I have a few ?'s:

1-where did you collect all of the ghosts from?

2-were you able to get the perma camo going? no one shoots at you even if they are right in front of you (must be nice, I am a bullet magnet!)

  • 01.22.2012 12:02 PM PDT


Posted by: womyfts
That was a very interesting watch, I have a few ?'s:

1-where did you collect all of the ghosts from?

2-were you able to get the perma camo going? no one shoots at you even if they are right in front of you (must be nice, I am a bullet magnet!)
There are 30 Ghosts you have to deal with on OS on Legendary.

On those films I use perma-cammo because I wanted to watch what unfolded. It's fun to set things up and then just watch. The reason I died in the 'Pilot' vid is the Elite ran into me and it pissed him off.

  • 01.22.2012 1:07 PM PDT

I'm collecting all the skulls, I have a fort built, no perma-cammo, 4 sniper rifles stashed and a Scarab gun. Should be fun but damn I'd sure like to have a skull menu.

  • 01.22.2012 6:06 PM PDT
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Welp, I gave up on the IWHBYD attempt, moved on to fart around on DH and OS....

Of course, I decided with all those skulls active, I really should go back to the beginning and finish the attempt I gave up on earlier, which was cairo.............and.......GOT IT!

Some useful tips with this skull assortment active (cowbell, thunderstorm, catch, envy, mythic, ghost, angry, sputnik, grunt bdp) include:

Hoarding plasma pistols. While 1 overcharge does not do the job in lowering an Thunderstormed/Mythic'd Elite, if you double wield PP's and are able to get both OC's home (which isnt that hard), then the BR will finish the job with a headshot. One can go through pretty much every available PP in the level! The hard part can be tracking down the one you double OC'd since you have to break for cover once you fire the PP's off, otherwise Angry will ruin your day.

A PP overcharge, followed by a plasma stick makes for very angry and pissed off elites. But it can be a great way to get them to go to their swords (Sliding Ghost taught me that!). There is a big advantage with Angry active in having Elites with NO PLASMA weapons to tar your ass with.

Jet Pack Elites are not affected by Thunderstorm and Mythic. They fall to a single PP overcharge and headshot.

I found that there are certain times it pays to be pretty aggressive. The first hanger, you have to slaughter the grunts immediately. And you have to be risky and try to take out as many elites as you can BEFORE the third wave arrives. When there are more than four down there it is damn near impossible to get past. I found that hoarding the PP's right at the dead marine/BR location on the stairs made me much more effective than leaving the extras PP's down by the closed door/magnum area. IN the second hanger, that dual PP combo was brutal since there are better lines of fire than the first hanger (in my opinion). It also helps that if you can get elites to a sword, they will charge you. When they coma t you from a distance that is all to the MC advantage as you have the time to light him up with two overcharges and blow him up with the BR to the head (love GBP!).

The bomb room was the same, every available PP from the bugger battle brought with to the lower hanger door, then out to the bomb room elevator once the jet packers were toasted. Double OC's, BR, return bomb.

I died about sixty times during this run, but I finally got it (I believe they call that segmented, lol, and I was in many segments!)

[Edited on 01.25.2012 8:25 PM PST]

  • 01.25.2012 8:22 PM PDT


Posted by: womyfts
I died about sixty times during this run, but I finally got it (I believe they call that segmented, lol, and I was in many segments!)
Good read...segmented or not, you did it and that's what counts.

  • 01.25.2012 9:20 PM PDT

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