Tag: Halo

Halo Wars 2 – Banished vs UNSC Unbalanced

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo Wars 2 is absolutely amazing. The graphics, sounds and whole gaming mechanics are top notch. Even the matches can be intense and take up some time. Halo Wars 2 is even more strategic than the prequel. More leader characters that brings more flavour and options to the matches. Even so, there are some big issues concerning balancing.

Straight up we are going to say it. The Banished have a big advantage over UNSC and it’s big enough that it makes a difference in every match. Seriously. The biggest advantage is the fact that Banished bases get the chance to place shields in the turret sections. These shields are powerful and soak up all kinds of damage. Why is that so bad? Didn’t Halo Wars 1 have shields. Well yes but their shields occupied a slot for building like energy generators, and supply pads. So if you wanted to stack two shields then that’s two less slots for you. The shields in Halo Wars 2 are more powerful because if the shield was dropped due to too much damage but another shield gets built, instantly the shield goes up regardless of whether the base is taking damage or not. The if another shield is built in time then it’s a double layer straight away. Also any Banished (or allies of the banished) withing the shields are protected and take significantly less damage until the shield drops. The problem is that an UNSC army would spend a hard time fighting the enemy army and lose because the shields protect the enemy army but if through leader powers and other means beat the army then you still have the shields which lasts long but skilled banished players leave a slot at the back ready for when they get attacked just to build another shield for instant shield regeneration. It’s so unfair. Don’t listen to stupid who say it isn’t an issue when it clearly is.

The next big Banished advantage are the Banshees. The banshees are practically the strongest units in the game. Surely X35 Earthwalker is exaggerating though. No we aren’t. We have seen a group of banshees beat wolverines and reavers of same group size. We aren’t joking. X35 Earthwalker himself has had his banshees beat anti-vehicle units many times even when there were more of them and vice versa he had his anti-air vehicles lose to banshees. How does that work? How do air units beat anti-air units? Sure air has a advantage over vehicles but anti-air is ANTI-AIR, full stop. Now in recent matches pretty much every Banished character user is always using banshees in great numbers. Either full population of banshees with engineers or half locusts (or something) mixed with them. It gets boring and predictable. It’s too strong. Banshees are suppose to be main air vehicles, in other words basic air units but their strength is much higher. Thanks to their own anti-air upgrade, they can take on two groups at the same time. The anti-air lets them attack nightingales and hornets while their fuel rod cannons and main plasma guns can fire at tanks, wolverines and whatever. That doesn’t sound fair at all.

Lastly, many, almost all, banished players are copying and using the chopper rush and then get engineers as fast as possible. It just makes matches boring now and predictable. X35 Earthwalker himself likes discovering and trying new strategies to accomplish different things. Some work and some don’t. This is how he ended up discovering a big secret. Choppers are vehicles. They are stronger than jack rabbits. They counter marines very well. They counter hellbringers. The way to beat them is to rely on your marines and turrets but that strategy is defensive, meaning while you stay near your base, the banished players can grab power nodes, mini bases and control the map. If you go out there then your marines will get caught by the choppers who can also ram for maximised damage. If you get the grenade throw ability for your marines then you can destroy some but you would have spent so much energy that the banished players will reach tier 2 way before the UNSC do. It’s not fair either way you look at it. 

So basically Banished have the advantage in defense, early game and mid game. This stuff has put some of us off the game for a while because unless we also play as banished, mainly Atriox, Decimus and Colony, you will have a real hard time. Until this is fixed we won’t be playing this game as frequently as before. Either way, this is what we and many others have experienced. If you are a banished player then aren’t you happy but if not, you could always do… The ‘Earth Walk!’ 

Colony is destructive in Halo Wars 2

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Colony is the newest leader in Halo Wars 2. First of all Colony looks cool. He is a hunter but a hunter in charge. His voice is like one of the coolest voices ever. He speaks simple short sentences but that voice just make us wish we could have it as the new default voice for announcements, answer machines etc. It’s so cool. Now as usual when a new character comes out everyone does nothing but just play that character. X35 Earthwalker yesterday did a livestream where he only uses Colony and in every match there was a Colony. Colony on Colony violence.

Colony stands out greatly from other Banished leaders, not just from how he’s designed but from his units and leader powers. He actually brings some new units into the battlefield. Now when Kinsano came out, We never cared to get her at all. She seemed not that fun to use still seemed similar to the other leaders is many ways. Can’t really blame her since the UNSC are humans meaning they will be similar in units but Colony takes things to the next level.

Colony seems to excel most at being at the front of the battle. Colony has the Goliath infantry units which are giant sized hunters that behave like gorillas. They are all about melee. Goliaths are strong against buildings, alright against infantry, weak against vehicles (for some reason) and can’t hurt air. I know they need to balance out the units in the game but how comes a big strong creature (twice the size of a hunter who are 12 feet tall) are weak against vehicles. Those things could smash them apart but whatever… balancing and all that. Goliaths are no joke. They are literally the best units against buildings. Just two of them do some serious damage against enemy bases. Goliaths also have the ability to ram which is great for dealing with annoying vehicles as it is fast and travels quite the distance.

Colony also brings skitterers which are small little mech bots that scuttle along the ground and fire lasers. These mechs are easy to build and come with the ability we have been waiting for. They can attach themselves to another unit becoming invincible and attacking enemies that come near the attached unit. So you could attach skitterers to Goliaths meaning Goliaths can now defend themselves against air units. You could attach them to hunters so they can defend against air as well. It’s up to you gamers to figure out some crazy combinations. You can attach two skitterers to units by the way.

Colony’s leader powers are very different cool. They really have the ability to mix things up. You immediately have access to living barrier and skitterers. We all know about skitterers but living barrier is something X35 Earthwalker underestimated at first but later saw how good it is. Living barrier let’s you drop down Lekgolo caltrops in a line that completely blocks infantry and vehicles. The enemy has to fight and destroy these barriers to get through. So while they are fighting the barrier you can target the enemy. It’s good for distractions, cutting of the enemy while fleeing, blocking movements, extra eyes around the map and more. It’s only for the strategic.

Engineer swarms calls in many engineers to start healing any units or buildings in range. They stay for quite a while and can really help turn the tide of a battle. Upgrade this ability to make killing your army near impossible. Combat repair makes all your units and buildings slowly heal over time, even in battle. This encourages strikes and retreats, keeping your units alive and building their veterancy since they heal by themselves. Colony drop calls in two level 2 veterancy Goliaths meaning they hit harder and themselves are harder to kill. Vehicle symbiotes allows you to buff selected vehicles and buildings with increased range and armour. So good for turrets on defense and off course your vehicles like locusts. Hunters brand allows you to fire 3 glassing beams that quickly converges in the middle. It’s actually very strong and doesn’t take too long to recharge but when it’s level 2 or 3 it is devastating. Lastly Devastating host lets you drop in multiple different vehicles like wraiths, locusts etc but get a instant buff from a vehicle symbiotes. This is powerful indeed. As you can see Colony is something powerful.

His leader unit, The hunter captain, is a very useful leader. It is a giant hunter, pretty much the same size as the goliath units. This hunter instead comes with shields and can actually fire his cannon at air units (wow). As he does damage he siphon some health back. He’s great against vehicles and infantry, alright against air and buildings. Once upgraded his cannon beam has area of effect so he can damage groups and does more damage overall. He can be upgraded to get the taunt ability which forces nearby enemy units to target the hunter captain instead. This is good since he can take lots of hits and siphon health meaning he won’t die easy. Combine him with Combat repair and Engineer swarm and he’ll never die. His main weakness is that he is so slow. Completely slow. The slowest thing ever and because of this he slows down the whole speed of your army so it takes you forever to cross the map and attack or help out an team mate. That’s the only negative thing.

During the livestream X35 Earthwalker won all his matches with Colony except the match where he was teamed up with a rank 7 and he had to go against level 32 and 41 (round about) and the level 7 team mate left the match. Through practise we have seen just how useful Colony is. He is very powerful and when used correctly can be devastating against everything. He is a lot of fun to use and it’s so satisfying when you beat another player who is using Colony as well. He is worth getting. Whether you try out Colony or not… you can always try the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below: 

Halo Wars 2. Leader powers strategies

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo Wars 2 is home to some big and powerful wars. Players meet on the battlefield and explosions take are happening everywhere. If you plan to get in a match you must come with strategies. Don’t just build anything and everything. Like we said before, pretty much one of the big things that makes all the difference in a match is the character leaders. Character leaders have leader powers. The leader powers can flip the match in your favour. Leader powers can also just seal your opponents fate in that match.

X35 Earthwalker has played and defeated many with all the leaders. He has his favourite and least favourite leaders but knows how to use them all. He will share some of what he knows so take a look and enjoy.

“Atriox at first I wasn’t sure how to use him. His strength does lie in expansion but his bigger strength is in his leader powers to make his armies invulnerable. This is a game changer for sure. As you build your armies you must have ‘Atriox’s bulwark’ and ‘Unbreakable’. These two will guarantee you victory any battle and possibly the match. When your army collides with the enemies fight them for a while and stay as close as possible. Then when some units are weak or about to lose some, activate Unbreakable. Your opponent will normally retreat, so chase them and keep up the damage with no fear as you can’t take damage. After they have lost many units get ready for them to use a leader power to counter. If it’s anything but Forge’s scatter bomb, then activate Atriox’s bulwark to heal your weak units and negate all damage from that leader ability. I have made opponents resign after seeing this knowing that my army is still strong, blocked everything they sent at me while still dishing out damage. Give this a try.”

“Captain Cutter should be straight forward that his strength lies in his orbital leader powers. No infantry is stronger that Odsts. This means you have to get as much as possible. Do this by using ‘ODST drop’ which gives you 3 squads of ODSTs. The ‘Cyclops Drop’ is powerful as it drops in a high veterancy Cyclops meaning it’s health and damage is off the charts. Keep dropping those guys in. The last orbital leader power and the strongest is ‘ODST Assault group’. This calls in a wolverine, some ODSTs and even a scorpion tank. Before you battle the enemy make sure to have these leader powers ready for use. This way you can replace all destroyed units making it like you never lost anything in the first place and better, you replace them with stronger units of high veterancy. This discourages the enemy. Lastly notice that any enemy unit that has a ODST droped on them, get stunned. Use that to your advantage.”

“Decimus is terrifying when used correctly. With Decimus your units will always have the advantage. ‘Vortex lightning’ should be used at the start of a battle. This way your enemies units will be taking damage, have reduced defense making them easier to kill and get stunned, making them a sitting duck. So now you have the initial advantage. Also use ‘Siphon’ (upgrade it) on the units at the front of the battle so that they become harder to kill and last longer. Now they gain health as they damage the enemy. Combine this with the two passive leader powers: ‘Boundless Siphon’ and ‘Boundless Rage’ and the match is pretty much yours. They grant your units permanent siphon and increased damage and speed. It’s like super siphoning. My armies like this have taken down a army, then a scarab, then the base in one match before. In another match I have taken on two armies at the same time with my own. It was a hard battle though. Decimus is not to be messed with. Weaken your enemies then buff your own.”

“Isabel is at first what I considered very weak. After some training I learnt a few things. She ain’t so weak after all. Her MAC Blast is amazing. What sets it apart from the others is that her’s is almost instant. They shouldn’t bother show the cross-hair on the ground for the enemy as you can never evade it in time. It’s that fast. It’s fast and yet so strong. A upgraded Mac Blast will destroy everything. I once got hit by a max level MAC Blast and had to do a 180 and retreat… Then later came back and destroyed them (well they started it). Spend some time in the match countering your opponents infantry. They will then give up infantry and go vehicles and air, which is what you want. Wait until they are quite near their base. Push up and fight. Wait for their army to group up and then hit them with ‘Ghost in a machine’, which grants you temporary control over their mechanical units. Use their units to directly attack the base and leave the turrets alive to damage units you have controlled. Your army supports the controlled army and that base will go boom. With Isabel, timing is everything.”

“Anders probably one of, if not, the most difficult to handle because her leader powers make things at times unfair. We won’t talk about the ‘Protector Sentinels’ as i’m sure we all know about them. Get some kodiaks and have them spread out a bit around the map on your side for defense. Combine this with ‘Sentinel beacon’ which means every shot from the kodiaks and siege turret produces aggressor sentinels which attack everything. This makes infantry useless against you. Literally a few kodiaks on guard duty with this leader power can be unfair. Drop ‘Sentinel Network’ right at their base to keep causing damage to everything they build and their base as well. It stays for a very long time making it pretty much the best harass tool. The ‘Retriever Sentinel’ is best used to throw your enemy of. Force your enemy to focus on countering your infantry and vehicle, then when they have many things that don’t do so well against air just drop your Retriever Sentinel in and let it have it’s way with the enemy troops. It’s too strong for them to start effectively counter. With Anders you can make your enemies afraid to do certain things.

“Ship Master is almost a troll with his leader powers. Basically you can control the map and mess with your enemy. Plant as many scout mines as you can throughout the match. Scout mines provide you with sight where that bomb is. It’s like many eyes around the map. Also Scout mines do a ton of damage, so no one will want to stand on them. Plant them near power nodes. Use ‘Spirit Support’rt’ to fill your army with high veterancy hunters, elite rangers and engineers. You should also call it in during a battle to replace your dead units and get extra damage as the spirit stays around to fire at the enemy for a while. Once you have a large army use ‘Tactical gateway’. Tactical gateway is one of those leader powers that is pure strategy. Create one gate right behind an enemy base and lead your army through the other to get there and when you need to leave hop right through. Be aware though that your enemy can go through your gate. Use Displacement properly. Many don’t know how to use this leader power. Most use it to send enemy units away just for them to soon come back. Use it instead to send enemy units to you. More than once I have sent a large group of enemy air units straight to my group of reavers who tore them apart. When you are destroying the enemies army and tries to escape, use Displacement to bring them back, so you can finish them of. Ship master requires a lot of skill to use as he has very little direct damage abilities.”

“Forge is all about the vehicles. He can’t do much with infantry so air and vehicles is how he rolls. You need to have grizzlies. Very strong tanks that do great damage. When in a battle wait for when you know you will lose some units. Then use ‘Combat salvage’ to easily get back the units you lose (the first 8). This allows him to keep the vehicles coming. Vehicles, even against their counters still are pretty strong so just because they have some cyclops doesn’t mean they will get destroyed just like that, especially not grizzlies. Use ‘Grizzly Battalion’ to replace fallen units with more grizzlies. Do not rely on ‘Scatter Bomb’ as how you would rely on eradication. It does low damage and is so easy to evade. Only use it to scare away your enemies to create breathing space or if the enemy is trapped behind a base and you have them cornered as that’s when the full might of Scatter Bomb takes place.”

“Kinsano is who I know least about as I don’t have her. From what I have seen though her leader powers come back really quickly and ‘Inferno’ is incredibly dangerous. Just launch that on a base and everything get real weak. Launch that on a enemy army and watch them melt away really fast. Her inferno is her trump card. ‘Hell Charge’ should be used after you mingled your army with the enemies so that when yours die they explode damaging as many of theirs as possible. Have multiple bases and mini bases around to make ‘Red line’ effective. All newly spawned units of yours will be boosted. So have units come out from all of them to overwhelm your opponents with boosted units constantly. That’s all I will say concerning her.”

That’s a lot to take in. Go into skirmish and try out some of these strategies or tune them to your style. Either make sure to do the ‘Earth Walk!’ 

Halo 5 Warzone. Underestimated Weapons

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

Warzone in halo 5 Guardians is great fun. It’s also big and very chaotic at times. Warzone isn’t like other games. Normally in games like gears of war, your threats are right in front of you. In Warzone your threats are from a mile away, right up in your face, from below and from above. You could be sprinting across the map just to run into a shotgun wielding spartan. You could be sneaking around the edge of the map and then all of a sudden you have a giant hole in your head thanks to a sniper. You may be on a killing spree and having a great time until a random banshee out of nowhere bombs you from above. It’s not fair at times but hey, that’s Warzone. Now many have talked about some req weapons as rubbish or useless and we at X35 Earthwalker don’t think so at all. Off course there are some req weapons that even we don’t use but we will talk about some of them.

The ‘Needler’ is very underrated. We have hardly seen people use this weapon. X35 Earthwalker said, “The regular Needler is a good gun but the tier 2 ‘hail storm’ is extremely good. It fires faster than normal, with more ammo and the needles track enemies much better. You don’t know how many times I have gotten double and even triple kills with this weapon. There was even a time when I got an overkill on the ‘Spire’ map fighting for control over the spire. You only need a few needles to make them explode and they die fast. I have even got a killing frenzy from using the whole gun and then grabbing another one. You have to be smart though. Don’t just run up to enemies and start spraying, chances are, you will die. You must fire only a small amount of needles for each enemy and change targets fast. If you just run up to one enemy and fire, you will always kill them (unless you miss) but if you run up to two then it can go either way. When it comes to bigger groups… be smart.” 

The ‘Saw’ use to be bad in our opinion and rightfully be ignored by spartans except for the tier 3 ‘the answer’. X35 Earthwalker said, “I never use to like the saw at all. Diamondz L45 and I use to love it in halo 4 but here it is too weak. There were times when I would beat someone using a saw with an ‘Smg’. Like why and how. That isn’t right. Then there was a time where someone with an smg beat me when I had the saw but lately I think the halo 5 update increased it’s power because know it does a great job at destroying shields and applying pressure to vehicles. Just by playing smart and picking my targets carefully, I was able to get killing sprees with the saw. The tier 2 saw ‘appetite of destruction’ is even better. I feel like it does ever so slightly more damage but the extra ammo and clip size does make a difference. When you have that gun do not be afraid to attack light vehicles like ‘wasps’ and ‘banshees’ as the drivers always panic when they receive constant rapid damage. They crash into walls and whatever trying to escape. Never be afraid to use that ammo. By the way, it isn’t a gun that allows you to take on two at once, remember that.”

The ‘Sentinel beam’ has been dissed by almost everyone. No one has anything nice to say about this req weapon except that it is cool because it fires a laser. X35 Earthwalker said, “The Sentinel beam is not that strong at all but it does have one awesome feature that many do not know about. This req is like super effective against the wasp. This makes me so happy as people love to use that thing all the time. When I for the first time used the sentinel laser against a wasp it literally burned up before my eyes. No, it wasn’t a already damaged wasp. It wasn’t smoking or on fire. I am not sure how effective it is versus other vehicles but I believe it’s an anti vehicle type weapon but that doesn’t mean it’s not good against Spartans. When using it on enemy players they tend to panic because of the laser and constant damage. It works pretty much every time. So you literally have to experiment with this weapon.”

The ‘Plasma pistol’ is a powerful weapon that many just seem to avoid using because they most likely believe that another weapon would be better and maybe so but never underestimate this req weapon. X35 Earthwalker said, “The plasma pistol is one of my favourite req weapons because of how good it is and how strategic it is. This weapon especially the tier 3 plasma pistol ‘Void’s tear’ makes everything easier. This finishes enemies so quickly. It is anti-vehicle as it stuns and disables vehicles allowing you to take enemy vehicles. It’s best feature is that you can noob combo enemies. A noob combos is when you use a charged shot to drain a spartans shields and then headshot enemy straight afterwards. This has brought me so many kills before. Matter of fact on the level ‘battle of noctis’ I got so many kills because I would catch many out in the open with noob combo kills. The range of the plasma pistol when using smart link (basically zoom) is ridiculous. You can lock on and shoot enemies from so far away that it’s funny at times. Find the right spot and equip a long range precision weapon and you’ll have a great time.” 

The ‘Gunfighter magnum’ was a cool addition to the load out reqs. The pistol looks different and fires differently. It isn’t the best pistol at all, matter of fact we believe it is the worst load out pistol but once understood and used correctly, it may give you the edge. X35 Earthwalker said, “This pistol does less damage than the regular pistol but it has a much higher rate of fire. This weapon at least gives you more chances to hit that head shot. This gun can actually kill enemies really fast but you have to make sure not to miss any shots though. If all the shots hit, then the enemy drops really fast. It feels like a revolver from an old western movie with a quick draw and reload. Thanks to the high rate of fire the shield of the enemy will fall quite fast meaning it’s good for melee kills. Get sort of close to the enemy and rush them while firing as fast as you can, then when close get your fist into their face. Simple right? At the end of the day you basically just have to practice with this weapon.”

The ‘Energy swords’ have been claimed as useless by many which we say is ridiculous, their reason isn’t good enough. Off course if you run across the middle of the map, in the open, you will get gunned down by snipers, battle rifles, dmr’s and more. Use strategy spartans. X35 Earthwalker said, “The energy swords are excellent reqs and very powerful in the hands of a strategic and patient spartan. Just because you have a sword doesn’t mean you have to use it and run around with it all the time. Play normally for a while and wait for the opportunity. I have had multiple moments where I zoom into an enemy base at the right time and get over kills, kiltrocity and other multi kills. Swords naturally give you a speed boost so abuse that ability. Also by using power up reqs you can change the type of attack. Take things slow with active camo or charge through with speed boosts and a overshield. You could do the same with hammers but swords don’t slow you down as much plus swords have the natural speed boost.”

Off course there are some reqs that we truly believe aren’t worth using like a regular boltok and supressor. Their higher tier versions are much better and have low level requirements to unlock so there is literally no reason to use it. That’s a blog for another time though. Over time we will be uploading more clips of game play by X35 Earthwalker and friends on this website overtime so feel free to check them out to see some action. Pretty much every req has some sort of use and never just write something off because others are saying something about it. Be the one who makes it work. That’s what we do but whatever you do… make sure it’s at least the ‘Earth Walk’!

For more information check out the link below:

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Halo Wars 2 so far

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Hello friends and fellow Earthwalkers. We have been checking out some of the action in Halo wars 2. So far we are liking it. The online battles are big and explosive just like we hoped. The size of the maps are large enough to allow retreat and recovery, flanking and distractions. We do seriously hope that the developers made their maps with our feedback in mind. What can be confirmed is that the game has a lot going on and there is so much to take into account when in matches.

The maps have multiple things on it. There are supply crates and locations that once captured grant you additional energy. These two in particular are incredibly important. Get your crates as fast as possible and make sure to at least capture the energy points on your side of the map otherwise you will be at a medium sized disadvantage. Some maps have additional things on them to make things more interesting. We hope some maps have structures like ones that increase population or that giant covenant cannon thing. Off course they have to be balanced though.

There are lots of options in matches due to the large amounts of units, and leader abilities at your disposal. What’s really great is that now you can see what each units strengths and weaknesses are from a quick glance. They have a colour coded: red, amber, green and black system to show how well they fight against unit types. Amber means normal, green means very good, red, means very bad while black means can’t do anything. For example the ‘Cyclops’ unit (from what we remember) will have orange for infantry, green for vehicle and black for air. This means that Cyclops are alright against infantry, great against vehicle and can’t do anything against air. This makes understanding units and deciding what to build much easier and quicker.

We do wish that they kept the leader power skill tree look, which was in the first beta, instead of the wheel but that’s the decision they made. Maybe it’s because everyone is use to the wheel from the first Halo wars. It’s still nice but the skill tree looked much cooler and new. There are lots of abilities to unlock and use. As you kill units, capture energy locations, upgrade, basically do useful things in matches you will be awarded with skill points that you can spend to unlock leader powers like eradication or specific upgrades like making your units move faster. This is one of those decisions that are actually strategic. First of all choose what suits your style or the type of strategy that you are going for in the match. Next thing to think about is the situation of the match. For example your enemy may have a large army and you need to help thin them out so you may unlock mines to do damage as they approach you. Or maybe close air support to deal big damage to all their units. Or at the start of the match you get the upgrade that increases infantry speed so you can capture areas and get supply crates before the enemy. Think carefully instead of just picking whatever seems cool.

Seeing Decimus getting dropped in for the first time was quite cool to see. He has a ton of health, comes with a shield and does all kinds of destruction. He’s like a combination of the ‘War Lord’ from halo wars 2 and the ‘Brute chieftain’ from halo wars 1. He pulls you in and greets you with a nicely crafted hammer. We believe that their are hero units and then there are super units (they may be called ultimate units now). So the War lord and Spartans are powerful hero units but ultimate units like Decimus and Condows are things that terrorise the battlefield and strike fear into the hearts of players. Don’t even call their name or they might just show in your room (made you look). We believe the best thing to do is to get your ultimate unit as quickly as possible while not neglecting everything else like resource and unit management. 

Seeing the amount of leader abilities, the upgrades and everything else that’s going on shows that game is, just as I hope, more strategic and fights can almost easily go either way. Games should always have a way that allows players to forma a comeback, even if it is a small chance. There are leader abilities that can wipe out or heavily damage entire armies. There are units that can hold of many units while your army can retreat and heal up. There are options here and we love that. From what we can see, we am loving how Halo wars 2 is turning out and want to see what else happens with this game.

This is just some of our initial thoughts and views of the game and of what we know. Have fun with Halo Wars 2 and do the ‘Earth Walk’!

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Halo wars 2 Blitz beta – Strategic approach

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

The Halo wars 2 Blitz beta is continuing until the 30th of January. In case you didn’t know. Halo wars 2 is a halo RTS (Real time strategy) game that will be coming out on the 21st of February. So far the beta has been played by the Earthwalkers, especially X35 Himself and they all agree that the game so far is excellent with so many positives and little negatives. The beta is free and should just get it to at least try it.

Now Halo wars 2 is going for a more strategic approach to game play now. Much more than the prequel. In the prequel most people would get tanks with wolverines and that was pretty much it but in halo wars 2, you need keep an eye on your opponent, think fast, react fast and have strategies. Blitz is fast paced and requires you to use your cards wisely. Don’t just use a card just because it is there, especially if it is an ability card or a unit with special abilities. Then again, don’t hold on to cards that you don’t need at the time. There are many ways to go about this. First of all, there shouldn’t be any cards in your deck that you find not useful or wouldn’t use. Have cards that you know will come in handy or counter a certain situation on the battlefield. If you desperately need a card or need to get rid of a card, you can ‘cycle’ a card for a small cost of 5 energy. This most likely will be worth it but never cycle too much because small costs combined make a big cost. If you have unit card and don’t need it yet and it doesn’t cost much then just summon it in your base and leave it there for now. It’s always better to have an army in blitz so don’t cycle cheap cards.

You deck should always have cheap cost cards and high cost cards. Cheap cards because then you can have an army quite quickly and summon when needed like to collect energy for example. Big cost cards as they are the powerful units. If you are going to have too much of one, then make sure it too much of cheap as then you can have a easy to build large army. You deck should also have at least 1 or two ability cards like the ‘archer missiles’ or ‘cloak’. Abilities allow you to reveal your leader characters true powers which can make all the difference in a match once used effectively. You deck should also have a legendary unit to bring the pain. Each character leader has their own legendary unit. Atriox’s is ‘Atriox’s chosen’. Captain Cutter has ‘Spartan Jerome-092’. These units are powerful and very expensive. They almost make any battle in your favour but you must protect them. They aren’t invincible. We have seen players get excited about legendary units that they drop one in the middle of an enemy army and expects them to kill everything, instead just gets their legendary dead. It’s a waste. Have them lead a fight and when they take too much damage then return them to your base to get them healed up. There is no excuse, they even have shields so keep them alive.

Ability cards have one time use abilities that must be used strategically. You can’t afford to waste them or miss. For example a very strategic and powerful ability is the ‘MAC Blast’ card which allows you to “Launch a high damage slug to blast a target area”. This is a card you can activate, then aim and then fire. Use this to destroy that one pesky target that maybe is out of reach of your units that sit on a hill, like ‘Blisterbacks’ or ‘Kodiaks’. You could also just use this to damage and destroy a group of enemy units that have bundled up together. You could use your army to drive them into a corner and then fire the MAC gun. Do not use this on the ‘Condor’ or ‘Scarab’ as those super units are only temporary and will die eventually. Save it for the right situation. When you have powerful ability cards like ‘Boundless Fury’ and ‘MAC Blast’ you have to decide whether it’s better to use them or summon units because they have high costs and you could normally have 3 or two units instead. It’s up to you to know and judge the situation you are in to know what action you should take.

Some units are enhanced versions of the originals like ‘Ironclad Hunters’. They fight and attack in the same way but come with extra abilities. The abilities so far are: Guard, Blast, Detect, Rush, Reflect, Cloak, Rally, Shock, Shield, Support and Siphon. Guard means this unit will absorb all the damage your other units would have took, protecting them. Blast means that when they die a small circle area is glowing, soon an explosion will happen there damaging everything within. Detect means that unit can see and reveal nearby cloaked units. Rush means that unit is not effected by fatigue when summoned and can therefore fight at full strength straight away. Reflect means that unit returns half of the damage they take back onto an enemy unit. Cloak means when the unit is deployed (summoned) it is cloaked for 90 seconds it can’t be targeted but can still fight and move freely. Rally means that unit increases the damage  your ally units nearby can do. Shock means that unit reduces the armour of nearby enemy units making them weaker. Shield means that unit has a rechargeable shield like spartans in halo, the shield takes the hits before the health does and recharges when out of battle. Support means this unit doesn’t fight at all but instead can do things like heal units, protect or other cool effects. Siphon means that unit gains health equal to the damage it gives, sucking the life out of your enemies. These abilities are important and make huge differences in a match, so make sure to know them all and have some in your deck.

In every Blitz match you have to make collecting the energy drops a top priority. Sure they don’t seem to add much at all to your energy but it increases your energy rate. You have an automatic energy rate and the more energy you collect that rate increases much faster meaning you get to use your cards faster. Controlling the zones is important but not as important as the energy as control zones come and go throughout a match but with a higher energy rate than your opponent, you could summon legendary units and build armies much faster than your enemies and a bigger stronger army is what matters in halo wars 2, especially Blitz. Get the energy, even if it means the enemy gets 50 points ahead of you because they control to zones. There is time for a come back.

Each character leader is different and have access to certain cards that the others don’t get. Some leaders are more support type while others seem as more assault types; however all are powerful and dangerous enough to destroy the other in a fight. It comes down to the player, their armies and strategies which are all dependent on the leader. The ‘Ship master’ can start of with three ghosts, who aren’t the strongest units around but their speed cannot be matched so you can use them to zoom and beat your enemies to the energy drops. ‘Anders’ starts of with probably the strongest combination of units with two cyclops, two marines and a wolverine. That means she can counter air, vehicles and give infantry a fight. This means you could go straight for a control zone and most likely beat anyone who challenges you. Atriox has access to the ‘Eradication’ ability which literally destroys everything so it can be the move that turns the tide of a battle. ‘Isabel’ has the MAC Blast and lock down scorpion which weakens enemy units and her special units keep the enemy guessing. ‘Decimus’ has multiple siphon units and if you can keep them alive they become a real threat and hard to kill but abilities allow destroying the enemy much easier. ‘Captain Cutter’ has strong starting units and has powerful abilities making him a heavy assault type leader. You must check out the units that they have and the abilities to know what to do. The ‘Ship master’ has cloaking and steal abilities while ‘Atriox’ has the more straight forward approach and heavy abilities.

So firstly learn the character leaders and know their units and abilities. Quickly secure at least one control zone and then aim for the energy drops. Build an army. Do not let half your army get destroyed under no circumstances. Always bring your units back to base to get them healed up. Don’t over extend and do more than you nee to do. If you have the bigger army and have at least two of the zones then don’t over extend and risk units.

Now all that’s left to do is go into matches and practice. Have fun and don’t forget to do the ‘Earth Walk’! 

 

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Halo wars 2 is going to be awesome

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

Halo wars 2 is coming out on the 21st of February of 2017. Now almost every Xbox gamer knows about this game and most are looking forward to this. Especially since the beta came out last year. Halo wars 2 is a real time strategy (RTS) game where you get to control the forces of the UNSC and covenant. The events of halo wars 2 is set 28 years we believe after the the events of the prequel game. Captain Cutter and his crew are found over an ancient Forerunner haven called the ‘Ark’. Here they encounter probably the greatest threat to humanity… The Banished. The Banished are a dangerously powerful Brute faction lead by intelligent and fieerce warrior called ‘Atriox’. Can Captian Cutter survive against this new enemy?

X35 Earthwalker participated in the beta himself and says that he likes everything about the game but it does have some issues though but glad that they will be corrected in the real game. The graphics are a complete step up from the prequel game. The details to the units and structures are greater, showing great attention to design and detail. Even the way the units move now have been approved. If you paid attention to how the marines run and traverse through the battlefield you will see what we mean. The game had new units, which one of we and many other gamers have been wanting since the prequel. There is now a sniper infantry unit which has long range (obviously), high damage and their shots stun enemy infantry units for round about half a second maybe. they are perfect anti-infantry but swarms will easily destroy them. They also are cloaked meaning they can’t be detected by enemy units until they come into range and directed to attack snipers. There is also a flying heavy bombarding air unit call “Blisterbacks” which look like armoured beetles. They do single energy blasts from the air but have the ability to land on the ground and become an artillery unit, bombarding units and bases. X35 Earthwalker does want them to have increased damage as they currently are too weak and don’t have that much impact at all. There are more units for both the UNSC and Banished.

The two leaders that we know of so far is Captain Cutter and Atriox. Both don’t take non-sense from anyone. Captain feels very similar to the prequel and allows similar strategies. Most strategies revolve around the infantry and with there being more infantry units, and the fact that the marines actually are a threat now, this will work well. Snipers are great at neutralising enemy infantry from afar and delivering great pain to hero units. As Cutter you can pump out infantry fast and do pretty good rushes on the enemy, forcing them to panic and expel their resources quickly. Atriox is no slouch in the infantry department either but most strategies with Atriox revolve around the vehicles. The Banished vehicles are quite diverse and are solid for holding down a certain area and then making the push. The units with the banished seem more diverse and thus allowing more options and ideas for strategies and combinations. Once corrected, the Blisterbacks will be a nightmare for many players.

The game now has a ability upgrade screen that you access while on the field. Here you can spend points that you gather over time in the match to upgrade unit or character abilities which can really change the tide of the battle. Trust us on that. For example you can choose to have the ability to create a area of healing for your units and structures. You could get the ability as Cutter to place a turret where you want in a battle. Maybe to attack the enemy from behind or at an angle. You can unlock the famous mac blast which brings death to whatever it hits. In the beta though, the mac blast was far too weak and couldn’t even destroy a tank. Even the blast radius was pretty much a zero. They must change this. There is an upgrade on Atriox’s side where you can make all your units literally invulnerable for a period of time. We used this once and survived a mac blast and a pelican sweep special ability and still destroyed all enemy units and then the base but timing is everything with these abilities. The gameplay mechanics in this game make it so that every decision is more important than ever before. The game has become even more strategic. So you must keep track of your resource spending, what abilities you upgrade or unlock and when and how to use your unit abilities.

We must say though that the leader characters you select all have devastating abilities. Captain Cutter after following certain upgrade paths can have the ability to hell jump in veteran (have stars) units such as the cyclops, Odsts and more. It’s basically instant strong reinforcements that deal all kinds of damage. The other major ability is the pelican sweep that brings three pelicans that completely demolish everything with rockets blasts and heavy machine guns. Everything will die in a matter of moments. This can save your life. Atriox on the other hand have the  invulnerable ability that we mentioned earlier. This makes all your units invulnerable and take zero damage from everything while still being able to fight. The next major ability and by far our favourite in the annihilator which truly lives up to its name. It basically calls down 6 beams that slowly join together in the middle and explodes annihilating everything that was under, around or near the beam. This has even been used to wipe out an entire army leaving the enemy completely open to attack. It’s absolutely crazy. If only you could see our faces when we first used it and saw what it could do. These abilities aren’t to be messed with due to all having the ability to change the battle in your favour but once again, timing is everything. 

The is literally an improvement from the prequel is every way. The controls are still easy to learn and use. The graphics and sounds are wonderful even though this was all beta and not the released real thing. The story is definitely interesting and we want to know more. No unit in the game is useless or feels useless. The abilities are so diverse and very effective, like you would be crazy to not use them. The main problem about the game is having your brute champion unit trying to reach enemies to smash when all of a sudden you get hit by a sniper and he is stunned for a second and when he can move again, there are two more snipers who stun him. This repeats and your champion can’t do anything, Literally. It’s frustrating because it makes him useless. we hope they make the stun only effect regular units and not champion infantry. That what we think. The Blisterback needs damage increase, the mac blast needs increased damage and blast radius. Snipers should require players to be one tech level higher before allowed to create them in the match as all a captain Cutter player needed to win against Atriox is rush quickly with many marines and many snipers and they win. Atriox can’t do anything. Off course we found a way to counter this but it wasn’t easy and many don’t know the strategy we have created for this.

Fun fact. Did you know that X35 Earthwalker on the 20th of June 2016 at 14:05pm was in a match where his team mate left the match and it became a 1v2. He won the match as captain Cutter. We made a record of the match and know the names of all the players.

We are all looking forward to this game and what it will bring. We want to see the scarab, the other leader characters, the story and more. So far ‘343 Industries’ are doing an awesome job. Keep it up you guys. This game is definitely worth checking out.

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Get req’d with Halo 5

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

Warzone and Warzone assault in Halo 5 Guardians is pretty much the most popular multiplayer mode in the game. So far everyone we know likes it and plays it quite frequently. It’s like big team battle but with much more. Two teams of 12 battle it out on a constantly active battlefield. There are A.I enemies that cause trouble but grant points when defeated. There are 3 locations to capture. A big main one that usually is the center of the match and two smaller ones for red and blue team. Capturing these bases will get your team points and it’s an additional place where you can use your reqs (Requesitions).   

Reqs are the main features of Warzone. There are reqs for your armour (power ups), weapons and vehicles. Each one has to some extent the ability to even things up or turn the tide of a battle once used correctly. The reqs are ranged from common to legendary. The reqs also have levels signifying what level you have to be in order to use them. As you kill enemy spartans, A.I and complete objectives you gain points which will allow you to level up. Starting from req 1 which ends at req 9. Also most req cards have tiers as well with tier 3 cards being more powerful than the lower level tiers. Higher level tiers normally have extra abilities. The efforts of your team will contribute to your level as well. For example if anyone kills a boss then, you get points as well. This all adds up. So keep working together, keep slaying and doing well and you’ll get access to the most powerful reqs fast.

Vehicle reqs are most likely considered the most powerful as first of all, they are vehicles meaning, tougher to kill and unlimited firepower. There are so many vehicles to choose from and the choices only get more difficult as the match continues to change and depending on what your enemy has got on their side. You have fast traveling vehicles like warthogs, ghosts and gungooses. Warthogs have a driver, passenger and a gunner. That’s just a regular warthog, higher tier warthogs have a needler gun and shields while the oni warthog has explosive rounds. Heavy killing machines like tanks just straight up kill everything. Higher tier tanks have stronger armour, faster rate of fire and even an experimental laser firing tank. Flying vehicles have the clear elevation advantage combined with mobility. All flying vehicles are pretty much fast, hit hard and leaves quickly. Banshees swoop in bombs and then runs. Wasps are more like support vehicles for foot soldiers laying down light damage. All vehicles instantly gain all players attention (well they should). Make sure to take them out first.

Weapon reqs range from being completely annoying to down right dangerous. Everything from powerful pistols to rockets to sniper rifles. This means that weapons are the most versatile and can there fore change situations the most. For example if you need to clear out a small base owned by some spartans then a plasma caster is create as it can bounce around corners and explode very well. Higher tier plasma casters like the ‘White scar’ can turn shots into mines making some areas unavailable. Rocket launchers can do the job as well. Higher tier rockets can home in on vehicles, fire multiple shots and more. The sniper rifle can one shot spartans from anywhere as long as it hits the head. Req weapons get even better as their are some mythic reqs which are clearly in a league of it’s own. For example the ‘Nornfang’ is a sniper rifle that instantly kills any spartan it hits, even if you hit the toe, that spartan will die. Tartarus’s gavel is a gravity hammer that release shockwaves with each swing extending the range of devastation. Spank prime is a Rocket launcher is the ‘Spanker prime’ which increases jump height, movement speed and shield strength while equipped. There are more and they are all truly worthy of the name mythic.

Power up reqs are personal upgrades to your armour but are temporary. These are speed boost, over shields, active camo and damage boost. Speed boost increase your movement speed, reload speed and weapon switch speed. Over shields adds an extra layer of shields just like in previous halo games making you harder to kill. Active camo, camouflages your spartan making them near invisible but the fast you move the more visible you become. Damage boost increases the damage of your weapons, melee and vehicles. The scariest part is that each of these can stack to make them more effective, except for active camo and over shields. If you combine three speed boosts, you become super fast. your slide ability is drastically enhanced. You literally become lightning. Damage boost combined will really increase damage to the point where things just kill too fast. So imagine combining certain vehicle and weapon reqs with these armour upgrades. A sniper rifle with damage boost can become like a home made nornfang, able to one shot anyone it hits. An energy sword combined with speed boost makes a lightning fast swordsman. It’s up to you to create new combinations. 

Some reqs are outshined by others. For example there is no need to use a supressor when you could have a plasma pistol to take down shields or a open hand or closed fist bolt shot. They all kill faster than a supressor, even the higher tier one. You don’t A whip lash railgun almost always trumps any other req card in most situations at level 4. Who get a sentinel beam when the blood of suban kills faster and better. A rocket almost always wins. A appetite for destruction saw gun can’t stand up to any of the rockets, even at mid range. Some higher tiers of weapons are not that better at all. For example the hail storm (tier two needler) is better than the tier 3 needler (talon of the lost) in pretty much every way. The hail storm fires faster moving needles at a faster rate which track and home in better than talon of the lost. Most players we have asked can’t even figure out why talon of the lost is the tier 3. Even to this day even X35 Earthwalker doesn’t know why. This is something that needs to be sorted out though. Some req items aren’t that useful at all but that’s just some. We at X35 Earthwalker encourage all gamers to try them all and see what works best for them.

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Halo 5 Monitor’s bounty update

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

The halo 5 ‘Monitor’s bounty’ came out on the 8th of December 2016. The big update on halo 5 is so far excellent. ‘343 Industries’ has done a lot of things right with this one indeed. Let’s start with the Warzone updates. The fact that they finally added difficulty modes that we can choose for Warzone firefight makes a big difference. There is now ‘heroic’, ‘legendary’ and the terrifying ‘mythic’ firefight modes. ‘Heroic’ is much easier and allows for casual games in your fight against both covenant and Prometheans alike. ‘Legandary’ is the mode we all know and love. Mythic is the mode that spartans have learnt to fear. It’s basically legendary but they have added some skulls from campaign mode into this, which makes all the difference here. In round one of firefight the skull tough luck is activated which means that all enemies will continually dodge grenades and don’t run away. Round two has tough luck and black eye which means that your shields never recharge until you melee an enemy (good luck doing that on legendary). Round three has tough luck, black eye and thunderstorm which means that all enemies have been upgraded. For example casual blue elites get promoted to red or above elites which have more shields and at times better weapons. Round four has the previous skulls plus catch which means that the enemies are now grenade happy, constantly using grenades. Round 5 has all the previous skulls plus mythic which increases the health of all the enemies, including the bosses!

We must say though that mythic firefight is really hard and creates a good challenge. Two team mates and I had tanks (one of them was a Hannibal scorpion) and were hitting the grunt mech boss hard and it was doing very little. Most likely because of the mythic skull. X35 Earthwalkers first attempt at this was a fail.

We was also very glad to see the grenade launcher from halo reach show up to warzone. This weapon makes handling those vehicles easier as when you hold the trigger and then let go, it becomes an emp grenade disabling all vehicles it hits. This weapon is also great for harassing enemy bases as you can bounce shots around corners to hit hiding Spartans who think they can recharge their shields. Not gonna happen. The second tier grenade launcher aka ‘Pro pipe’ is really cool and it adds more skill to the weapon. It has an enhanced bounce trajectory. Basically the grenade bounces towards enemies after hitting a wall or the ground. The sentinel beam from halo 3 is something I wanted for a long time in Warzone and it’s finally here, dishing out laser burns and death. I hope they bring a level 2 and 3 tier sentinel beam as the current one just makes enemies panic (as it should).

There is now also the Oni and Hannibal wasps (tier 2 & 3 wasp vehicles) which so far the most popular things that I see in the skies of Warzone matches. They aren’t too tough and just add more variety to the game. The designs look very nice, easy to identify them and there upgraded weapons look deadly enough. We like them, especially destroying them. We haven’t tried the anti-air wraith yet but seen it in action a bit. I hope the fuel rod shots home in on air. It looks vicious though and truly hope that it can clear the skies.

The update also brought in character voices like the monitor, grunt and buck from halo Odst. Basically when you have spartan Palmer doing announcements like a base has been captured or a boss appear, you can unlock and choose what voice you want. It’s a nice addition and idea (personally I just want the monitor voice).

They split up the game modes in arena into two groups: social and ranked. This makes things better, especially for newer players. Both have different types of game modes. So go take a look.

I must say though that even with all these added features and improvements they forgot to make the one thing that is truly needed.  A feature that allows us to sell multiple req cards at once instead of one by one which gets annoying as it is long. Please can this get changed.

Overall we are happy with this big update and want to see more in time. Keep up the good work 343 Industries, you are doing a great job. For more information check out the link below:

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