User blog comment:Crazy sam10/Modern Warfare 3 Collection 3 + 4 announced/@comment-25496444-20120802162754/@comment-1263839-20120802234224

I think I've studied the Halo: CE/2/3/ODST/Wars/Reach AI enough to notice the differences in their tactics. The Reach AI are obsessed with choking you to death rather than just shooting you (or in the case of Energy Sword users, finding a rock to hide behind and ambush you/allies, with the exception of the Brute Chieftain).

The Elites do not change when you drop them to their last knees, they only take cover when they using say the Concussion Rifle, because they are the Ultras. The common Elite (Minor and Major) refuse to take cover or hide behind Vehicles unless they are in a group of say 3. Even higher ranking ones like the BOB run around in the middle of the battlefield spamming their Fuel Rod Gun with (quite impressive) accuracy, and only taking cover if they have support. The Zealots, too, refuse to take cover and just slash at you with their Energy Swords until they die. The only time it may seem like they are taking cover is when they don't enter the room you ran away into when you seen them.

Grunts don't charge at you, they never have, but they have a massive tendency to just spam their primary weapon (usually the Plasma Pistol) until your dead. They hardly ever throw grenades, and if so, it's always just a clumsy throw at best, and if you get stuck you're just running into it.

Brutes literally do just charge at you, there is no denying that. They are basically a mixture of the Halo 2 and the Halo 3 Brute. At the very least they know how to shoot you, and when they are in a pack they just spam whatever gun they have in your direction. What's shocking is that the Brute Chieftain does take cover, which is the opposite of what it should be doing. In Firefight and Campaign, a Chieftain posses no threat because they only try to fight you if their pack is dead or you are too stupid enough to get close to him.

Jackals hide behind their shields and slowly advance at you like a Roman Turtle. Their accuracy received a buff, but beyond that their only purpose is to turn your head away from sniping Elites because they only have one gap in their shield now. The Jackal Sniper's accuracy is also poorer than even Halo 2 Jackal Snipers, but they now use four weapons. I also don't think they know how to use the Focus Rifle properly.

What does impress me in Reach is the Skirmisher. They know when to deflect your bullets with their wrist shields. They also know exactly when to Evade, and their accuracy is notably better than the Jackals when they use Needle Rifles. The Hunters, too, are quite good because they don't just go bat sh*t crazy and charge you when their brother dies. Nor do they resort to meleeing you when you are 10 metres away. The Hunters also seem to realise that shooting their brother is a bad thing and try to avoid it if they can.

But beyond Hunters and Skirmishers, I find the only difficulty in dealing with a squad of Elites is the determination to burn down their shields before the rest of the squad surrounds me whilst I focus on said Elite and tears me shreds. The only difficulty I find with Grunts is their buffed health, they aren't any harder to beat because they still don't know how to find cover at all. Jackals are somewhat easier to fight now because the shielded ones don't seem to realise that they are beaten until their health is reduced to 1 and so they don't try to avoid you and waste my ammo. Jackal Snipers are just pathetic now. Brutes just require the ability to outgun them rather than flanking or running etc. Skirmishers are hard to deal with, which is a good sign. Hunters are also harder to deal with. But that's it, for me Reach is a lot easier for dealing with the Covenant than 3 or ODST were, they just require more thought because you don't have regenerating health and their health is buffed.

And I have tried Legendary, and to be honest Reach is the only. Halo campaign I haven't completed on Legendary. Not because of the difficulty, but because the campaign is crap and I can't bring myself to bother to do it a second time. And I don't play Rockets, the only Firefight mode I did after I examined the other defaults (and some custom) was the one where you can play as the Elites too, because Reach has just basically banned playing them in multiplayer.