Halo: Reach Noob Tips – Level Up Your Spartan Fast
By Justin Massoud
Halo: Reach just launched and we’re already obsessed with leveling up and scoring credits. Thanks to daily and weekly challenges, various multi-tiered commendations, constantly evolving user-made content, dozens of ranks and a store to spend the credits you earn from doing virtually anything in-game, Halo: Reach is far-and-away Bungie’s most complete (and addicting) addition to the Halo series. We’ve decided to put together a handy guide for leveling up your unique super soldier quickly. Keep the following tips in mind to get more credits (cR) and raise your rank faster.
Hint 1: Check Out the Daily, Weekly Challenges
Think of the daily and weekly challenges as free cR. Most of them are simple (ex. kill a set amount of enemies in the campaign with automatic weapons) and can be accomplished from normal play in relatively short periods of time. You can find them under “Challenges” (shocker!) in the pause menu. Completing them might not seem to award that much cR (one day’s combined daily challenges totaled 3,800 cR while another was 2,100 cR), but multiply that by seven, add in the 1,500 from the weekly challenge, and you’re looking at a nice consistent chunk of change. The coveted Master Chief voice will be yours in no time.
Hint 2: Upgrade Your Commendations
Commendations are hidden under “Service Record” after selecting “Player” in the pause menu. Campaign, matchmaking and Firefight each have their own unique commendations, each containing five different levels. Break into the bronze rank and you get 600 cR; silver rank gets you double that, and so on. Upgrading a commendation is as simple as reading the description and then performing that action. Just know that you must play the appropriate game mode to level up a commendation; killing grunts in Firefight won’t add to your campaign tally, and vice versa.
Many commendations will take a while to complete (the “Pinpoint” commendation in the campaign for example requires 4,000 head shot kills to go gold), and some are downright frustrating (finishing levels on Heroic or Legendary difficulty without dying). But all yield cR. Your best bet is to aim at whatever commendations are within reach based on your natural play style, and avoid spending too much time chasing nearly-impossible goals, when you could be racking up easy cR elsewhere.
Hint 3: Tag Along
Whether you’re new to the game or a seasoned vet, sticking with teammates is a solid strategy, but it’s also a great way to earn cR. In Halo: Reach, you get bonuses for assisting on a kill (some challenges are based on assists, too) and for avenging a teammate’s death. Besides, you’re more likely to get kills in the first place when your buddy has already done some of the work. If you can join up with some friends and communicate, even better.
Hint 4: SWAT or Not
SWAT is a decent choice for a quick cR fix due to the focused nature of the game type, so vote for it when possible. It’s essentially Slayer (or Team Slayer), but everyone loads out with a DMR, a magnum, their chosen armor ability, and no shields. Kills are quick (one head shot is all it takes), which means you don’t have to worry about playing the entire length of a match. And if you’re a dead-eye, so much the better; you’ll rack up a string of kills with ease and end the match that much faster. Just remember: the faster you shoot the DMR, the less accurate it is. If you miss that first head shot, don’t fire again right away. Wait that extra second for the reticle to shrink to its default size before engaging your opponent again. It’s easy to forget that in the heat of battle, but it could save your life and end the other guy’s.
Hint 5: Show Off in the Campaign
You’re a Spartan; play like one. Small amounts of cR are awarded during missions for kills, and those handfuls add up. Increase the amount gained through stylish play and toppling tougher enemies. For example, destroying an enemy and the vehicle they’re riding in yields more cR than just killing the enemy. Turn on Score Mode (even if you’re playing alone) to get a feel for the timing required for double kills and other medals. And if you’re playing with other people, don’t always feel like you need to kill everything that moves. That’s just a sure-fire way of dying a lot and pissing off your teammates. Assists count towards a Support Role commendation, so let your partner finish off that Elite whose shield you destroyed.
Hint 6: Get Some Multi-Kills in Multi-Team
Multi-team is lesser known (and played), but it’s great for earning cR. Pitting six teams of two against each other in slayer and random objective-based matches, this game type is noteworthy because you aren’t sharing your kills with three – or, in the case of Big Team Battle, seven – other players. It’s just you, a single partner, and 10 moving targets. Thanks to the frantic pace (five other teams will be jumping around shooting each other), it’s easy to steal kills. That’s playing smart, though the other teams will have another word for it they’ll be sure to share in the post-game carnage report. Multi-team matches tend to end quickly, too, meaning you’ll have more chances at the “lottery” credits earned at the end of every game.
Hint 7: ONI Sword Base Trick
Youtube.com user AlwaysImBored explains a neat little trick involving the target locator in mission three. By using it on enemies instead of the two Wraiths, you can rack up insane multi-kills. The only downfall is that eventually the cR amount drops dramatically, which means you can’t abuse it indefinitely. On the plus side, this is also an easy way to level up the “Splash Damage” and “Cannon Fodder” commendations.
Hint 8: Fight the Gruntpocalypse
“Gruntpocalypse” is a rendition of Firefight that pits you against an army of grunts. Killing grunts is great fun (especially with the Grunt birthday party skull activated), and as this video illustrates, an easy (and quick) way to earn cR. Depending on your skill and speed, it will take around eight minutes to earn roughly 2,000 cR. And, again, you’ll randomly pick up bonuses here due to upgrading commendations tied into the Firefight mode. It’s good for everybody – except those poor grunt bastards.
For more Halo: Reach hints and tips, check out our guide to the best walkthroughs and guides from around the web.
Sunday, September 26, 2010 1:51PM
All of them work XD
Monday, September 27, 2010 1:03PM
good tips
Saturday, October 2, 2010 1:37PM
Good stuff
Sunday, October 10, 2010 1:13AM
if you do swat alot and alot you get lots of points dont do rocket race i doesnt give u that much points p. i beated 2 18 year olds on rocket race and im only 8 hahahahahahah
Sunday, October 10, 2010 10:37PM
Kieran…you have the worst Parents.cause if ur 8and playing halo reach they must me bad
Tuesday, October 26, 2010 5:45AM
they forgot to add the credit glitch on campaign, on the llevel with the laser thingy shoot it at people and restart check point right after you shoot then repeat till you get bored
Monday, November 1, 2010 8:35PM
Shotokidd- That's what the target detonator is.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010 5:02PM
or hes just the man, either way.
Sunday, November 7, 2010 5:19PM
multi team, matches are like 8 minutes, i usually get about 30 kills, easy assists lots of cR
Friday, November 12, 2010 9:55PM
i cant grind any farther in warrant officer grade 3! firefight gives 1500 cR, just do sniper or rocket fight. pæœ
Saturday, November 13, 2010 5:48PM
Thanks!
Wednesday, November 17, 2010 1:09PM
firefight matchmaking gives more then 1500 cR. you obviously are not good at it then. I average 2200+ all you do is grab the target designator and go to town with it. A tip about the target designator is that after each round (there are 3 rounds total) the designator auto reloads 2 shots so DONT drop it after you use the first 2 shots. And always remember where u die so u can run back and pick it up after u respawn.
Saturday, November 20, 2010 11:02AM
i only get 50 credits for anything i do. its so annoying. my little 8 year old brother is a warrant officer and im still stuck on corporal. anyone have a solution?
Tuesday, November 23, 2010 6:38AM
That is what is happening to me. I have tried different matches and firefight, but only 50cr no mater what.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010 11:47AM
but i only get 60 cr for fighting firefight
wats up with that?
Tuesday, November 30, 2010 4:42PM
If you have played Reach while signed into Xbox Live it will limit the credits you get while not being signed on. Play while signed on to get credits.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010 8:17AM
good tips, and they all work i've tryed them myself and one round i got through two ranks. SWEETNESS
Wednesday, December 1, 2010 8:20AM
i know a guy on xb live and he is only at the rank of sergeant and he showed me all of the armor, messed up i know, if anyone knows please catch me up, and hook me up with some tips on how to do it. THX:)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010 11:24AM
TNX really helps
Thursday, December 9, 2010 7:06AM
if you want creedits dont bother with firefight at all u get next to none once u get the achivements related to firefight u dont need to touch it again i recomend if u want easy points go to cooporative matchmakign and select score attack jsut do sniper fight or grunt apocalypse over and over u will get atleast 1K of creds with each play wich isnt bad if u jsut like shooting covonant and yea the third grade of any rank is the longest takes forever to get over grade 3 in anything
Friday, December 10, 2010 12:56PM
20000 points on fire fight matchmaking =2000 credits. 30000 points =3000 credits
Friday, December 17, 2010 4:25PM
im warrant officer 2 and i get like 4k cR on firefight all i do is get 50k points or more then start watching TV lmao for 1hour xD then iquit and get 4k cR
Sunday, December 19, 2010 10:45AM
agreed
Saturday, December 25, 2010 7:17PM
i made like 7000 before in team slayer
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 8:44AM
invasion is another way also..
Friday, December 31, 2010 9:23AM
Bungie put an update out were you practically have to be on Xbox live Gold to earn more than 50 -60 creds no matter how long you play. In other words, you have to buy Xbox live Gold and play online to get more creds, and even when you do buy/have Live Gold, If you play offline you still only get like 50 creds.
Monday, January 3, 2011 11:02AM
its 66000 credits to rank to captain and yes its very hard i just got captain but after that its simple! keep at it m8
Tuesday, January 4, 2011 4:20AM
how do u connect to daily or weakly challanges?good tips anyway!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011 6:24PM
beat levels nonstop and you will get alot of cR
Wednesday, January 5, 2011 8:58PM
Another great way to do this is set your damage to: Invulnerable in Firefight under the spartan settings. Then you just kill and kill and kill and kill etc
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 9:31AM
lol thats actully preatty good
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 11:08AM
Yah he did mention the credit glitch just in a less n00b like way. U can tell cause he said that once it is overused then the credits drastically drop. After about two min of doing the "glitch" you start to barely get 35 cr so its almost a waste of time doing it. Team swat is a much better way of getting your credits…. or you can just be well…. good at halo
Friday, January 14, 2011 11:32PM
dude, by far the easiest method i’ve found is forge. messing around and building your own stuff can easily earn you 3000-6000 credits Per session!
Sunday, January 16, 2011 5:28PM
I suppose going on a fairly high but manageable difficulty like Heroic in campaign on New Alexandria, turning on free for all scoring, a few skulls and hanging around at hot Banshee zones will get you loads of credit. Points might correspond in terms of 10,000 points being equal to 1,000 cR. If you die too often try doing the Pelican flight easter egg – google it, the Pelican is invincible. Players can also get in the main gun.
Saturday, January 22, 2011 2:24PM
when play offline you can earn a maximum of 60 creds in firefight but online you earn like 2k creds, so for those wondering why they earn so little cred just connect to live and play matchmaking
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 1:09PM
Guy's that jaguar dude is right but its even easier than that just start a forge game and leave it on for an hour or so and you can get a maximum of 4050 creds per few hours!
while you're waiting just watch tv or some shit
Thursday, January 27, 2011 5:15PM
These are amazing PS I'm 8 too!
Friday, January 28, 2011 11:27PM
Tristin? I think it is? Kieran's parents aren't bad. I don't what the American rating system is, but Reach is hardly gory or mentally scarring. Wow my son saw a grunt get killed. He won't sleep easily tonight. The Media puts too much pressure on what is and isn't right, as does the government. Halo 3 was probably more gory, thanks to the flood. Really and maybe his parents don't know, maybe his parent's thought about it and weighed up the the consequences. And who the hell are you to judge what is and isn't good parenting. Unless you have kids of your own, you can't judge what is good for them, let alone some random kid. And even if you do have kids, one parents methods may not work at all on a different child.
And Kieran, Don't give out your age online.
Stupid Idea.
Friday, January 28, 2011 11:31PM
You have to do it in Fire Fight matchmaking, otherwise the cR is severly limited. Bungie has done this so no one can modify the health properties etc., and get credits for running around with invincibility.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011 10:27AM
If you do living dead it is one of the shortest games on matchmaking. If your good at it and your a zombie it will be over fast. If your good at it and your human it will take longer, and vise versa.
))))))))))))))) <Multy chin man!
Monday, February 7, 2011 3:41PM
really i didnt know that
Tuesday, February 8, 2011 8:22PM
all thos stuff loocks like it works. im getting live soon so….. YA..
Sunday, February 13, 2011 6:39AM
SWAT, Firefight, and Grifball
Monday, February 21, 2011 11:53AM
i have a commando helmet (carter's helmet) because of these tips!!
Monday, February 21, 2011 8:27PM
shut up
Tuesday, February 22, 2011 10:02PM
are you kidding? they dont even drop the f bomb. and there is little to no blood, no dead space??? stay away from that little kid.
good to see some young spirit in halo
Sunday, March 6, 2011 10:31PM
One thing you can do is to go to firefight, set health and shields to invulnerable and enemy loadouts to hunter kill team with your weapons as either a golf club or gravity hammer and a rocket launcher or fuel rod gun. Set the weapon ammo to bottomless clip so you don't need to reload, with weapon and melee strength to 300%, with no time limit. Start the match and fire away with as many skulls on as you can handle and credits pour in.
Thursday, March 10, 2011 1:29PM
well good thing i got jorges' helmet upg lvl -3
Monday, March 14, 2011 2:05PM
I dun have XBOX live -_-" Hopefully i will be able to get it soon though =D.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011 2:56AM
Forget getting points offline, Bungie made it so that your slate is wiped clean when you go from offline to online with your file, I was commander and then I went online and started out as warrant officer, so if you have any intentions of getting live, your wasting your time, sorry (Oh and I play living dead and get around 20-30 kills each time and I get somewhere around 1,000cR each round, and I’m back to commander) myy gamertag is shadow23536
Wednesday, March 30, 2011 8:02PM
or maybe your just sad cause your older then him and your parents dont let you play halo lolz
Sunday, April 3, 2011 10:16AM
its alright i know about that warrant officer g3 to capn' takes long but after that its like super quick. after I got cap'n I went up pretty fast I'm already major grade 2 now from firefight matchmaking, commendations, and challenges. good stuff. get goin.