Debate of the Day: Is Halo Reach’s Armor Lock for Noobs or Pros?

Alright, this is something that’s been on my mind a lot recently, as I get further and further frustrated with Halo Reach, to the point where I’m tempted to go back to getting zergling rushed in Starcraft 2 just to get away from it.

The new armor abilities in Halo Reach are something I’ve never been a fan of. I miss the old item system with shield depleters and regen fields and such. But the fact is, 4 of the 5 armor abilities don’t change the game all THAT much. Sprint and Jetpacks just help you get places faster. Hologram is cool in concept, but rarely used effectively, and Cloaking is somewhat useful, but it’s radar scrambling for everyone around you is highly annoying, and not worth the tradeoff to me.

And then there’s armor lock.

Many will argue that armor lock is awesome, and it’s the best ability and they love it. And yes, it is the best ability. By far. So much so that it can render the game almost unplayable.

Here’s a list of the things you can do while in armor lock:

– Survive any amount of damage from standard weapons or grenades

– Save yourself from being splattered, sworded, meleed

Even hammered?

– Reflect rockets back at the shooter

– Explode anyone’s shield nearby when you release it

– If inside long enough, start regenerating lost shield.

And I’m told in the beta, it even healed your life bar if you were injured. Are you kidding?

Now, there are two sides to this. One side, which thinks that the careful use of armor locking and unlocking by skilled players is the key to any victory. The other, which thinks it’s noob-iest mechanism ever as any time you start getting hit, you just turtle.

“Durrr go get ’em guys. I’ll be right here.”

After careful study of both sides, I’m firmly in camp “it’s ruining the game” which is a combination of both sides. Starting with the noob argument, it’s tough to argue that an entire team using armor lock requires any sort of skill. When coordinated, all any given member of a team has to do any time they’re in trouble is to turtle, call for their team, who will then come and wipe out the people standing around like idiots waiting for the person to unlock. And if that team diverts their gaze to the reinforcements, the original guy unlocks and kills them as the other teammates armor lock. It truly is a no-win situation every time.

As for the “pro” use of armor lock that focuses more on 1v1 battles, I will admit it takes skill. The ability to hover in and out of armor lock to avoid grenades, butting, swords or even shotgun blasts does take a decent amount of timing and skill. But it also takes all the fun out of the game. Armor lock has completely changed the dynamic of Halo, as it is by FAR the best ability, so instead of actual combat, good players will spend 1v1 battles glitching in and out of armor lock, bending over and standing up like their doing some sort of tribal rain dance until one side slips up and dies. It’s just not fun, and it feels like you’re playing a completely different game than the series we’ve been used to for almost ten years now.

The idea that one ability is so much better than the others should be enough to nerf it or take it out of the game completely, but the counter argument of “well if it’s so good, why don’t you just use it” is annoying as well. I can use it, and I do sometimes, but I want to play HALO not ARMOR LOCK MADNESS and I’d like to play the game in the style I used to love, and not having to worry about the everyone on the screen being invincible every three seconds, myself included. I could give in, and play armor lock all the time, but then where would we be? This would be what games looked like if everyone adopted the “pro” skill:

I understand that many people have ridden armor lock to great success in the game, but the fact that you can’t “ride” any of the other abilities to similar results should suggest that the ability is way overpowered. The fact that so many people DO love armor lock, and the other abilities don’t have similar fan bases should suggest a severe lack of balance among the loadouts. I’m personally of the philosophy it should be completely eliminated, as I think any kind of pure invincibility has no place in games like this. A temporary overshield could be a good substitute, but any ability that has four people emptying clips, hucking grenades, swinging swords and shooting rockets at ONE person with absolutely no effect is far too overpowered to exist.

What are your thoughts on the armor lock issue?

Here’s a “best of” montage while you think it over:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHI8akcbyLo&feature=related

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41 Comments

  1. I think it makes the game interesting for those who know how it works. Most players use it right as they are about to die. At that point, you (as the opponent) step back and aim for a head shot the second they release (even with any regen time, they still will not have spawned any shield so a headshot will take care of them). It’s good to have in BTB when there are a lot of vehicles as well. If you are being chased down by a Ghost and go into Armor Lock just before you get hit, that Ghost is going to explode. Other than that, I haven’t seen very many uses for it and there are so few people that can use it effectively in arms combat that it is essentially useless and actually a boon for the opponent so long as one of your teammates doesn’t come around and finish your dirty work.

    That said, all of them have tremendous downfalls and little upside.

    Sprinting – You move faster, but there is rarely a time it is needed other than at the beginning of a game to get to the power weapons or something. You also give yourself away because your breathing can be heard from 30m away
    Jet Pack – This is my personal favorite. Being able to hop from level to level in Courtyard is great and shooting someone from above gives you an extra second or so before they realize you are above them. It’s loud, though, and can be dangerous because you tend to fall to your death.
    Camo – You go invisible but tell everyone there is an invisible guy nearby. It’s great if you are being pursued, turn a corner, go invisible, and assassinate. Other than that… not so much
    Hologram – Only time it is good, in my opinion, is in Snipes. Being able to see if someone is covering the sniping spot you wish to go to can be a huge help, especially if you can get the damn thing to stop running only 5-10 feet in front of you.
    Dropshield – Great for Invasion and Territories, terrible every where else. You plant one right at the corner of a zone (since you can’t plant one -in- a zone) and you just sit at the very edge of both your bubble and the zone.

    Really, if you know how and when to use them, the armor abilities are great. Because so few people know how and when, though, it’s even better for the people who do because it is easy to take advantage of poorly used abilities.

  2. I haven’t played Reach yet, but from the video you posted and watching my brother play (to see if I should get the game) I have come to the conclusion that this ability is good for killing stupid people. If they were smart they would sit back or get behind the shield user a little distance to get an easy kill without getting hit by the shield.

  3. Yes, if someone is using it in an empty room 1v1 right as they were about to die, you can kill them when they unlock, BUT if it’s a full cycle, their shield will start to recharge so it’s not a one hit kill, and it forces you to sit staring at them for an extended period of time, in which the likely scenario is their teammates come along and everything goes to hell like I described.

    Or conversely, a kill that should have been all yours is now stolen by your two teammates who show up and wait for him to unlock so all three of you can pelt him and it’s a crapshoot for who gets the kill that should have been yours in the first place.

  4. Yes, any player knows to back up and wait. If it were that fucking simple there would be no problem. There the small matter of the rest of the team coming and killing you while you wait. And even if you manage to spot them and attack them they armor lock. There is literally no way you can defeat a team of 4 armor lockers that stay relatively near each other. It is simply the only ability w/o a con. Even if you get killed coming out of it, youre not losing anything because you would have been dead 5 seconds earlier anyways

  5. Most people who argue against armour lock have never or rarely use it. I will offer some food for thought from someone who does use it a fair amount.

    If I armour lock, I immediately stop shooting. In the middle of a firefight, this is either incredibly stupid (since I can no longer shoot thus cannot kill the opponent) or it is incredibly brave (I just saved my ass from getting killed).

    In the event of me actually saving my ass from death during an FF, I’m completely immoblised as long as the AL is active. My only saving grace is an emp burst if I rinse the AL completely and an opponent is close enough (if this is successful, however I am without an AL for a while due to recharge time).

    Whilst in armour lock, my opponent is likely to throw a grenade. This forces me to either continue the lock up or face getting hit. But, if he is counting on this, he can essentially bait me into doing that exact thing and then go in for the kill once my AL has finished.

    If he throws two grenades whilst I am in lock up, there is a good chance (depending on his timing) that I will get hit/killed by the second one as my AL will have run out by then.

    But let’s say he doesn’t have any grenades. In this case, I am extremely lucky with my AL timing. But, if my emp misses, or I unlock early, the only thing I have actually achieved is an elongated FF – we are at an even playing field at the most since we’re both at the same health we were before I locked up (shield recharge time is the same regardless of AL) .

    If anyone has an advantage it is the guy not in armour lock since he can still move around the map and thus gain an vantage point, or pick up a weapon or reload or get first shot when the FF begins.

    The only time an AL actually gets an advantage with this ability is if his team mates are nearby to sweep the opposition, or the EMP actually hits.

    The AL is definitely not OP’d nor noob friendly – it just takes a little thinking to get around.

    Don’t get me wrong, it can be annoying and frustrating to play against (especially if the whole team consists of ALs), but no more than say a jetpacker blasting at me from a high vantage point or a invis assasinating me from behind and so on and so forth.

  6. One small tweak that would improve it is to remove he ability to look around while locked.
    As it is you can AL, point at a guys head, come out and headshot him instantly no matter where he was thus removing your advantage from being behind the AL’ed guy

  7. Armor lock when used purely 1v1 may be reasonable, but again you totally ignore team members and the double AL and if you are facing an ALer with something other than a DMR, say for example, a sword. Explain how its fair if you stick someone they AL so it doesnt kill them. Then they run up stick you and AL so that explosion doesn’t kill them either. Invincibility unequivocally imbalances the game.

  8. I’m not a big fan of armor lock. With that said, its only because I have yet to find a team that works with me well enough for it to work for me. I’ve played one team in my extensive time with Reach that used it brilliantly. Every firefight, armor lock then Boom, their teammates pulled through. So, I see how it could be a game changer if you coordinate with a proficient team.

    However, hologram has been huge for me in smaller maps. Always throw that around corners or out as bait. With the amount of firefight in the game the ammo they spend finding out that it isn’t me gives me the kill.

    I love people that always go with lift jets. Some maps it makes sense and is the best choice. However, when people use it with every map it turns into a turkey shoot.

    Anyway, no matter what you use, this is a fun game… explore the map/ ability combos to get your game where you want it.

  9. Hi, my name is Velovan and I’m an Armor Lock Slut. I use it to negate grenade spam, block melee’s and swords, survive rockets, sit impenetrable on my team’s flag while the reset timer ticks down to zero and stick noobs at point blank range and then lock while they go kaboom.

    It’s easily the most useful of the armor abilities but I wouldn’t say that the others are necessarily useless. I’ve seen some crazy good jetpackers who are constantly dropping in behind me from above/below and blowing me away. Holograms are awesome if you use them sparingly and intelligently. Spamming them all over the place is dumb and you deserve to die. Sprint turns you into an assassination machine. It also allows you to always be in the action. Invisibility + Any power weapon = Killing Frenzy or a Running Riot.

    My point is, with practice any of the abilities can be formidable. Even Armor Lock takes time to get insanely good.

    1. The problem is that it lacks a decent counter. It lowers the TTK on an already painfully nerfed game.

      At least the bubble shield allowed you to throw a grenade in it and kill/flush out the would-be camper or vice versa against the rusher.

      Spike Grenade+Bubble Shield=Painful Satisfaction

  10. I personally love when people i’m fighting hunker down in armor lock – I just swoop around behind them – wait for them to start disengaging, and assassinate them.

    I don’t think it’s even close to the “best ability” in the game.

    Sprint can avoid damage easily and give you an attack advantage on other players in the process., hologram can get you behind a now distracted opponent… and Jet packing can get you out of harms way at least, and give a sniper or sharpshooter with a rifle a huge advantage. Active camo is dumb because of the scramble BS, but if youre a sniper you can stand still and make good use of it.

    Active camo is ONLY a defensive ability. No offensive advantages at all.

    And an offensive ability is always better than a defensive one in a game where scoring kills is the goal and deaths don’t count against you.

  11. This Armor Lock ability seems to be becoming a big annoyance to some players out there, although, I’m not one of them. No matter what game comes out, there will always be someone complaining about someone’s use of a certain perk or weapon, or at least that’s been the case for every FPS I’ve played since BF2: MC on the PS2. Since then, I’ve owned a handful of FPS’s (all on PS2 & PS3 until I got the Reach bundle), all of which had people who complained about others who used certain weapons, especially if they used them with great skill.

    While I don’t mind the Armor Lock ability, it’s not to say that I won’t become annoyed if I die multiple times because of this. However, I could easily become annoyed by players who do nothing more than use vehicles. The tanks and banshees in Halo, do take some skill to operate effectively, however, the Ghost is nothing more than a splatter machine. So who’s to say that the Ghost isn’t just as cheap, if not more so. You can rack up countless sprees in a Ghost, but how many can you get with the Armor Lock? One kill does not a spree make!

    No matter what game I’ve owned, I’ve never been one to use vehicles, and if I do, I tend to stick to those that are smaller and quicker, like the Ghost. To me, the Ghost is only meant for splatter kills, being that the guns on it are extremely weak in comparison to the other vehicles in the game. Like I said earlier, I have no major complaints about the Armor Lock ability, I use it in specific maps, mostly in those with multiple Ghosts and other small vehicles. Armor Lock, to me, is a good counter to the Ghost, which is pretty much the only reason why I use it… I certainly don’t use it for speed.

    When it comes to encountering teams that use this as their primary armor ability, well, I have not yet seen this in game. Although, I could imagine if the opposing team used this in such an effective way in every situation, then perhaps I would get mad. Then again, I’d really just hope to avoid that team again, and considering the fact that you’ll probably never run into any one person again, it’s fair to say this would be an easy thing to avoid.

    Lastly, I’ve been an avid online gamer for the better part of the last ten years, all of which had been on PS2 and PS3… Until recently when I got the Halo Reach bundle, as I mentioned earlier. That being said, while on Sony’s consoles I heard my fair share of sh*t talkers, which was to be expected… However, after less than a month I can honestly say that Xbox wins that battle. I’ve never heard so many people who love the sound of their own voice. I wonder if they do it more because they feel like they’d be wasting some of that $50/year to play online. Who knows?

    1. Problem is, there should be no perks or armor abilities in Halo. The original games didn’t have them. What you picked up is what you got. It rewarded talent, strategy, quick thinking tactics, and map control.
      Reach and Microsoft’s Reclaimer trilogy just slaps that all in the face. It’s too forgiving to the noob players.
      It’s good to know that a practiced player cannot take on a team of nooby players and come out on top. Noobs got the rocket? Just pistol them. Oh wait Bloom. Group of players charging you? Stick them! Oh wait armor lock. Guy rushing you with the jetpack? Shoot that sucker down! Oh no, nerfed guns. Oh crap, they beat you to the sniper? Strafe and jump, out aim them! Oh, but they get take advantage of ludicrous aim assist and bullet magnetism values, with their large crosshair hitscan sniper of doom. All against your short, fat, wide, slow Spartan with large hitboxes on a large, empty map with no cover. You know?

  12. Owning Reach for almost 2 weeks now, I have come to my own conclusion that noobs will be noobs. If you’ve played one Halo, you’ve basically played them all. So, the noobs are generally the same also. They all tend to depend on a single strategy, which is what noobs do. Even if that strategy in the case of the armor lock, makes them immune to all damage, well you just have to eliminate that dependency or wait for it to run out. Then they’ll be out of their element without their crutch and will be easily beatable. Also, anybody who makes a mp map with enough armor locks that you have to face entire teams of them, should not be surprised when it happens.

  13. One thing I noticed is that it completely breaks Assault game types. You can fight, slap people with the bomb all you like, but you can rarely ever arm and detonate it as it takes 5 seconds to disarm. Know which armor ability that makes people immovable and invincible lasts for 5 seconds? ARMOR LOCK. FFFUUUU- And no, there is zero way to stop them from doing so. You’re attempting to arm the bomb in their base, where they’re spawning into battle. All they need to do is run over, use armor lock, then “bomb reset”.

    This, on top of everything else mentioned, is why I hate armor lock with a passion.

  14. i hate the argument of “if its so good why dont you use it.”

    if it took longer to recharge would it be better? im talking like twice the lenght of time it takes sheilds to regen from when daamage is first taken.

    iv only played rach a few times so i dont actually know lots about the stuff though.

  15. to me armor lock is great if you are low health and your friend is near by, let him take the guy while you distract him, i hate when people do it after getting shot once, i also like using it when i run into a room in something like ctf, emp anyone i can and let my teammates clean out the rest

  16. Ha, one time while playing Invasion a guy armor locked right in the middle of five of us we all counted to three and chucked plasma grenades at his feet. It looked like some kind of messed up bukaki party… hilarious

  17. I am not a fan of armor lock (prefer Spring and Jetpack), and have been run over by teams and players with it, I have to say that’s a pretty horrible video to demonstrate why it sucks. When the armor lock unlocks with sufficient charge, it releases an EMP draining the shields of anyone next to you. So the person who standing RIGHT NEXT TO THE EMP loses their shields and gets killed. No different than getting hit with a overcharged Plasma Pistol, and getting shot with a Pistol in Halo 1, a Battle Rifle in Halo 2 or 3, or a DMR in Reach.

    Learn from it, and don’t try to get behind the guy to assassinate him in Halo Reach. Toss a grenade. He’ll either move, letting you destroy him when he unlocks, or when he runs out of time, he dies.

    I’m sure they’ll tweak it at some point, a second here or there can make a huge difference with these balance changes.

    Also, watching that video again, in the first two sequences, both of the guys that get killed have rocket launchers, but are closing in for melee damage? Toss a grenade, wait for him to lock, and as soon as he unlocks, jump in the air and blow him away. Most people have been jumping with rockets since Quake for heaven’s sake.

  18. And I realize I only talked about 1 Vs 1. Any team with good communication is a better team than a quiet one. Armor lock or not.

    I’m not some uber leet MLG player as well. I enjoy objective games with a good group the most. I even just made a huge beach invasion map for the purpose.

    I’d fully expect a team that is communicating to be better at capturing the flag, planting the bomb, or killing the VIP as well, and nobody has been complaining about that. Except about the guy with the heavy breathing yelling at his mom for more hot pockets. Hahaha.

  19. I personally love armor lock. Perfect timing to completely negate grenade throws are great, deflecting swords, rockets and hammers is also fun. Hell, i even laugh when i go for a splatter and end up exploding all over an armor locked dude. As for the team aspect, i love it when i’m in trouble and my team mate helps me out. But i will admit ive never played a whole team of armor lockers.

    As for the other abilities, i’ve also found that hologram can also work great besides drawing out snipers. When an enemy sees a hologram, the target tracks them just like a real person, so when a sprinting sword guy comes charing at you, just toss a hologram and they attack that, and then whammo, your clear to do your thing. I have a great video of it on file share.

    As for game breaking, i’ve yet to see it. Halo has always been about balanced gameplay with emphisis on power weapons to gain an edge. The reusable abilities are very different from the equipment of halo 3.

    HOwever, thinking about it now… armor lock is the only offensive and defensive ability. with it you can drain sheilds, whereas the other abilities are all about mobility (jetpack and sprint), stealth (camo), defense (drop sheild), and hologram. None of these affect the badguys in anyway except for armor locks EMP, so i guess your right, its not that balanced….

  20. Ive been playing halo reach since beta (on another Xbox live account) and bought the game 3 days after launch. I am have a Killed death ration of 2.2/1, Ive played Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo: ODST and played them with great success. The reason I am stating this is to show that: 1. I am not a noob and 2. Not saying I am pro but saying I have the credentials to back up what i have to say (hence the KD ration). My Opinion is Armor lock is the most over powered armor ability in the game, hands down.
    Armor lock by it self in concept sounds like a nerf and well thought out armor ability, where the player is immobilized, has a limited amount of time before it wears out, and you have made a very visible and loud target for your opponents to focus fire. With that said Armor lock isn’t over powered because a SINGLE person abuses* it with great success, its overpowered because this is the only armor ability capable of being used by an entire team to immense effect. Take in example a team with jet packs against a team with armor lock (this has happened to me many times including 8 hours ago) where my team at first started out with me being active camo, and 2 people with jet packs and a random person sprinting for the sniper on “The Cage”. The enemy team first opens with an entire team using armor locks and 1 person using sprint. We were forced back because when ever we focus fire a person with armor lock down he turtles and the team was able to converge and return the focus fire.
    Later on in the game we managed to switch up strategy and almost uniformly switched to Armor lock while our opponents who were at this time moving toward us using jet packs to gain the higher ground to kill our sniper (who also had armor lock). We managed to turtle in so deep to the point where we could focus our entire team in one area (with out power weapons) and were able to win the game 50-37(ish). The enemy team on paper once again had the upper hand, with a 10 point lead and mid game our sniper running out of ammo. What really made the game was our constant turtling. You see what im trying to point out is power weapons are suppose to break the game at a certain point, either regaining a crucial amount of kills or widening the gap in kills and death, couple this with the fact that if the team controls most of the map, its usually end game due to us not pushing out. Armor abilities should be able to make a difference but not at the expense of breaking crucial bare boned tactics. In literally every game if you don’t have weapon support or map control your odds of winning are EXTREMELY short. Having an armor ability that enables these tactics to be broken posses a major threat in the video games integrity. I DO NOT WANT TO TURTLE IN AND PLAY A GAME WHERE SOMEONE IS INVISIBLE FOR 80% OF THE GAME!! This game is seriously being tarnished thanks to an aspect that shouldn’t play a major role in winning and loosing actually playing one. Bungie did not intend sprint, jet pack, active camo, drop shield, and dodge role to change the entire game throwing out the need for literally everything except ammo. Its like camping in counter strike its extremely hard to break in and kill campers because most likely they are so well set up and could combat the scenario faster then you can, the same goes for armor lock i should not have to worry about someone armor locking in front of me only to jump out of it and kill me due to his over powered abilities.
    People are abusing the ablity to the point where the cons are literally non existent. You cant punish someone with an assassination to the back that decided to armor lock in front of you because they emit an emp wave. You cant sneak behind the person because the camera decides to switch to 3rd person for no apparent reason. You cant keep applying damage to the person due to him being in all terms invincible to all damage. This is the only armor ability that has so many things that covers up its cons, of course you could abuse the rest of the armor abilities but not to the extent you can with armor locking. once again their are so many things bungies gave to armor locking that gives someone a major difference in a battle. If i have the upper hand in a 1v1 BMR fight only to toss a grenade and to see the person armor lock, hop out of it in the same second to shoot me again. No ability should be aloud to compensate for your lack of skill by pressing one button for a set period of time. Skill needs to be involved but this ability takes the need for that away. In any case if Bungie would take away their EMP wave when coming out, shield regain (since its armor LOCK MEANING EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY HOW IT STAYS NOT A ONE WAY REVOLVING DOOR), and finally the ability to go into 3rd person view then the ability would be nerfed enough to where its still play able but doesn’t allow the person to go in and out with out repercussion.

  21. There is one simple reason why the armor lock ability is complete bullshit. The player can repel sticky grenades AFTER hes stuck. What other ability can bring a player back from death?

  22. Ok, armor lock. It takes a moment for armor lock to take effect, you can die while starting it. If your opponent stands outside your EMP blast range, stops firing until you come out of it, and waits, you are in trouble. When they go into armor lock, stop fighting, backup, and wait. When they come out of it they will be forced to fight you normally. It doesn’t last long enough to completely recharge your shields. If they had lost all their shields before armor lock, you shoot them immediately after and their shields will be down almost immediately. Then you can just punch them in the face and they will die. You can make their AL a liability and force them to stop using it. If their teammates are approaching, back out of the room and go around to attack them from behind. Or you and a teammate work together to flank them.

    Sprint. You can sprint up behind someone and assassinate them before they notice you and turn around. You can sprint and melee for a quick strike attack. You can sprint and jump across a gap so you can surprise an enemy from their flank. You can run and jump past someone to attack them from behind. If a grenade is bouncing to your feet, sprint past it. If you get stickied, sprint to the thrower so he will die too. You can even stand outside an EMP blast and sprint punch the guy when he comes out of AL.

    You can use hologram to check popular campsites for campers before going in. Throw a holo at a guy and jump him when he attacks it. Send a holo at him and run around another way and flank him. Use Jetpack to dodge a vehicle, jetpack up to someone and assassinate them midair. When using the cloak, figure out where people are near you before going into cloak instead of after. When someone else cloaks, go to the edge of the radar scramble so all blips are to one side and you can see which direction to watch for them.

    If you are creative enough, you can find equal strengths and weaknesses for any of the armor locks. Just find the one you like best and experiment with it, then you will be able to counterbalance against armor lock AND have fun.

  23. The point isn’t full recharging shields in armor lock, its the point that your shields could do that when the armor ability has the word LOCK in it. If you lock a door doesn’t that mean it cant swing in and out, same goes for receiving shield power and loosing shield power, if once direction is locked why unlock the other? Also all the armor abilities have a point and a way to use them however we are just pointing out the fact that one armor ability is clearly better than the others. Sure armor lock has MINOR failures but it pails in comparison to what it succeeds at. The focus of the argument was stating armor locking seems to be broken, leaving “noobs” to quickly abuse the perk, and “pros” to milk it for all its balancing flaws. To back up our point we are just stating what armor lock is capable of, in fact if you need to make up elaborate (okay well some what elaborate) plans for someones ONE BUTTON PRESS then theres obviously a problem. I highly doubt a team has enough resources to take someone 2v1 on a pro level, let alone handle an entire synchronized team of people doing armor lock.

  24. And its not about not having fun, i do have fun playing halo but its the shit i gotta sift through before i could have that fun, i dont want to play people who use the same turtle and run tactics, in fact i hate swat, but i play it purposely because no armor abilities

  25. I agree with the writer of this blog. Armor lock is used first and foremost by people that are not good enough to win straight up legit battles, but is good enough to abuse the perks of an armor lock. Armor Lock basically means that you are planning on getting owned in the game, more often than not to the point where you’ll need to continuesly save yourself with a cheap Armor Lock. In any given game of 2v2, when the other oponents use Armor lock, the “REAL” score meaning counting the deaths that they would have died if they had not used newb lock, then typically the spread in the game of a 25 win score changes anywhere from 12-20, meaing that whenever I play a doubles game against two newbs in Halo Reach with Armor lock, if I lose the game 24-25, the real score if they newbed the Armor Lock 6 times is in the neighbor hood 30 to 19 with my team completey owning them, or with the worst case scenario, them using armor lock 5 times each to both of us, which I’ve had that done to me more actually, would be a score of 34 – 15. MORE THAN DOUBLE THEIR SCORE, yet because of Armor lock, the newbs win.

    This is reason enough to nerf the power along with all the reason everyone else has given. No one can argue that Armor Lock is not 100% newb, because it is.

    Here’s how the powers go newb wise rated 1-10 with 10 being the newbiest.

    Armor Lock – 10! (People avoid deaths which helps newbs win)
    Invise – 8 (People just hide all came with shotty and try to be complete newbs)
    Sprint – 7 (People Run away all game and avoid times where they should have died)
    Jet Pack – 2 (The Jet pack never suprises anyone and actually puts themselves in harms way, this power does not attract to newbs well since you must be good with a DMR to use it.
    Halogram – 0 (This power is compeltely useless, no one uses it, gives it a 0)

  26. This is the reason why I don’t even play multiplayer on games anymore. Halo 1 & 2, Modern Warfare 1, those games took skill. Now it has become a travesty, MW3, Reach, My advice?; play firefight. The skills of teamwork, and dare I say SKILL, honestly are sadly more prevalent in a wave mode against AI than in combat against other living, thinking (maybe that’s a stretch) human beings. That and buy SKYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRRRRRIIIIIIMMMMMMM.100% guarantee you won’t regret it. However I would like to point out that I absolutely love Halo, especially the story. Halo 4 here we come. Let’s see if we can revert to the last checkpoint, and get rid of this BS multiplayer madness.

  27. funny you say u cannot ride any skill that far? hmm sniping with invise u will have no chance of getting counter-sniped because you cant been seen. yea u can argue “hurrr durrr but your moving so you can been seen.” yeah but if you move slowly they wont see ya. also with sprint and roll, sprint is a bitch if you have a sword or shotgun because they basicly have a lunge that they dash at u before shooting/slicing. roll one of my friend gets sticky grenades rolls up sticks you and rolls away. jet-pack there are alot of ppl that fly where other ppl cant get to and if they back up cant see. so they can climb up there with power vehicles. + jet-pack kick vehicles buts because tanks and wraiths have a hard time seeing so they can drop in and board. hologram… have nothing on that one it is the one that is the hardest to use because it is so easily told apart

  28. also when u go into armor lock if the other person is smart they will back off and if they do take long enough for shields to regain then u should be fully reloaded and shields coming back as well, also u can land some grenades doing damige to him if he comes out a little later . and if he calls for his team u can do the same, alot of times i have played ffa only to go into armor lock and then have 3 grenades landing on my feet when i was in a 1 on 1

  29. So this is where all the bitches come to complain about armor lock!

    When you armor lock it makes you food for grenades. When you armor lock you are inmobile giving your attacker a chance to reload and setup position. Some people don’t die every wave, they like to push a 3 to 1 spread, is this easier with armor lock? yes. Does it mean the other abilities which you have a choice at after ever death is useless, most definitely not. I understand that it is frustrating to get emp pummeled by someone you believe you had, personally I love it. It makes 1 on 1 battles for more intense and requires cunning, something halo 4 is sadly without.

  30. I hate the Armor Lock, nor do I ever see anyone using it in Reach anymore. Seriously. A little while back, I saw more people using it, and whenever I do see people use Armor Lock to become invincible to my Plasma Grenade sticks, all I can do is shout “Noob!” Therefore, whenever I do use the Armor Lock to see if it is as good as everyone “says” it is, whenever I get in the lock, the opposing team crowds around me and stands a few good feet back as so not to get their shields taken down, and as soon as I come out of the lock, everyone shoots me and I’m on the ground, changing loadouts. You make it seem as though Armor Lock is effective. I have a few words for you.

    It isn’t.

    It may seem like the biggest, stupidest, most overpowered thing in the world, but when it really doesn’t help and when you hardly get your shields back up when recharging them in the lock, it is not effective. You make it seem as though the Halo noobs that do use the lock are nearly invincible Spartans, slaughtering others on command. Do you really thing so? Armor Locking noobs die like anyone else thanks to the “power of the team”. Everyone picks on the Armor Lock dorks, so they just change to something even stupider, Jet-packs, which don’t get you anywhere except shot. They’re noisy, stupid, and as my family calls them “sky birds.” Jet-packs do not help. And you thought Armor Lock was gay?

    For the time being, people need to think about durability, speed, and strength for the upper hand. But alongside those thoughts, harness the being of cleverness and enduring. And the only answer to that question is not Jet-packs, lacking Speed, or gay Drop shields that Energy Sword noobs run through, or even the so-called “amazing” Armor Lock, which get swarmed. And I know everyone hates the answer to the question, but your biggest chance for survival in Reach is – Sprint.

    Sprint is not by any means gay or retarded or game-changing or even stupid. Sprint makes you survive and live. Without the freedom of running free and dashing through the game with the ability of just simply being faster, you don’t have the dominant spot because you can’t jump higher, and it’s easier to get assassinated. Sprint gets you places faster, and Spartans are not by any means fast without it. In fact, they’re quite slow. Sprint also gets you to cover quicker, not Drop shields or Armor Lock or Jet-packs. You want to survive in Halo: Reach? Get the stinking Sprint and don’t waste time on the other crappy loadouts.

    I am an Inheritor with freaking Sprint, not Armor Lock. Everyone thinks higher levels pick Armor Lock because they make you stand out for two to three seconds. Well, I hope that these few words of “wisdom” have helped you all understand that Armor Lock is not a gay thing that everyone is using. Hardly anyone uses Armor Lock. Have you all been sleeping underneath a rock since Halo: Reach came out?

    Just soon understand that Armor Lock is something long forgotten in a cloud of dust. Everyone has either one, Jet-packs, or two, Sprint. Although I hate Jet-packs because they have hardly any benefit besides hijacking airborne Banshees and Falcons, or getting to higher sniping spots, a lot of noobs sure do love the Jet-packs. Whether it is touching their feathers to the breeze or what that makes them like it, I’m never quite sure I’ll understand.

    Maybe soon all of you people out there will come to understand that Sprint is your largest hope in this series. And I bid you all a good day.

    Fare thee well.

    1. If you don’t think armor lock is useful, you’re just not using it right. I got so good with it that I wouldn’t even die once in a match typically. It got old so I switched to sprint, and now it’s a lot more fair.

  31. Armor lock represents the “Time Out” button in Halo. It completely ruins the flow of the game. It is the only thing that can effectively repel those damned nuke nades. The problem lies not with Armor Lock itself, but with Halo: Reach. Halo: Reach is the most forgiving game to noob players, being only surpassed by that awful mess called Halo 4 & 5.

    1) The weapons are nerfed.
    2) 1 grenade can kill a player.
    3) Players are slower and wider.
    4) Aim Assist is at an all time high.
    5) Sensitivity is really low.
    6) Only headshots kill. Good luck with bloom and large crosshairs.
    7) Skill is not rewarded. Talent is penalized by cheap tactics, overpowered power weapons, underpowered default weapons, nuclear grenades, and an overprotective time out ability.

    It should have be replaced by the Bubble Shield in matchmaking. That is more balanced.

    Thanks, Sage.

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