Editing The Great Journey/Walkthrough

== Normal Walkthrough ==

Enter the driver's seat in the [[Spectre]] (or the [[Type-25 Assault Gun Carriage|Wraith]] as the Wraith can easily destroy [[Ghost]]s with one easy short range blast) and boost through the path until you reach an open area with a cliff. A [[Brute]]-controlled Ghost or two may follow you. If so, take them out. Slowly approach the [[Scarab]] until the [[Phantom]] is triggered, then stay behind the boulders until it goes away. After it does, move toward the opposite end of the area. While [[Rtas 'Vadumee]] fires on the enemy Wraiths, get out of the Spectre and strafe around the group of Brutes before attacking from the side. This way, you can take a [[Brute Shot]] from them.

When all enemies are removed the door will open, trade your other weapon for a [[Carbine]] and follow your allies which also include hunters. After passing through the corridor, open the door to let your allies into the next room but stay behind yourself. This way, the enemy fire will be drawn elsewhere. After a moment, engage your [[active camo]], open the door and use your Carbine to headshot the Brutes. If the Brutes berserk at you, switch to your Brute Shot. After all the Brutes are dead, trade your Carbine for a [[Particle Beam Rifle]] and head through the next door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

=='''Legendary Walkthrough'''==

Your first priority is to upgrade your vehicle to something a bit more robust, as you'll be wading through quite a few enemy Ghosts, as well as a couple of Wraiths. Thus, rather than jumping right into the combat at the beginning, I'd recommend boosting ahead a bit and procuring the first available Wraith, as shown in the next video.  

The small tree on the right can actually help provide a bit of cover, intercepting some of their shots. You could try flanking them from around the little hill on the right, but the narrow path severely restricts your movement, making you an easy target. Note that there's also a Phantom out past the cliff to the left who may fire on you at some point. From this distance, though, he's not really much of a threat, so I usually just ignore him and focus on the Wraiths. Take a moment to savor vaporizing the Brutes running around on foot with the Wraith's cannon.  

When the area is clear, I'd suggest exchanging your useless Plasma Rifle for a Brute Shot and as much ammo as you can find before heading inside. Unfortunately, you won't run across an Energy Sword for a while, so the Brute Shot is the best you can do for melee attacks.  

It's very easy to die if you take too long to fire a burst of needles, as the brutes will quickly start launching grenades and shooting carbines your way. The Needlers tracking is pretty forgiving, though, so you won't have to aim too carefully; but don't forget to use your cloak when it's available. It's possible to free your captured allies from prison during the battle (just shoot the little force field emitters in front of the cell doors). However, they won't last very long with all of the brutes around, so I usually don't bother. Note that the door by the brutes will stay locked until the second group arrives, so even if you're planning on just running through the prison, you'll still have to kill at least a few of the enemies.

 

 

Continue through the next hallway, which eventually leads you to a large platform outside. There are four brutes here, and the next video shown how I usually deal with them.  

[http://files4.bungie.org/legwalk/Halo2_LgndWalkHBO_journey7.mov QuickTime] (1.1 mb) | [http://files4.bungie.org/legwalk/Halo2_LgndWalkHBO_journey7.wmv WMP9] (1.1 mb)

<small>Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk.</small>

After the door is destroyed, the intended path for you to take is clearly to land outside and proceed on foot. You'd then have to fight through a large group of brutes before finally arriving at the control room.  

However, it's actually possible to squeeze your banshee through the tunnel and fly over the brutes and into the control room. This approach has the advantage of not only bypassing the difficult battle with the brutes (though they can still potentially shoot you down), but also allowing you to employ the banshee in the final battle with Tartarus. In order to get the banshee through the tunnel you'll have to squeeze it up and over the rubble once you're past the doorway. You can make this task somewhat easier by destroying one or both of the banshee's "wings".  

There's an even more interesting way into the control room, though, that involves exploiting a glitch whereby you can trigger the cutscene that precedes the final battle from outside the control room structure (thanks, Kyle Barr!), as shown in the next video.  

As you can see, not only is this method quicker, but it also allows you to skip the brutes entirely and, surprisingly, even warps the banshee inside with you. Well, most of the time, at least. It's been my experience that the banshee doesn't always make it through in working condition (for example, I've run back to find it stuck in the floor). It's for this reason that I encouraged you to save and quit at the nearest checkpoint before you entered the control room structure. Be aware that you can't enter the control room in this manner until Sarge breaks down the door and the final chapter transition occurs, so there's no sneaking in early. Also, if you don't already have a beam rifle I'd recommend stopping by the bridge and picking one up before you proceed. You may not even end up using it if you have the banshee inside, but it gives you more flexibility for deciding how you want to deal with the brutes in the final battle. Anyway, it's not like you have anything else to do while Sarge is breaking down the door.  

And so we come at last to the final battle of our epic, galaxy-spanning quest.  

[[Arbiter (Character)|The Arbiter]] vs. [[Tartarus]]

In light of this momentous occasion, Bungie added a entirely new weapon never before seen in the Halo universe, the [[gravity hammer]]. Tartarus wields this formidable weapon against the Arbiter in their final encounter.

Unfortunately, Tartarus is one of the easier of the three bosses(assuming that you don't use the fuel rod gun tactic on the Heretic Leader, at least). In contrast the other two bosses, Tartarus doesn't have a ranged attack, and so he can't hurt you as long as you don't let him get to close to you. His henchmen, meanwhile, attack only from one direction and only at fairly specific times during the battle. Thus, you can see them coming a mile away and there's little chance of being surrounded or taken by surprise.  

The structure of the battle is fairly simple. Like the other boss fights, I tend to think of it in terms of several rounds, with each round ending when Sarge knocks out his shield and you damage Tartarus. Depending on your weapon choice, you'll probably need somewhere in the vicinity of 8-10 rounds to kill him. So, as far as Tartarus himself goes, the battle basically amounts to maneuvering to keep him at a distance until Sarge gets his shots in and you can do a bit of damage.  

The only breaks in this pattern occur when the brute reinforcements show up. Although the time of their appearance does not appear to be absolutely fixed, it's at least consistent to a pretty high degree. The first group almost always appears after you first damage Tartarus (he'll say "A lucky hit. You'll not land another"). Expect the second group to arrive about 2-3 rounds after that, and the third group after another two rounds or so. As long as you keep an eye on their platform, you should be able to see them coming long before they actually get close enough to present a threat.  

Given an understanding of the basic structure of the battle, the issue then becomes the specific tactics for damaging Tartarus and eliminating his brutes before they can cause you trouble. As I mentioned earlier, potentially clever shortcuts like pushing him off the platform into the abyss or smashing him with the banshee won't work, so you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way.  

First and foremost, I should point out that the easiest and quickest method is to rely exclusively on the banshee. In that case, all you need to do is hover around Tartarus until Sarge takes out his shields and then blast him with the fuel rod cannon, flying off to interdict the other brutes as necessary. As Tartarus won't even be able to reach you, victory is almost assured, as long as one of the other brutes doesn't get in a lucky shot with a grenade or something.  

Of course, the battle is quite manageable even without the banshee. Personally, I prefer to fight Tartarus on foot simply because I think it's more fun, and use the banshee only to take on the rest of the brutes.  

Perhaps the most important observation if you intend to forget the banshee at any point is that although the battleground consists of three platforms, virtually none of the action will occur anywhere but the middle platform. Tartarus may fall down to the lower level or use the beam in the middle to ascend to the top, but given a bit of time he'll always return to the middle. Likewise, both the brutes and your useless elite allies will jump to the middle level and stay there. Thus, the top or bottom levels (I always choose the top) can serve as a safe refuge and an ideal drop-off point for weapons and your banshee where nothing is likely to disturb them.  

As far as weapons go, I'd recommend dual brute plasma rifles. They'll do a tremendous amount of damage in a short period of time, and you'll never have to worry about running out of ammo. The shotgun works well, provided that you have enough ammo. The sword, for a change, is highly ineffective and puts you at great risk every time you get close to Tartarus. The carbine and brute shot, for their part, suffer from ammo limitations and just don't seem to deal as much damage as the plasma rifles or shotgun. As for plasma grenades, his shield is usually back up by the time they explode. You may be inclined to try knocking out his shield yourself with the beam rifle in order to speed things up. While it's certainly possible to do so, I've never really found it to be worth the trouble, as you'll quickly run out of ammo and you won't have much time left to damage him after switching weapons. In my experience, you're better off just sticking with the plasma rifles. However, the beam rifle can be very useful if you don't have the banshee (or are choosing not to use it), as you can often snipe several of the brutes before they even make it to the central platform.  

With these considerations in mind, the next video shows an example of such a battle.  

As you can see, nothing really fancy is required. Just be patient and deliberate in your movement, taking care to keep Tartarus in an advantageous location and to watch for approaching brutes. Keep in mind that he can strike both forward and backward (like the hunters), so be sure to stay a safe distance away from both sides of him. I'd also discourage you from trying to jump over his head. One move you can use to fake him out, though, is to hesitate slightly when backing away from him (much like you could do with the hunters in Halo 1 to trick them into lunging and exposing their midsections). This feint will trigger his melee attack and allow you to put a bit more distance between yourselves.  

*Note*: An alternate method of bringing Tartarus down is to wait for Johnson to take out his shield, and then sword him. Right as Tartarus first jumps onto the platform, several Elites follow, all carrying energy swords. Once they are taken out, take one of their energy swords and lunge at Tartarus with the sword once his shield is down. In my experience, if you're playing multiplayer, have one person distract him so that the one with the sword can get at him from behind.

That's what he gets for bringing a hammer to a gunfight.  

Be aware that you won't get a checkpoint at any time during the fight, so don't let up and get careless at the end.  

When you're done, sit back, enjoy the ending cutscene, and revel in your legendary victory.

 

I don't know about you, but despite all of our hard work I sort of wanted to see the Halo fire.  

=== Speed Run Walkthrough ===

''Note: The techniques utilized in this walkthrough require correct camouflage usage, precision and speed. This walkthrough is good for [[Legendary]], and is based on the current fastest Speed Run at [http://www.highspeedhalo.org High Speed Halo], Flechette's 12:48 Legendary run. It may be altered as and when faster runs emerge.''