Strafing, something that has a huge impact on gameplay yet few take the time to master it. In essence, a strafe is a movement (commonly left or right) to avoid fire or obstacles. A strafe comes into play nearly every time you get into a gun battle in Halo 3, particularly the ones at close range. An excellent strafe can easily increase your lifetime as well as your usefulness to your team as you are useless dead. There are 3 main parts to a good strafe: Assessing the situation, being unpredictable, and being able to return fire effectively. Assessing the Situation The first part of what goes into a strafe. You will likely have developed almost an instinct to this without knowing. Nearly every time you enter battle you likely think, "Should I run or can I win this?" If you do, good, this is a critical role in every aspect of the game. If you don't, that is what you must work on first. How assessing the situation fast and accurately is a critical part of forming a good strafe. When assessing you will want to make a few quick mental notes: Opponent's Weapon Opponent's Health/shields Your weapon Your Health Range from opponent/your surroundings These five things should first tell you if you should fight or flee. If he has a power weapon/power-up, you are low on shields, etc. you will likely want to have the goal to flee rather than fight. On the other hand if you hold the advantage or are equal you may decide to fight it out. If you do the above five things should then tell you which tactics to use to kill him. A decent example would be that if they are carrying a shotgun you should backpedal while strafing to avoid the fatal close range blast. This would of course vary if you have the shotgun. One of the most common types of situations you will get into is a BR vs. BR fight. I will cover this one the most in depth for this article. If you are confronting the person make sure you try to take advantage of any available cover. It not only will protect you but mat restrict their movement as well. Being Unpredictable The next major step in developing a proper strafe to use in-game. Since strafing's main point is to dodge the enemy's fire you will obviously need to outsmart them to gain the advantage. Therefore, we need to be unpredictable. The easier the opponent can predict your moves they can get that many more bullets into you. One of the most common strafing mistakes is the circle strafe (see common strafe tactics below). This common technique is highly predictable and is almost useless in the fact that you would be better off standing still and hoping the bullets somehow miss you. There is a nice, simple answer to this problem though, mixing up your strafes. This can be as simple as reversing direction occasionally, applying random techniques, etc. The more unpredictable your actions, the better your strafe. Simple isn't it? Returning Fire Effectively Now, you have a good strafe and your enemy is missing most of his shots. But an empty clip alone will not kill him, you must return the fire. This is fairly straight forward but I will cover a few small notes. The most obvious tip would be to try and keep them in your sight at all times. Sorry, but that means no 360 degree spins during a battle. Next, get into your weapons effective range. If you have a battle rifle you should be set but you may not always have one. If you have a sword or similar close range weapon continue your strafing tactics as you press forward. Charging straight at them greatly increases the chance you will die. For longer range weapons, adjust your strafe accordingly with how you play. If you can no-scope from where you are then go ahead. If you need to advance/retreat to line up your shot then do that while strafing. Adjust your strafe with other weapons as you see fit. If you are having trouble lining up that BR head shot then jump to gain a temporary "high ground" advantage. Forming Your strafe Now, with the above methods in mind you will want to begin creating your own strafes to use in battle. While improvising is possible, a prepared one will be more effective if correctly used. Therefore, when you do formulate a strafe technique try to practice it in a few custom games to see what works and what needs some improvement. You will likely have many opportunities to do so. I have created a list below with a few common strafing moves and their pros/cons, feel free to mix and match for an effective, unpredictable strafe. The Circle Strafe By far the most common strafe. This is when people move in a circular motion around each other just firing at each other. It is highly predictable and isn't advised. The overall movement in a circle isn't necessarily bad if used with other tactics and rarely. This does offer one of the fastest means of escape though as you will quite often be running straight towards your escape route. It is not the most effective escape though. Jumping Another common move in a strafe, commonly overused though. A jump in a strafe will give you a height advantage as well as making head shots easier to pull off. Your movement in air is extremely predictable though, so do not "pogo" strafe by repeatedly mashing the jump button. When used sparingly this is one of the most effective and simplest moves to add to a strafe. Crouching This, while it would seem simple, is not nearly as commonly used in the average person's strafe. It is highly effective in BR vs. BR battles as they will likely be focused on your head. Luckily, this is the most common type of encounter to always include one in an average strafe if possible. This technique is not quite as effective against weapons that have area damage or are semi-automatic and cover a wide range. This also will temporarily slow you down but that may just add to the unpredictability. An interesting shoot-off of this is the "Ghandi Jump". All this consists of is repeatedly crouching in mid-air several times per second. It makes you a smaller target and stay in the air just a little longer. This is not only a great technique to add in randomly to a strafe but also to mix up your jumps. Similar pros/cons as crounching. Reversing Direction A common technique that is often poorly utilized. Most would think that randomly changing direction in a fight would be good, and it is, to a point. These can add great unpredictability to your strafes and can easily be inserted into nearly any point of a strafe. The largest problem about this is that you are frozen in place for a slight second when you change direction. This will easily allow your opponent to get a shot in if they are following you closely enough. Even one shot can make a large difference in an encounter so use wisely. Leap Frog A cool little technique. All you are essentially doing is jumping over the other players head. This is highly effective against players with lower sensitivity settings and may even land you an assassination if you are quick enough. You must be close enough to pull it off though. This makes a great trick to improve into a strafe but do not depend on it as your main course of action. Advancing/Retreating Both are techniques that are situational only. They are highly effected by which weapons you and your opponent have. They should be almost second nature to use just hold forward/back on the thumb stick when applying your normal strafe. Never charge straight forward or back from an opponent without strafing. It almost guarantees you death. Now, all you need to do after creating a strafe is to memorize and practice it. A strafe may sound good in theory but could be hard to pull off in game or is just too slow. I would highly recommend custom games as practice. Team BRs on The Pit fits well with its level ground and multiple chances as strafing. Once you have one down try to create another for a different purpose. An AR vs. AR. strafe requires many different tactics than a Sniper vs. Sniper from across the map. The next part of keeping in mind for proper strafing is to be aware of your surroundings. Try not to linger in areas that are small and confined or that you are ill-suited to fight in.