Much of this guide will resemble the one Louie created for Halo:Reach. It has been updated for Halo 4 and some of it has been written a bit more concisely.
Hog Basics
Hog Vehicle Health
Luv Gunn created an excellent video detailing the health of the Warthog against the BR and the DMR:
The hog will go through ‘stages’ of damage.
Stage 1: Small to fair amount of smoke from the hood.
Stage 2: Body panels start to come off, usually exposing the engine. Be warned, shots taken to this newly exposed area of the hog will be magnified, a well placed sniper round directly to the engine will severely damage the hog.
Stage 3: Warning beeping followed by a flaming engine. This is a warning that it’s time to walk. When the hog is on fire, it’s a ticking time bomb and more importantly a HUGE target. Only a few DMR rounds landed on any part of the hog will send you into a fireball of death.
Handling
E-Brake: Locks the rear wheels, causing the Hog to power slide (left trigger)
Foot Brake: Locks all wheels, bringing the hog to a stop (right bumper on default, A button on Recon)
The Halo 4 warthog drives more like the hog we all remember from H3. Gone is the "floatiness" from Reach. This hog is beefy. It sounds powerful and feels powerful. It again drives like it weighs 3.25 tons. Halo 4 maps are the most technically challenging of all the games thus far. Wide roads and large clearings are gone and have been replaced with narrower paths, blind corners, and extensive cover for enemies. Staying in hog-friendly clearings will lead to a short and unproductive hog run. Get to know the more compact areas of the map where the hog can hide when necessary. Practice approaches to blind corners. Avoiding fire is now just as important as doling it out.
The Turret
Turret Range
The effective range of the turret is at about mid-range. Gunners can pulse -fire to increase their accuracy at longer ranges, but a hog intending survival should work at close to mid range.
Turret Overheat
Another change to the .50 cal is how it overheats. No longer can a gunner be the ‘fire-fighter’ of the past. Short bursts work best ONLY when a target is in sight AND at a shoot-able distance as this will help the driver know when contact has been made. It’s best to keep long range fire-fights to other vehicles as the weaker turret will only alert foot soldiers to your approach. Sneak up on ground pounders and rain death from close quarters to get the most of the hog.
Loadouts and Ordnance
Customized loadouts have drastically affected the way Warthogs can attack enemies. Every person on the enemy team can spawn with a plasma pistol and two or three sticky grenades. Additionally, ordnance drops allow players to spawn any number of shoulder mounted weapons capable of destroying the Warthog. With this in mind, always try to position the warthog in such a way that the enemy has limited angles for grenade throws and always try to position yourself near cover.
Fighting Other Vehicles
The spoiler below contains a brief overview of what to do when encountering other vehicles while running a Warthog. Please keep in mind that these tactics are best used when fighting alone and do NOT have other support available to you. In any situation where other friendly vehicles can assist, bring the battle to those vehicles. Whether it’s the team’s Wraith, a Mantis, or even another Hog, always try to bring the fight back to them for added assistance.
Spoiler: show
Change Your Hogging Mentality
The key to hogging in Halo 4 is patience and persistence. On many of the maps, there are three or more Warthogs to run. It’s important to remember that your hog will die. Perfections will not come easily and are no longer the goal. The goal now is to become a constant nuisance for the enemy team; one that is constantly picking them off and disrupting their play. The hog needs to be treated like a power weapon. It needs to be driven in such a way as to not lose it, and everyone needs to realize that the damage it can deal is finite, a hog surviving the whole game will be rare.
Remember that everyone in this game can spawn equipped to kill you at a moment’s notice. The goal now is to make that as hard as possible for them while making killing you the priority for the enemy team. A team trying to kill a Warthog is not trying to control key points of the map or attack the rest of your team. Success in this game will come to those who know how to maneuver smoothly and quickly through the terrain. Successful runs will come to hogs always cleaning up the easy kills and picking apart a team. A good rule of thumb for this is:
Minimize the number of enemies that can see you and maximize the number of teammates that can see you.