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hel monkey
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The Rocket Hog

Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:52 am

This thread shall include various tips for both driving and gunning the Rocket Hog. I am convinced this vehicle can pull almost as many kills as the gauss, we just have to figure out how. After a few nights of voting vortex every chance we got, Criporc and I have begun to harness the true power of the rocket hog, one game we got 24 kills with it.

I am ranked number 3 on HaloTracker for rocket hog kills, and I'm not far from number 2. This is only because I made a point to play Vortex, and I always knew when the RH would spawn. With this turret, practice is key.

I do not have any tips that will suddenly have you getting 30 kills a game, but I can offer a few helpful hints to help you along with your practice.

-Don't bite off more than you can chew: You and you drivers should try to single out vehicles and personnel. The delay between volleys means that a group of people of vehicles could kill you before you ever got to even engage more than one of them. I have only just begun getting more comfortable engaging multiple targets with one volley, so when you start, keep it simple. One foot soldier is hard enough to kill when you are first getting the hang of it.

-Be aware of what is going on on the map: Criporc and I have been using the sensor mod, yes BOTH of us. This eliminates a lot of the chatter and confusion associated with the driver trying to tell the gunner where stuff is. We both know at the same time that the wraith it just around the next corner, or that we have a hog coming our way, or a group of people by A. We are on the same page from the get-go.

-Keep your distance: I like to engage targets at medium range, far enough that a sticky is going to have to be thrown very well, but not so far that hitting someone directly with one of the rockets is too hard. The better you get, the further your driver can stay away. Stay BR auto aim distance away from the wraith, its an easy target with the rockets, and you are a hard target with its main gun. Get closer to hogs and ghosts because they are more agile, and are very little threat if you blow them up with your first or maybe second volley, but not so close that splash from the rockets and the explosion of the other vehicle damage your hog. I have not had much trouble with damaging the hog when we drive past rocks on the map, the splash on the rockets is limited.

-aim for the knees: Your goal is to kill the foot soldier by direct impact with the rocket, this is the fastest and most effective way to do it. However, you don't always get that direct hit, so by aiming for the knees the rockets should hit close enough to the ground to hopefully kill him with splash or weaken him so someone else can kill him, or you can finish him off.

-Practice Practice Practice: I am not going to get into detail about spreading the rockets out, or shooting people out of the air because the only way to improve on those is to practice it and figure it out on your own. I am now getting to the point where I am getting cross map shots and shooting enemies out of the air, but that is after countless failed attempts and blown up hogs. This thing isn't point and shoot like the gauss, it takes some time to even become effective.

This is all I have to offer as of right now, maybe Criporc, Lars, or PirateSolo have more to offer from a driver's perspective.
 
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Laughlyn
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Re: The Rocket Hog

Fri Jan 04, 2013 2:25 pm

Solid tips! I like what I'm reading and wanna try some of this. I feel the RH is an underrated asset of vortex so far.
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Re: The Rocket Hog

Fri Jan 04, 2013 3:30 pm

The Rocket hog requires your team control about a third to half of the map. The Rocket Hog needs escape avenues and cover to regain health because it can't shoot its way out of every confrontation.
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Criporc
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Re: The Rocket Hog

Fri Jan 04, 2013 5:32 pm

I have a few tips for drivers.

1. download the matchmaking version of vortex and go into custom games by yourself to drive around. (not forge, because those stupid respawn markers are solid and are stupid) I've practiced driving this map by myself for at least 45 minutes. Knowing escape routes and how to drive around without hitting rocks will get you out of some tricky spots. Quite a few times when i was driving monkey and we escaped from a dangerous situation he was all like "i can't believe we survived that"

2. Use Sensor and Wheelman perks. They're pretty self explanatory. Sensor ties in with knowing the map's driving routes. You can see enemies completely surrounding you on the sensor, but because there are so many routes you can take, you can completely avoid everyone to get to a safe place where you can start singling out enemies.

3. Rockets take a while to finish firing. I take note of when the gunner starts firing, and if we are not being chased by a wraith or laser or something, I slow down. If the gunner shot his rockets, it means he probably saw an opening, and the faster you drive the sooner the opening will close, so less rockets will hit the gunner's target. You can also avoid shooting rocks that you drive past this way.

Thats all I can think of right now. In the future we will probably come up with strategies to get the rocket hog off spawn 90% of the time.

What hel monkey and I did when it was just us 2 was to jump into the chain hog at the beginning, and take that to the rocket hog. This way if there are enemies, we can clean them up, and if not, we got there pretty fast.

When we had a party of 4 with Piratesolo and ITS A TRAP (some random that really liked hogs. monkey tried inviting him to this site but he probably forgot or something) Pirate and trap got into the chain to go cover the rocket hog, while monkey and I sprinted to it. This worked well the 1 time we tried it...

Also the respawn timer for the rocket hog on vortex is 2 minutes.
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PirateSolo
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Re: The Rocket Hog

Sun Jan 06, 2013 5:33 pm

As a Driver, acknowledge your gunners targets. If he is shooting, wait for the rockets to quit firing before going into cover. I think the biggest mistake I see is drivers leading rocketsinto nearby rocks that end up damaging the hog and or flipping it over. In RHR the gunner was resposible for avoiding this by aiming the turret up while shooting was in progress during nearby cover. In Halo 4 the driver need to be more patient.

I also believe taking the road less traveled is better on vortex. Driving near Charlie to allow you gunner a good view of the ramp up to Bravo helps produce kills. That ramp + Rocket hog = multikills. Driving near Alpha and th wraith is pure suicide. Hit the edges of that location don't drive up through there.
 
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Wolf
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Re: The Rocket Hog

Sun Jan 06, 2013 6:14 pm

Hi. I was also in with cri, monkey, solo, lars and ppl on some of these games. I've been driving the rocket hog a bit, and I'm thinking I might have to change on of my loadouts to have the sensor upgrade. I have no real rocket hog tips to give right now, that are not already given.

But as we're limited to talking tactics on Vortex, I have some insights, heaving driven guy's to killing frenzys before.

Start of match:
A phase where the team is rushing places. Beeing vihecular most of the team should rush rocket hog, with their own hog I think. Perferably send about 5 guy's. 2-3 guy's should use ghost and mongoose rushing wraith. If they fail in grabbing it, at least they probobly destroy it.

The rocket hogs role after this depends a bit on how the other team plays. If your wraith is getting rused by the whole enemy team and they try taking it out as fast as possible, then Help IT!

If not, the wraith should stay around alpha, stopping enemyes from holding that side of B.
Meanwhile I think that keeping the rocket hog around charlie, and also keeping an eye on the other side of B can hold all those teams sticking there at bay. While these two vehichles wreck havoc the footsoldiers shoudl try pushing into B, making them run outside in wraith or rocket-hog fire to their deaths.


As the game goes on, all this changes, but in the end the vehicles are easy to kill when their operators ego trip and don't cooperate with their footsoldiers.
And also, when you see enemys starting to hit about 5-7 kills, play more conservative and ask your team for enemy wapon callouts, this is when the heavy guns start appearing again. Heaving a player or two scouting the map with a ghost at this time for heavy wapon enemyes is not a bad idea! :)


I dunno if my two cents helped. But seeing as we pulled off this:
https://app.halowaypoint.com/en-us/#Hal ... 47c3fcc764
And I lead the pack, we had to do something right.
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