The Arbiter
"This heretic, and those who follow him, must be silenced!"Beginner Goals:
Easy: ~4:00; Legendary: ~4:30
Intermediate Goals:
Easy: ~3:00; Legendary: ~3:30
World Class Goals:
Easy: ~2:20; Legendary: ~2:33
IL Records:
Easy: 2:06; Legendary: 2:06
Segmented Times:
Legendary: 2:45.350 (NMG)
The Arbiter is the fifth playable level in Halo 2. See The Arbiter (level) for general information.
HaloRuns record page: https://haloruns.com/leaderboards/h2a/solo/arbiter/Legendary
Contents
[hide]Start
Easy
Walk forward and drop off the ledge to the entrance to the level. Grenade or shoot the back-right grunt as you're falling, then turn and grenade the elite that is opening the door, then grenade the other elite and switch out his beam rifle for your plasma rifle. Kill the final grunt as you are backing into the entrance. Killing your allies skips about thirty seconds of dialogue.
Alert the enemies in the next room so that they move to the position you want them in. After "Loading... done" pops up on your screen, shoot your beam rifle twice to alert the enemies. You'll want to camo right before the door opens, walk to your left, and sword cancel off of the elite while spamming jump. This will hopefully send you flying towards the hanger entrance.
Alternatively, you can simply use camo when the door opens and walk past everything. This is very consistent but is also much slower.
Continue towards the hangar normally. When you get to the elevator, you can hit the button through the wall by jumping onto the ledge, crouching and looking in the right spot. Doing this saves a couple seconds as the elevator will already be moving when you get to it. Grab the grenades and the carbine on the ledge to your right after hitting the button. If you are doing hanger skip, keep the sword and beam rifle or sword and needler depending on the version you are performing.
Legendary
Everything is done the exact same as on Easy, with the slight caveat that enemies can - and will - kill you if you are careless.
Hangar Skip
Hangar Skip is a trick that allows the player to skip the entire hangar section. Tutorial videos for all versions are linked below. Hangar Skip methods vary between H2C and H2A due to the different physics, so be sure that you are learning the correct version. We currently recommend Hangar Skip for all runners since it saves roughly 40 seconds and is not extremely difficult to perform, but if Hangar Skip isn't for you, keep reading for a hangar clear tutorial. Hangar Skip does not vary between Easy and Legendary.
H2C Hangar Skip Tutorial
H2A Hangar Skip Tutorials
Hangar Clear
Easy
There is some nuance to how many enemies need to die and in what order they need to die for this room. The first thing you should do is either sword fly or sword cancel off of one of the sentinels to the other side of the room, so that you can open the hangar door as fast as possible. There are three sentinels and a number of heretic elites and grunts in the room that will all need to die eventually, excluding one sentinel that flies away and despawns. Any enemies you kill before opening the door will just respawn. After opening the hangar door, immediately turn around and you need to locate and kill two sentinels as quickly as possible. The first sentinel that you need to kill will be somewhere near the ship in the middle of the room, either repairing it or just floating still in mid-air. The other sentinel will be near the elevator that you came down, carrying an exploding barrel. After you kill those two, you need to kill five more sentinel reinforcements that come into the room through the pipes near the ceiling. While waiting for them to come out, or afterwards, kill the heretic enemies when you have a chance. An allied phantom will fly in at some point and will likely help you kill the heretic enemies. After all five of the sentinel reinforcements die, three Fuel Rod Grunt reinforcements will spawn randomly placed in the four doors to the sides of the room. After you kill them and the rest of the enemies in the room, the door to the hallways will open on the side of the room that the elevator is on, near the bottom.
Legendary
This room is no different on Legendary than it is on Easy, except for the fact that enemies hurt a lot more and will kill you very quickly. There are the same number of enemies and the same enemies need to die in the same order to clear the room as quickly as possible. Because the enemies hurt so much, after you open the hangar door you can and should exit the hangar via the hangar door. There is a soft barrier and the game will try and force you back in, however if you stick very close to the wall you can stay outside and snipe enemies from relative safety, ducking back behind the wall if you become weak.
Hallways
Easy
Nothing in the first or second hallway needs to die. The key to the hallways is to move as quickly as possible using a combination of moving in straight lines, sword cancels and sword flies. There are some consistent sword cancels that you can do based off of the enemy spawn patterns that you have including one that is in the room separating the first and second hallways. If you sword cancel off of one of the two grunts near the door that you enter the room from, and go over the grunt, you can sword cancel all the way to the other door. This cancel however is one of the harder sword cancels in the game. It is highly recommended to watch a video of the current Easy world record and maybe some other videos as well to see how the hallways are done quickly. Note that the first hallway will vary based on if you perform Hangar Skip or not.
Legendary
After clearing the hangar, make your way to the hallway door. Try to get there before it starts opening. An Elite will either spawn right in front of the door, at the bottom of the ramp, or in an ideal spot between the door and ramp. If he's at the door, you can either stick the Elite before he has time to react or walk close to him to make him melee at you while you walk past. If he spawns in the middle, you can reliably get a cancel over him or just walk. You can also just cancel off one of two Grunts that spawn with him for any of these encounters. Walk past or cancel off of the sword Elite, cloak, cancel off of another enemy and enter the next room before your camo runs out. If it does run out, you can stick the Elite near the end of the hallway before proceeding.
From here, head up top and jump along the rafters on the right, jumping to the other side of the room. If you haven't already picked up a carbine in the hangar, feel free to pick up the Carbine along the way. If you get Grunt spawns at the next hallway door, seek cover near the ramp and take them out before proceeding. If you hide beside the door frame after heading through the doorway, you have a small chance to get a checkpoint, if needed.
Head left and ignore the initial enemies in this second hallway. Turn the corner to come across an Elite who will either be walking up the ramp or running to a spot on the ramp with his back turned to you. Lunge at him with your sword and immediately after you make contact with him, use your camouflage as soon as possible. Sometimes there will be two grunts on the other side of the pillar. If they are there, cancel off of one of them and then continue. If the Grunts don't spawn, you will sometimes get a checkpoint.
For the last part of this hallway, you can cancel off one of two patrolling Grunts. If you get a bad cancel, you can toss a grenade at the sleeping Grunts behind you. An Elite might spawn near the end of the hallway, sword him to death if he does. When you reach the door to the next room, wait for a shield/camo recharge and perhaps a checkpoint before proceeding. Cloak, crouch jump onto the slanted ledge on the left and cancel off the Elite. In the next room, stick the first Elite and either wait at one of the two doors or attempt the glass clip if you feel risky/confident.
Glass Clip
Easy
In the room before the banshees, where the heretic leader says "Deal with him, my brothers! I will defend the Oracle." There is a frame perfect trick called the glass clip. You can see the Heretic leader through the glass, and he stands still right in front of you when saying his dialogue. What you want to do is throw a grenade at the glass so that it bounces and lands on the floor a bit away from the glass, then jump on the window-sill, for lack of a better term. Make sure that you are standing so you are lined up with him completely perfect. Then, while standing still pressed up against the glass, swing your sword at the leader two frames before the grenade blows up. If done correctly you will clip through the glass and be standing next to him and the banshees. Very important, if you do get the glass clip you have to take one of the two banshees that he doesn't take, either the left or the right one,do not take the middle banshee. If you take his banshee you can not finish the level. Note: Glass Clip does not work on the current patch of the MCC as of April 15th, 2025.
Legendary
Glass clip works the same on Legendary as it does on Easy except for two notable differences. The first one is that sometimes an elite from the previous room will follow and shoot you while you're attempting glass clip. If this happens your grenade will likely kill you. The second difference is that after you go through the glass on Legendary, you need to immediately use your camo otherwise the enemies out there will kill you quickly. Note: Glass Clip does not work on the current patch of the MCC as of April 15th, 2025.
Banshee End
Easy
After getting in the banshee, fly slightly up and to the right of where you started and go directly towards the end of the level. Do not follow the waypoint. At the end you can either attempt to barrel roll into the door or just park next to the door. To barrel roll press A+Left or Right and then press X at the right time to launch your character using the banshee speed.
Legendary
Once in the banshee, fly to the end just like on Easy. If the banshee starts shooting you in the back, go up and down in a wave-like pattern to dodge the bullets. It's recommended in full game Legendary to not go for the banshee roll strategy at the very end because the Fuel Rod Grunts will kill you if you miss. Instead, park above the door and then camo and drop into the door and the level end.
