The Arbiter

The Arbiter

The first level where you play as the Arbiter character

Information

• Game: Halo 2
  

Beginner Goals: Easy: 3:30-3:45 Legendary: 3:50-4:20


Intermediate Goals: {{{time2}}}


World Class Goals: {{{time3}}}


IL Records: {{{time4}}}


Segmented Times: {{{time5}}}


Halo 2 level navigation

Metropolis - The Arbiter - Oracle

The Arbiter is the fifth playable level in Halo 2. See The Arbiter (level) for general information.

Full Game Strategies

Easy

Start

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.

If you feel confident in your sword fly ability then you will want to 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 once or twice to alert the enemies. You'll want to camo right before the door opens, walk to your left or right and, if a grunt is in position, you will need to jump and then sword fly at the height of your jump, and then jump again, all very quickly, to fly over the grunt and down the hallway towards the hangar. It is highly recommended that you look at a video of the level for this sword fly as it is one of the more precise ones in the entire game.

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.

Hangar

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 sentinels 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.

Hallways

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.

Glass Clip

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.

Banshee End

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

Start

Everything before the air lock is done exactly the same.

Once in the airlock, whether or not you intend to attempt the sword fly or sword cancel or just walking, you should not shoot to alert the enemies in the next room. While there is a lower chance that the grunts will be in the ideal position to sword fly, this is balanced out by the fact that you are significantly less likely to die because the enemies will not be aware of your location. Camo when the door opens, and if you are going to attempt the sword fly and you also got good positioning on the grunts then do one or two attempts. If you miss them both then make sure to just walk, if you stay too much longer you will die. If you're not going to go for the fly or you didn't get the spawn, sword cancel through the room off of the elite or just walk.

You can press the button through the wall on legendary as well. Grab the grenades on your right but keep the beam rifle instead of swapping it out for a carbine. Get on the elevator.

Hangar

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 do the room as quick 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

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

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.

Banshee End

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 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.

Individual Level Strategies

In this section, the differences between strategies used in a full game speedrun and an individual level speedrun will be noted. If a section of the level is not mentioned, then there is no difference between full game and individual level strategies.

Easy

There are no differences between the full game strategies and individual level strategies for this level on Easy.

Legendary

Start

When in the air lock, you should shoot your beam rifle to alert the enemies in the next room so that you have a higher percentage chance to have the grunt enemies in the correct spot for you to hit the sword fly down the hallway. The reason for the difference is that if you miss the sword fly once or twice, you will want to restart your individual level attempt anyways.

You may want to take the carbine into the hangar instead of the beam rifle, however this is user preference and theoretically the beam rifle is faster if done perfectly.

Hangar

You can do the full game strategies if you want to get an acceptable individual level time, however in order to achieve the world record you will need to do this fight differently. Instead of exiting out the hangar door to take cover, you will want to stay inside the hangar and attempt to kill the enemies quicker than you can from outside the hangar. It is recommended that you use your camo precisely and to disengage when needed. If you are able to grenade the grunts in the room quickly that will help alleviate some of the pressure and allow you to focus on sentinels quicker.

Hallways

In the room separating the first and second hallway, instead of going up and into the rafters above the room, you can do a sword cancel over one of the two grunts near the staircase and through the middle of the room towards the door on the other end. This is one of the more difficult sword cancels in the game.

Banshee End

You can attempt the banshee barrel roll at the end instead of landing above the door.