Halo Infinite provides some really amazing opportunities to beatdown enemies in glorious fashion. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. But before you punch your screen in frustration and rage quit, take a look below to find some useful tips, tricks and stats to take advantage of the situation. Equipped with this knowledge will help you gain a tactical advantage over your opponents.
This guide doesn’t include the Energy Sword, Gravity Hammer, Oddball or Flag as they cannot shoot first. (but how cool would that be if they did? 😉
Weapons Have Different Melee Speeds and Damage
It’s been confirmed that melee speed differs between each weapon. Also to note that any bladed weapon does slightly more damage as well. If you know who you’re up against you should be aware if you’re going to be at an advantage or disadvantage. From full health it will always take 2 melee hits to kill, or 1 from behind.
| Weapon | Melee speed (seconds) | Extra Damage Bonus |
| MK50 Sidekick Pistol | 1 | no |
| Disruptor | 1 | no |
| Mangler | 1 | yes |
| Plasma Pistol | 1 | no |
| MA40 AR Assault Rifle | 1.15 | no |
| BR75 Battle Rifle | 1.15 | no |
| CQS48 Bulldog Shotgun | 1.15 | no |
| Cindershot | 1.15 | no |
| Heatwave | 1.15 | no |
| Hydra | 1.15 | no |
| Pulse Carbine | 1.15 | no |
| Ravager | 1.15 | yes |
| Sentinel Beam | 1.15 | no |
| Stalker Rifle | 1.15 | no |
| VK78 Commando | 1.15 | no |
| S7 Snioer | 1.15 | no |
| M41 SPNKR Rocket Launcher | 1.15 | no |
| Skewer | 1.15 | yes |
| Needler | 1.22 | no |
| Shock Rifle | 1.25 | yes |
Different Weapons have Faster Time to Kill when Combined with Melee
To get the FASTEST kill in close range you’ll want to shot first and punch immediately after. However, you’ll want to know hoe many times you need to shoot with each particular weapon before you can kill them with one smackdown.
| Weapon | Shots needed from full health to get a one hit melee kill. |
| Mangler | 1 |
| Plasma Pistol | 1 full charge, 4 regular shots |
| CQS48 Bulldog Shotgun | 1 |
| Cindershot | 1 |
| Heatwave | 1 (4/6 pellets that made contact, can be bounced hits) |
| Hydra | 1 direct hit, 2 homing hits |
| S7 Sniper | 1 |
| Shock Rifle | 2 |
| Ravager | 2 projectiles |
| BR75 Battle Rifle | 2 full bursts (6 hits) |
| Stalker Rifle | 2 |
| Disruptor | 3 |
| Pulse Carbine | 3 or 4 (it varries) |
| MK50 Sidekick Pistol | 4 |
| VK78 Commando | 4 |
| MA40 AR Assault Rifle | 7 |
| Needler | 11 |
| Sentinel Beam | 23 |
| M41 SPNKR Rocket Launcher | lol |
| Skewer | n/a |
Sparking Shields
If you see their shield sparking more than usual that means their shield is in critical condition and are at risk of damage to their health or being one-shot with a melee. If you’re in range to melee then forget about how much damage your weapon can do and how long that will take. You can just hit them with a backhand ASAP.
Best Shoot First/Melee Second Combo?
The CQSS48 Bulldog Shotgun. Hands down. While no longer having the potential to 1 shot like past Halo Titles, the Bulldog is fully automatic and a 2 shot kill in close to medium range. If you are close by you can easily shoot and follow up with a melee hit for an insanely fast kill.
The closest runner up would be the Mangler. It, like the Bulldog, can be a one-two combo just as fast. The only reason it scores lower is due to the fact that it takes 4 body shots to kill, is semi automatic, and shoots slower.
Other honorable mentions: the Heatwave, working just like the shotgun, just slower and harder to lineup every shot. S7 Sniper, but it would be better to save that ammo for long range combat. And lastly, the Plasma Pistol, however, you end up wasting a lot of energy ammunition holding it down waiting for the shot.
Final Tips
Melee is not only really fun to pull off but very important at killing quickly and efficiently in game.
Get to know the range at which you can melee, it’s much further than you would expect. You will lunge a fair distance, about 4 in-game meters, towards the player.
If you use a controller, it’s best to button map the Right thumbstick press to melee so that you don’t have to take your thumb away from aiming.
If you use a Mouse and Keyboard, having a gaming mouse with extra side buttons for your thumb is always super useful.
