Citadel Brute battles
Posted September 5th 2010
Introduction
In the Citadel there are three bridges you need to cross to reach a switch. The second is defended by a mass of Brutes, and normally you'd just work your way through them. But it turns out that you can bypass them in such a way that they'll pursue you onto the third bridge, where you can then enjoy defending against the onslaught. In the basic version of this you'd have Arbiter for support, but you can also arrange to fight solo, or with as many as four Arbiters!
That four Arbiter option is where I came into this business, namely when I saw a video from Sliding Ghost which showed them in action, the result of his work based on the four Arbiters trick. His emphasis was on watching the Arbiters in action, but you can always join in of course. Personally I tend to get an itchy trigger finger, so I like to do just that! As such, the arrangement can equally be viewed as an opportunity to enjoy fending off a Brute attack, supported by a squad of four Arbiters. It subsequently struck me that you could arrange the same attack but without the extra Arbiters business, to battle pursuing Brutes with just the one usual Arbiter for support. I then found a way of eliminating Arbiter (something of a hobby), so you can even fight solo.
In this account of things I'll deal with the most natural version of the battle first; the 'basic' version, in which you end up supported by the usual Arbiter. In essence I'm extracting the core of Sliding Ghost's method within the Citadel (a core to which I've added the tactic of blocking Arbiter however, plus a few other suggestions), leaving the issue of extra Arbiters aside. Once that's done, I cover the changes needed to either fight solo or with a squad of Arbiters.
Difficulty levels and enemy numbers
The battling can be pretty intense, so you might want to drop down a difficulty level compared to what you normally use. There's also the consideration that the higher the difficulty level, the harder it is to bypass the Brutes. You could always compensate by killing some in advance, but that would leave you with a smaller battle of course. I've not tried Legendary because I think the battling would be a touch severe, but I've tried all the other difficulties and can report that the battling was excellent, and that even on Heroic you can bypass the Brutes without needing to kill any in advance. Heroic also has the bonus that a pair of Grunts with fuel rod guns will join in the attack (Legendary too).
In regard to enemy numbers there are 12 Brutes available, including 5 jet-packers. On Heroic and Legendary you also get 2 fuel rod Grunts who pop up as you head along the bridge (or when you've killed 3 jet-packers).
Basic battle
Here's how to set up the battle with just the usual Arbiter for support, and I'll also say a bit about the battle itself at the end.
Preparation before the Citadel
To help you bypass the Citadel Brutes later, it's a good idea to have the cloaking device from outside the first tower, or the invincibility gizmo that may've been dropped by the chieftain in the third tower. On any level above Easy, I'd highly recommend this! Cloaking seems preferable and is what Sliding Ghost originally suggested. A beam rifle will be handy if you wish to eliminate certain enemies prior to the battle, but there's no great need for that (unless perhaps you're on Legendary) and I suggest you instead focus on the weapon combo you'll actually want for the fighting. But also bear in mind that you'll ideally want either a fuel rod gun, Brute shot or gravity hammer for boosting you up onto a roof. Oh, and get fully stocked with grenades!
First bridge
In Revelation you've got three bridges linked by two rooms. To minimize unwanted Brute casualties and damage before the battle, prevent them getting attacked by Flood and Arbiter as follows. After enemies have been cleared on the first bridge, kill any remaining combat Flood (spores aren't interested in going any further so you don't need to bother with those), then move a weapon crate in front of the door to block Arbiter from getting onto the second bridge (this won't stop him magically appearing on the third). It only takes a few seconds and it doesn't even have to be upright, but don't have it sticking partly through the doorway else it can get shunted back by the closing of the door later. Alternatively you could block him by deploying a shield at the doorway. Stand a metre or two back and it should land either just in front of the door or just inside the room.
Get up on the roof using a crate or by boosting yourself up as described for the next roof shortly, and head over the top to avoid triggering the Flood you would've triggered if you'd gone through the room. You'll get a checkpoint when you get up on the roof, triggered level with the door. I suggest delaying it with a couple of jumps so you actually get it when you're on the other side, looking at the Brutes ahead.
Second bridge
From the roof or one of the extending girders, you may like to use a beam rifle to kill some enemies, either because you don't want them in the battle, or to help ease your way or get a checkpoint triggered at the next roof, about which I'll say more later. All enemies are also in range of a battle rifle or carbine. On Heroic I found no need to kill anyone, but it could take a few tries before you get through, and more if you also want a checkpoint afterwards. I've not tried Legendary but I suspect you could likewise get through without killing anyone.
Advance across the bridge, activating your cloaking or invincibility when you think it's time, if using such an aid at all. I suggest leaving cloaking as late as possible to give yourself extra time for getting into position at the far end. On Heroic I'm usually past half way before I activate it. Enemies do actually seem to see you; they're just a bit hesitant and confused. Among the dangers, the chieftain may take a swipe at you which could deflect your path. On Easy it's pretty easy to do without any aid, though you'd still want to stay clear of that hammer! As you go you could kill anyone you don't want or who becomes too much of a threat, but this would blow any cloaking of course. If you kill the chieftain before he uses his invincibility device, maybe you'd like to grab it as you pass. Could come in handy for the battle! The higher the difficulty level, the more important it becomes to make your run efficiently, trying to take minimal fire; so it's worth putting some thought into that. Something that could help is if any Brutes deploy a shield, something they often do as you approach. You can exploit shields to reduce incoming fire. With this in mind, you might even like to try and provoke the deployment of shields in advance.
Get onto the next roof. Near the door, you can hop onto the raised siding on either side of the ramp, face the way you came, jump up backwards and boost yourself with the aid of a blast from a fuel rod gun or Brute shot, or a whack from a gravity hammer. You can get up fine like that even without Cowbell. I find a fuel rod easiest and it gives better clearance than a Brute shot, but Sliding Ghost made using the hammer look easy with an impressively smooth technique in his video guide. A grenade jump can work too and you could even risk using a rocket blast, but I wouldn't recommend either.
As with the first room, going across the roof means you skip the trigger that would've made Flood start spawning on the other side. More importantly however, the enemies on the second bridge will head through to the final bridge where they'll attack. Except for the chieftain, they wouldn't have pursued if you'd simply gone through the room.
Getting a battle start checkpoint
There's a checkpoint trigger level with the door just like with the first room, but the checkpoint is likely to get delayed, something linked to the degree of threat you're under. If the delay continues long enough (several seconds), the checkpoint will get cancelled. It's handy to get it, because it'll form a convenient battle start checkpoint to keep reverting to. I recommend that you just keep going straight over the roof and down to the other side, and if you're lucky you'll get it - usually when you're back on the ground I find. If you don't get it, you could always revert and have another go.
I did some investigation into the checkpoint delay, using Theater mode to let me examine what was going on. The checkpoint seems to get delayed if enemies are close behind you coming through the room or if you're threatened by a jet-packer on the roof, but being in the line of sight of an incoming airborne jet-packer didn't seem a factor. The biggest cause of checkpoint cancellation was enemies coming through the room though. Most often it would be the chieftain leading the charge, so he'd certainly be the best choice for killing in advance to help, but there were also plenty of times when one of his two bodyguards came through first, and occasionally a Grunt was in the lead.
Not wanting to kill anyone, I tried a tactic of throwing a plasma grenade down onto the ground just as I got up on the roof, hoping it would tend to keep the enemy backed off a few seconds, delaying their entry into the room and thereby raising my chance of getting the checkpoint. And it seemed to work! Out of 20 successful passages over the roof on Heroic, I got a checkpoint 8 times when using the grenade tactic, compared to only 3 when not bothering. So you might like to use it. There's a chance you might accidentally kill a Grunt, but it shouldn't be a problem if you're careful where you throw. The grenade can be replaced soon afterwards.
Battle remarks and ideas
Arbiter likes to stay up near the far end of the bridge, so don't expect him to follow you if you decide to fight nearer the start, though he may charge forth if he draws his sword. Also, he doesn't seem to materialize on the bridge until you've reached half way, and even then I think he only transports if you don't have his indicator in view. You can potentially use all this to enjoy a bit of solo fighting without having set up a solo battle. My battle talk in the solo section is thus also relevant here.
If you want to be sure whether all enemies have been killed, go to the switch panel and see if it's ready to be used. It only allows use when all enemies from the second bridge have been killed.
Solo battle
The work for setting up the solo version is similar to that of the basic version, but with a small alteration to keep Arbiter out of the picture. Simply blocking him is no good because that won't stop him eventually transporting to the final bridge. What does seem to stop him is if the first bridge hasn't been cleared of all enemies. So that's the situation you need to arrange. I'll give two methods.
Eliminating Arbiter, room method
When Revelation starts, let the battle proceed for long enough that you can survive a dash to the far door. Cross the threshold or get up on the roof to stop any more Flood spawning, then control the situation so you end up with at least one covie alive, but with the Flood destroyed or at least thinned out so much that they're unlikely to finish off the covies. If you do this from inside the room or on the roof, Arbiter will soon enter the room (trying to keep near you) and become ineffective, which is good. If you do it on the bridge itself, he'll remain in action and you'll need to be careful that he doesn't end up eliminating the covies. I favour using the roof as it gives you a good vantage point, but your exact tactics could depend on the weaponry you've got and how much ammo you're willing to sacrifice. If playing on Easy or perhaps Normal I'd suggest killing the tank Flood before making your dash to the door, else they might slaughter too many covies. Spike grenades are ideal and can be replaced on the next bridge.
After the job is done, proceed as normal, heading over the roof. Arbiter will dawdle in the room and seems poor at taking any action against the remaining covies (besides which, they seem to spread back out along the bridge), so they're liable to remain alive, preventing Arby's transportation.
Eliminating Arbiter, shield method
This second method requires you to take a deployable shield into the Citadel (there are none available if you have Thunderstorm on), and thus has the disadvantage that you won't have the benefit of cloaking when bypassing the Brutes later. However, it gives you better control of the situation.
When Revelation starts, let the tank Flood get clear, or maybe kill them if on Easy or Normal, then go a short way down the ramp, turn to face Arbiter, and deploy the shield centrally to block him. Note that the shield does need to be facing back. If it faces the other way, spores can actually push it down the ramp, freeing Arby. Now proceed as in the earlier method. Controlling the situation is easier this time because you don't have to worry about Arby wiping out the covies.
Battle remarks and ideas
Rather than battling at the far end by the switch, how about trying some other tactics? Halfway along the bridge there's a cross-piece which makes a great holding point. You can fire over it at the advancing Brutes, though you'll also need to be aware of jet-packers coming in from above and potentially landing behind you. Another plan is to get relatively near the door and blast the enemy as they come through. Excellent fun with suitably explosive weaponry. It's also quite good fun to battle from the roof of the second room, looking down on the enemy. You'll probably meet up with a few jet-packers up there, so watch out!
And then there's my 'Back to the wall' plan. Try to survive from either of the sheltered side areas down and around from the door. I had a load of fun with that on Heroic. I'd recommend a fuel rod gun and Brute shot - my favourite blasting combo. Some Brutes will edge around to try and get a view of you, but you can lay down a barrage of grenades or whatever to try and keep them back. You have to especially watch out for the fuel rod Grunts, who are rather quick to open fire once they see you. Other Brutes may form a big cluster near the door and you can enjoy jumping up to set them alight with a firebomb or two. There's a lot to play around with here, so yep, you've definitely got to try this plan!
If you've got a deployable shield you can have some fun with it as follows. When you drop down off the second roof, deploy it at the doorway to block pursuers. Aside from a few jet-packers they'll collect inside the room (some jet-packers may actually enter it). One thing you can do now is blast the shield down to release them. Their subsequent attack should be all the more intense compared to normal, because they got so bunched up. You could blast them as they try to come through, or defend from further back. Another idea is to go around to the other door, head inside and have a party, though you'd probably want to be on Easy for that - unless perhaps you've got the chieftain's invincibility device to use. You should be able to wreak a fair bit of havoc with a fuel rod gun and Brute shot, and there's always the gravity hammer option too of course. It's actually pretty easy to surprise the Brutes completely because they'll probably be looking the wrong way; so you might like to get the proceedings going with a nice bang.
Squad battle
To set up the battle with a squad of four Arbiters, you essentially do just the same as for the basic version, but preceded by all the relevant work for ending up with an additional three bogus extras who get magically transported to the switch platform. You can find that work described in my Four arbiters article. However, you do have to've done something to make sure your first two Arbiters actually fight. Details and discussion follow, and I'll also include advice on how you can get a smaller squad if you like.
Making sure Arby 1 and Arby 2 fight
Each of your first two Arbiters needs to be killed at some point after you've exited the third tower and crossed the loading point, otherwise he doesn't seem to do any fighting in the Brute battle. He'll just stand around passively. Normally I'd do this after destroying the Phantom, and it would probably be part of my equipping them with desired weaponry.
Equipping the squad
One of the pleasures of this situation is that you can equip your first three Arbiters (the extras) as desired. Along the way, just make sure you give them the weapons you want. Kill an Arbiter, swap the gift weapon for one he dropped, and when he reanimates he'll pick it up if it's closest. Or if you want him to stick to slicing, kill him and remove any other weapon so he's only left with a sword.
If you fancy dishing out fuel rod guns, you could give one to each of the first two Arbiters before getting them into the Warthog. There were two available there, and you could also have brought one with you. The third guy could be given one too of course; there are lots available. Another fine prospect is the rocket launcher you can get from the Mongoose Marine. I gave that to Arby 1 and he later took out some jet-pack Brutes quite spectacularly! Equipping your extras with Brute shots is another idea, and I'd also suggest trying shotguns. Even plasma cannons can be used. The Scarabs drop plenty, so you could equip all three extras with them if you like. An Arbiter can also use a Spartan laser and it's fun to see him take down a Brute with that, but don't expect him to get many shots off.
The Arbiter you get in Revelation can't be equipped like the others as he can't be killed until after the cutscene. His shield can go down but he just soaks up damage after that. He initially uses a plasma rifle, but can whip out his plasma sword when his shield is down.
Skull considerations
If you're mainly interested in watching your squad in action, you may like to make the Brutes tougher so the battles last longer. I'm mainly thinking of Mythic and Thunderstorm, but Tilt could also be relevant.
Cowbell could add to the entertainment value. However, it makes it easier for the chieftain to knock your guys off the bridge, and the down side there is that a bogus Arbiter respawns with a carbine, not the weapon you gave him. For this reason you might want to eliminate the chieftain beforehand - or at least try and kill him quick once the battle starts.
Smaller squad
If four Arbiters are more support than you want, there are ways of reducing the number of extras you get, depending on what your starting point is.
If you're starting from scratch, one way of doing things would be to simply skip some of the work which leaves you with two bogus Arbiters at the third tower. An alternative would be to get those guys as normal but subsequently eliminate the one who lands outside the Citadel (your other potential extra), in a manner such as mentioned next.
If you're starting from a point at which you've already got three Arbiters outside the Citadel, you could leave any unwanted ones in the hog. My tests suggest that any Arbiter left manning a vehicle will get eliminated. The only thing you need to be wary of is that a seated Arbiter will dismount to switch to the driver's seat when you get far enough away; so let him do it before you go inside, else he might be on his feet at the critical moment. This vehicle method should work in all cases, but if you know that your save requires you to move Arbiters into the Citadel to get them as extras at all (i.e. if the simpler work outside the Citadel isn't enough), you could simply leave unwanted Arbiters outside, and I expect they'd get eliminated.
Battle remarks and ideas
With a squad for support, you can potentially adopt tactics you might not have been able to otherwise, thanks to being under less pressure. Maybe you could use a battle rifle to try and headshoot as many attackers as you can for example, or use a beam rifle to good effect - such as taking down incoming jet-packers. But you could also simply enjoy watching the squad in action of course, either in person or in Theater mode afterwards. As Sliding Ghost noted, you can just hide under the ramp if you wish. If you want the official Arbiter to get his sword out and start slicing, bring down his shield.
You can also choose to move clear of your support of course, to pretty much battle solo. See the chat in my solo section for ideas.
More on setting up
Here I'll mention a few more issues with the set-up work, applicable to all versions of the battle.
Jet-packers glitch
Just as you start to advance across the second bridge, some of the five distant jet-packers may take off. Unfortunately, the remainder soon turn sideways and start running dumbly into the overhead girders. They'll just be running on the spot. Some of them may sort themselves eventually, but it's entirely possible that a Brute will just continue with his glitched running, right through the battle. Obviously that's unsatisfactory. Is there anything you can do to try and minimize the problem?
I did some investigation to try and see if the jet-packers could be influenced by what you do near the start of your run across the bridge. Perhaps you could encourage more take-offs somehow? One obvious idea was to test whether things differed according to whether you ran along the left, the right, or the middle (going over the first ring projector). There seemed to be no difference between left and right, each giving an average of about 2.5 take-offs, while going up the middle gave a slightly lower average of 2.1 (note: I was doing each route 20 times to try and make things statistically meaningful).
I tried something else. After jumping down from the roof, I paused a short way down the ramp to let the jet-packers react and do any taking off. With this routine the average number of take-offs rose to about 3.0. More importantly though, it seemed to significantly raise the likelihood of getting five take-offs. I got that about 11% of the time, compared to only 2.5% when not pausing (both measured over 120 goes). Also, I got at least four about 33% of the time, compared to only 18% when not pausing. So if you want a high number of take-offs, pausing seems the best bet. The one drawback is that you'll probably need to activate your cloaking a bit earlier, as the landed jet-packers will be adding to the pressure.
Note: Another benefit of getting a high number of take-offs is that you'll have less jet-packer threat when going over the next roof, which should increase your chance of getting a checkpoint.
Lockout trouble
One time when I was making my run across the second bridge, something odd happened. After passing over the roof, I waited for the usual charge of enemies but nobody turned up! I went to investigate, and saw that the entry door to the room was locked. Watching in Theater later, I saw that shortly after I activated my cloaking, the chieftain went charging down the bridge (nowhere near me), and before he got back near the door it closed and locked. A similar thing happened later, except this time the chieftain was actually quite close to the door. I would've thought it would open for him - but apparently not. So the upshot of this is that if the enemy are unusually slow to head after you, they may get locked out. Seems rare though; I've done that bridge run loads of times and only had the lockout problem on a few of them - usually when using my tactic of throwing a plasma grenade as I get up onto the roof, to delay the enemy a little.