Halo Jackals: Where's the double-tap sweet spot?

[Oro]

I've played most of Halo on the 360. Double-tapping Jackals is always frustrating. I'd get the gap-shot on the shield; they'd recoil; I'd wait a split second, and get their head filling the center reticule, fire... and nothing hits. So I must be on the edge of some hitzone, b/c sometimes I do get the double-tap. Where's the zone???

[Hamless Hog]

Like you mean their head?

You can even sometimes get their nose through the gap without stunning them

[Lahgtah]

Shoot their weapon hand then their head.

It's more difficult in Reach because Jackals are right-handed rather than left handed. Easier to do with a full auto weapon, as a single hit on their weapon hand will make them recoil. Auto rifle works wonders, swap to mag, DMR, or needle rifle, and pop them.

If you don't have a precision weapon, grenades are excellent for taking out Jackal lances, as they move slowly and don't evade very far.

[Adonis]

If you're having trouble hitting their head, try aiming a little more at their nose. You also should fire before their animation begins to reset.

[M]

You should fire where their plasma or needle rifles are and then when they either move their shield or jump just shoot for their head or center mass.

[Shovel]

Jackals on higher difficulties will dodge roll away from needles, so you can use that to open them up for headshots. You can also hit their feet in some cases, causing the same stun as shooting the weapon.

[What The Sigmar?]

Dudes, he literally said that he’s doing the shooting of the hand, please read before you write.

As for what you said, OP. I wouldn’t know what to tell you. Are you experiencing this in firefight? If so, it could just be you’re dealing with some wack latency issues. Otherwise, the only problem I can think of is bloom or that you’re too far away from them for bullet magnetism to activate.

[KaZudra]

Take your time with practicing this one; I suggest grabbing a Needle Rifle on Campaign OR a Feista Firefight. Aiming for the hand will give you the head-shot dot and you'll get this shot very consistently in a short while, the head is more trivial since it's so small but you'll get the hang of it before long.

Just keep practicing, you'll nail the hand-shot and the animation is very consistent even if it's kinda fast, then you'll start nailing the head-shot.

[GhostyGG]

This always happens to me, only on reach though, but sometimes the jackal doesn't receive damage during certain animation frames. Someone explained to me that the AR getting 60 bullets instead of 32 wouldn't help because of how the grunts also don't receive damage during certain frames. IF this is the case, this explains how enemies don't take damage at certain points of flinching and how we can 'miss' shots we rather shouldn't have.

[KaZudra]

Originally posted by Regular Ghost:

This always happens to me, only on reach though, but sometimes the jackal doesn't receive damage during certain animation frames. Someone explained to me that the AR getting 60 bullets instead of 32 wouldn't help because of how the grunts also don't receive damage during certain frames. IF this is the case, this explains how enemies don't take damage at certain points of flinching and how we can 'miss' shots we rather shouldn't have.

Grunts are almost entirely RNG, I still can't consistently 1-shot them DESPITE being very consistent at jackals, they move in just the right ways to piss you off and waste ammo.

AR's being 32 is a subtle teaching element, You want more precision weapons to be your bread and butter and you'll want to burst fire anything automatic due to punishing spreads.

As for the non-damage; Reach is kind of a Frankenstein's monster of mechanics; most weapons are hit-scan so your Reticle is more a cone than a precise dot, and it still uses the classic FPS movement bias in aiming, so being parallel to the target is more helpful than circle-strafing, and the aiming itself (except for 1-click killers such as the Sword, Shooty, and Sniper) is more favorable when you're fixed on the target. This is the core reason why Controller vs. KB+M is a thing and also a reason why the "advantages" are so misplaced.

[Pulsian Pioneer]

Red jackals won't always recoil, especially on higher difficulties and especially when using the needle rifle. Usually have to super combine them unless they jump away.

[GhostyGG]

Originally posted by Solid Fuuma:

Originally posted by Regular Ghost:

This always happens to me, only on reach though, but sometimes the jackal doesn't receive damage during certain animation frames. Someone explained to me that the AR getting 60 bullets instead of 32 wouldn't help because of how the grunts also don't receive damage during certain frames. IF this is the case, this explains how enemies don't take damage at certain points of flinching and how we can 'miss' shots we rather shouldn't have.

Grunts are almost entirely RNG, I still can't consistently 1-shot them DESPITE being very consistent at jackals, they move in just the right ways to piss you off and waste ammo.

AR's being 32 is a subtle teaching element, You want more precision weapons to be your bread and butter and you'll want to burst fire anything automatic due to punishing spreads.

As for the non-damage; Reach is kind of a Frankenstein's monster of mechanics; most weapons are hit-scan so your Reticle is more a cone than a precise dot, and it still uses the classic FPS movement bias in aiming, so being parallel to the target is more helpful than circle-strafing, and the aiming itself (except for 1-click killers such as the Sword, Shooty, and Sniper) is more favorable when you're fixed on the target. This is the core reason why Controller vs. KB+M is a thing and also a reason why the "advantages" are so misplaced.

I was more or less explaining how damage works on certain frames. I'm not trying to headshot grunts with the AR, like you suggested but as it was explained to me giving an AR 60 bullets would not affect it's damage output. Since it's damage output is also affected by the grunt's flinch animation, and I was speculating that might be why some headshots don't register as kills. Because flinch animations have a small invincibility window where the enemy doesn't take damage.

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by Pulsian Pioneer:

Red jackals won't always recoil, especially on higher difficulties and especially when using the needle rifle. Usually have to super combine them unless they jump away.

They always recoil on legendary if you hit them with a pistol or DMR. Not sure about LASO, though.

[Oro]

Thanks guys. Regular Ghost seems to be nailing what I'm encountering - dead zone animations where the Jackals are all LOLMISS. I shoulda said that I'm talking DMR shots. AR headshots: I don't even think that's a thing :) That's like trying to kill a cat by throwing fistfuls of petals at it.