What makes Legendary Legendary? Well here's a break down of what went into making the game the way it is for those attempting to beat the game on this crazy difficulty. Enjoy
*Warning – there are a few spoilers down below!*
•Damage – THE most challenging trait for Legendary is the increase in damage that ALL of the Covenant will do. For perspective, playing on “Easy” results in enemies doing a measly 22% of the damage done on “Normal” difficulty. On Legendary, prepare to get blasted by projectiles, explosions and melees that do 77% more damage than Normal difficulty. OUCH.
•Projectiles – Not only do those plasma bolts hurt more but they’re also harder to avoid. On Legendary difficulty, the projectile speed is anywhere from 50% to 100% faster than Normal difficulty (it varies depending on the projectile/weapon). In general you’ll also find that the number of projectiles per burst is greater, the length of each burst is longer and the time between bursts is shorter on Legendary than the lesser settings.
•Upgrades – The higher the difficulty setting, the greater the chance that an enemy in an encounter will get upgraded to a higher version. On Legendary there is a 50% chance that any enemy will be upgraded to the next highest version – so that Minor Elite you fought on Normal or Heroic now has a 50% chance to become a Major (or a 25% of becoming an Ultra). Enemies will also have more health on average than the same enemy would have on a lower difficulty.
•AI Behavior – I was surprised to learn that the AI actually does NOT evade more or have a greater awareness on Legendary compared to the other difficulties (with the exception of a greater likelihood to see Active Camo or less likelihood of falling for Hologram). However, the AI does behave differently by generally having a better aim, a greater chance to fire plasma pistol overcharge shots and a shorter time between melee strikes.
•Customized Encounters – In addition to everything listed above, which applies to every single enemy in the game, sometimes the designers have done extra, specific things to beef up an encounter solely on Legendary play-throughs. Jerks! For example, in “New Alexandria”, Dan Miller will throw more Banshee patrols at your Falcon as you fly around the city and on “The Package”, he added a fourth Hunter Wave that appears before the final wave. On “Nightfall” you’ll have to contend with four Hunters instead of two. And so on.
So there you have it. Legendary is much more challenging and it’s all “by design.”
