How does pummeling work

halo-reach

In Halo:Reach, how much damage does a beat-down, or "pummel" do in multiplayer? At what point can I be guaranteed that a beat-down will kill the opponent?

Best Answer

From my experience, whenever I melee an opponent who doesn't have any shields, the melee always kills them. If you melee when they still have shields, then only their shields are removed (thus taking a max of two melee attacks to kill an opponent).

Edit: The Bungie Weekly Update for September 24 has more information about how melee attacks and headshots work in Halo Reach. The basic idea is the same: melee will destroy any remaining shields (and nothing else), while a melee to a shieldless opponent will kill him.