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Pillar of Awesome achievement in Halo MCC

Pillar of Awesome

Halo CE: Beat the par score on The Pillar of Autumn.

Pillar of Awesome0
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How to unlock the Pillar of Awesome achievement

  • Shand Alk3Shand Alk3
    12 Nov 2014 12 Nov 2014 12 Nov 2014
    It seems that these "Score" achievements are quite difficult but ill tell you how I did this level. Every kill gets you points and dying or losing Marines loses points. These points are multiplied by what difficulty you play on and the skulls you use. To play with score showing, choose to show score in the HUD when you choose your mission. The par for this map is 25,000.

    I had my score showing, heroic difficulty, and all main skulls on EXCEPT for Foreign. Keeping this skull off allowed me to use plasma grenades which really helped clear out groups. With these setting, I ran through killing EVERY enemy I came across. I managed to finish the level with just under 9,000 base points. I beat the level in 11:55 which yielded an extra 3X multiplayer.

    My suggestion is to melee everything. You can shoot some grunts, but honestly, they wont go down easy. If you continuously melee a grunt or elite over and over, your shield won't drop, allowing you to stay alive while killing. And don't die...using the Iron skull is crucial to your multiplier and dying makes you restart the mission. One last thing: If you do die, press start and restart manually. Letting the game restart not only starts you with negative points, your time doesn't reset.

    Guide not helping? View 4 more guides for this achievement.

    Showing most recent comments. View all comments.
    Tozi TiberiusTo stress what's in the guide: DO NOT put on the foreign skull. This prevents you from using plasma grenades as well as the covenant guns.

    Also, the iron skull is great for this since it adds a decent multiplier and forces you to go back and reset the clock to the last checkpoint. If you can handle the tedium of manually quitting and reloading, it helps a lot.
    Posted by Tozi Tiberius on 25 Nov 19 at 17:07
    EliteAssassin13Worked like a charm. 33K points on first try! 😁
    Posted by EliteAssassin13 on 25 Feb 22 at 17:42
    GS PleaseGreat solution ✔️
    Posted by GS Please on 10 Sep 23 at 12:58
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  • SKULL N R0SESSKULL N R0SES
    13 Dec 2014 13 Dec 2014 22 Mar 2017
    I just wanted to add to Shand's and Elite's guides, if you put on the boom skull, which is now available to everyone not just people who pre-ordered from Microsoft as of December 12th, you can pretty much kill every group in one plasma grenade. I used Boom, Famine, Pinata (just in case I ran out of grenades) and Fog, on Legendary difficulty and got 35,000. Be warned though chain explosions, where the grenades on the ground start exploding, will kill you a few times, but i had about 5 deaths and still got the achievement relatively easily. The best thing to do with this method is when you see a group throw 2 grenades and just run, you should see a huge multikill then you'll be safe to move up.

    *Warning* The increased explosion radius sometimes can go through walls so don't just hide behind the corner when you throw a grenade just run back, its much safer and it won't take anymore time!
    Showing most recent comments. View all comments.
    Dread ReaverThanks, this got me through it
    Posted by Dread Reaver on 16 Nov 16 at 06:12
    pukem0nnwhere can i activate the Boom skull?

    i found it in the campaign multiple times, but it doesn't appear on the skull selection menu when starting a mission?
    Posted by pukem0nn on 17 May 18 at 21:38
    ApparatjikBoom made this a breeze. 41k on first attempt after failing so many times other ways. Might need to try this combo on another level.
    Posted by Apparatjik on 05 Dec 21 at 19:06
  • Elite1111111111Elite1111111111
    06 Dec 2014 06 Dec 2014 24 Dec 2014
    Update - A recent update has lowered the score requirements of most levels. I will leave my old guide just as a general guide, but some new notes.
    - I would now recommend doing Legendary with no skulls on. This should give you more than enough wiggle room, even if you don't get par time. Refer to the below guide though as its still relevant.

    Old Info
    While Shand's guide works, I found this level pretty easy by playing on Legendary with just 2 skulls on (Famine and Fog). I chose Famine because on this level you're drowning in human weapon ammo and plasma grenades anyway, and the Fog because essentially every enemy is right in front of you.

    To start I rushed to the door so I'd be ahead of the marine, and jumped over the one at the armory, I reached Keyes in about 50 seconds.

    For some reason, I didn't get the pistol in the hallway (dunno if this is specific to difficulty or what) so in the first room I stuck to the Assault Rifle. There should be a grunt and 2 elites in the back corner. If you kill the grunt, marines come from the door distracting the elites, making it easier for you to kill them. From this point on I would stick to Assault Rifle and Plasma Pistol as your weapons.

    The only other really specific tips I have are to not hesitate to spam plasma grenades (as the enemies drop quite a few) and to grab the pistol about halfway through the level (its after you duck under a door, swap your Assault Rifle for it.) If you aren't too great with the plasma pistol combo though I'd advise saving the grenades for the elites, though the plasma pistol is definitely easier for the 2 story room.

    I was able to finish the mission in 11 minutes with a score of 35000. I died 4 times and plasma grenades were almost half of my kills. I looked at my score and honestly would have had enough points even with no skulls on, but it would be cutting it a little closer (I would have earned 27000 with no skulls, so it would depend how good your streaks were)
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