Halo Reach Assist

Also causing some confusion post launch: Assists. Here’s how we’re calculating them in Halo: Reach, courtesy of engineer extraordinaire, Bob.

Halo: Reach tracks each player’s last four attackers when calculating assists. Each time a bullet strikes a player, the amount of shield and body damage is recorded and time stamped. If that player is killed, that data is used to determine whether or not players are awarded with an assist (or any other medals/metrics based on assists). An assist is awarded to a player when they deal “recent” damage greater than 40% of the total damage points, including shields and health. Data is cleared when the target player’s shields recharge above 95%, or after five seconds if no further damage is being inflicted.

Short form: to score an assist, deal 40% of the damage on a subsequently killed player before their shields can recharge to 95%, or before they can stay safely out of fire for five full seconds.