This is my first post. I’ve found a few internet sources for kill times et cetera but none were very accurate, reliable or complete. I acknowledge that some of these values may be inaccurate: shots to kill (and therefore frames per kill and kill times) for LR-Unscoped and the MMG and Plasma Cannon are somewhat inconsistent, but should be close, and the number of bursts from the LR-Unscoped are definitely accurate.
It can be a bit cumbersome to read as I have included several stats measuring firing time as well as reload time. In addition, I included shots to kill followed by frames to kill and kill time under Normal conditions, then 90% Damage Resistance (which notably improves the BR to a 4-6 burst kill balancing it with the DMR), then 110% Damage Modifier (which balances multiple starting weapons), then Damage Boost (which seems to be x2 damage), then against Overshield (which seems to be around 2.4-2.5x shielding + regular armor), then Damage Boost versus an Overshield (which is close to normal stats since they sort of cancel out).
I used a stopwatch to time whole magazines and then counted the frames between shots in theater mode (Halo 4 runs at 30fps) so the rate of fire and kill times here should be much more accurate than most other sources. I included frames per shot (which means per burst for BR and LR-Unscoped), then the time for each shot (each frame is 0.033 sec), then inverted this for Rate of Fire (in shots/sec), then total time to empty magazine (based on RoF-not frames so a little off), then reload time, then I added mag and reload times to find the RPM given infinite ammo, but not a bottomless clip. I did not include the Incineration Cannon’s time per shot because it is instant and left out shots/sec for other weapons with a 1 shot magazine. For these power weapons, the important thing is the time to fire (instant for some, Sticky Det is 0.8 sec to shoot and explode, Railgun is a 1.07 sec charge, Splaser is a 3 sec charge) plus the time to reload (3.5 sec for Incineration meaning it can fire every 3.5 seconds) and the effective RPM based on these times.
The frames and time to kill are lower than if you simply divide number of shots by RoF because they are based on the time between the first and last shot to kill. This is more realistic since it gives instant fire, one hit kill weapons a 0.00 sec kill time. This applies to one hit kill sniper headshots and for the two body shot kill it represents the time between the first shot and the second shot which is why the Beam Rifle is a 0.0-0.5 sec kill. This is found by simply subtracting from the shots to kill by one, then dividing by RoF (and adding back one or two frames when the BR or LR burst kills with the second or third shot in the burst). However, know that actual kill times will reflect this number plus any amount of internet lag you might be experiencing and any intended ‘lag’ time for slower projectiles like needles or rockets.
Feel free to share this link with other websites (please just leave a footnote with UbiquitousChris as the original author) and please discuss or comment below if you have any questions.