The AR starts and lack of BRs on maps is doing my head in. And the sidekick is completely useless unless you’re playing on a low ping server.
BR is definitely better than AR at mid-long range, but AR definitely outperforms Sidekick at close range. Sidekick is great with BR starts though because it’s by far better at close range than BR (I recommend picking up Sidekick from your base on Aquarius).
Against an AR though, you have to have perfect aim if you want to use Sidekick only and/or rely on enemy missing enough rounds to give you a chance. It’s better to use Sidekick for just finishing kills after weakening the enemy with AR. I guess that was the intention for gametypes with AR starts (?)
Honestly though, the balance imo is very good. The AR is a good pickup in ranked as it is, as well as Sidekick. But neither one of them is too powerful. I wouldn’t want to change that.
BUT, I think the game would benefit from having other variants in addition to AR+Sidekick starts in quickplay because it would be nice to have more use of Sidekick in quickplay too. With AR always being the primary starting weapon in quickplay, Sidekick will always be a “finisher” weapon there because AR is so strong at close range.
Only thing I hate about the AR is that it pops shields in 12 shots, and headshot kills in 2 making it a 14 SK weapon if your last 2 shots hit the head or a 18 shot kill weapon otherwise, which makes it feel WAY too inconsistent imo… they really should take away it’s headshot multiplier and make it kill in 14-16 shots without having to aim for the head. Makes no sense that after all the years of it not having a headshot multiplier, it has one here (I know it had one in Halo 5, and I remember people complained it was overpowered AF there too…).
Outside of that, weapons feeling inconsistent is once again due to many of them either being balanced with Recoil, Bloom or both in mind, or just really kind of being gimmicky rather than damage weapons, sadly some weapons purely being weapons with function just make them less than desirable to pick up, even if you have nothing as they currently stand, so the Ravager, the Plasma Pistol and the Pulse Carbine are honestly the weapons that could use a bit more fine tuning to make feel perfect…
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If all the opponent has to do to kill you is hold down RT, then you’re doing something wrong. Try using cover.
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Wait isn’t the BR super OP in all Halo MP? It’s basically a sniper rifle of sorta. Wrecking people from yonks away. I remember the days of Halo 3 if you were clipped by a BR shot you better frigging hide quick or you were dead.
Agree. The pulse carbine in the campaign is a must, absolutely shreds shields. It’s tricky in MP, it absolutely sucks, but if they buff the projectile tracking it’ll be OP It actually scares me when the bots pick it up, doesn’t miss a shot 
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Yup. I liked the AR/sidekick starts for about a week before I stopped being able to tolerate the incessant sidekick spam and long range AR deaths.
BR starts are where it’s at with this game. Ranked and SWAT are the best modes by far. Ranked is quite clearly the mode that got all the balance attention in the design phase.
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They nerfed the AR to require 3 headshots to kill an unshielded opponent.
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I’ve seen people win with the sidekick many times. I think you just want the old school AR/Magnum combo back. Which is fine. I’d like that back as well. However, I’m having trouble verifying your claims about the AR.
For starters, it’s not as accurate as you make it seem. Once it hits midrange, you can’t full auto and get a kill so easily.
I found myself repeatedly having to burst fire in order for my shots to hit. As for the sidekick, the main reason people can’t hit with is because it’s bullet magnetism is so low and inconsistent. I wouldn’t call it a slot machine rather I’d call it a very inconsistent weapon.
One thing I notice is when I get up in a practice bot’s face, they switch to the sidekick almost everytime if they have one. This leads me to believe it’s supposed to be a strong competitor to the AR and that just doesn’t happen if you aren’t laser accurate with it. They most definitely need to buff it.
I mean, it’s not doing it’s job it the range it was meant for.
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The sidekick is a monster that kills everything at close range in roughly a second, it’s one of the best guns in the game. The AR shouldn’t be outshooting someone spamming the sidekick. I stopped using the AR after the first day
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Am I to understand that you don’t have equal access to the AR? As in your opponents have one but you don’t?
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Which takes more skill? Such a hot take.
Considering the BR will give you free headshots when aiming at a Spartan’s junk, I’m thinking BR doesn’t take all that much skill.
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Not a start, but I do believe there should be a nerf on cast times/weapon readiness on rocket pickup
I’ve been saying this since the first day we got to play the “Beta”, that having Assault Rifle and Pistol starts is a complete slap in the face. We shouldn’t have BTB which is 12v12 on maps that are 2x-3x bigger than any of the 4v4 maps and still be playing with an Assault Rifle and Pistol, this is not Halo: CE where the Magnum has nearly infinite range and can 3 shot literally anyone across the map. I’ll never understand how anyone can have a fun time playing BTB with bullet house and a pea shooter on gigantic maps it’s just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
I’ve already gotten Onyx in the Ranked Arena playlist and it’s pretty much the only playlist I’m playing right now because it’s the only one that feel remotely tolerable to play because it’s Battle Rifle starts. Playing 4v4 and FFA with an Assault Rifle and Pistol in hand I find myself basically camping around the area where the Battle Rifle spawns to make sure I never lose the only gun I want to use. I shouldn’t need to play the game like that, it’s totally absurd. At the bare minimum we need a Team Slayer BRs and Slayer FFA BRs. I normally love playing FFA, but in this game I hate it because of AR and Pistol Starts, just give us what we’re asking for.
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Umm. That’s a cap sir.
100% cap. The BR may have high stick factor but you can miss shots easily. The BR is using projectile bullets so to get that optimal 4 tap, you need to make sure every shot in each burst lands on target. Bullet magnetism won’t save you as much as it did in past games.
Now, you don’t have to lead your shots necessarily. Compared to Halo 3, projectiles travel much faster. It’s like a hybrid of Halo 5’s magnetism and Halo 3’s bullet physics.
What I’m saying is you can’t just beam with a BR.
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Pistol is fecking annoying when used with M&KB
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The AR is clearly as strong as it is to hand lower skill players easy kills. The AR spray-melee has been the go-to method of getting kills for casual players since Halo 3 and it’s more effective than ever in Infinite.
The real problem is simply the sheer quickness of the AR TTK in relation to much of the rest of the sandbox. An AR has a quicker TTK than the BR even if the BR hits a Perfect kill, and on basically any of the Arena maps it’s trivially easy to get into the AR’s effective range. The gun is essentially more of a Tier 2 map pick-up. Even in Onyx ranked play, you pick up the AR and push an enemy that’s got a BR and you should win that 1v1 almost every time. It’s like grabbing the Halo 5 SMG but just better in every way.
The simple fix would be to leave the AR alone and give a very modest rate of fire buff to the BR. The Infinite BR has one of the slowest TTKs of any BR in the series. This combined with the advanced movement tech reinforces a pretty rigid teamshot meta and leaves the BR feeling utterly useless at times against any of the Tier 2 weapons, including the AR. Instead of a game of soft counters where a degree of mechanical aiming skill can tip the scales in a disadvantaged fight, Infinite often teeters into a game of hard counters where outcomes are rigidly predetermined. Part of the joy of Halo is the rewarding feeling of nailing the Perfect against someone that should have had you dead to rights, and it doesn’t happen as often in Infinite because the BR simply lacks the speed relative to many, many other weapons in the sandbox. Shaving a mere .2 seconds off the BR TTK would maintain the supremacy of Tier 2 weapons in advantageous situations (you’re still going to want the AR/Bulldog/Mangler/Heatwave etc.) while giving the BR enough lethality to turn a hard counter into a soft one and potentially turn the tables.
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Are you saying that at mid range the AR kills you when you have a BR??
You must be bad with a BR cause it beats the AR every time at anything but close
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I find the AR a vastly quicker kill than the BR even at Onyx, and I see other players at that level doing the same. Between the buffed range on the AR, the small maps and the faster movement techniques, the BR’s range advantage becomes negligible on basically any Arena map. The bigger advantage of the BR is how it facilitates teamshots with your allies, but I think the game could stand to rely a little less on that personally.
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the sidekick makes the commando POINTLESS. the spread is leagues less, and it’s just as powerful if you have a good trigger finger.
the AR… is like any gun from CoD. high accuracy, high damage, and low spread. for surse, i’d take the insane spread of 3 and reach over this annoying thing. it actually out ranks the bulldog in terms of usefullness. IN CLOSE RANGE, that should not be a thing against a -Yoink!-ing SHOTGUN
the BR… i got nothing with the BR, though it again makes the commando pointless
what needs to happen is the sidekick needs a slower fire rate OR a higher spread
and the AR needs either a range nerf or a spread increase. i don’t like being sniped by a assualt rifle at clearly full fire like it’s call of duty