These guns are under performing against the AR in too many situations. Why does a shotgun have to take 2-3 shots to kill someone up close and personal? Too many times I’ve lost a close quarters gun fight to an AR when I’ve put two shells in his chest. Its unacceptable.
The commando rn is just being over looked. If it killed with one less bullet and had the recoil toned down a bit it would actually rival the BR as a mid-range weapon. Sadly, i find myself losing many mid-range encounters to the AR even when getting the first shot in the engagement.
Or maybe the problem is just the AR. It seems to be good at everything. It is crazy accuarate that i find myself being picked off cross map regularly when having low shields running for cover. In my opinion the AR rewards/promotes low skill play. Its very forgiving, very accurate in the mid-range and shreds shields rather quickly. Too many times have I out flanked another player but he is able to turn around and manage to put a few AR shots in me before he dies and in less than half a second my shields are half gone or are ringing in my ears almost depleted.
Idk i just feel like this gun caters towards low skill play allowing low skill/noob players to outgun better players using percision weapons more often then they should. That just isn’t the way Halo should be. It really gives an advantage to someone who is just holding down a trigger over someone else who is actually placing better shots. It also makes weapons like the commando and bulldog less effective and relevant in the fields that they should be excelling at. When you pick up a shotgun you should feel deadly in close range engagements and likewise with the commando at mid to long range as a skilled player. But in reality it feels like a liability dropping your AR for one of these “higher tier” skilled weapons.
I posted this a few days ago. There doesn’t seem to be anybody else who agrees or cares though…
"VK-78: Please DO NOT adjust bloom and recoil. They are perfect as-is. This needs to remain a weapon that rewards skill and mastery developed over time. A new player should never see this on a rack and instinctively swap their BR out for it. But they should feel an urge to practice with it at the firing range and in social matchmaking to hone their ability to one day wield it as a semi-power weapon. This would do wonders to encourage scavenging in ranked.
Please DO return it to all of its July technical preview glory. 7 headshots or 10 body shots to kill, as opposed to the current nerfed version that takes 8 headshots or 13 body shots. That’s all that needs to be done.
Currently, there is no incentive for even a skilled player to grab it unless they landed into a social match without BRs or the skill gap between them and the rest of the lobby is quite obvious.
Bonus: For those of us who grinded to SR-152 in Halo 5, it would be AMAZING if you could give us a VK-78 Watchdog coating that drops alongside the redesigned armor coating."
I can’t edit, but I also agree that the AR needs a slight nerf. It takes very little skill to use yet it is almost on par with the Sidekick that actually does require quite a bit of skill.
Right now, there is little reason for people to pick the VK-78 over the BR nor the Sidekick over the AR even though the skill cap is way higher on both of those weapons.
The Commando was amazing in the tech preview, but like people say here, it currently underperforms against AR and BR. It used to be a better alternative to the BR at mid/close range, but after the nerf the BR is always a better pick.
It is pretty sad because I really love using the Commando and it was so balanced pre-launch, but now I only use it if I am low on ammo or I have no better precisiton weapon with me.
Agree that the Commando was in its best shape during the BTB Flight and I absolutely loved it during then.
Disliked how it was when the game launched but I’ve grown to like it again after adapting a bit more to it and always tap-firing and never going full auto. Would be nice if the upcoming tweaks would bring it back to how it was in the Flight though but I still find it to be an effective weapon.
Bulldog could use a bit more of a damage buff, but I honestly still love the weapon overall. I just love its more gunfighty nature compared to the shotguns of old that I just never got a handle of. I’ll never hesitate to pick it up when I see it but it would be nice if it packed a bit more of a punch in its close-ranged specialty.
AR I still think is fine the way it is and I’m personally of the opinion that precision players with their BRs in particular need to learn to keep their distance where their precision weapons work best. I hardly ever lose to a AR as long as I keep enough of a distance and when I’m at true long range with a tactical rifle there’s really nothing that an AR user can do to me which makes BRs and even Commandos very dominating weapons in BTB. On Arena maps you just can’t be quick to rush in with a BR and, if you are, you should be using your AR imo. But if you have a BR you should be sticking to higher, more distant ground or supporting your team at the back with tactical rifles rather than trying to rush in and get kills.
Trying to pick up and use the AR in Ranked Matches tend to just get me obliterated more often than not when it comes to players who are higher skilled/play competitively and know how to use their BRs, at least in my experience.
Commando can be lethal, but to be honest it is much less lethal against top tier players who don’t drop Br shots. In quick play it can be an absolute killer because you have time to place your shots better, but once you move to onyx/diamond ranked the BR will beat it in most circumstances.
I still pick up the commando in place of my pistol in quick play, but I think it needs a SLIGHT damage and clip size buff. Must admit I didn’t use it too much in flights, but sounds like that is the version that should be used.
I get it, in HCS, with top 0.001% players it might become a little unbalanced due to damage output, but that is such a small part of the population
If they would just nerf the AR, I think it would all be fine. The AR is just to OP right now. I hardly even see people use the pistol, because you can get a quicker kill with the AR than the pistol. Which they should be the same. I have even stop using the pistol unless I am at mid to long range with the element of surprise. And even with the element of surprise I have lost to the AR at midrange.
You could beat a BR use at most ranges 100% of the time. It was brutal ttk and super accurate. Honestly, they couldn’t keep it like it was.
Although I do think it is a bit far the other way now and like you said, not very useful against better players. It’s still useful though but as a combo weapon. If one player spams body and another gets the clean up headshot it’s faster than two BRs so it has seen some use in the HCS tournaments. As a 1v1 weapon it isn’t very good.
They also heavily nerfed the Ravager from the flight. That thing was also very good and fun to use. The final product is arguably the worst weapon in the game. It’s decent Vs vehicles and has some zoning potential but generally poor and I’d say it’s not worth picking up 99/100 due to its lack of utility Vs any other gun.
Yes the AR is easy to use. No the AR is not OP. Almost every single close range weapon will beat the AR when the weapon is used optimally. The sidekick beats it quite easily, the Sidekick actually even beats the Commando which is more of a problem IMO. I do not understand people saying the AR is a noob gun that requires no skill, IMO the BR is the easiest weapon to use in the game, half the time enemies don’t even have a weapon that can hit back when you have a BR at mid range. The only nerf I would advocate for on the AR is to change the ammo capacity back from 36 to 32 (this would force players to switch to the Sidekick more often to finish kills, either that or you will have to use controlled fire to not waste ammo).
Yes the Commando does need some tweaks. I like that it is challenging to use, it is rewarding once you get used to it. The flaw with the Commando IMO is that 343 is trying to balance it with the AR, BR, and Sidekick… but this puts it into a wierd place. The AR is easier to use, the Sidekick is actually better than the Commando (just doesn’t have the range), and the BR is a better ranged weapon. If the Commando goes back to the 7 shot optimal kill it will be wildly OP as a tier 1 weapon, even in its current state it outguns the BR easily if you use controlled bursts. What if instead of trying to balance the Commando as a Tier 1 weapon we just accept it as a BETTER rifle than the AR and BR and make it a Tier 2 gun. Decrease the minimum amount of shots required for an optimal kill from 8 to 7 and increase ammo capacity from 20 to 21. I don’t see the need for 3 UNSC Tier 1 Rifles, this might make room for the Carbine to return as a BR rival as well.
I agree 100% on the Bulldog. I don’t think there is anything that can be done about it, they should just replace it in the multiplayer sandbox with the M45 Shotgun. It had a slower fire rate but more power, it is more unique than the Bulldog in comparison to the Heatwave.
While I appreciate everyone’s feedback and agree with most of it I still find the AR is winning in too many situations, especially after the Season 2 update that has decreased melee damage by 10%. It too often promotes cheap and low skill play that allows players to get easy kills from too wide of a variety of ranges simply by just holding down the trigger. I dont think its good for the game at all. It hurts the skill gap in a mutlitude of ways and its glaringly obvious in the slayer playlist now when you get BR starts. You can tell almost immediately which players have been spraying ARs this entire time through Season 1 to get most of their kills.
Bloom is an RNG mechanic. There’s no mastery in pacing shots. The Commando needs its Bloom removed outright, keep the recoil, hell maybe even increase it. I’d rather have one mechanic fighting me than two. Learning a gun’s recoil pattern is a skill someone can actually master and put to use. The Commando needs to be an unweildy gun that feels like it can fly out of your hands at any moment. It can be all that without having an awful RNG mechanic tied to it to reduce the skill ceiling.
Same with the sidekick, precision weapons just shouldnt have bloom, I thought we got over this dicussion back in reach with the DMR
In Last Spartan Standing I will not “level up” any weapons until I get 650 pts to get the Commando.
When I see a claim that the AR is too strong, this is how I know that’s a false claim. I outgun AR users consistently with the SK. The Commando is the first real upgrade in that game mode because of its damage at range.
Like I said earlier, reduce the AR’s capacity from 36 to 32 to limit its potential for multi-kills, otherwise I think its perfect.
But even on full auto fire, the VK-78’s bloom is no worse than the CE pistol (even when individually firing shots) or the H3 BR spread. Just because those crosshairs were not animated doesn’t mean that these classic and beloved precision weapons didn’t have an aspect of randomness.
It’s 2022. Bloom has been in Halo for ~12 years although I can’t claim to know much about H5. MCC has become quite an awesome set of games if you can’t learn to live with bloom. Or just stick to the newbie-friendly BR in Infinite and miss out on the Sidekick, Needler, AR, Sniper, Commando, Disruptor, etc. “Play the game how you want to play”.
Both of these weapons are extremely good already though. The Commando has a wide skill gap, your aim has to be on point, but it shreds if you use it right.
The commando feels like it was aiming to be a middle ground between the Assault Rifle and Battle Rifle. I find it better then the pistol and Assault Rifle when range is involved and I have no Battle Rifle, but that’s the best I get out of it.
The assault rifle and battle rifle I feel are far more forgiving for the most part.