Definitive Guide to Weapon Variants

Games Halo Infinite
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I found a post that runs down all the stats for the HVT weapon variants found in Campaign and the Yappening. I figured any non-redditer users would like to have this information (since I haven’t seen it anywhere else).

I’ve copy pasted it verbatim. Link is at the bottom.

As the Yappening event released with the new fiesta btb mode, I’ve heard a lot of confusion around what weapon variants do. Hopefully this post will help you understand the basic nuances of each gun, and whether or not they’re worth the pickup in multiplayer. In total there are 22 variants available in multiplayer. I’ll organize it by tier 1 (i.e spawn/rack) weapons, to tier 3 (i.e power) weapons.

I will go over “effective distance” which would be the distance the game starts red reticle, the magazine size, the fastest time to kill (TTK), the zoom level changes, and other special nuances of the gun. Realize that just because a gun has a close effective distance doesn’t always mean it only works in that distance, arcane sentinel beam for example will shred an opponent as far as the beam can reach with no weapon damage fall-off. Also do not get excited by a low ttk, as guns like the impact commando can have one of the lowest ttk’s amongst tier 1 guns but getting a 6 shot kill with it is very unreasonable at the distance it is effective and with the amount of bloom it has.

Effective distance is in meters, which you can find in-game by marking a location or opponent. Numbers in parenthesis are comparatively to vanilla counterparts, so 25(-11) means the variant has 11 bullets less than the vanilla version. TTK is in seconds.

For a quick, compact viewing you can check out a screenshot of my excel sheet here.

Make sure to click on the links for a gun preview! At the bottom I will put a tl;dr list of very good variants, and the very bad.

MA40 Longshot (Assault Rifle)

  • Effective distance: 30.4m(+6m or +25%)
  • Mag Size: 25(-11)
  • TTK: .87 seconds
  • Zoom Level: 1.65x(+.25x)
  • Notes: Longer range AR, definitely just a solid upgrade all around from vanilla AR.

Striker Sidekick

  • Effective distance: 34.5m (+10m or +41%)
  • Mag Size: 14 (+2)
  • TTK: .52 seconds
  • Zoom Level: 1.4x
  • Notes: 4 shot kill (-3). Less bloom but more recoil. Very very good variant, even better than halo 5 pistol.

BR75 Breacher

  • Effective distance: 24.2m (-12m or -33% range)
  • Mag Size: 30 (-6)
  • TTK: 0.91 seconds (-0.39)
  • Zoom Level: 1.65x (-.85x)
  • Special Nuances: Knowing you lose a third of your range compared to vanilla, you can’t really use this gun as you would a traditional BR. But very effective close range and is a 3 burst kill. Vanilla BR is still king during mid to high range combat.

Impact Commando

  • Effective distance: 18.1m (-18m or -50%)
  • Mag Size: 40(+20)
  • TTK: .75 seconds (-.85 or 46% faster)
  • Zoom Level: 1.4x (-.25x)
  • Special Nuances: Although this gun looks good on paper with a potential 6 shot kill and a 46% faster ttk, more overall damage and a larger mag; it is actually very unlikely you’ll hit those numbers due to its massively cut range, high bloom and slower rof. You can only reliably hit most shots by pacing your shots very slowly. I would not pick this gun up under most circumstances.

Calcine Disruptor

  • Effective distance: 30m
  • Mag Size: 7 (-3)
  • TTK: 1.16 (-1.2 or 50% faster)
  • Zoom Level: 1.4x
  • Special Nuances:Has Area of Effect (AOE) “aftershocks,” but there seems to be no Damage Over Time (DOT) effects from the AOE bullets. Very low ammo in reserves, but in general a good upgrade from vanilla.

Unbound Plasma Pistol

Riven Mangler

Ravager Rebound

  • Effective distance: 15m(-15m or 50% less)
  • Mag Size: Battery
  • TTK: Don’t kid yourself
  • Zoom Level: 1.4x
  • Special Nuances: Bounces multiple times before exploding. Pretty useless. Overheat rates are the same as vanilla. Fire AOE effect is largely the same as vanilla. You can’t kill a full health spartan with a charged AOE shot. Effectively worse than vanilla at both non-charged and charged shot capabilities.

Rapidfire Pulse Carbine

  • Effective distance: 32.9m (-4)
  • Mag Size: Battery
  • TTK: 1.12 Seconds
  • Zoom Level: 1.4x
  • Special Nuances: 2 burst kill, 5 shots to overheat. Largely the same as vanilla but slight upgrade due to faster rate of fire.

Pinpoint Needler

  • Effective distance: 37.2m (+7m or +23% more)
  • Mag Size: 30 (+4 more)
  • TTK: .72 (-.47 or 40% faster)
  • Zoom Level: 1.4x
  • Special Nuances: Can lock on to enemies and shoot around corners. 8 needles required to supercombine which is 4 less than vanilla. The lock on mechanic lasts for about 4 seconds when the enemy is out of line of sight. Solid upgrade from vanilla, you can effectively kill 3 enemies in one mag and shoot around corners after lock on.

Pursuit Hydra

  • Effective distance: 180m (+90m or +100% more range)
  • Mag Size: 6
  • TTK: 1.4 seconds
  • Special Nuances: Faster lock on and almost 2x more lock on distance with increased rocket velocity makes this a gun to be feared for both man and machine. You should be able to cross-map lock on for most situations, and it is a 3 shot kill (-1 compared to vanilla on lock-on mode). Solid upgrade but still has a low amount of total ammo and slow reload speed.

Arcane Sentinel Beam

  • Effective distance: As far as the beam goes, red reticle is irrelevant
  • Mag Size: 80 (-170 or 68% less)
  • TTK: .42 (-2.92 or (83% faster) (FAST!)
  • Zoom Level: 1.4x
  • Special Nuances: Although this gun has very low total ammo,it boasts one of the fastest ttk’s. This gun is a must pick up, just practice ammo management.

Convergence Bulldog

Scatterbound Heatwave

Purging Shock Rifle

S7 Flexfire Sniper

  • Effective distance: 27m
  • Mag Size: 10 (+6 or %150 more)
  • TTK: .25ttk
  • Zoom Level: 3x
  • Special Nuances: Oddly enough this gun cannot kill in one shot, but comes with a lot of pros. It has increased rate of fire, a large magazine, and a highly accurate no scope. I would treat this as a 2 shot stalker.A serious upgrade if used in low to mid range combat.

Volatile Skewer

  • Mag Size: 1
  • TTK: Instant
  • Special Nuances: Explodes shortly after impact with environment, and explodes immediately after impact with enemy. Might be able to kill an overshield enemy in one shot.

Stalker Rifle Ultra

Rushdown Hammer

  • Effective distance: 13m (+8m or +160%)
  • Mag Size: Battery
  • TTK: Instant
  • Special Nuances: A serious upgrade to the vanilla hammer with a higher jump, faster sprint, farther slide, and a significantly increased range to kill. You literally cannot chip damage a spartan, because as soon as you get in range to do damage you straight up kill him.

Duelist Energy Sword

  • Effective distance: 11.7m (+4m or +52%)
  • Mag Size: Battery
  • TTK: Instant
  • Special Nuances: As with the hammer, a great upgrade with all the mobility upgrades.

Backdraft Cindershot

M41 Tracker

My personal top-5 must pick up variants:

  1. Arcane Sentinel Beam
  2. Convergence Bulldog
  3. Rushdown Hammer
  4. Striker Sidekick
  5. Flexfire sniper

My personal avoid-at-all-costs variants:

  1. Ravager
  2. Impact commando

Everything else in between is either mid, or high mid. Have fun and drop any Q’s in the comments. A huge thanks to u/hawkner for helping me record a lot of these videos, we cut a couple hours of videos into a couple minutes.

Here’s the link for anyone that wants to check it out from the source: (remove the space between “.” & “reddit”):
https://www. reddit.com/r/halo/comments/xfcz4n/definitive_guide_to_weapon_variants/

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This comment is meant to be a record of any missed information that wasn’t in the original post.

EDIT 1: The Impact Commando keeps the motion track on your HUD even when scoped in.

EDIT 2: The BR75 Breacher keeps the motion track on your HUD even when scoped in.

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Holy Mackerel
Holy Moly Donut Shop

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@Windjammer19 I take issue with some of 343’s weapon variants, obviously it’s just my opinion but I’ll share my thoughts on some.

MA40 Longshot
The AR’s identity has never been “long range” so I just feel this variant doesn’t do the AR justice. If they were going for a long ranged automatic weapon, I feel like it would have been cooler to have an automatic BR which has been seen in some Halo cinema.

Striker Sidekick
Just an overpowered and easy to use pistol, personally I don’t find this that interesting but I’m gonna use it every chance I get in multiplayer, too good to pass up.

They could have went with the MK50 SOCOM (inspired by the Halo 3 ODST Magnum) or even a full auto version of the Sidekick, I feel either would be more interesting.

BR75 Breacher
See my thoughts on the MA40 Longshot.

Impact Commando
I’ve tried this in multiplayer and it is just useless. Ironically, I think the Bandit rifle would work as a variant for this.

Calcine Disruptor
Just a stronger Disruptor, not really interesting as a variant.

Unbound Plasma Pistol
Don’t have much to offer on this.

Riven Mangler
Could have just went with the Mauler (fires a simultaneous spread of spikes instead of 3 ranged spikes).

Ravager Rebound
Useless, what were they thinking? I’ve seen a mod on youtube which makes the Ravager look way cooler, it fires a blazing trail of plasma when charged.

Rapidfire Pulse Carbine
It’s like the BR75 Breacher, just a faster fire rate, again showing 343’s lack of creativity.

Pinpoint Needler
The concept of being able to fire Needles anywhere that will seek an enemy is interesting, I wonder if this could have been achieved without a hard lock.

Pursuit Hydra
Just a better Hydra, again an unimagitive upgrade. What if it was automatic like the Halo 5 Hydra, or if it could be charged to fire multiple rockets at once?

Arcane Sentinel Beam
There’s a theme of more just giving a weapon more power and calling it a variant. This thing is broken IMO.

Convergence Bulldog
Again, just a ranged upgrade and increased mag size. Fine I suppose.

Scatterbound Heatwave
Why does this need auto aim richochet? I would have played off of the ability to change fire modes and brought to old weapons back together as one, the Scattershot and the Concussion Rifle. One fire mode would be a shotgun spread and the other would be a grenade launcher with knockback. It would be like the Flak Cannon from unreal tournament.

Purging Shock Rifle
Stronger, not interesting.

S7 Flexfire Sniper
Nornfang with bullet drop like the Skewer but increased damage would have been cooler I think.

Volatile Skewer
Can’t think of anything orginal, this is fine.

Stalker Rifle Ultra
Hate this because I would rathee just have the Carbine. Missed opportunity to make the variant the Particle Beam Rifle (HVT could have used one in Campaign for a great callback to Halo 2).

Rushdown Hammer
A better hammer, fine, satisfying, not super interesting.

Duelist Energy Sword
Same as Hammer, I’ve wondered about a “bloodblade” that has vampirism like Vampire Ball, absorbing shields of enemies.

Backdraft Cindershot
I like cluster explosions.

M41 Tracker
This makes perfect sense.

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MA40 Longshot and BR75 Breacher
Agreed. It think it would have been better to make an AR that performs better in CQC like the standard. Heck, with the absence of the SMG, they could just make an AR with a bigger mag, faster RoF, but shorter range to emulate that gun (unless they plan to add the SMG in the future).
As for the BR, perhaps a BR that fires a single round instead of a burst… oh wait… that’s the other BR. Which makes you wonder… The Bandit is a “short-range precision gun”, but the BR is meant to a be a short range BR. * sigh *

Striker Sidekick
Yeah, this thing just straight up isn’t ok. Pretty much no difference in the bloom (from my experience) and the TTK is cut in half. Very uninspired. At least copy the CE Magnum or something.

Impact Commando
Actual garbage.
"Hey, let’s take that precision rifle with a useless automatic function because of bloom and recoil and make the bloom and recoil EVEN WORSE. It’s asinine.
Maybe I’ll make a thread and see if any Impact Commando experts have any tips (if they exist).

Calcine Disruptor
Shooting the ground leaves a brief “landmine” that explodes after like 0.5 seconds. The burst then leads into chain damage if any valid objects are nearby. That ability to interact with the environment is neat, but how it actually functions in practice could use some work. Like I said before, the Disruptor could do with a full overhaul so it can take advantage of it’s unique traits, and naturally, the variants would follow.

Unbound Plasma Pistol
I feel like it’s supposed to be a Boltshot-esque redesign (H4), but it doesn’t have the one hit kill potential. Honestly I’d just make the variant have strong tracking and reintroduce the EMP and treat it more as a balancing option for standard MM.
Ex: Map #1 only uses Unbound Plasma Pistols for EMPing, but Map #2 uses standard Plasma Pistols because 343 wants to cut down on excessive EMPing. I don’t think ever variant has to be an upgrade. They just need to be different.

Maybe, but then the Mauler would be stepping on the Bulldog’s toes, with them both being 2-shot kill shotguns. A burst shot Mangler or maybe a slug launcher could be interesting. Also, does the Mangler use superheated spikes like the Spiker? If so, it could maybe have a slight burn status effect.

Ravager Rebound
It bounces off your target and hits you…
It explodes 20 meters away from where you aimed…
Maybe make the primary fire a single, direct shot (like a H3 Brute Shot) and the secondary fire spits out a constant gout of fire plasma that also spreads on the floor, in absence of a flamethrower.

Rapidfire Pulse Carbine
I don’t like the Pulse Carbine and I don’t like this one. Even the name is uncreative.
It’s very powerful though.

Pinpoint Needler
Agreed. You can even fire them at weird angles to get around cover if you already have a lock. I’m still a fan of the Talon of the Lost from H5 that added armor piercing to the Needler. Needlers were infamous for being useless against heavy armor, so being about to attack hunters and vehicles with that was a decent mix up.

Pursuit Hydra
H5 Hydra is best Hydra. A fast fire rate would have been more remarkable. I can barely tell the difference tbh.

Arcane Sentinel Beam
If my memory serves me, the Gauss was unofficially banned from standard forge maps in Reach by the community because of how insanely busted it was. This war crime may get the same treatment. The one thing I do like about it is how it has less than 1/4 of the standard SB’s ammo. So you won’t have this thing for long. Like I said before, “If you don’t want a gun to be too OP, don’t let player fire it. Lower the ammo.” This is a prime example.
It’s OP af.

Convergence Bulldog
It’s… very strong. Performs way outside of CQC, but I guess that’s the point. But it’s barely a shotgun at that point. But idk what I’d do to the Bulldog to get a variant (besides add the M90), so I’ll leave them alone.
It think would have preferred a Bulldog with a larger reticle and more spread. Make it easier to aim. Make it a blunderbuss or something lol.

I’m gonna be honest, I really like this variant (I agree with your sentiment though auto-aim shouldn’t be a thing). That said, I do like that it lets players take advantage of the ricochet.
But if we were to redesign it, I think changing the ammo from 6 pellets to a single wave could work. The Heatwave lives and dies by it’s pellet spread. Using a single wave would combine the damage of each pellet into 1 wave, making it easier to handle groups of enemies and take advantage of the Heatwave’s ability to penetrate matter. May drop the ricochet for balance reasons.
Look up DOOM Eternal’s Destroyer Blade. That’s what comes to mind for me.

And even more annoying for vehicle users.

S7 Flexfire Sniper
I actually quite like the bigger mag, rapid fire and shorter range. Feels very different from the original at least. I’s prefer Nornfang too. Ever since H4, a 1-shot, body shot sniper is probably the most enticing thing you can do. And marking the player with a red damage boost glow was just the cherry on top (or a laser sight in the case of the Binary Rifle).

Volatile Skewer
I think it might have been in my Needler Sandbox discussion thread, but it was mentioned that the Exploding Spike should be a Blamite shard instead (goes back to what I said about the Needler). It would fit in with the world better than a spike stuffed with space-monkey TNT. Maybe add slight slight tracking since it’s Blamite.
However, I don’t like how this spike is “heavier”. The drop is much sharper and has much less range. The normal Skewer is already hard to aim, and this is just bound to confuse Skewer novices.

Yep. Or what I said about combining the fire modes to get the best of both worlds.

Rushdown Hammer
It kills in 1 swing 100% of the time. That’s a W in my book.

That’s a really good idea. And I’m surprised Jega’s sword doesn’t already do that…
Personally, I’d like to see Prophet’s Bane come back. Attaching active camo to a weapon so long as it was equipped and had ammo was pretty cool. I also miss Vorpal Talon. It granted 2x thruster boosts, but that obviously wouldn’t work in Infinite.

Backdraft Cindershot
This thing confuses me. Sometimes I get the cluster some time I don’t. Still cool though.

M41 Tracker
Agreed. The Standard should lock on to air vehicles default IMO. I know we have the Hydra, but Rockets are slower, so I feel pilots can react better, whereas Hydra missiles rarely miss.

Side note: Typos galore probably sorry if this was a pain to read.

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This is cool, I wasn’t aware of this feature.

I would probably have the Mauler a 3 shot kill, so advantage over the Mangler would be no need for a headshot to achieve a 3 shot kill (as long as you were in range) but the main thing would be the return of the one-tap, one-slap combo.

Yes, I like that the richochet feature is more useful but I think this could have been done in other ways. For example, with a Scattershot fire more there would be a more traditional spread instead of the vertical / horizontal fire modes which would allow a richochet to cover more ground (I think the number of projectiles in the spread could also be increased accordingly). Then with the alternate fire mode, the Concussion Rifle would also be useful for richochet shots as it would explode after richocheting which would deal effective AOE damage.

I will have to check this out later.

I agree with this, however I’m sure this could have been achieved as a variant for another weapon (example Bandit or DMR) which would then give us the Nornfang.

Yes it is super powerful, and that’s fine, but I would have liked to see some more creativity. I can imagine a Hammer that retains its power at melee range but what if a shockwave effect was added to it, sending a wave of damage along the ground in the direction of the swing that would deal ranged damage. I think it would be interesting.

Anyways, I guess my thoughts could be summarized like this. I think variants were an opportunity for 343 to really express their creativity, these should be really cool alternatives to the traditional sandbox weapons. I love unique functions or interesting twists on classic weapons, but for the most part it feels like a bunch of the weapon variants are just added power with an added adjective to the name, I just don’t see the creativity for some variants. I think there could have been more effort.

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That’s probably the best solution if both guns were to stand side-by-side. I’m just still in the boat that the S1 Mangler was fine and just needed tweaks to it’s ammo/spawning. But that’s a conversation for another day.

Yeah more pellets per shot might’ve been a better/more balanced idea. Could even increase it to twelve so the Heatwave becomes a 1-shot kill IF you can land all of the pellets.

An exploding shotgun? Interesting.

It’s got some other trait that are pretty neat as well. I just haven’t brought them up since they aren’t that important. DOOM really is a great game.

Totally. I mean, it’s basically a Stalker Rifle at that point anyways. Only is is that the power has to be somewhat relative to the tier of the weapon. Can’t go turning tier-1s into super weapons.
They also could have let you use your radar while scoped. That was one of the perks on one of the H5 REQ snipers (Arrow of Time or something).

I’m mostly just lamenting how the current hammer whiffs a 1-swing kill so often.

What you’re describing sounds a lot like Tartarus’ Gavel from H5, one of the most popular weapons in the game. So popular, Halo Infinite’s Hammer actually took some inspiration from it. Toned WAAAY down of course.

100%.

It’s odd. 343 excelled at this in H5. Some guns were so unique, that they could have been a their own gun. There was a plasma pistol that shot black holes… That’s insane.

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The Breacher BR and Impact Commando don’t lose radar when you zoom in, while the vanilla variants do.

I bet that’s the same for scoped weapons that usually lose radar on zoom, but I only noticed this last night

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Hmm really? I’ll need to hop into campaign and check that out. Thanks.

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I noticed it when picking them up from weapon racks in The Yappening playlist. I assume campaign is the same config, but that’s not where I was playing yesterday when i noticed the radar staying up when zoomed in.

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I went in and checked them out. They seem to be the same and the radar does, in fact, not disappear with the HVT variants. I’m gonna update the main post. Thanks for the info.

Edit: Waypoint won’t let me edit my post… I’ll just put the updated info in the top comment. And any extra stuff I, or anyone else, finds out.

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Is the racer rebound supposed to be a crowd control gun? Like do direct hit projectiles always bounces towards another spartan, no matter what the impact angle?

The thing seems so worthless it’s crazy

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It’s seems to bounce based on the geometry. But I don’t use it enough to be sure. I just pull them off the racks so a better weapon has a chance of spawning in in its place.