Ok, so the BR still kinda remains the same but with a slight nerf to range by reducing the bullet magnetism and accuracy. The DMR’s fire rate was basically nerfed to a point were a Magnum can out gun it, which I hate. The AR’s DPS was decreased but now has headshot capability. SMG is nerfed to hell as it now has a much lower DPS and greater spread than before and now longer isn’t a decent CQB weapon. I know they are not going to do anymore weapon tunings but I have to voice my opinion because I have been a long time Halo fan and have been playing this game since launch. So in my opinion of the current weapons is the balance sucks. Although some weapons had improvements and such it still isn’t good. In warzone why in anything would you pick a DMR. The DMR takes 5 shots to kill and the magnum takes 4. The argument that the Magnum is a mid-range weapon and is nowhere as efficient as a DMR at long ranges is beyond me. The DMR is now obsolete because it can be outclass by a Tactical Magnum. The Tactical Magnum is essentially the same as the original but with greater range and has a greater zoom for ADS. Since the DMR and Magnum have similar fire rates the DMR will be outgunned. Plus you wouldn’t bother picking it up in arenas because most confrontations are mid-range that BR’s are super efficient in and can also out gun a DMR. This weapon is literally useless. So please return it to the faster fire rate again. I also don’t like the AR. Even though the AR is now potent to skillful use it still is inferior to the Magnum. My argument is clear, if both weapons are starters why should there be a disparity between them in terms of kill time and accuracy? Technically an Assault Rifle is a intermediate cartridge and is a standard issue weapon because of its versatility a Magnum is just a sidearm or secondary weapon. Plus I don’t understand how a weapon with 550 RPM has that much recoil. It is actually still more harder to use a AR compared to a magnum due to the insane bullet magnetism the Magnum has and also the BR. Since the AR is now headshot capable I find it still hard trying to use the weapon in its supposed use of scenarios of the ranges as I cannot get headshots easily compared to when using Magnum or BR. It could be probably me and my bad aim but I find it easier with the precision weapons at getting headshots. I don’t know if the current AR has a longer time to kill but it looks like it and in my opinion I feel like decreasing the TTK (time to kill) would be better as you still have to burst at longer ranges and bursting prolongs the TTK. If not then remove the recoil or lower it. Already as bad as it is this weapons accuracy is not as great so removing recoil will probably make it fair better in getting the headshots. I know other players opinions will say “The weapons should be left alone” or “AR is not a precision weapon” and such. But I don’t think just because a weapon is not a precision weapon doesn’t mean it has to be -Yoink-. The AR is in a really weird position considering that the sentiment is that Automatics are only good for CQBs when that’s literally the SMGs role and how the shotgun is for really close range. So where does the AR fit in? If the primary role of the AR is for close to mid range then that means it should be a versatile weapon but it fails to even do that because even the BR is more proficient at the role and explains why they literally removed it as a starting weapon in the HCS recently (You start with the gunfighter magnum). In most other shooters the AR is more represented as a versatile weapon because the definition of an AR and its role is to be an assault weapon to be used in different kind of engagements. But someone will say “Halo is Unique to most Shooters” well yeah, and no. Since Halo is technically a realistic offshoot it should hold integrity with weapons as well since they’re based of real life counter parts of our universe. Oh, another thing. The DMR literally uses the same cartridge as the AR but does more damage per bullet. LOL In lore the DMR actually has a Automatic fire mode and is usually most used. In the cutscenes in Halo 4: Spartan Ops and Halo 5: Guardians you’ll see moments were the DMR is shooting in automatic because it is the same as an AR but with more tactical adjustments such as the use for attachments rails. It makes me laugh that in Halo: Reach the loadouts that have the AR and DMR make no sense to me especially in the Campaign. But gameplay and lore are different and in my opinion that affects the way I see Halo and how I experience it as there’s like literally no integrity then but whatever.
This is all in my own opinion and Halo 5 will probably never get another weapon tuning update and I’m thinking a lot of players will probably disagree further lessening the chances and such but yeah.
Update: It’s kind a been a year after this post and I can see the responses. Yes I was wrong about the number of shots to kill with the DMR and Magnum but they are the same it’s just that the DMR has a slower rate of fire and has a lower TTK (still though the Tactical Magnum can be as effective). They do not sway that much on my opinion but we can agree that the weapon tuning was oof but in general the weapons were far more useable in comparison to the other Halo Sandboxes that came before. Let’s just see until Halo: Infinite of how they’ll balance the weapons so we can continue ranting to 343 Industries. XD I just hope they make the weapons competent in their role.
Yeah before there was variety with the halo weapons and you had many different combinations you could have (SMG/BR, Brute plasma/DMR) now it’s just about the magnum it’s almost as bad as Combat evolved now one even bothers to use any other weapon other than the brute plasma or plasma pistol for noob combos. I really wished they never changed things in the HCS update.
(FYI the magnum takes 5 to kill and 7 shots with no headshot while the DMR takes 6 with no headshots)
> 2535431951485053;2:
> Yeah before there was variety with the halo weapons and you had many different combinations you could have (SMG/BR, Brute plasma/DMR) now it’s just about the magnum it’s almost as bad as Combat evolved now one even bothers to use any other weapon other than the brute plasma or plasma pistol for noob combos. I really wished they never changed things in the HCS update.
> (FYI the magnum takes 5 to kill and 7 shots with no headshot while the DMR takes 6 with no headshots)
What do you mean? The magnum does 4 and the gunfighter magnum is 6 and the DMR is 5 in terms of perfect kills and it has always been. I watched videos that do analysis on the weapons on Azolai who has confirmed it.
Edit: Nevermind you’re right
I totally agree with the SMG. I have no idea what to do with this thing. Maybe get a few crawlers in WZFF with extended mags… - The AR is crazy good in mopping up low health enemies (esp. with that headshot multiplier). In 1on1 scenarios however, I see no benefit using the AR over the Magnum. - Some people may just like the feel/sound/aesthetics of the gun and don’t just look at the performance.
> 2533274798980159;4:
> What’s the TL:DR?
>
> I dont have the attention span for all that
AR still sucks, it should be on par with magnum or to be a versatile weapon because that’s what AR is in definition. SMG is basically nerfed to oblivion and DMR is pointless when a tactical magnum does the same. BR still kinda OP.
the title update ruined h5 variety for me sooo many weapons are no longer used by player like the br, smg and the dmr it has made the game stale as most fight are now pistol vs pistol
BR- It’s alright but, I only use it if I run out of ammo in my magnum. The recoil makes it unreliable at range which is why I don’t understand why it’s still in btb.
SMG- It’s still good at CQB you just have to be 2 inches or less away from the player.
DMR- Is still good and only inferior to the magnum at close range, which is what it isn’t designed for. The RRR of the DMR is longer and it has a scope, so it is better at long range not to mention it’s a 2 shot melee while the magnum is 3. And the fire rate is only slight slower than the magnum but fast enough to still get a trade. In Arena though, the tactical magnum is superior to the DMR only because most maps are small and don’t have a DMR. Most maps also don’t have a tac magnum.
AR- Barely inferior to the magnum at close range. The player with the magnum can afford to miss only 1 shot before the AR kills them. Unless they’re aiming at the head of course, I’ve seen an AR kill a one-shot player with one shot to the head! At midrange it’s basically inferior to every other weapon.
(In HCS, now Team Arena you start with the standard magnum)
(And the magnum is a 5 shot kill)
Not a big fan of the post-tuning weapon sandbox either. Mind you, I still think it is still better than Halo 2 or 3’s sandboxes (weakest in the entire series, by a country mile, IMO), but launch Halo 5 felt just so much better. Every single weapon had a role and could be viable. Now its back to the H2/3 model of not “picking anything up unless it’s a power weapon”.But, yeah lore has nothing and should have nothing to do with weapon balancing. Otherwise all plasma shots would behave like overcharged plasma pistol bolts and would slag anything within a 10 meter radius. And don’t even get me started on the Needler…
Anyways, I do hope 343 go back to their original design philosophy for Infinite.
> 2535443548700992;7:
> the title update ruined h5 variety for me sooo many weapons are no longer used by player like the br, smg and the dmr it has made the game stale as most fight are now pistol vs pistol
Not sure where you get that. May be something with 4v4 Arena and Magnum starts but BTB is nothing but variety with weapon use, even now that it’s Ranked. The weapon sandbox is the most balanced and fair that it’s ever been, but having a Magnum primary is what H5 was built around. It works but I’ll agree in Arena it’s the go-to, but just like the BR was in H2/3/4. I personally despise the Magnum, which is why I even went to BTB in the first place.
Overall the Weapon Tunings did a lot of very good things for the arena sandbox, but it honesty wasn’t ideal for the warzone environment; especially, early on when there wasn’t any REQ cost adjustments. The REQ costs did not appropriately fit the roles/usefulness of the weapons after the tuning changes; though, eventually some REQ cost adjustments were made that proved helpful toward addressing this particular imbalance issue, but it wasn’t really a very thorough adjustment to fully re-balance that particular environment post-tune.
Nevertheless, the tuning process itself did leave a few weapons in a pretty lackluster state. The primary one is the Halo 5 Battle Rifle (H5BR), but to a lesser degree the Submachine Gun (SMG) and gunfighter Magnum also find themselves as being fairly lackluster options too.
The H5BR is outshined within it role leaving it in a pretty useless state. The biggest mistake they made was reducing it’s effective ranges. Had they of made all the other changes while leaving the effective ranges alone it would have had the necessary trade-offs to give it some competitive merit in relation to the other precision weapons it typically competes against. This is also why I continue to advocate for the Long-Barrel variant to replace the regular H5BR throughout the arena and social environments since it returns the vast majority of the previous intended effective ranges and re-enforces the weapon as the useful mid-range weapon it’s meant to be.
Not to mention, I’m not a big fan of the long-range scoped BRs receiving a significant performance advantage related to the removal of the vertical recoil while scoped. A big reason why, is that it just doesn’t make any authentic sense between variants; meaning, the weapon variant concept losses its practical consistency between variants which, to me, is a shame.
The role of the SMG has been neutered too much in my opinion. It’s direct competition relates to the Storm Rifle, Plasma Rifle, Suppressor, and Assault Rifle, but at the closer ranges it also overlaps with plenty of one hit kill weapons. I don’t think it would take much to help improve its role just enough to make it appropriately useful. I’ve advocated for increasing its fire rate such that .100 of a second is shaved off it’s TTK. Increasing its lethality just a tad bit would help improve its position in relation to its competition and help re-enforce it as the short-range bullet hose that it’s meant to be.
The gunfighter Magnum should not have been given any horizontal random spread. The controllable vertical drift already keeps its effectiveness at range in check, so there was no reason for the added randomness which just makes it all that much more frustrating and unreliable to use. It’s already an extremely niche precision weapon and increasing its unreliability just makes it that much more useless within its particular role.Outside of those particular changes I also wouldn’t mind seeing some extra adjustments; though, they’re not as vital. Once again allow crouching to have an effect on the weapons such as slightly reducing the vertical recoil on the H5BR, slightly reducing the random bullet spread of the Carbine, and slightly reducing the drift or spread expansion on fully automatic weapons like the AR and SMG. Also, once again allow Smart-Linking or Scoping to ever-so-slightly tighten the max cone-of-fire for fully automatic weapons like the AR and SMG.