My credentials (If it really matters, well here ya go.)
Been playing since Halo CE but I didn’t get competitive until Halo 3.
Beat every Halo campaign on legendary solo excluding Halo wars.
Maintain a 2.0 k/d and have played with Mlg players and participated in tourneys.
DISCLAIMER:These are my opinions, feel free to disagree but don’t be rude.
Weapons:
Br-Perfect.
Dmr-Decrease rof a little bit to make it less reliable mid range.
Carbine-Make it kill in 1 less shot.
LightRifle-Needs a bigger clip unzoomed imo. It burns through too fast.
AR-Perfect.
Strom Rifle-No comment. I never used. Heard it sucks though.
Suppressor-Perfect imo. Some may disagree.
Vehicles:
Warthog:Perfect. Good when used to maintain map control. Don’t rush in.
Ghost: A little weak on the armor side. But decent enough imo.
Banshee:Make banshee bomb cooldown longer. Recharges too quickly.
Tank:As balanced as its gonna get tbh. Better than Reach’s OP tank.
Wraith:Perfect. Slow, but can kill front side highjackers.
I realized I forgot the mantis.
(I can’t edit my post because since the update on these forums a lot of features are non existant on my kindle fire now.)
Mantis:Once people unlock the upgrade to be resistant to the pp and have more health on vehicles the mantis will be ridiculous. Nerf the armor now to compensate for the inevitable god tier mantis coming when people are higher ranks.
I disagree about the Warthog. When the people its riding against are decently organized it is just free points on wheels. It is EXTREMELY difficult to actually avoid the Plasma Pistol and Plasma Nades, especially since it it perfectly fine for a player to let you splatter him just to guaruntee a stick to finish you. (Sure, nice 20 point kill for the splatter you got. He’ll get two kills, a double, two from the grave and a stick medal.)
It is just a big annoyance 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time it fires rockets or has a Gauss Cannon and then actually poses serious trouble. The turret takes a hot minute to kill someone. In fact, it seems to kill a player slower then a DMR or BR would. Good for finishing a guy and good if you can get him unaware but what are the odds a Halo player is stupid enough to not notice a Warthog?
Hell, even if you COULD avoid the stickies and stay safe from Plasma pistol you still gotta deal with the fact that the DMR and BR do ridiculously good damage to vehicles. You can’t just avoid extremely accurate, extremely quick weapons while also being able to keep your offensive up. You also can’t just ‘kill the DMR/BR guy’ because he’ll spawn instantly with his DMR/BR and keep harassing you.
Edit: Storm Rifle is a big underdog. It racks up assists REALLY efficiently and you aren’t going to be caught stuck in a reload with it. It isn’t a bad gun, it just isn’t as deadly as the rest. As for your comment on the mantis, I say give it better shields and significantly less health. Make part of using it well involve being very careful with its shielding because you can’t really eat damage without them. A plasma pistol would then remain extremely threatening even if you WHERE resistant to the EMP. Actually, ANY weapon good against shields would now work particularly well.
I disagree about the Suppressor being perfect. It seems very under-powered to me. Also, I think the Banshee is rather under-powered, making the cool-down for the Banshee-bomb would make it more useless, due to the Banshee’s paper armor.
Good post, enjoyed reading it. My simple reply to this, and I know it sounds uneducated and generic (I have been playing Halo since 2001 as well) make the precision weapons so balanced to the point that it is preference on appearance and sound that ultimately determines which you use.
Fully autos should be this balanced as well but obviously not for long range.
Operator is the specialization your thinking of with the Mantis. It doesn’t make you immune to EMP’s, it just lets you recover from them slightly quicker. Any coordinated team (That is asking too much, I know) could easily destroy a Mantis, good pilot or not.