I do appreciate the work that has gone into separating the Plasma and Spike grenades functionally with the more directional cone-shaped blast from Spikes that can be extra dangerous in enclosed spaces when they bounce around.
But functionally they still feel a bit too similar, in fact as it stands right now the Plasma grenade pretty much just acts like a Spike/Frag hybrid, with the sticking quality of Spikes and the blast pattern of Frags. Two areas I think they could be separated is if Plasmas are significantly more effective upon sticking both vehicles and players, while spikes gained a"Tripmine" effect, and only detonated if the path is crossed or at the end of a more lengthy fuse, and on impact if it sticks a moving target.
For vehicle damage, it makes a lot of sense that an explosion of Plasma would melt the hell out of a vehicle’s hull while the spike grenade, which propels the shrapnel away from the surface it is stuck to as opposed to in towards it, would be mostly ineffective. This is also why it would deal less damage to stuck players, since only the initial detonation of the grenade would actually hit them, not all the shrapnel which would fly outwards away from them. So a stick would still pop shields, but not one hit kill. Instead where the Tripmine would shine in its ability to cut off an advance, retreat, or careless strafe pattern with a proximity detonation right when an enemy enters it’s cone of damage while stuck to a wall, floor, or ceiling. Also side note, laying the grenade in the path of a vehicle so it detonated the Tripmine should to do more damage to a vehicle than than sticking it outright. Making it somewhat more reliable than trying to bounce a frag perfectly so it hits the underbelly of an incoming hog.
Right now traps are one thing Halo Infinite doesn’t have much of in its sandbox, barring some complex and unreliable setups with shock weapons, or an overcharged Ravager. Having a nade that could act as a trap would be a nice way to shake up the sandbox.