So at the Gamescom invitational, pro teams played Team Slayer across two maps: Fathom and Empire. However, rather than a traditional BR or DMR start, they were given the Assault Rifle.
The reception seemed mixed. Some pro’s argued that it emphasized team’s abilities to remember where the BR’s and DMR’s are located on the map, to offer an advantage over the other team. Others simply don’t want to be relying on their pistol for the majority of the game. To my understanding, the pistol’s damage has been increased and its rate of fire decreased; thus making it similar to the DMR in terms of performance.
But I have to ask: why? Why make pistol the most used weapon in professional play, when you could simply keep it BR/DMR; thus keeping everyone (as close to everyone as you can get in the Halo community) happy?
Sorry, I prefer AR starts. I believe it encourages map movement, and makes for a more fun arena experience. No matter how much the pistol gets used, the BR/DMR will be better weapons, and thus encourage movement.
So that the most versatile guns in the game are treated as a higher tier of gun, reflecting the fact that their tremendous utility severely impacts the importance of power weapons, map control, and map movement. BR starts and DMR starts were only ever standard because duel wielding made the pistol weak, and they balanced around what they had instead of adding a more balanced dedicated starting weapon.
All these MLG players on here keep touting that Map control and weapon control are important. Now they can highlight this as they control the DMR/BR spawns as well as the power weapon spawns.
Nah, the Pistol just needs a buff, preferably to a 4 shot.
There is a noticeable contingent of the competitive community that prefers not only single shot weapons but the idea of a Pistol utility weapon as well. Generally speaking, most people just want a utility weapon that can effectively fight at most ranges so that fresh spawns have a chance of effectively responding. I think the Halo 5 Pistol is almost there, it just needs a bit of a push.
For my part it doesn’t matter what form it takes, I just want a powerful utility weapon to keep me alive off spawn so that I actually have a chance to specialize with more powerful niche weapons. It doesn’t matter to me all that much what form it takes, pistol or rifle, that said I do have a soft spot for great Pistols in Halo (I <3 CE and ODST) so if forced to choose between I would probably take a utility pistol over a utility rifle.
Unfortunately it didn’t seem like 343 was willing to make any hard choices when it comes to the sandbox so we are left with a lot of redundancy and weapons with only minor differences. At the end of the day the BR is just a Pistol with slightly more range which means in 4v4 it will come down to personal preference more than anything. For competitive players though, they tend to appreciate single shot over 3rd burst in many cases from a competitive standpoint.
So I would suggest:
*Arena 4v4: AR/Pistol(buffed)
*Breakout: SMG/Pistol
*Arena BTB(when it is released): BR/SMG
**Warzone is loadout based so starting weapons are irrelevant.
They are going to have to eventually. Virtually no competitive player will latch on to those settings. Different, alternate settings will be create by the community and people will play customs until they are official.
> 2533274805497312;6:
> That was the most engaging and diverse “pro” gameplay I’ve watched, and was the first appealing competitive event I’ve ever seen. I hope it stays.
Yes, watching SMG battle after SMG battle was enthralling.
> 2533274805497312;6:
> That was the most engaging and diverse “pro” gameplay I’ve watched, and was the first appealing competitive event I’ve ever seen. I hope it stays.
This is highly relevant. I cant remember the last time I was excited to watch pro gameplay. I only happened to tune in because everyone said the game had crashed. And the gameplay actually managed to grasp my attention
> 2533274803493024;2:
> Nope
>
> Sorry, I prefer AR starts. I believe it encourages map movement, and makes for a more fun arena experience. No matter how much the pistol gets used, the BR/DMR will be better weapons, and thus encourage movement.
The need to find a BR/DMR probably doesn’t promote movement any more than regular BR starts to any appreciable degree. It’s power weapons and powerups which do that.
I honestly don’t see the problem with AR/Magnum starts. The weapons are useful enough to defend yourself off spawn but not too powerful to the point of getting cross mapped by every player of the enemy team each time you spawn.
Pro players just need to learn to accept these settings with open arms. If they just keep going back to BR starts, it’s just gonna lose it’s appeal and importance of moving throughout the map to gain control over those slightly more powerful weapons.
In the beta I actually had a blast trying to gain the upper hand by finding a better weapon after I spawn and sitting back picking off players.
> 2533274834089336;13:
> I honestly don’t see the problem with AR/Magnum starts. The weapons are useful enough to defend yourself off spawn but not too powerful to the point of getting cross mapped by every player of the enemy team each time you spawn.
>
> Pro players just need to learn to accept these settings with open arms. If they just keep going back to BR starts, it’s just gonna lose it’s appeal and importance of moving throughout the map to gain control over those slightly more powerful weapons.
>
> In the beta I actually had a blast trying to gain the upper hand by finding a better weapon after I spawn and sitting back picking off players.
Tier 2 autos are too powerful with AR/Magnum spawns. The pistol also doesn’t have the range or a low enough average kill time to stop players from constantly escaping from each other. What we saw the other day was by far the most disorganised, unskilled and uncoordinated pro Halo gameplay I have ever seen. It was a -Yoink-.
> 2533274795233660;5:
> All these MLG players on here keep touting that Map control and weapon control are important. Now they can highlight this as they control the DMR/BR spawns as well as the power weapon spawns.
>
> Seems competitive enough to me.
> 2533274805497312;6:
> That was the most engaging and diverse “pro” gameplay I’ve watched, and was the first appealing competitive event I’ve ever seen. I hope it stays.
True. The HCS was fun to watch. But when I watched them play Halo 5 at gamescon with the AR Starts. It was so exciting. I was begging for them to play another match.
> 2535471421573554;14:
> > 2533274834089336;13:
> > I honestly don’t see the problem with AR/Magnum starts. The weapons are useful enough to defend yourself off spawn but not too powerful to the point of getting cross mapped by every player of the enemy team each time you spawn.
> >
> > Pro players just need to learn to accept these settings with open arms. If they just keep going back to BR starts, it’s just gonna lose it’s appeal and importance of moving throughout the map to gain control over those slightly more powerful weapons.
> >
> > In the beta I actually had a blast trying to gain the upper hand by finding a better weapon after I spawn and sitting back picking off players.
>
>
> Tier 2 autos are too powerful with AR/Magnum spawns. The pistol also doesn’t have the range or a low enough average kill time to stop players from constantly escaping from each other. What we saw the other day was by far the most disorganised, unskilled and uncoordinated pro Halo gameplay I have ever seen. It was a -Yoink-.
The pistol’s range was buffed since the beta dude. It was performing just fine in the gamescom invitational. If you were to buff the kill time of the pistol by making it a four shot, it’s just going to make any other utility weapon useless because competitive players will ALWAYS use the pistol. Pro players are always going to abuse the weapon with the shortest kill time.
What I saw the other day was by far the most varied, interesting, engaging pro gameplay I’ve ever seen. A lot better than seeing 1v1 BR battles and getting melted by multiple people cross map all the damn time.
Arena needs to be BR starts. No exceptions. No excuses. Stop trying to make ARs happen.
Only the super casual people are promoting it and they’re the ones who will spend most of their time in Warzone anyways. Don’t promote 343’s screwing up Arena.
