Well, the Sidekick has a rate of fire of 360 RPM and is a 7 shot kill. The halo 5 magnum is a 5 shot kill and fires at 150 RPM.
If we want to make a hybrid between the sidekick and the halo 5 magnum and create a 6 shot kill pistol its RPM should sit between 150 RPM and 360 RPM, so somewhere at 255 RPM. 
I donāt think they want the Sidekick to fill the role of the Halo 5 magnum. Personally, I think thatās what the coming Bandit rifle is intended to fill. So, as a high fire rate pistol the Sidekick is more or less fine as it is, but they should slightly lower its fire-rate cap so that thereās less of an accessibility issue in being able to reach the max fire-rate between different input devices.
I get killed by it too much, pls nerf kthx bye.
Honestly I think itās in a decent spot. Then again in my mind I always think of how people used to have to start with the smg in Halo 2.
The near-pinpoint bloom profile, the very high rate of fire, fast reload time, the fact it outperforms most weapons in mid range and in many long range cases kind of disproves this. The pistol needed an upgrade from the originals, but this is more effective at killing than the AR in the same range bracket. Clip size has no effect the balance considering you can escape a combat situation very quickly in this game.
Itās called the sidekick. It should be a sidearm that is intended for finishing or as a last resort. Otherwise your primary is mostly invalid.
It does not. The sidekick makes you work for these kills. Theyāre not handed to you.
Plus, when had it ever hit long range?
They really are though. The AR at least has decent enough bloom to require some pacing at mid/high range. The sidekick is far too accurate considering the rate of fire itās given. You have to work for kills, regardless of the weapon, but the sidekick has a significantly lower skill floor than the majority of non-power weapons.
Increase the bloom and bloom degradation time, or drop the rate of fire, and the weapon automatically becomes better balanced and doesnāt somehow rival an assault rifle in damage application in the same ranges.
Plus, when had it ever hit long range?
Go into any BTB game and youāll get suppressed by a sidekick from across the map soon enough. Not as effective as the BR, but it still consistently hits at range and with too much ease.
I hope youāre not implying that the sidekick has a lower skill floor than the AR. I have used both weapons extensively and the AR is the easiest to use out of the two; thatās besides the point, though.
What sidekick have you been using? Did you confuse the striker sidekick with the regular one? 
You get suppressed by everything in this sandbox. 343 made descope super punishing so people arenāt zooming through the scope getting perfects like itās been in the past.
Not true. Itās intended to be a precision, close range weapon. No weapon - not a single one - is intended to be weak.
At least with the BR there does need to be a decent amount of skill, especially to pace your shots. Not the sidekick. The sidekick is a mini-lazer machine gun. The rate of fire seriously needs a cap on it. Fast reload and fast swap speed is the point. Its in the name sidekick it isnāt meant to be your main gun, yet it is so easy to spam shots at close-to-mid range that too many people use it as their main weapon. Why give an AR when the sidekick outperforms in every way?
Only exception to this was Halo 3. In fact Halo 3 was the only game in the series where the Magnum had a slower TTK (single wield) than both the default automatic AND precision weapons in the game. In every other game it has been faster or in H5ās case exactly tied with the other options.
This game plays crap enough, without collision etc.
Leave the weapons alone. Nothing else needs to be nerfed, nothing!
Getting suppressed, or in this case descoped is pretty normal. I still insist that the same descope mechanic should get added to the sidekick and AR.
On the topic of BTB, while the SK user can land one or two shot to descope me, I can always manage to kill them or take their shields off to make them hide in cover with half of the weapons on the map (Br, red laser rifle, commando, hydra, shock rifle). The SK is more of an annoying fly than effective, at range. This is coming from a casual player too.
I disagree. Mainly because the only places both weapons excel at are in their respective ranges. They become more like nuisances outside of their ranges so thereās no need to punish it futher by adding descope.
Yup. Itās rarely consistent at longer ranges.
I donāt like this. Scoping increases the effect range of all weapons, including these two. Unlike the rest of the sandbox, however, these two have no down side to zooming in. I would like them to have parody with the rest of the sandbox.
Itās amusing that people generally complain that the Sidekick is spammable hand-sniper.
But when it was added to SWAT people generally complained it was anything but.
And having said that I enjoyed it in SWAT. It was great having a headshot game where you could take some risks in open space. And then very satisfying when you did manage to pop someoneās melon from 20 warthogs.
If their increased range isnāt enough to reach the base effective range of a BR, essentially unscoped, is there really a need to add descope to the AR and SK? I feel like it would be overkill.
I say this because both the sk and AR canāt reach BR range. Like they canāt even match its unscoped range; the bare minimum.
This next bit is working with the idea of a 1v1 against same skilled players. Gaps in skill will obviously cause vastly different results. For the sake of the argument let's assume that these two are on the same level. Although we should, we will also not talk about other scoped weapons that are not as easy to use as the BR
Since their TTK is lower on the pistol and ar, if both are at mid range than a scoped AR/SK can kill or come very close to killing a BR user. Mid range being the effective range of the BR w/o zoom.
Now let's get out side of 1v1 ands go into a team setting where your team mate is being shot by an AR/SK and BR user in their respected scoped range.
If you shoot at the player with the BR they get knocked out of their scope and your teammate is more safe. You effectively can save or be saved in this case by brining the BR back to its base effective range.
If you shoot at the player with the AR/SK they stay scoped and your teammate is less safe. You effetely cannot save or be saved in this case since these two weapons cannot be knocked out of their scoped range back to base range.
I agree. No other weapons need to be nerfed. It was bad enough the BR was touched and made worst.
Hahaha sidekick go brrrrr
See I didnāt think so, itās my favorite thing in tac slayer. I usually use it as a nice warm up before competitive or other game modes.
The weapon shouldnāt be defined by its name just because its āThe Sidekickā. Otherwise, renaming the weapon to maybe āSerpentā would solve the problem?
The thing here tor realize is, that precision weapons will always be more dominant than automatics. How many times have I lost the Wasp stolen because I automaticād him instead of headshotting? If I wanted to use the AR to strip shields and get the pistol to headshot too, ill just use a plasma weapon to do that.