Needler:
Increase super combine damage so it one shots overshield.
Why?
This adds a really cool utility to the Needler that is currently missing.
Plasma Pistol:
Increase charge shot damage so it takes two to kill instead of three.
(The first deleting the shield, the second fully killing a Spartan with no shields and full health.)
Give charge shot splash damage like Halo Reach.
Should take three shots to unshield and nine in body to kill.
Remove headshot multiplier.
Decrease RRR to nine/ten meters.
Charging increases RRR to what it was in the technical preview.
After projectile passes nine/ten meters it travels slower, charge shot is uneffected by this.
Why?
To me the Plasma Pistol was the worse weapon in the preview since the Pulse Carbine and Ravager were just better in every way. If you wanted to noob combo it was better to use the Pulse Carbine, if you just wanted a really powerful weapon that can also noob combo use the Ravager. The Plasma Pistols charge shot is just out dated by comparison in this new sandbox, and I feel like focusing on it stops it from evolving.
My thought process with this rework for the Plasma Pistol is to change the approach with the charge shot, you can still noob combo with it, and you can still EMP vehicles. But I want players to see it as a ranged melee attack, and the primary fire as a tool in CQC to spam, delete shields, and go in for the melee to finish them off.
Pulse Carbine:
This weapon is actually really great, so why is it here?
The weapon drills and every weapon having zoom is why.
How one should be using the Pulse Carbine is firing when the crosshair is red, this will make each of the four shots in the burst hit 100% of the time guaranteed, the problem however is RRR on the Pulse Carbine isn’t that good. This means you should be zooming with it to increase that RRR, but players don’t seem to be doing that? It seems the weapon drills failed to teach players to zoom with the Pulse Carbine, and perhaps the fact that the Pulse Carbine shares it’s 1.40x zoom with weapons like the AR also contributes to people just not zooming with it, since every other weapon with a 1.40x zoom feels pointless to use it with.
The Pulse Carbine sucks at close and long, but is unbelievably good at mid, and so the Pulse Carbine lives and dies by zoom as it helps it enable it’s mid range. Rework it’s weapon drill, or remove 1.40x zooms on weapons that don’t need them.
Sidekick:
Decrease damage so it takes 8 to unshield, 5 in the body or 1 in the head to kill.
Why?
The Sidekick has a ability to switch to it faster, but that might as well not exist if you’re just using it as a primary weapon. This also doesn’t stop it from still being the best combo weapon for the noob combo.