With all this talk of Halo becoming more competitive, my unhealthy obsession with the franchise and a recent fling with an online hat-based PC class shooter, I had an idea.
Teamwork is a very ‘pro’ thing, is it not? Flanking, support, covering fire and whatnot? What better way to encourage teamwork than by introducing weapons that have solely support roles? Perhaps with some medals attached to them to encourage their use?
Here are some ideas for support weaponry that I had. Not all of them are mine, but one or two are.
<mark>Hardlight Projector</mark>:
-Forerunner turret-style weapon (Third person and slowed movement/turn speed).
-When picked up, produces a large, 100-degree curved part-dome of hardlight shield with high durability. This can be used as mobile cover for the wielder’s team, but it will drop when it takes too much damage/the user is killed.
-Generated as a power weapon with a long respawn to prevent trolling/overprotection.
-Effective counters: Sneaking around/flanking to assassinate the user, throwing grenades over it, standing in front of it with a Scorpion and spamming its battery away.
<mark>Overshield Generator</mark>:
-Boxlike UNSC machine with a front data screen and glowing lines. Takes up one weapon slot.
-Spawns with two “ammo”. Ammo is used by going up to a teammate and attaching an additional unit onto their shield generator, giving them the ability to regen an overshield over their normal one.
-The attachment can be destroyed if shot while the overshield (not the ordinary shield) is down, removing the ability. Once attached, the player appears on the unit’s screen, detailing the ally’s shield status and the attachment’s health.
-If the player holding the unit drops the unit, the attachments lose their ability to regen, but the current level of overshield stays.
-If the user is killed and an opponent takes the unit, they can reverse the attachment’s current and drain the attached player’s shields away, leaving them vulnerable until it is removed by a teammate/damage, or by the attachee holding melee to strip it from their person, leaving them vulnerable temporarily but enabling recharge.
<mark>Stasis Gauntlet</mark>:
-Part of a Forerunner Combat Skin, covering only the right forearm. Takes up one weapon slot. Could be found in Campaign on high-level Prometheans. Appears as a compact, inert box on the ground.
-Functions similarly to the Didact’s ability and the Gravity gun from Half-life.
-When the reticule is held over an enemy player, their movement speed decreases rapidly. So long as contact is maintained, this effect continues. The enemy can break the connection by jumping and moving unpredictably, or moving behind fixed cover. Once the player’s movement speed reaches zero, they begin to choke, and their vision starts to darken. They can be choked to death, or the button can be released, and have the victim thrown under a Warthog/off a cliff/in a puddle.
-When used on a physics object, the object is pulled over to the user, where it can then serve as mobile cover, or be thrown at enemies to hopefully splatter/distract them. When picking up an object, it’s weight determines how quickly it is pulled over, and how fast the player can move while holding it. Grabbing a folding chair will have no observable difference and an almost instant pull time, while grabbing a destroyed Warthog will take a while and considerably slow the player.
-Obviously, this weapon is hard to get direct kills with, and is best used for slowing enemies so teammates can get easier headshots, or defending the user whilst destracting the enemy.
<mark>Plasma Disruptor</mark>: Covenant, long purple tube with glowing lights. Battery-powered.
-Holding down the trigger creates a shimmering field that causes Plasma weapon’s shots to disintegrate in mid-air. (Canonically they’re held together by magnetic fields so this could work)
-As it disintegrates plasma, another bar fills up, and when full, this allows the weapon to shoot a large-splash, EMP-ing railgun-style shot.
-Plasma weapons aren’t that popular in multiplayer right now, but bring out a good, common, multipurpose, skilful one (the new Storm rifle?) and they could become more used, allowing for this to be used more effectively.