I like the Stalker Rifle a lot. It’s a good marksman rifle. :]
The Shock Rifle with it’s one shot kill - “Am I a joke to you”? Lol
The Stalker Rifle was designed primarily for Campaign I think, replacing the Beam Rifle for Jackal Snipers. That’s fine and all but the Banished now have no standard precision weapons, meanwhile the UNSC have both the BR and the Commando. Seems like the Banished need another weapon here for sure.
Edit: What’s wild about the Stalker Rifle variant the “Stalker Rifle Ultra” is its basically just the Carbine. Am I crazy or did they miss the perfect opportunity to make the variant more like a Beam Rifle? Imagine an HVT in campaign that is a Jackal Sniper with a posse of Jackal Snipers using Beam Rifles in a Sniper Nest / Cave. Would be such a genius nod to Halo 2 lol.
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Yea, honestly have no idea why they didn’t design a “pike rifle” for the Banished use, especially since the Needle Rifle existed in the past. They instead opted to put the Commando in the hands of the Banished. Kinda weird.
Wouldn’t mind a Pike Rifle now, filling the niche of the Covenant Carbine and then reworking or removing Commando entirely.
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Bloom and recoil are fine. It just needs to return to 7/10 optimal/bodyshot kill damage as opposed to its current nerfed state of 8/13.
The Shock Rifle is a power weapon by Halo’s traditional definition (being any weapon that kills in one shot). Heck in PvP it’s arguably much stronger than the Sniper due to it being much easier to actually land headshot kills with.
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The commando is one of those guns that was conceptualized by someone that doesn’t know what guns are, but it was added due to content restraints and presumably the traits that the original creator had.
I want the Reach M392 DMR back. Its a better and more funner gun to use than the commando in every way possible.
DMR is too mindless and easy to use. Commando actually takes some practice and recoil control.
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Agreed, but in Infinite it share’s a spawn with the Stalker Rifle making it a Tier 2 weapon not a Tier 3.
I think they should add the Spartan Laser to be a counterpart to the Skewer, move the Shock Rifle to a counterpart for the Sniper (it could be tweaked a bit as a power weapon, maybe 6 shot magazine instead of 4, maybe better chain lightning damage). Then they could change the Commando back to a 7 head / 10 body kill and make it a counterpart to the Stalker Rifle and bring in a new weapon to be a counterpart to the BR.
It’s quite literally a Sniper with the added function of shocking vehicles. In that regard, it’s probably one of the most functionally unique weapon 343 has come up with in a long time if not ever. The last time they have come up with something interesting like this was the Sticky Deto in 4, which was never to be seen again.
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If they tweaked the Shock Rifle to require two shots to kill, but have shock damage that could also kill in two “arcs” it would definitely feel more unique, and less like a power weapon than it does now. Situationally being able to take out two or three players with only two shots would be it’s strength as a tier two, but being a bit less effective than it is now in 1v1s being it’s weakness. It’s counterpart, the Stalker, accels at 1v1 duels, but doesn’t provide any real advantage against multiple enemies or vehicles, so the two would share an interesting relationship.
That would be way more suitable for a tier 2 weapon in terms of power, and way more unique than “Sniper that emps vehicles”, which is more or less what it is now.
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While I agree with this, I love the Shock Rifle and don’t want it to be nerfed. I’d rather see it become a power weapon.
Yeah, it’s cool in all it’s just… Literally an easier to use Sniper and nothing else. The whole reason the Beam Rifle is supposedly not in this game is because it was just a sniper with more bullet magnetism.
It’s not easier to use than the Sniper though:
- It fires beam-bursts, the entire beam needs to be on the Head for the duration of the shot to get the kill, unlike the Sniper.
- While it EMP’s vehicles the Sniper literally destroys vehicles.
- While the Shock Rifle does chain damage, it isn’t that much and it is a 3 shot kill if you can’t hit the head while the Sniper is a 2 shot kill.
I think the only thing that the Shock Rifle does better than the Sniper is it is more accessible and it has more reserve ammo (which is fair considering the Sniper is better at all that other stuff). In that sense the Shock Rifle is harder to use but potentially more rewarding. It is vastly different than the Beam Rifle and the Binary Rifle in that regard and IMO the Shock Rifle is the best alternate Sniper Halo has ever had. It stands apart from the Sniper.
EDIT: FYI I posted an old thread that had a score based on the weapon drills, this was how the Shock Rifle and Sniper Rifle scored.
- S7 Sniper = 37,565*
- Shock Rifle = 36,180*
So the Shock Rifle is clearly a “Power Weapon”, but it is not better than the Sniper, just different (if you prefer the Shock Rifle over the Sniper that is understandable, that’s what’s great about some weapon overlap, but objectively speaking the Sniper is the superior weapon).
It is purely easier on account of it getting noticeably more aim assist on scoped shots, and any aim assist at all on unscoped ones.
The act of firing it to land a kill in a single shot is much easier to do.
I hadn’t noticed, maybe the extra aim assist is for the Beam vs single shot? Either way I’d say the Shock Rifle is a balanced counterpart to the S7 Sniper.
I assume you mean the Commando and not the ‘carbine’ as no such weapon exists.
I’ve found that the Commando is 10x harder to get kills with when you ADS. If you hipfire with it, it’s somehow much better to control.
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Really? Maybe it’s just me but I struggle with the Shock Rifle. I only just started having some success with it. Seems to me like it got some sort of buff with S2, even though it wasn’t listed in the patch notes.
If given enough space to operate, I routinely rip faces off with the S7.
I think the Sniper is more forgiving, I’ve only ever noticed the Shock Rifle’s prominence in BTB… its more available than the Sniper and easier to keep your aim steady at longer distances
@Invoked_by_Red Definitely,
The Commando is effected by descope so zooming in makes it more likely for you to get your aim messed up if someone shoots back.
I’m completely bad with Shock Rifle. Maybe it’s only me but I feel like it’s shot sound have kinda lag that makes it uncomfortable to use. The same thing was with DMR in H5, I was much better with it’s silent variant than standard.