The Pros and Cons of Dual-Wielding

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

First introduced in the second installment of the Halo Franchise, dual-wielding has brought a considerable amount of benefits, but also problems, to Halo. In this very thread, I will outline most of the commonly believed advantages and disadvantages of dual-wielding, and with the information, we will decide of Dual-Wielding should return in Halo 5.

ADVANTAGES:

  • Without a doubt, Dual-Wielding adds a lot of creativity to combat and in how the player can handle a situation. With dozens of different combinations and ideal functions for each, the player can effectively handle almost any situation with the correct combo. For example, if you want to spray your opponents with quick and lethal efficiency, you’d dual wield the shield-stripping Plasma Rifle, and the Armor-shredding SMG. On the other hand, if you wanted to quickly strip your opponent’s shields and give them a quick and deadly pistol-whip, you’d dual-wield the Plasma Pistol and the Magnum in the ultimate noob-combo. Regardless of how you use the feature, dual-wielding adds variety and creativity in how you can win a battle.- Dual-Wielding can even help balance some of the issues with Personal Loadouts by using its weakened weapons as potential “secondary weapon” slots. Without dual-wielding, removing the Boltshot and the Plasma Pistol from loadouts would leave the Magnum unaccompanied and alone due to how there isn’t another weapon to fill in the gaps. However, since dual-wielding results in individual weapons being weaker, putting the SMG and the Plasma Rifle in loadouts as secondary weapons would certainly be balanced and would also help cater to the player’s preferred play-style.

DISADVANTAGES:

  • In Halo: CE, both the Magnum and the Plasma Rifle were absolute BEASTS. However, come Halo 2, these once godly weapons were reduced to mere shadows of their former selves so that they can be balanced as dual-wieldable weapons. The Magnum’s potential 3sk and scope were removed, and the Plasma Rifle was stripped of all unique features except for extra shield damage. In Halo 3, little changed. In fact, the Magnum was made even worse, it’s RoF was halved to the point that it’d still be useless even when dual-wielded. Even when dual-wielding was removed in Reach, the Plasma Rifle was still never restored to its former self, and now the weapon has become a thing of the past - replaced by the Storm Rifle, which STILL doesn’t have the benefits of the CE Plasma Rifle.- Another issue with dual-wielding is how many abilities that the player has are impossible during dual-wielding. Since both weapons are controlled individually by the player, the grenade button is used by firing the left weapon, so a lot of flexibility is removed during combat. Meleeing is impossible during dual-wielding, and with the introduction of features such as Armor Abilities and Sprint, dual-wielding has the potential to be used rarely if the second weapon is dropped once the player engages in these abilities.

So, with all of that being said, does should Dual-Wielding return in Halo 5, or should it be lost in the past?

Debate. Discuss. And please vote.

2

You forgot one of the main reasons why Dual Wielding was left out, Balance, dual wielding is hard to balance.

3

> You forgot one of the main reasons why Dual Wielding was left out, Balance, dual wielding is hard to balance.

Good point. But I did somewhat go into detail about that with the problems that resulted in the balance of dual-wielding. Also, balance is somewhat of a broad topic.

And I also wanted to have an equal number of advantages and disadvantages.

4

You say Dual Wielding adds combos and synchronization between weapons, but I disagree.

Isn’t firing my Plasma Rifle to strip shields, then switching to my SMG to finish them off essentially the same thing? The only barrier is the slow switch speed, which can be fixed. This also puts more emphasis on executing combos properly, as you can’t instantly fire your second weapon.

Now of course, there is one other difference, that Dual Wielding allows me to have three weapons on my person, while what I have suggested above does not. Perhaps, using a three weapon system, we can have two basic weapon slots, then a third slot for power weapons using the right arrow on the D-Pad. So basically, you spawn with AR/BR and an empty slot, then you pick up a power weapon and it’s stored in your third slot. Y switches between your primary and secondary slots, while the third slot is always accessed with the D-pad.

5

> You say Dual Wielding adds combos and synchronization between weapons, but I disagree.
>
> Isn’t firing my Plasma Rifle to strip shields, then switching to my SMG to finish them off essentially the same thing? The only barrier is the slow switch speed, which can be fixed. This also puts more emphasis on executing combos properly, as you can’t instantly fire your second weapon.

It looks like dual-wielding adds the same level of combos and synchronization as the scenario you just provided, except dual-wielding just does it quicker. Also, I wouldn’t recommend ‘fixing’ the switch speed, as it’s very important in balancing certain weapons. Though to the contrary, a switch to a Magnum should be near instant to allow for more effective pistol-whipping.

> Now of course, there is one other difference, that Dual Wielding allows me to have three weapons on my person, while what I have suggested above does not. Perhaps, using a three weapon system, we can have two basic weapon slots, then a third slot for power weapons using the right arrow on the D-Pad. So basically, you spawn with AR/BR and an empty slot, then you pick up a power weapon and it’s stored in your third slot. Y switches between your primary and secondary slots, while the third slot is always accessed with the D-pad.

That’s actually not that bad of an idea, but it could potentially mess with the control scheme of Personal Ordnance. But then again, I think that we can all agree that PODs can stay in the past and never return.

6

> It looks like dual-wielding adds the same level of combos and synchronization as the scenario you just provided, except dual-wielding just does it quicker. Also, I wouldn’t recommend ‘fixing’ the switch speed, as it’s very important in balancing certain weapons. Though to the contrary, a switch to a Magnum should be near instant to allow for more effective pistol-whipping.

Well, we could give weapons unique switch speeds.

Rocket Launcher would be equivalent to what it is now.
SMG/Sidearms would pull out fairly fast.
Rifles would be a bit slower.
Etc.

> That’s actually not that bad of an idea, but it could potentially mess with the control scheme of Personal Ordnance. But then again, I think that we can all agree that PODs can stay in the past and never return.

I don’t believe personal ordnance should return.
If it does, we could remove requisition and just use the up arrow.
If you are also against requisition being removed…I don’t know what to say.

7

> DISADVANTAGES:
> - In Halo: CE, both the Magnum and the Plasma Rifle were absolute BEASTS. However, come Halo 2, these once godly weapons were reduced to mere shadows of their former selves so that they can be balanced as dual-wieldable weapons. The Magnum’s potential 3sk and scope were removed, and the Plasma Rifle was stripped of all unique features except for extra shield damage. In Halo 3, little changed. In fact, the Magnum was made even worse, it’s RoF was halved to the point that it’d still be useless even when dual-wielded. Even when dual-wielding was removed in Reach, the Plasma Rifle was still never restored to its former self, and now the weapon has become a thing of the past - replaced by the Storm Rifle, which STILL doesn’t have the benefits of the CE Plasma Rifle.- Another issue with dual-wielding is how many abilities that the player has are impossible during dual-wielding. Since both weapons are controlled individually by the player, the grenade button is used by firing the left weapon, so a lot of flexibility is removed during combat. Meleeing is impossible during dual-wielding, and with the introduction of features such as Armor Abilities and Sprint, dual-wielding has the potential to be used rarely if the second weapon is dropped once the player engages in these abilities.

Well, in Halo 2 the Battle Rifle was created to fulfill the role that the Magnum had in Halo CE. The Magnum was changed to behave like an actual sidearm, it’s not the ideal weapon, but it will still help you if you’re out of ammo for your primary or just need to do some quick damage to your attacker before you go down. The main problem resulting from the Plasma Rifle’s change in behavior is that there was no weapon made to fulfill the role that the Halo CE Plasma Rifle had. The Repeater was close, but still far from fulfilling the role and performance that the CE PR had.

The tradeoff for dual-wielding is that you’re sacrificing grenades and melee for extra firepower. Support weapons are the same, except they also require you to sacrifice speed.

8

I see no reason for it not to come back. Right now 343i is having a hard time with Sidearms, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they need to compete with Primaries and at-times power weapons for the sake of balance, and thus wind up a little bit broken.

Re-introducing Dual Wield will allow sidearms to get the nerf they kind of need right now, from dropping/removing the Plasma Pistol’s ability to track vehicles, to reducing the Boltshot to 2 overcharges to kill, and removing the Magnum’s scope (which it really doesn’t need in it’s current iteration it is awesome without it). All of this can be done without butchering these weapons because in the end they will be dual wieldable.

Also none of that BS in Halo 3 where dual wielding reduced the damage your shots would deal. Heck I’d even go so far as to imagine a Spartan or Elite could single hand sidearm-sized weapons without the accuracy drop a regular human being would suffer. Just make sure the sidearms are balanced so that they are weaker than primaries on their own, and slightly stronger than primaries dual wielded (at the cost of sacrificing Nades, AA’s, and Melee without dropping your second weapon).

Anyway when it comes to the cons of how Dual Wielding affected the Magnum and Plasma Rifle, to be honest, the Magnum needed the change. The BR and later DMR were created for the sole purpose of keeping the niche the Magnum filled in CE alive. A Utility weapon with great accuracy, reliably fast killtime, and headshot capability/skill gap. As for the Plasma Rifle, we can all agree noone wanted it to go through that. If anything, the Plasma Rifle from CE and the one from Halo 2/3/Reach were so radically different from one another, that Bungie may as well have made a whole new weapon to do what Halo 2-Reach’s Plasma Rifle did, and then kept the Plasma Rifle the way it was. Why they didn’t is beyond me but Dual Wielding as a mechanic isn’t to blame for it, just poor decision making.

We’ll all miss the days when the Plasma Rifle was actually a Rifle.

9

> > It looks like dual-wielding adds the same level of combos and synchronization as the scenario you just provided, except dual-wielding just does it quicker. Also, I wouldn’t recommend ‘fixing’ the switch speed, as it’s very important in balancing certain weapons. Though to the contrary, a switch to a Magnum should be near instant to allow for more effective pistol-whipping.
>
> Well, we could give weapons unique switch speeds.
>
> Rocket Launcher would be equivalent to what it is now.
> SMG/Sidearms would pull out fairly fast.
> Rifles would be a bit slower.
> Etc.

It should certainly be in context to the size/weight of each weapon.

> > That’s actually not that bad of an idea, but it could potentially mess with the control scheme of Personal Ordnance. But then again, I think that we can all agree that PODs can stay in the past and never return.
>
> I don’t believe personal ordnance should return.
> If it does, we could remove requisition and just use the up arrow.
> If you are also against requisition being removed…I don’t know what to say.

I think both Armor Mods and Ordnance should be removed. I see no benefits from either of them (except for Custom Games, of course).

10

NOOOOOOO! I meant to pick “yes” but my finger tripped! -Yoink!- iPhone!

11

I feel it would only add more complications to the balance of the weapon sandbox.

12

I don’t think it’s valuable enough to bring back. In Halo 2 the assault rifle was removed to make most of the dual wields viable and in Halo 3 they were nerfed and felt redundant

Dual wielding just doesn’t feel that essential to Halo combat.

13

The advantages don’t outweigh the numerous drawbacks.

Dual wielding and secondary weapons(in loadouts) have the same issue in that we are left with a bunch of worthless half weapons that are only useful when being dual wielded or in support of another weapon.

The marginal increase in the speed of ‘combos’ doesn’t even come close to making up for the loss of grenades and melee. Dual wielding is all flash with no substance.

For the sake of the sandbox dual wielding needs to stay gone.

14

I feel the best way for dual wielding to work is to only make the side arm matched with the same gun. Similar to some of the side arms in arena shooters like Unreal and Marathon, you may start off having a pistol which is underpowered compared to many of the guns, but come across another pistol and the power can become equivalent to the primary guns.

While visually you would be holding two guns, it would essentially still function as one weapon, only being upgraded because it is paired up. It would be much easier to balance than the mix-and-match dual wielding of past Halos. There would also be the benefit of switching weapons, meleeing, and tossing grenades without losing one of the dual guns.

Personally I feel this should only be allowed for the starting sidearms, and hopefully if the loadouts are limited to UNSC weapons those can be the pistol (long ranged precision), the SMG (mid-range full auto), and something like a sawed-off shotgun (I’m imagining it similar in power and range to the Halo 3 Mauler, but only one shot before a long-ish reload to balance it as a starting weapon).

This is pretty much the only way I could see dual wielding come back without the nightmare of weapon balancing and the other draw backs which came before.

15

It should come back, but only side-arms should have it applied, and if nothing else, for epicness’s sake just make the Energy Sword dual-wieldable, or if that cannot happen bring in Energy daggers that spawn in pairs.

16

> It should come back, but only side-arms should have it applied, and if nothing else, for epicness’s sake just make the Energy Sword dual-wieldable, or if that cannot happen bring in Energy daggers that spawn in pairs.

Wasn’t Bungie originally going to include dual-wielding Energy Swords in Halo 3 but then removed it because it would turn the Energy Sword into an unstoppable killing machine?

Either way, it would seem sort of redundant to dual-wield a melee weapon when you can’t even melee with it while dual-wielding. It also wouldn’t add much to the weapon itself, just faster swing-time.

17

> > It should come back, but only side-arms should have it applied, and if nothing else, for epicness’s sake just make the Energy Sword dual-wieldable, or if that cannot happen bring in Energy daggers that spawn in pairs.
>
> Wasn’t Bungie originally going to include dual-wielding Energy Swords in Halo 3 but then removed it because it would turn the Energy Sword into an unstoppable killing machine?
>
> Either way, it would seem sort of redundant to dual-wield a melee weapon when you can’t even melee with it while dual-wielding. It also wouldn’t add much to the weapon itself, just faster swing-time.

I don’t think they intended for it to be useable, but it made the Elites look more badass.

18

Advantage:

  • Dual wielding is badass

The restriction of abilities (Melee and grenade) is a meaningful tradeoff, rather a defective mechanic. It’s a sacrifice made to gain whatever firepower comes from dual wielding. If you could throw grenades while busting two SMGs that would be ridiculous.

As for the CE Magnum, it was made worse for a reason beyond and including dual wielding. In CE the Magnum was what all we remember because it had to fill the huge gap between automatic and precision gunplay. Where the only precision weapon was a Sniper Rifle and anything else that wasn’t also a power weapon was an automatic.

Halo 2,3,R,4 all have dedicated rifles that suit this purpose which allows the Magnum to function closer an actual pistol rather than a rifle.

19

> Advantage:
>
> - Dual wielding is badass

That seems like more of an opinion than an actual advantage.

> The restriction of abilities (Melee and grenade) is a meaningful tradeoff, rather a defective mechanic. It’s a sacrifice made to gain whatever firepower comes from dual wielding. If you could throw grenades while busting two SMGs that would be ridiculous.

The problem with that statement is that dual-wiedable weapons are weaker as individual weapons, this then insures that you’re no stronger than any other “primary” weapon while dual-wielding. To be blunt, dual-wielding 2 SMGs is only slightly stronger than wielding as Assault Rifle.

So, with that being said, I don’t think being able to melee, use grenades, possibly sprint and/or use AAs is a fair tradeoff.

> As for the CE Magnum, it was made worse for a reason beyond and including dual wielding. In CE the Magnum was what all we remember because it had to fill the huge gap between automatic and precision gunplay. Where the only precision weapon was a Sniper Rifle and anything else that wasn’t also a power weapon was an automatic.

Its main cause of butchery was to balance it for dual-wielding. Halo 4’s Magnum (which I consider its best incarnation) proves that they didn’t excessively cut it down solely to make it function like a “Pistol”.

> Halo 2,3,R,4 all have dedicated rifles that suit this purpose which allows the Magnum to function closer an actual pistol rather than a rifle.

But it still doesn’t take a half-defective pea-shooter to achieve this property. The Magnum should, with enough skill, be able to take on weapons such as the AR and the BR within both of their ranges.

20

> > Advantage:
> >
> > - Dual wielding is badass
>
> That seems like more of an opinion than an actual advantage.

John Woo begs to differ.

> > The restriction of abilities (Melee and grenade) is a meaningful tradeoff, rather a defective mechanic. It’s a sacrifice made to gain whatever firepower comes from dual wielding. If you could throw grenades while busting two SMGs that would be ridiculous.
>
> The problem with that statement is that dual-wiedable weapons are weaker as individual weapons, this then insures that you’re no stronger than any other “primary” weapon while dual-wielding. To be blunt, dual-wielding 2 SMGs is only slightly stronger than wielding as Assault Rifle.
>
> So, with that being said, I don’t think being able to melee, use grenades, possibly sprint and/or use AAs is a fair tradeoff.

I understand the argument against dual wielding in that it makes dual wieldable weapons alone weaker, though they’re not by any stretch water pistols.

As for dual SMGs being slightly stronger than the MA5C, I’m going to have to disagree. The AR in Halo 3 was noticeably slower while the SMGs chewed through mags.

Given the right range of course (as any weapon is dependant on), you are getting double the damage of a single SMG at an already faster rate of fire.

As for not being able to use melee, grenades, sprint and AAs, perhaps not being able to use all 4 is “fair”, but you simply cannot have a player dual wielding, throwing grenades and being able to melee. It’s ridiculous. Especially if the player is using a Magnum/Plasma Pistol combo.

Perhaps the base speed could increase for a player that chooses to dual wield, that way they retain the ability to move faster which also helps them close the gap in engagements so they can paint the walls courtesy of the SMG’s

> > As for the CE Magnum, it was made worse for a reason beyond and including dual wielding. In CE the Magnum was what all we remember because it had to fill the huge gap between automatic and precision gunplay. Where the only precision weapon was a Sniper Rifle and anything else that wasn’t also a power weapon was an automatic.
>
> Its main cause of butchery was to balance it for dual-wielding. Halo 4’s Magnum (which I consider its best incarnation) proves that they didn’t excessively cut it down solely to make it function like a “Pistol”.

Yeah but don’t you think Halo 2’s inclusion of the BR and CC filled the gap of precision weapons, letting the Magnum assume the role it was supposed to?

And I agree that H4’s Magnum is the best incarnation.

> > Halo 2,3,R,4 all have dedicated rifles that suit this purpose which allows the Magnum to function closer an actual pistol rather than a rifle.
>
> But it still doesn’t take a half-defective pea-shooter to achieve this property. The Magnum should, with enough skill, be able to take on weapons such as the AR and the BR within both of their ranges.

Yeah the Magnum’s in H2 and H3 were junk alone. Though I think H4’s Magnum with some tweaking is fit for dual wielding. Maybe increase the reticule when dual wielding.