“Sorta” is right lol, that could have worked but the Sidekick variant, the “Striker” is absurd. It has the same fire rate, an increased magazine and it is just a 4 shot kill. I actually hate the direction 343 went with weapon variants… the gun is practically unusable in multiplayer with that kind of power (I think the TTK would be like 0.62s if I converted that correctly).
I would have liked to see an automatic sidekick variant instead. A faster fire rate (which plays into the Sidekick’s strength) with a bigger magazine but more bloom.
Then you could just add an M6 Magnum into the offical sandbox with a CE Magnum as the variant.
I think what makes the Sidekick the ideal finisher is it’s fast swap time. It makes it the ideal weapon to use for Drop combo’s with respect to TTK. The issue I have / had with the Sidekick is that it isn’t just a finisher… you can straight up outgun every other Tier 1 gun (AR, Pulse Carbine, BR75, Commando, Mangler, Disruptor, and Plasma Pistol) in terms of TTK if you are within range. Someone else made a good thread on this but that’s the running joke with a weapon named the “Sidekick”.
Gameplay wise it does make sense to have this beat the AR though, because it requires more skill. Lore wise, having a pistol require less shots to kill than a rifle (especially one like the Commando) hurts my head.
I didn’t realize it was that powerful. I’ve only used it in campaign so I wasn’t sure how it’s damage tables stacked up to MP.
H5 had the Whispered Truth Magnum that kind of reminds me of what you described. I don’t remember if it was full-auto, but it did fire in a burst and was very powerful. It had some other traits too, but I’m just talking about the firing pattern.
I think what might be a good area for the AR vs SK/BR is that the precision guns beat the AR (within the AR effective range) if they get a perfect kill, but missing a shot or two results in the AR winning.
Also i think it’s important to know which guns reach the one-hit melee threshold first. Most AR fights tend to end in melees (and part of the reason why I think there was global melee nerf). But certain guns reaching that threshold before the AR could be a way to counter it without hard nerfing anything. The pre-nerf Mangler is an example of a gun that reached the threshold faster than the AR. And while I’m talking about melee, one advantage the SK has over the AR is that it punches faster since it’s a pistol-type weapon. So in a double melee situation the SK would win.
I played some more games recently and really focused on the Sidekick’s gameplay. I now feel confident that this thing could 100% benefit from decreased damage and a higher cap on RPM. The Sidekick feels clunky sometimes, you pull the trigger but nothing happens, I could definitely shoot this thing faster if it wasn’t for the low RPM cap. It has the fastest RPM of any semi-automatic weapon in Halo and it is still pretty slow (~380 RPM). A cap of ~ 420 RPM would let this thing shoot faster and just feel better IMO… why can’t a spartan have a fast trigger finger when using a pistol (watch that Sgt. Forge vs the Arbiter cutscene from Halo Wars, that’s how a pistol should feel in the hands of a Spartan). I would cap bloom as well to compensate for the higher fire rate which would make the MK50 Sidekick more reliable. Ultimately, the Sidekick would still perform relatively the same, but it would just feel better IMO (you would need an extra shot to kill but you can shoot faster and with less bloom you would be more rewarded for skill / precision while being less likely to miss because of a game mechanic).
This tweak would set the stage for Halo Infinite to bring in the M6 Magnum as a 5 shot kill (5 | 10 & 7 | 10) with a 2x Zoom. The magnum’s function would be to act as a floor ranged precision weapon which could be a welcome addition to BTB as a replacement for the MK50 Sidekick (at least everyone would have some form of ranged combat with a default weapon but it would still be advantageous to find a BR75).
1. MA40 Grenadier
Not that I hate the MA40 Longshot or anything but it just feels uninspiring to me. I’d rather thake that function and give it to something like a BR75 Full-Auto, just seems cooler to make a BR75 full-auto than to buff the AR’s range. So I will suggest something different for the AR, an under-barrel grenade launcher. It would be cool I think to incorporate your grenade inventory somehow, allowing you to fire grenades out of it faster and further than you could throw. Not sure how this would function, perhaps the AR loses is Smart-Link feature for balancing and instead pressing the aim button toggles between Grenade Launcher fire mode and regular fire (similar to how the Heatwave and Hydra toggle firing modes).
2. MK50 Rapid Fire
I already touched on this above but I think this would lend itself to the Sidekick’s characteristics way better than the current Striker variant. Increase ammo capacity to 18 and make it full auto (increased bloom). Another possibility iI’ve seen suggested is a silenced version of the Sidekick which would keep you hidden on the Radar while firing.
The AR is one of the most OP guns in any shooter I’ve ever played, there isn’t a single drawback to it. Since Halo 3 this gun has received a 5x range buff, a damage buff, and an accuracy buff and people still are whining because they don’t win every fight against someone with significantly more skill than them. I want the AR to be nerfed because as of right now with how much more difficult the rest of the sandbox is to use 90% of players aren’t using anything but the AR besides power weapons. Either make the rest of the sandbox either to use or nerf the AR because right now the gun is a joke with its cross map potential, at the very least give the damn thing a nerf on its range.
Honestly, AR/Sidekick balance is one of the few things they nailed in this game.
They both operate within the same effective ranges for most players. One provides an easy, consistent option for beginners. The other provides a flashy, skill reliant option for experienced ones, where their time and practice is directly rewarded with faster kills.
In past Halo games, the pistol always fell into two camps:
1 - It was the BR of it’s game, making the AR utterly outmatched.
Or 2 - It was so weak it was simply obsolete in the sandbox.
Only exception was Reach, which the Sidekick seems heavily inspired by. It just sacrifices the Reach magnum’s superior range for a much more consistent close range experience (provided you have the skill to land enough shots).
The AR, by it’s very nature of being a high RoF automatic weapon. Is incapable of being the primary gun for advanced players in Halo. It relies too much on luck, and is too consistent at too low a skill level. Therefore it has to have an alternative spawn weapon to actually provide a skill gap to the game. The Sidekick provides that, and unlike Magnums of Halo past, it does it without stepping out of the AR’s range niche in a significant way.
Great analysis @Fos_Kuvol, perfectly summarizes the relationship of the AR and Sidekick.
My only thought is, does a secondary weapon really need to have this function? In a Mangler discussion thread I had ranked players telling me that they prefer the Mangler to the Sidekick because the Sidekick is unreliable with respect to bloom. So from this perspective it seems like the skilled competitive players might actually prefer the Magnum to the Sidekick (even though it would have a slower TTK than the AR).
Additionally, instead of everyone sticking with default weapons there would be more incentive to swap weapons out to gain an edge over the AR in combat, right now you don’t necessarily have to do that because you already have acess to a Sidekick.
You do still need to swap weapons, in order to break out of the niche range of the AR and Sidekick. If you need longer ranges, a Commando, Stalker, or BR is necessary. If you want to trump ARs and Sidekicks up close, a Bulldog, Needler, or Heatwave is etc.
Having the two weapons fill the same niche also makes it so that picking up even weaker weapons like the PP and Ravager can and will be useful in some ways, as you aren’t actually sacrificing anything when you drop your AR (or Sidekick)
Yes, but the question is should this be considered a good thing? A real complaint many people have is without a proper default ranged weapon combat is not balanced (especially in BTB).
My personal opinion is a default short ranged weapon like the AR and a default mid ranged weapon like the Magnum would be ideal for gameplay versatility.
The advantage of the Sidekick is that you can beat an AR user with a default weapon, but is that really necessary to have with a spawn weapon when there should be weapons all over the map that already accomplish this?
Edit:
I’m not sure this holds much weight though. At the end of the day, you still don’t have a mid ranged weapon so what good is it?
Oh if you’re advocating for BR starts I’m right there with you. Everything I’m saying directly applies to AR starts in 4v4. Which, given the maps available in Infinite, is actually fairly good for the first time in the franchise. Probably because of how few BRs spawn on the maps.
I’m a huge advocate of BR starts as an option, preferably with veto or voting. And I’d love to see BtB adopt Commando starts, because the BR is just too good at range in Infinite, and the DMR made BtB in Reach and Infinite very hard to tolerate.
No AR changes at all, tired of it being useless it’s finally viable in a competitive setting. Would like to see the bloomless Striker more prominently featured and a slight damage buff to the regular Sidekick.
Best AR and Pistol in Halo since Halo 1 though, BY FAR!
I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily advocating for BR starts, but rather I’m advocating for a different default weapon that would fill the same purpose as the BR (mid ranged precision weapon).
I agree 100%, but I also think the Commando could be more interesting as a Tier 2 weapon (counterpart to the Stalker Rifle). I’m sort of pushing for the Magnum because it would be ideal for BTB if it js balanced correctly.