I just wanna run down the primary weapons and my experience with them, as well as how I'm feeling about them and where they should be. Feel free to comment.
Battle Rifle: The end all be all. At close range it's still rather effective for it's 3 round burst, giving it staying power against many of the pure close loadout choices (Assault Rifle, Storm Rifle, Supressor) while still staying extremely effective at medium-long ranges. Very long it does suffer, but can still keep you off of target long enough to do some serious hurt and prevent much damage back. The real benefit to this weapon is on low shield targets. even at a quarter shield, a single trigger pull can headshot someone. I've done it, and I've had it done to me.
Ways I think it could improve
-Keep damage, increase accuracy degradation, reduce accuracy recovery. This will put it squarely where it should be, slightly better at close-medium range, but suffering at longer ranges.
DMR: In my play with it, it seems like it's where it should be. It beats out Carbines at long ranges, though the accuracy component does suffer greatly. It feels like this weapon is meant to be used purely at medium-long range, but the accuracy holds it back somewhat at long range. I dunno, it's a hard gun to completely understand the intended use of, since it seems to have gained more damage yet has increased accuracy degradation.
Ways I think it could improve
-Damage is fine, degradation is fine, increase recovery. Maybe something like, wait 0.15 seconds for full recovery from the time the next shot could be placed. This will give it more lethality at longer ranges without making it a completely broken gun, since keeping accuracy up on it will be easier, and at the same time more essential once you've taken a target's shield down, yet still allowing that quick fire needed to take the shield down.
Covenant Carbine: I love this gun, always have. Seems like it's gotten weaker but faster firing/more accurate from other Halo games. I think this was a good choice as it's a good rounded rifle for just about any situation. It seems to have absolutely 0 accuracy degradation, which helps keep it squarely as the middle ground rifle. The only thing I notice is that if you're putting down hurt with it, it comes up a bit short since it takes quite a few shots to take someone down with it.
Ways I think it could improve
-Add some damage. We aren't talking DMR levels here, but a little bit more so the enemy doesn't have 8-9 shots they can eat before having to even so much as blink. It gives far too big of a reaction time gap, and taking it down a bit would help since they'd still have plenty of time to react, just not quite as long.
Light Rifle
Not sure where this weapon is going. It's powerful in exchange for eating ammo like candy. It seems to have a slightly higher travel time than most rifles, which is why it can suffer greatly at what seems to be it's primary range, long. I personally have not made much use of it, as in most games I get into, without heavy team support, this gun becomes moderately inneffectual.
Ways I think it could improve
-Damage is fine, reduce accuracy degradation. It just suffers too much at longer ranges, which is what this gun seems to be for. It will still not be a close-medium range powerhouse due to the low fire rate, but it will stack up better at longer ranges than it currently does, and you won't need to be able to set up to be effective with it.
Assault Rifle
What can I say, it's the staple of the series. It's a well rounded medium-close range weapon. The only thing I've noticed when firing it is that a sustained burst will drain your accuracy quickly. This is good to keep it from being too formidable at longer ranges, but with the lower damage than other assault weapons, it makes it a close range rifle beater, and little else.
Ways I think it could improve
-Keep damage, reduce degradation, increase recovery. This will give it better medium range usage, and allow bursting a bit more effectively while still keeping it right where it is at close range.
Storm Rifle
A brutal close range assault weapon. If you've ever seen it in action, this weapon wipes the floor with most other choices in it's category. The insane fire rate, good accuracy, and high damage makes this an "almost SAW" loadout weapon. It does not allow you to scavange ammo from the field, a major let down, but the benefits for not being able to reload the thing seem a tad over the top.
Ways I think it could improve
-Reduce heat dissapation, slightly reduce damage. Doing that would still make it an effective up close destroyer, but cut down on the amount of ranged burst you can get out of it. As of now, it seems like the heat is dissapating fast enough that you'll rarely hit overheat yet still be good at both close-medium range.
Supressor: A squarely mid ground gun between the 2 other assault choices. A good choice. It would be a hard gun to change without it taking away from the other 2. The one major downside to this weapon is you don't see a lot of use of it (yet) so ammo can be scarce, but that will correct itself with time. Really, I have nothing bad to say about this gun.
-Ways I think it could improve
Well... I don't. I think it's sitting in a good place currently, and I think with what I've already said about the other 2 assault choices, this gun would still neatly fit into the middle ground assault choice.
While we all have that gun we love, and none of us want to see our favorite get nerfed, we also want a game where our choices feel like they matter, and that there shouldn't be that one go to gun every single time because it beats everything else. That devolves play value and removes individuality when it comes to how you like to play.
