What do you think is better? The Battle Rifle or the Designated Marksman Rifle? Add reasons. Just putting this thread together since both weapons are proberly the best all round weapons ever to be in Halo, and now they both being thrown Into H4, I thought it might be interesting who would go for what weapon personally. I will start by saying that I think the BR is better. Mainly because the weapon seems like an all rounder, particualarly at any range minus the extreames. whilst the DMR will struggle up close: The one thing that I don't like with the DMR. To add, the BR's has the range to attack most targets at any range, obviously It won't win against a Shotgun up close or maybe an AR. It proberly won't be able to attack as extreme range like an SR or DMR. It's an all rounder in most categories. Personably I've easily played better with a Battle Rifle in my arsenal than a DMR. I hated that single shot stuff. loved the triple burst!
Personally I like the Battle Rifle better. It feels stronger, like a good combination of Assault Ruffled and Sniper. The DMR feels like it isn't as useful, but it's hard to tell since they'be been in 2 different games. I'm excited to see how they compare to each other in 4.
The Halo 2 and 3 renditions of the BR beat the DMR. However, I think the DMR looks better in Halo 4. The BR doesn't have much of a faster kill time than the DMR, even in its best range. It's harder to hit all shots in the burst (even with the tight spread) and now that the BR kills in the same amount of shots as the DMR, the burst puts it at a disadvantage. It also can't kill 3 people in the mag anymore...but then, the DMR can't either. However, the DMR is only 1 shot away while the BR is now 3 away from getting 3 kills. In terms of sound, the DMR blows the BR out of the water. BR sounds like a popcorn machine, and the DMR sounds like a cannon. It looks to me like they just brought the BR back to please the nostalgic fans. It functions like a shadow of its former self to 'balance' the starting weapons.
In terms of fitting the role better and performance, yeah. Unless it's a ZB or even TU DMR. Those I can understand. But Vanilla DMR was a piece of crap IMO. I'd even take the spread of the H3 BR over the Vanilla DMR. Hell, Reach's Assault Rifle had a good chance against the Vanilla DMR! I also think the burst fire mechanic and closer range made the game and precision weapon duels more interesting, so I may be biased. A 5 shot in Reach (in TU or ZB) is too easy at almost any range. Vanilla is just frustrating. IMO, in Halo 4 it looks to me right now as if: Light Rifle > Carbine/DMR > BR > AR > SR But who knows until we have a couple hours of time using or fighting each.
DMR>every precision rifle in H4. I will probably use BR because of the burst fire, but it looks as the DMR will reign supreme in every scenario. @ the poll: Do you mean which performs better, or which I prefer to use. From a neutral perspective, the hitscan BR is the best option as the main precision rifle of the game, because the burst fire requires the player to hold the reticle on the enemy to land three shots, instead of sweeping over the enemy and timing the right time to land the sigle shot. The hitscan BR requires more consistency.
The carbine seems cool, but out the two i had to choose the DMR, because I always suck at 3-shot bursts.
Did some research on the Halo wiki, The BR has no blooming reticle, has a faster fire rate and less accuracy, it is also a five shot kill. For the DMR, I could if find as much, it now has 14 rounds. That's it, it will proberly keep the same stats as in reach, maybe fine tuned slightly for longer range. Just for comparison, the DMR can get a five shot kill if the last shot is a headshot in reach. The BR can get a five shot kill too. Not sure if it includes a headshot though. If anyone else has got extra Info on the DMR it may make a better comparison of the two weapons.
You have to factor in how headshots affect it, though. In pure damage terms you're right, but the BR is much more forgiving for making the final headshot since it gives you 3 chances to land it rather than 1. It's hard to quantify how these factors offset against one another. That's interesting, the DMR looked like it had a faster RoF than the BR from all the footage I've seen.
Headshot never affected the damage with the BR in Halo 2 or 3 until the last shot, so I am assuming it would stay the same. This is thinking out loud: I believe the optimal precision weapon for Halo would be a three burst hitscan weapon with perfect accuracy and little aim-assist. The difference would be that the three burst is slower rate than the BR; encouraging steady, consistent aim over swiping and relying on the aim-assist. If you land every bullet and the last bullet was a headshot, it would be a three burst kill.
wait now I realized that the Battle Rifle has no bloom........ and that I've never actually used one before. Who knows? I might be better at it than a DMR.
Really, it just seems to me like 343 has made the BR just a crappy alternative to the DMR with their nerfing it into a 5-shot. Originally to me, it felt as if the weapons just fell into their designated positions as a close-medium range weapon (BR) and medium-long range weapon (DMR) through their different firing mechanics, accuracy, and power. The BR's nerf has killed that, and out of the two, made the DMR superior in pretty much every circumstance, which sucks since I've always like burst-fire weapons more.
I agree, but having a weapon which fires a near continuous stream of bullets does discourage pulling the trigger at the right time. You can unconsciously pull the trigger as quickly as possible once you become fairly accurate with it. You can also pull the trigger early and land enough shots to kill in the normal time. For xzamplez, if you land 2 out of 3 shots every burst, you'll kill in 6 bursts (if the quickest is 4). Most kills in H3 at close-mid range were 5, and 6 wasn't terrible. I think that this was why I had difficulty aiming accurately with the pistol in H3, but it could have been less aim-assist with the pistol. With the ZB DMR, I found that it was better to not pull the trigger as much as possible, to wait until my reticle was back on target, yet the time between shots was short enough that you couldn't be off target for long. It was like another type of pacing, but without the bloom. I suppose that simply knowing which way to swing the reticle next is a more complicated thing to recognize than when to pull the trigger, and that actually moving it precisely is much harder than doing so with the ZB DMR. I sometimes doubt whether it is possible for a player to 4-shot the quickest strafes that I remember in H3. I've actually seen a video of MLG gameplay where this happened, but could a plain good player do it without getting lucky? As for the rifles, everything seems to point towards the DMR being superior (kill time at all ranges/aiming facility-wise), but I haven't seen this pointed out yet- (to introduce the point) they said that the DMR bloom would decreased from Reach. Area bloom or reset time? Spamming the DMR at AR range is going to beat the BR, and possibly at a greater range if the area of the reticle bloom is smaller. Even if the BR is superior at any range, it's not a matter of choosing between long range and short+medium range superiority, it's a matter of choosing between medium and short+long range, in cases where you don't have a short range weapon or there isn't enough time to switch. I've posted on the implications of a balanced light rifle, but if they can't balance the BR and DMR who knows what the LR and Carbine will be like. Will an extremely quick trigger finger with the carbine be supreme? BTW, is it true that ARs and storm rifles aren't available as secondaries? That makes no sense- they're short range weapons; the magnum is similar to the rifles. Players would usually spawn with ARs as secondaries if BRs/DMRs were primaries in past games. Unless of course ARs and storm rifles will be useless, which I won't mind.
Just going off what I've seen from gameplay videos, the BR seems more forgiving to a less skilled player, while the DMR is a little harder to use but when a skilled player has it, it will dominate. So I voted for the DMR Though I don't know the point of arguing which is better between these two when the light rifle might be better than both of them
And that's why I love it. In reach: DMR=medium long range(BR of halo 2/3) AR=short medium range(Smg of Halo 2/3 mixed with AR of 3). It's no secret I like to have viable weapon choices so I like that in Halo 4 there attempting weapon versatility (Not 1 BR to rule them all like 2 and 3) In Halo 4 I hope it will be: DMR=Long to medium range(BR of halo 2 and 3 and DMR of Reach) BR=Short medium range(AR of 3 and reach) AR=CQC range(SMG of 2 and 3) I like that they took out the SMG to avoid cluttering the game with weapons which is why they fused SMG/AR into a AR in Reach but in 4 they add two nearly identical weapons(gotta appeal to the BR fan boys i guess) , I would much prefer DMR(fine tuned to medium long range),AR(tuned to fill short medium range where its viable to Burst fire it as if it was a BR at medium range),SMG for CQC. That way every weapons is equally as good in there own field and not comparable to each other, which was attempted and done reasonably imo in Reach and I hope they do it better in 4. TL;DR Which is better DMR or BR? I hope neither I hope there equal in power, But I voted DMR because getting last headshot with DMR is more satifiying to me(and that's a form of "better")
I can't speak for all "BR fanboys", but as far as I can tell, myself and a few other people actually prefer to have a BR (I prefer no spread and leading, but hitscan is about as good because of a tradeoff which I've posted about) alone because we are skeptical that these rifles will be balanced, and we are worried that we won't be able to use anything other than two slightly different rifles. Why would you be an AR fanboy? It's just a point-directly at and shoot weapon just like the rifles, except you can hold the trigger, and it has more bloom/randomness and is easier to aim with. Other weapons, like the spiker/plasma rifle can fill the short-medium range role, and other weapons will encourage CQC, like the concussion rifle and the shotgun equivalents.
I'm not a AR fanboy I just don't hate the AR, I want the most amount of "viable utility weapons" as possible, by "utility weapons" I mean the weapons that "we wont be able to use anything other than" AKA what the DMR and BR might be. There will always be niche weapons that fill a certain role like Plasma pistol but I don't want every weapon except BR/DMR to be a niche weapon. Having a DMR/Viably Burstable AR/SMG would be three "we won't be able to use anything other than" weapons as for covenant weapons they should have "we won't be able to use anything other than" weapons to counterpart the human weapons BUT that's where the subtle differences should come in carbine/DMR AR/PR etc This is my worry to, Before i knew there was a DMR and BR I was worried "we won't be able to use anything other than" the BR
If you mean that you want to spawn with two viable weapons, I agree that I wouldn't mind spawning with a Reach spiker and 4sk no-spread BR, each of which would be viable at its own range, but the randomness/encouraging reticle inaccuracy problems of the AR still remain. Like I posted in a different H4 thread, knowing the appropriate range of the area around you is so basic; I don't see why it's fun to switch weapons to a skill-less weapon because of this, at the expense of being able to fight enemies at different ranges in a short amount of time ( in other words, without a delay which would kill you). Your juxtaposition of having only one viable starting weapon (rifle) with being forced to carry two similar rifles (DMR/BR) is not a meaningful one. With a viable rifle (when no similar rifles exist) and a useless AR you could drop the AR for a viable weapon (spiker, concussion rifle, plasma pistol, not just power weapons) and not lose the abiility to fight a fair battle with someone at a slightly longer range. This is not the case in a game with a medium BR/ long DMR. As often as I have repeated this, I left out one way to look at it: There are already four ranges of weapons: shotgun equivalents, AR/explosive equivalents, rifle equivalents, and sniper equivalents (explosives don't fit perfectly). Players can carry two weapons at a time. Splitting the most common, solid, reliable, skill-requiring, spawning weapon to create a fifth range doesn't make sense.
But that is the case I want...... I want someone who has a AR/SMG/Pistol to have a good advantage over someone with BR/DMR in CQC and if someones walking around in corridors with a DMR out and have to switch weapons that gives them "a delay which would kill you" then that is a error on there part and should be punished in the form of giving player who had the awareness and piece of mind to hold there CQC weapon in preparation (or even choose to pick up or spawn with a CQC weapon) an advantage(not a instant kill advantage but a 75% chance they will win DMR guy can still get drop on him get first shot to get a better chance to win etc etc) Which adds depth and planing and can't complain about depth and planing because controlling power weapons adds depth and planing to. What I don't want is "I have a BR" I can run around everywhere not worrying about weapon swaps(a small but should be a contemplative feature of the game) and beat anyone in a fair fight. Its better that it could be "I have a BR/DMR" I can fight everyone fairly because that involves weapon swaps but I would prefer it to be "I have BR/DMR/AR/Pistol/SMG" I can fight anyone fairly but oh no I can only hold two, So player who choose to pickup or spawn with DMR/BR has advantage but not limited to longer ranges and player who choose to pickup or spawn with AR/Pistol/SMG would have advantage but not limited to short range. The way i see it there is 4 ranges: Melee range(CQC/shogun equivalents),Short range(AR),Medium range(rifle equivalents),Long range(sniper equivalents) Then there is 3 category of weapons: Utility weapons(general use DMR/BR), Power weapons and Niche(PP) weapons that may fall into one or more range. TL;DR I want a group of more then 1 to 2 Utility weapons of varied ranges to spawn with or have generously placed on map to give players choice to have slight advantages/disadvantages in there chosen ranges derived from there utility weapon only. Then if they want an extreme advantage or fulfill a niche pick up a power weapon or a specific niche weapon.