User:XScruffyDaSasquatchx/Sandbox3
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
Many weapons exist across the Halo video games, all of which can be grouped together and classified in numerous ways. The following is an overview of classifications created by or officially recognized by the developers of Halo, and how they affect gameplay.
Weapon Classes
- Main article: Weapon class
Weapon classes are the means by which the Halo video games group together different weapons with similar animations. Characters can only hold weapons that belong to weapon classes which are supported by their own set of third person character animations. Grunts can carry pistols and launchers but not rifles, marines can carry rifles but not support weapons, and so on.
Before being introduced in Halo 2 each weapon required its own set of animations per character. As such grunts in Halo: Combat Evolved could carry plasma pistols and needlers, but not the human pistol. Weapon classes remove this restriction by having all three of these weapons share a simplified set of pistol animations. Weapons may still posses unique animations as overlays such as an adjusted hand position for the SMG's vertical foregrip or the shotgun's staggered reload.
Halo Infinite formalized weapons classes as information displayed by the user interface. In this context the use of weapon classes describes the intended role of a weapon, combining its appearance with its functionality.
Melee
Weapons apart of the melee category do not possess firing animations. There are two subcategories that exist for players although more exist exclusive to NPCs.
Energy Sword - Swords are melee weapons that can perform powerful lunge attacks in addition to dealing increased cutting damage when performing a regular melee attack.
Gravity Hammer - Hammers are melee weapons that create explosions in front of the user without inflicting self harm. Their increased physics impulses are also useful for pushing enemies off of ledges, performing splatters with physics objects, and golfing.
Multiplayer
Essentially the same as melee weapons, multiplayer weapons are classified under their own category presumably for organizational purposes. Multiplayer weapons are divided up into two subcategories.
Ball - Spherical multiplayer weapons held with sports influenced animations, and can also be thrown beginning with Halo 4. Originally comprised of just the oddball, the class now includes the assault bomb, throwable fusion coils, and power seeds.
Flag - Pole shaped multiplayer weapons used for CTF gamemodes. Flags are dual wielded with magnums in Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians.
Pistol
Pistols are projectile weapons held either one handed or with both hands supporting the rear grip. Despite their appearance pistols can possess any level of destructive capability, from the low damage per shot of the plasma pistol to the explosive power of the target locator and sticky detonator.
Rifle
Rifles are projectile weapons held with two hands, one supporting the barrel from underneath. It is the most common weapon class and has been divided into numerous subcategories.
Assault Rifle - Mid-ranged weapons lacking scopes, which operate in a niche between tactical rifles and SMGs.
Tactical Rifle - Mid-ranged, headshot capable weapons featuring magnified optics.
SMG - Short-ranged weapons with high rates of fire.
Shotgun - Short-ranged weapons that fire multiple projectiles at once in a spread pattern.
Sniper Rifle - Long-ranged, headshot capable weapons with high power scopes and considerable damage.
Launcher
Also known internally as "support_high" and "missile" weapons, launchers typically have been any weapon carried over characters' shoulders. Halo Infinite now classifies any projectile weapon with explosive damage as a launcher but this does not affect support_high weapons as an animation class.
Support
Also known internally as "support_low" weapons, support weapons are any weapon held in first person down by the character's hips. Support weapon animations are very similar to those of the flamethrower from Halo: Combat Evolved, which may have directly inspired the category. Only two support weapons appear in the finalized games, being the brute shot and sentinel beam. Both weapons, along with the class itself, did not return in Halo: Reach, marking Halo 3 as the final appearance of the weapon class. Later appearances of the brute shot and sentinel beam use rifle animations with overlays positioning character arms to hold the weapons in their typical support location. It is because of this reason that marines in Halo Infinite are able to use the sentinel beam for the first time.
Detachable Turret
Known simply as "turret" weapons within the game files, detachable turrets are essentially very powerful support weapons that switch the player camera to a third person perspective and restrict certain actions such as crouching, grenades, melee, and equipment. Because of their similar appearances, turret weapons are often called support weapons as well. The data core and power supply featured in Invasion use turret animations, and thus its inherent restrictions, to make players more vulnerable while encouraging cooperative play in escorting teammates to objectives.
Weapon Damage Types
- Main article: Damage Groups
In addition to weapon classes, weapons may also be categorized by the type of damage they inflict.
Melee Weapon
Melee weapons do not fire projectiles and rely solely on their melee capabilities. All weapons belonging the melee weapon class and multiplayer weapon class fall under this melee damage category. Certain ranged weapons also possess increased melee damage or
Kinetic Weapon
Being comprised of multiple projectile types such as bullets, spikes, and the impact damage of explosives, kinetic weapons are the most common form of projectile damage. Often times kinetic weapons deal consistent damage against a variety of different materials but usually lack the ability to significantly damage vehicles. However exceptions do exist such as Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 3: ODST reducing damage against shields, and the sniper rifle dealing extra damage against vehicles in Halo: Reach and the Reclaimer Saga games.
Precision Weapon
- "Particularly useful against delicate equipment—like brains."
- — Halo: Reach manual description[1]
A precision weapon is any weapon which is capable of instantly killing a character upon hitting an area of their body marked as the head. As the name suggests this is the actual head of most characters, although there are some exceptions. Certain enemies such as drones in Halo 2 or the Warden Eternal are immune to headshots, while in Halo: Combat Evolved the exposed backs of hunters are susceptible to headshot damage.
In all games up until Halo 5: Guardians scoring a headshot on an unshielded enemy with a headshot capable weapon will instantly kill them, regardless of how much health they had remaining. Starting with H5 weapons with headshot multipliers were introduced, and in Halo Infinite the shock rifle features a headshot multiplier that still applies while shields are active. The term precision weapon is retained to describe weapons that can still kill with a single unshielded headshot.
Automatic Weapon
While not exclusive to the kinetic damage type, automatic weapons are typically used to describe bullet based, fully automatic weapons that appear as starting weapons in auto slayer playlists, in contrast to the typical precision weapon starts.
Plasma Weapon
Plasma weapons are Covenant or Banished weapons firing slower projectiles that are very effective against energy shields. While they always deal reduced damage to player health, this trait is not mutually exclusive against other characters.
Hardlight Weapon
Hardlight weapons are Forerunner in origin and disintegrate targets upon inflicting critical damage. Their use differs slightly from game to game. Introduced in Halo 4 they glow orange and possess a damage type similar to the covenant carbine, having no bonus against any material but able to destroy jackal shields and deployable cover. In Halo 5 they now deal bonus damage to Promethean weakspots. In Halo Infinite hardlight is now purple and can kill vehicle occupants without destroying the vehicle itself.
Shock Weapon
First introduced in Halo Infinite, shock weapons are extremely weak per shot but are able to chain damage to multiple targets as well as EMP vehicles.
Anti-vehicle Weapon
Anti-vehicle weapons deal considerable damage, explosive or otherwise, and are ideal for taking out heavily armored targets.
Weapon Roles
Over the years the Halo community has also created its own terminology based on the way weapons are obtained in multiplayer and their roles within the context of multiplayer gameplay. The following are notable multiplayer weapon terms both created by Halo developers and officially recognized by them.
Loadout Weapon
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Primary Weapon
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Secondary Weapon
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Utility Weapon
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Dual-wield Weapon
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Power Weapon
Power weapons, which were previously named "heavy weapons" in Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, are any weapon with the potential to kill fully shielded players with a single shot (or extremely quickly in the case of the SAW).
Weapon Sets
Weapon sets are a custom game option used in multiplayer gametypes to replace weapons placed on multiplayer maps. These can be by faction, role, weapon class, damage type, or any other form of organization the developers have made for the game. Some weapon sets also appear as category filters within the forge object menu of Halo 5: Guardians. Below is are some examples of common and reoccurring weapon sets.
- Pistols (Pistol, Magnum, Plasma Pistol)
- Plasma Weapons (Plasma Pistol, Plasma Rifle, Brute Plasma Rifle)
- Dual-wield Weapons (Magnum, SMG, Suppressed SMG, Plasma Weapons, Needler, Mauler, Spiker)
- Rifles (Assault Rifle, Plasma Rifle, Battle Rifle, Carbine, DMR, Storm Rifle, Light Rifle, Suppressor, Sentinel Beam)
- Sniping Weapons (Sniper Rifle, Beam Rifle, Focus Rifle, Binary Rifle)
- Heavy/Power Weapons (Launchers, Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, Melee Weapons, SAW, Detached Turrets)
Weapon Tiers
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Tier-1
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- Loadout Weapons, Plasma Rifle, Sentinel Beam
Tier-2
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- Shotguns, Melee Weapons, Grenade Launchers, Plasma Pistol, Needler, Hydra
Tier-3
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- Launchers, Sniper Rifles, SAW
Weapon Variants
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