It's probably the best starting utility weapon, balance wise, that a Halo game has ever had. The BR in Halo 2 and 3, and the DMR in Reach were better than any other precision weapons, so there was no point in picking up other precision weapons if you started with them. AR start games left you at the mercy of anyone with power weapons or precision weapons. The Halo 5 Magnum gives you the ability to fight off spawn, but I'll pick up a DMR, Carbine, or Light Rifle anytime I see one. They all give you a more effective maximum range. The BR is a bit useless now after they nerfed it, but the weapon sandbox is still pretty balanced in terms of most weapons being useful and worth picking up. Its one of the things Halo 5 did right.
Absolutely agree. The H5 sandbox is the most well balanced Halo sandbox yet.
The sandbox balance issues that remain within Halo 5 primarily affect just the Arena environment. The Warzone environment really isn't negatively affected in the same way; however, there's an oddity that exists relating to a particular AR variant due to the weapon tuning, but it's definitely not a colossal difference maker.
In my opinion, the Arena environment suffers from two particular weapons that weren't allowed to better fit an ideal niche role within that particular environment. The first stems from the BR having its' baseline Red-Reticle-Ranges (RRRs) reduced. And the second stems from the SMG having its' optimal TTK time made worse than I think was necessary.
I believe I provide a decent breakdown on the BR issue within the Arena environment
HERE despite the topic relating more specifically to BTB. It still encompasses the issue as it applies to the Arena environment. The nice thing is that the Long-Barrel Recon variant could potentially be used as the default BR within the Arena environment if they were so inclined to address its issues without investing the heavy resources into re-tuning it again.
The current state of the SMG isn't that it's useless, but that it's often much more practical to simply use the AR instead. Had they of simply allowed its optimal TTK to be better than the AR by 0.1 of a second instead of exactly the same I think there'd be more of a reason to use it other than its non-optimal TTK being noticeably better within its effective ranges which are noticeably shorter than the AR.
I will say that I hope Halo Infinite goes to an all projectile-based sandbox instead of having some weapons as hit-scan. This should allow for a more nuanced sandbox balance than can be achieved by having some exist as hit-scan and then possibly adding something as annoying as bloom or recoil reticle drift. And I say this as someone who very much appreciates the benefits afforded by hit-scan.