dark halo did you watch that montage? almost every kill he either had a friend to distract the guy he was shooting, the enemy was spraying all over the place, he caught the enemy guy off guard, or he got a "reload this" medal on a guy coming out of combat. most of the kills he got were from him knowing how to move around, and im not faulting him for that. that video was a terrible way to defend the plasma repeater. go play invasion. tell me the repeater works better than the dmr. not saying it doesnt have its uses, but that video hardly convinces me that ill get kills if i take a repeater against a dmr at anything outside melee range.

i just wrote a bit about this in a paper on game balance: halo 1's weapon set is so enjoyable because theres not duplicates of weapons (eg: battle rifle and carbine, needle rifle and dmr), and while every weapon has a role it works best in, they can almost all be used effectively in other roles. the very best example is the shotgun. in halo 1 the shotgun is deadly up close, and effective at medium range. the damage from far away is negligible, BUT ITS THERE. in halo 2 and on, the shotgun is deadly like 80% of the time in close range, and at medium range its damage is non-existent, as if the pellets literally disappear.

as for your argument on the halo 1 pistol being a starting weapon, look at halo 2's starters: smg and magnum. look at halo 3's starter: assault rifle. your chances of getting any real kills are low until you manage to get a BR of your own. in halo 1, yes the rape cannon is a spawn weapon. take pooky's example on blood gulch: a red guy makes his way to blue, gets on top of blue base, and starts spawn killing blue with the rape cannon pistol. blues spawn with the pistol too, so they can fight back. put that situation in halo 2, and now you have a bunch of people throwing negligent damage at the red guy from magnums and smgs, and the only reason they kill the guy is because enough of them managed to widdle down his shields and health.

so to bring this back full circle, halo 3's is unbalanced because its OVER BALANCED. instead of giving weapons a loose role like halo 1, but making them effective outside of that role, weapons in halo 3, and reach to an extent, are rigidly constrained to that one role. not to mention that theres more of them. would anybody have been upset if maps just stuck to either the battle rifle or the carbine as the precision weapon in halo 3 instead of using both?

side note: the flaming is not helping anybody's argument. the whole "terrible player" thing is a straight up fucking insult. attack the argument, not the person making it.