Beam Rifle

Summary

The Beam Rifle is an extraordinarily powerful weapon, capable of sniping enemies from long ranges. Like the human Sniper Rifle, the Beam Rifle has two levels of zoom for greater accuracy. As a Directed Energy Weapon, it fires ionized particles at its targets, instead of accelerating small projectiles. This makes it a lot more effective on shielded infantries, particularly Jackals, as their shields can protect them from projectile rounds but not direct energy. It's also quieter, giving it an advantage over the UNSC Sniper Rifle in terms of stealth and speed. In terms of longevity, however, the beam rifle is unable to reload and therefore has a limited number of shots before it must be discarded by the user for another weapon. The Beam Rifle can also be used to shoot two fast shots, at the cost of temporarily overheating. This can be used to quickly dispose of an oncoming enemy. It is also possible to kill two enemies with a single shot as the shot can completely penetrate the enemy on a headshot. Despite the overheating issues, the Beam Rifle is a better defense weapon than the Sniper Rifle because two shots can be fired in very quick succession, making it easier for the sniper to defend themselves, useful in higher difficulties, (as long as the shots hit). The Beam Rifle is mostly carried by Jackal Snipers who prefer the weapon over the Covenant Carbine and use it with deadly skill, but will sometimes be carried by Elites and Brutes.

Advantages

Although it is quite rare, the Beam Rifle is a deadly, and a very effective long-range weapon. Similar to the Sniper Rifle, the Beam Rifle is excellent at picking off enemies at great distances. Its charges are very useful at taking down a player's shields if a headshot isn't acquired. Additionally, this type of charge makes it an ideal "no-scope" weapon, as many players find it easier to score headshots without the scope with a Beam Rifle compared to the Sniper Rifle. Finally, the weapon's firing rate allows for quick, precise kills, and with some skill, the player can prevent having to wait for the weapon to cool down after excessive heating. Also the ability to fire two shots in quick succession allows the wielder to fire a two round spread for extremely long range shots or for snap shots at closer ranges when you don't have time to zoom, two things the human sniper rifle cannot do.

Disadvantages

The beam of bright purple light is much more obvious to see, but somewhat quicker at dissipating than the Sniper Rifle's vapor trail. Another disadvantage is that it is slightly less powerful and accurate than the UNSC counterpart, and like some other Covenant weapons, it suffers from overheating problems, after just two shots in succession. Also, once the rifle's battery is depleted, which occurs in 18 to 20 shots, the rifle must be replaced. The oval aim makes it harder to aim at enemies at a very long distance. Like it's human counterpart, it is ineffective at close range, unless you can perform no scope kills. Other issues include the bleeding off of excess battery when overheated for 5 seconds, usually about 5 units and the fact that the large weapon covers up nearly half of the screen of the wielder. It doesn't work very well in medium range with no scope. Unlike its human counterpart, it doesn't effect Flood Combat Forms when shot and wastes much energy to kill Pure Forms.

Deployment and Appearances

The Beam Rifle was first introduced in Halo 2, having no appearance or mention in Halo: Combat Evolved. Obviously this is because Bungie was expanding the Halo universe and added it into the release of the second game. The Beam Rifle made its first canonical appearance during the period covered in Halo Wars. The Beam rifle also appears in Halo 3

In The Cole Protocol, sniper Jackals were mentioned, but their weapon type wasn't. It could be important to note that these were what amounted to civilian Jackals not being part of the main Covenant fighting force.