With regards weapon balance, it's not just that the H4 DMR has a quick kill time, it's that it's really easy to achieve that kill time and it's totally consistent in kill time out to a HUGE range. It's the perfect example of what people mean when they talk about a lack of a 'skill gap.'

See, the M6D in Halo 1 had a fast kill time but it was really hard to achieve it. Beyond 100m (I think) your auto-aim assistance was totally gone. BR in Halo 2/3 were easier to use but quite range-limited and especially with the spread in H3 you could only ping reliably with 1 bullet per burst. The Halo: Reach DMR, for all it's flaws, required a cadence and that you should slow more and more with range. I could swear the red-reticle range was far less too.

With how easy it is to die already in Halo 4, especially since you slow down when shot and can't knock people out of scope at range, these changes just sound like they're trying to make weapon choice a wash. Except you'll have fake variety since instead of getting shot by grey streaks through the air it might be orange or green a bit.

(DMR clear community favourite, huh? Boy! Making the Forerunner weapons copy-cats so players would identify with them easily and use them more often sure paid off, huh?)

Good that they've finally seceded on the Grifball settings and are just going to use the same trait settings that the community wants across the entire playlist - it is their gametype after all. Although always I must ask: why did it take so long?