The Misriah Armory M392 Designated Marksman Rifle quickly became a fan favorite weapon of Reach as the replacement of the BR55 Battle Rifle. I personally prefer the design of the M395 (Halo 4/5) model, but I'll take the M392 DMR as a consolation prize.
Once again, Offyerrocker comes through with the fantastic scope and ammo counter.
The M392 DMR is unlocked at Level 70 and is based on the WA2000 (Lebensrauger)
The M392 DMR is a slower firing, but more damaging sniper rifle, fitting somewhere between the 165 damage DMRs and the 255 damage Bolt Action rifles.
DMR Stat Notes:
Spoiler!
The weapon was intended to be an inbetween of the 255 damage snipers and the 165 damage DMRs.
By default, the weapon has an ammo pickup rate of 1-4 and sits at 185 damage, which is stronger than most of the other DMRs, but lower than even the weakest bolt action rifles. A similar story occurs with the fire rate, which by default sits at 120 RPM. This is faster than most other bolt action rifles that sit in the 50-60 RPM range, but somewhat slower than most other DMRs that fire at 150 RPM. This should make the M392 a decent combat weapon with little to no investment, provided you can keep scoring headshots.
By default, the M392 can penetrate body armor, but cannot shoot through walls, shields, or enemies without any special ammo types. This is to replicate the feel/stated lore of the DMR within Reach, where it can't shoot through walls/Jackal Shields/multiple enemies, but can damage the supposedly highly armored Covenant enemies.
If you want the weapon to behave as a one shot headshot style weapon, the Noble ammo sorta has you covered. It grants access to all piercing types and grants +50 damage, which should puts you +-15 damage within the one shot headshot threshhold for the most common enemies on all difficulties (you'll probably fall a bit short, but that's where skills and the weapon sweetspot ranges kick in). However, it comes with the tradeoff of 30% lowered ammo pickup rate.
If you are a really twitchy marksman, use the Lightweight Trigger, which boosts the fire rate by 50%, but lowers your damage by 30 points. The damage drop will make the M392 move into the 150-160 damage DMR range, which puts it out of the range of one shot headshots, but that can be solved with ammo mods and skill investments, such as Berserker or Crits.
The M392 is based off of the WA2000, which has a slow reload by default. As much as I'd like to replace it with an entirely new animation, that is beyond my skillset. If you want to use this weapon but loathe the anemic reload speed, I'd use reload skills such as the Aggresive Reload skill, and/or use the Quick Magazine attachment.
The Quick Magazine halves your reload time, but has a penalty of getting rid of 1/4th of your total ammo supply. The total ammo penalty should be no problem if you're reasonably good with your aim and are constantly running over pickups.
If you want to run a Crits/Dodge playstyle, you can install the dodge barrel, which lowers your damage and accuracy, but grants a small boost to your fire rate and concealment. It is no replacement for a sniper rifle with dedicated mods for concealment, such as the Contractor.
Known Issues:
Charging handle doesn't have animations for firing and reloading, but the weapon otherwise functions.
The Default Scope overlay border allows you to see through it, but it does not match reticle. I don't know the exact color the outside portion of the scope reticle, so I'll defer to Offyerrocker for fixing this.
Probable Future Asked Questions:
Q: The default fire rate is too slow.
A: Use the Lightweight Trigger or any other 150 RPM semi auto sniper rifle such as the Contractor/vanilla WA2000.
Q: When I aim down the sights with the default scope, nothing pops up and I'm stuck looking at the solid scope object!
A: Download Weaponlib, as the scope overlay is a function of Weaponlib. I did write in the instructions that Weaponlib is required.
Q: When I use the Standalone EVOS-D scope, no reticle/red dot/overlay appears and I just see a solid scope?
A: The scope will appear solid with no reticle/overlay/dot because you forgot to download Modern Sights, which is required due to how the standalone EVOS-D is programmed.
Choosing a red dot reticle makes no effect on how to use the scope, as the red dot mesh is set to be invisble and you are supposed to aim with the reticle texture.
Q: I downloaded your optional suggested mods and now the M392 doesn't proc sniper skills (Graze)??? WTF?!
A: You downloaded More Weapon Categories, which is an optional mod.
And yes, More Weapon Categories changes all DMRs to count as assault rifles for purposes of skills. You should read both the instrunctions page of this mod as well as the description of the other mods I recommend with this weapon. MWC is an optional mod that is part of how this weapon was intended to be balanced (alongside More Ammunition Types). The idea was that you're supposed to make a choice between choosing Noble ammo for consistent one hit kills without skills (but no Graze), the 7.62x51 M118 ammo types to give you Graze but not enough daamge to get one shot kills (you can get one shot kills, but need to invest in perks like Berserker or pray for Crits), or choose any of the other 7.62x51mm ammo types for their other effects you want (better accuracy/stability, fire DoT, etc).
Of course, you can also just choose not to download MWC if you want Graze with the M392, but I'm not to blame if you find the game too easy.
Q: This weapon is too powerful! Why does Cheatworkshop allow people like you to upload weapons?!
A: Just don't download the mod, or go into the files to adjust the stats yourself.
Q: But I thought you weren't going to make any more Halo weapons? If this is your idea of an April Fools joke, it isn't even April 1rst yet!
A: /shrug can't win them all.
Q: Please do MA37/5B/5C/5D/40!
A: No. ~~It's been worked on, stop asking. ~~
Tell Offyerrocker that my MA40 is finished, that I am not going to change the assets (yet again), and that all that's missing is programming the ammo counter/smart scope textures.
A: https://modworkshop.net/mod/31760 There is your Next Generation of Insult to Rifles, Infinite edition.
Q: Please do weapons using Halo 5/Infinite assets!
A: Find a way to brainwash Phill Spencer into changing the Xbox Content Creation Policy to allow assets directly ripped from games.
the sight doesn't work