If anyone has some good ideas for buffing Thorn I'm sure Bungie would like to hear them. I'll share what I have in mind. Feel free to comment or berate me.
Thorn is by far the most difficult bounty, that much is true. The design of Thorn in comparison to all of the other hand cannons is very unique. From what I can tell it is, by design, the largest hand cannon. Logically speaking the Thorn should be shooting the largest caliber rounds and have the most impact. From what I have seen the Painted Big Chief (rare) has the highest hand cannon impact.
Also, the Final Round upgrade feels very lackluster on that weapon. I would recommend either increased reload speed from precision kills or increased damage with the bottom half of the magazine. Obviously, since the magazine is small each round would have to do proportionally more damage with each shot. When using Suros Regime, the last round does about twice as much damage as the first round, but the magazine is much larger. The incremental damage increase would have to be greater.
Increase base magazine size to a minimum of 8. 6 is easily too small for an exotic. Considering Thorn has extremely low range and stability the magazine would have to be bigger. I would say that if the devs give it a damage increase for the bottom half of the mag, then 8 rounds should be good. For anything else, a minimum of 10 rounds.
I have already mentioned the impact increase. So as far as other base stats are concerned, I would say increase the range to a more practical level. The size of the gun is enough to warrant its low stability, which already has an optional upgrade to compensate. But the range is so ridiculously short that it severely cripples the gun in combination with low stability. I understand that there are upgrades on it right now that can fix this problem, but extremely low range coupled with low stability makes it difficult to use.
I also believe a small boost to the lingering damage would be a good idea. Or, instead of the lingering damage the bullets splinter on impact mimicking a shotgun blast from a long distance (minimal damage with multiple impact points). What I mean is the bullet itself causes damage and THEN splinters cause a little extra. Just a thought.
Things I would recommend NOT doing with this gun:
Leave it alone. This gun deserves a good boost to be more practical.
Give it a dumb ability like return to sender (kills have a chance to add rounds to the mag). It works on other guns, but it would keep Thorn from being usable.
Change the tertiary upgrades it already has. The additional upgrades are decent enough, they just don't compensate for what is wrong with it.
Summary: Boost impact to be on par or better than the Painted Big Chief. Change the secondary ability since Final Round is kind of weak for a gun that has a 5 second reload (feels like 5 anyway). Boost range to where a player will have a rough time deciding between adding more range or increasing stability via upgrades. Also, if any devs read this, please offer a timeframe when we could expect to see an update on this gun. Don't need a date, just a ballpark estimate would be cool.
Feel free to comment. I will also be posting my recommendations for Bad Juju.
Update: I sincerely appreciate people starting to add feedback. Considering what has been said so far it seems like you guys agree with the majority of what I and other people have said. That's a big step to getting things done and thank you!
Update 2: So far the feedback has been positive and largely the same between each person. Let's do a quick recap. I mentioned raising range mainly for pve purposes since in harder strikes you will be farther away from enemies. Reducing the dropoff will enhance is usability in pve without affecting pvp. Everyone agrees thorn needs a bigger mag and/or more reload speed. I Go with mag size because gear can increase reload, even though a little bit. A resetting dot with each shot would most likely cause the dot to stack because of coding issues which would require an additional fix. Not guaranteed, but likely. A precision damage increase was mentioned for pve, but that would overpower it in pvp. I'm still sticking with an impact increase because of the guns design, and if that happens then 8 rounds should suffice.
You guys are bad ass. Thank you for reading and replying. I'll try to keep up with replies for everyone. Hopefully this thread gets so big that I can't then bungie will be like "Damn, this motherf$!#^er knows what's up." Some of you have mentioned bad juju, and I have already written my ideas for that as well. Search Ideas for Bad Juju? Click on my thread and read away. Leave a comment and tell me what you think.
Update: The buffs are supposed to be soon. Still no word. Keep commenting/liking. Gotta get this replied to by bungie
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I just read every post and comment in this forum and I agree wholeheartedly. The Thorn DEFINITELY needs a larger magazine size and a faster reload would be downright amazing. While a Damage Over Time reset would be great, I agree with the creator of this forum that it would be overpowered. Maybe increase the damage of DOT a little bit. Say, instead of the original 7, make it 10.
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Make it a special weapon. Even with its current stats I would use it.
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8 round mag. Really quick reload. Each thorn bullet bleed damage stacks. There gun worth the bounty.
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Need help with xyor xbox 360 lev 28 warlock
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It's already done if it's rolling out next week so what you on about(give bungie ideas)
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I think the range is great. If i can see an enemy i can usually one hit them across the map even without the range perk
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I agree with it all. I would be fine with a mag of 8-10 and increase the reload speed a bit. That would make me happy.
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Edited by a potato: 11/21/2014 7:19:02 AMBetter idea: Needs: 1 - Drastically boost reload speed if the mag is empty (built-in "Spray and Pray") 2 - make subsequent shots refresh the dot 3 - make it do void instead of kinetic (it's a weapon of darkness, this fits the lore) Would be nice: 3 - Replace final round with holding aces.
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I'm a noob and fully upgraded Thorn being as it was my first exotic. I'm extremely bummed because it literally sucks. I got the last word two days ago and have been debating breaking Thorn down. I am still hoping they give us a time frame on the buff.
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I don't like DoT for a single shot. Needs larger mag or a lot faster reload. And a little more damage, if I can't one shot low lvls in the head then it a problem.
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Just make each round add to the poison DoT instead of if they have DoT on them already, it doesn't refresh.
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What do you think? Tip for Bungie: Buff Thorn with Void Damage: http://www.bungie.net/pt-br/Forum/Post/75087358/0/0
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Make it so you do not have to re-load the pistol. It doesn't even function like a real revolver because it takes a cylinder that is inserted into spinning gears, so why should it hold six shots? Let it hold all of the rounds in the gun. That would give it some personality at least. It will still be a crap weapon which I would dismantle for a single ascendant energy if I am ever short. Seriously, I will break Thorn apart just to get a energy to upgrade ANY other weapon. Even a purple. Even a purple I never use. That is how big of a piece of crap Thorn is.
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Increase damage Either increase reload speed or ammo capacity
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It just needs a pve crit hit buff no pvp
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLAYFHWO9fs :)
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I think thorn needs more bullets AND a faster reload
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My only problem with it, is the reload. An extended mag would be awesome too though.
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Edited by Circadian Wolf: 10/27/2014 12:12:07 AMThe only thing I would like added to the thorn is for its DoT timer to reset on every hit, other than that I think its an awesome gun, I wont use anything else for pvp. I think its range is perfectly acceptable for a hand cannon as they are supposed to be mid range weapons, the current range vs stability on the weapon traits could be made a more difficult decision by buffing the range increase for that upgrade though.
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I find the gun fine as I'm always in the receiving end of it. I been sniped byit multiple times. Bad juju is really the only thing that needs to be fixed.
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Ive used the thorn plenty I say its a great weapon as is
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The Devil You Know has a bigger mag and better reload. You need a bigger magazine size and faster reload. The range and fire rate is fine.
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They should switch the last round perk with overpenatrating rounds and add either bigger mags or quicker reloads.
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Not bad. In addition to this, I would only add a small change to the DoT's effect. The DoT should reset with each hit. The idea is simple: if you're shooting a target with a poison gun, the target should continue to take poison damage as long as it is being hit repeatedly, not just from the initial first shot.