I Love Thorn. It's THE best looking gun in the game shooting it is rewarding and fun. Props to who ever designed it. But it has some glaring issues. HUGE ISSUES.
1. Reload Speed. Guardians are preternaturally gifted at war. That means when we fight its damn near supernatural. A revolver should NOT take longer to reload than a belt fed crew served weapon. Thorn does. Why? Triple or Quadruple Thorns reload speed.
2. The DOT does not reapply. This is an Exotic Handcannon. It is supposed to be powerful. The ability that makes it this is gimped. Fix it. I should see 2 numbers every time I shoot something. The normal damage and the first DOT tick.
Edit:
There is a general consensus about what people want from a Thorn buff. Then I got to thinking about how Thorn and The Last Word are supposed to be yin and yang. While mag size and reload speed both need a boost it doesn't quite make Thorn a viable counter to The Last Word. So I propose the following.
Mark of the Devourer becomes innate. Mag Size increased to 8. Reload speed doubles. Impact can reach maximum with the right perks selected. New ability "Targets affected by Mark of the Devourer take increased damage from Thorn and cannot resist this damage".
That should make Thorn as good as The Last Word.
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I doubt we will see a mag increase; right now in the crucible it takes 2 head shots to kill; even just bumping it up to 8 bullets would mean you could get 4 kills between reloading and most primaries seem to sit in at around 3 kills per mag max (those that could do more were nerfed.) I do think that Mark of the Devourer will either refresh or possibly stack when Thorn is buffed, and we will probably see a reload speed buff as well. Honestly I would just like to see the game fixed so that all DoT effects stack; while playing a gunslinger with Thorn you can potentially cause 3 separate effects that cancel each other out, which can be frustrating. If I hit an enemy with my grenade, throwing knife, and Thorn that enemy should take triple to DoT like in any other game...