Actually we only meant level and defense related damage modifiers but we're not going to tell you that because apparently not normalising the bar stats and gear perks is the way to go even though legendaries and exotics tend to have ridiculous groupings of those. Auto-shotguns, exotic fusion rifle with max impact but min charge time, exotic auto rifles with humongous groupings of rate of fire, impact, stability, range are all totally balanced. They 100% don't need normalisation oh no.
I don't even want to get into the BS of semantics that is having the impact stat being the base bullet damage (why? It sounds like a stat to do with actual you know, IMPACT as in knockback effect - which before someone told me what it actually did was backed up by the fact that my high impact hand cannon had good knockback/flinch so I assumed that was what it did) while Attack only for level and possibly defense differentials (I've never been sure how it works because it's not explained anywhere I could find...).
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Eh idk man when i started my hunter i did only the first earth mission and went into crucible and just wrecked people with my auto rifle, which i may note wasn't rare or green. I think it varies between person to person. At any level i still usually end up the highest on the scoreboard and its not like i always play, im on Fridays and Saturdays.