EDIT: I fixed the thread up a bit. Came off a bit too aggressive than I intended.
I am a collector of sorts and I found that collecting these exotic weapons have a certain special place in my heart.
No, I did not "earn" these through RNG (which is not earning at all).
In fact buying these from Xur is much closer to 'earning' than getting lucky with an RNG drop from crucible after bottoming the list.
Using dozens of coins I have 'earned' from the daily story AND the weekly heroic missions is more true to earning these exotics than being the ONLY one in a raid group of 6 lucky enough to pull an exotic weapon out of VoG.
I have earned my shit through hours of playing these story missions and weekly heroic strikes.
Oh you found your Icebreaker as a drop running patrol missions on Mars? I call that LUCKY.
I bought a gun with 17 strange coins saved up after playing Heroic and the story missions when available.
I call that 'Earned'.
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I don't have a single exotic. I "earned" a legendary scout rifle from a blue engram, a legendary helmet from a drop and that's it. I have the chest from Queen's Wrath, but everyone gets that. The gauntlets and legs, I bought. I have had no RNG luck whatsoever, and you know what? I don't care. It's entirely luck. I got an exotic bounty yesterday (and accidentally selected the one for Invective when I wanted Bad Juju), so I will get my first exotic tonight if I play. That's all the earning I've done. Of course, I'm also saving my coins to buy the two exotics I really want, Crest of Alpha Lupi and Last Word. So do I earn my gear? Or am I just a filthy casual?