[quote]It has, in fact been explicitly stated that was the intention. If you look back at the update when DeeJ said Thorn and Bad Juju we're going to be buffed, he said the idea was for exotics to be unique and play differently than other weapons, but to not be objectively more powerful than legendaries.[/quote] - thanks Patient3591 Here it is - from the Dev notes themselves http://www.bungie.net/7_Destiny-Dev-Notes/en/News/News?aid=12188 Exotic Weapons [b]Exotic Weapons are designed to look, feel and sound overpowered, but to not actually break the game[/b]. We hope these weapons challenge the way players think about their loadouts and expect their idiosyncrasies to sometimes be a little frustrating. We find ourselves wanting to collect them all and hope players feel the same way. Not all our Exotic Weapons currently live up to this promise. In particular those weapons received from completing exotic bounties including Thorn and Bad Juju have disappointed many of us who have gone through the great effort to obtain them because, despite looking and sounding amazing, they feel underpowered. We're here to offer some advice: don't shard those guns. Their time will come.