I've been looking at the most recent adept loot to come out. None of them are good in comparison to their craftable counterparts and its been like this for a while now. Below is the comparisons and how much better crafted versions of the weapons are. [b]Pre Astyanax IV vs Tyranny of Heaven.[/b] Both have Incandascent, but the ToH can roll with dragonfly too, creating a PvE room sweeper. Where as PA4 can only scorch making it less effective, and the cherry on top is that enhanced incandescent provides an additional 5 stacks of scorch when Ember of Ashes is applied. Not to mention, you also gotta farm Grandmasters, which is much harder to do than farming Kali and reminding her why the Last Wish is a joke nowadays. [b]Undercurrent vs Forbearance[/b] Why did they release the Undercurrent after a year of Forbearance existing. Undercurrent is basically Forbearance but from wish.com, except harder to farm because of it's drop source. Undercurrent has Voltshot, which in comparison to Chain Reaction, is basically what you get after your mom says "we have Chain Reaction at home". All things considered, stats don't really matter on Special GLs, but its funny that when the weapons respectively get their Enhanced Intrinsic and Adept Masterwork bonuses, Forbearance still has slightly better stats. Which doesn't matter but one is harder to farm, has worst traits and worse stats. Why does it exist? [b]Imperial Decree vs Astral Horizon[/b] Here's where things get interesting. Both compete with each other. But one is significantly easier to get and can be crafted into a perfect roll with enhanced traits. Basically every PvP Shotgun user will tell your to either run Threat Detector or Slideshot with Opening Shot. Which both shotguns can get. But then there's the issue Imperial Decree getting enhanced perks. These add more to those stats that are actually important. What's even funnier, is that the base stats of Imperial Decree is higher than Astral Horizon even after the stat bonuses from the Adept Masterwork and Enhanced Intrinsic. There was no reason to actually slave your life away in Trials for the Astral Horizon when Imperial Decree is craftable. Funnily enough, these both got reissued in the same season and the best one came from the season pass instead of the ENDGAME ACTIVITY. [b]Uzume RR4 vs Beloved and Succession[/b] In comparison to Beloved, this is a very close call dependant on the type of person you are. These two snipers are almost in line. One is substantially better if you like 40 Zoom, the other is slightly better if you like 50 Zoom and can put up with the sights. Whichever one is better is purely based on which zoom you like. Yes Uzume can get Adept Targeting (+10 Aim Assist), but Beloved can get Moving Target + Targeting Adjuster which adds 15 total Aim Assist (16 from enhanced). Making Beloved have more Aim Assist. It's 83-84 versus Uzume's 77 with Adept Targeting. But Zoom also affects Auto Aim proportionally so it makes Uzume on par with Beloved, so then it just comes down to personal preference. But it's the fact that one is (or was) substantially easier to get. The DCV rules Uzume easier to get nowadays, but it would've been much easier to get Beloved if it was still available. Now in comparison to Succession, its a complete blowout. If you're using snipers in PvE, do not use Uzume. It is utter trash. The turds Succession leaves in the toilet bowl deal more stinkin' damage than Uzume would ever dream of doing. Both get Vorpal. One gets Precision Instrument which is useless unless you're nothing but heads hitting heads, but it doesn't matter because the enhanced version isn't available and still wouldn't be able to salvage this weapon because of the ammo economy. Succession has two things that allow it just simply deal more sustained and burst damage. The 15% Kinetic bonus and the Aggressive Frame advantage. Succession also has a nice QoL trait called Reconstruction. Forget about reloading, and enjoy the benefit of double capacity magazines. Uzume is what you get when you put a weapon in the DCV and have other weapons power creep it, and then reissue it with no good perks to compensate. That's not even a punchline, that's what happened. [b]Did Weapon Crafting ruin Adept Loot[/b] TL:DR, no it hasn't. Bungie refuses to give new Adept loot trait combinations that are better or stats that compete with craftable weapons. Nor do they give them the same treatment as Lightfall's Raid Adepts with enhancing perks and changing components and masterworks. Weapon Crafting adds respect for time. Which is much appreciated from those who don't have RNG on their side, I have slaved away for perfect 5/5's of weapons for wayyyyyy too long. Most of those weapons, I still haven't gotten yet. Rose, Found Verdict (Timelost), Messenger (Adept), Unending Tempest, Breakneck, Sacred Provenance, Eyasluna, Matador 64. Those are the weapons I'm trying to get 5/5's for still. Some of those are still fresh which is understandable as to why I don't have the 5/5's to an extent, but there is only one weapon out of all of those, that I actually don't mind playing, which is 6v6's for Unending Tempests. I have spent an unreasonable amount of time in activities that I now absolutely loathe because I can't get the roles on the weapons that I want for the amount of effort I invest. Part of the reason I hate doing those activities is because I'm forced to spend a diabolical amount of time to get the 5/5's from them. Trying to chase your ideal roll when you don't have good RNG and can't improve it in anyway is criminal for those who aren't that lucky. But the issue that Weapon Crafting brings, is not actually the fault of weapon crafting. It's the fact that Bungie doesn't make Adept loot better. They don't give any reason to actually farm for Adept loot because they don't give them any advantages in terms of stats or trait combinations. They've refused to make Adept loot meaningful and that is at no fault of the weapon crafting system. At the end of the day, Bungie decides the traits and the stats that go on to the weapons. Honestly, they should stop reissuing old weapons from the DCV, because their stats are -blam!- in comparison to things nowadays. They aren't even making new weapon models, for the new adept weapons. The entirety of the Nightfall Adepts are either reissued from previous Nightfall rewards before Adepts existed, or are from D1, or are reskins of foundry weapons. There's no adept weapons that is solely unique. And that's the same with Trials, except for Igneous Hammer, the only unique gun model. They should just make two new weapons every season, that are reskins of current weapons with the foundry origin traits and ship those with godly trait combinations and [u][b]modern day stats[/b][/u] (don't need to power creep them, make them slightly better than the average weapon because they're Adept and harder to get). On top of that, add the same treatment that adept weapons have in RoN and Crota's End.