I'll start by saying this, there are two hidden stats for weapons in Destiny; Handling (shortens ADS, Ready, Reload, Weapon swap times, and just about every other animation your weapon can mention.), and Optics (provides a magnifier to your Range stat) Many weapons you may look at and even when compared to weapons that seem to be of the same archetype (VoC vs MIDA), you'll notice immediately there's a statistical difference, no one seems to know where the missing points go. Welp, here's a heads up to all, among most weapons lie an archetype known as "lightweight" unlike other archetypes in the same classification this family has a high base Handling stat. These weapons are never going to hit the hardest, but they will hit first and there will never be a time where they slow you down. This is especially a useful stat in PvP where the split seconds count to providing you an artificially superior reaction time, in PvE this class is most notably useful during the long hauls. Big Strikes, long Patrol runs, etc. Case in point is the MIDA, this weapon is known in the commune for being weak for it's base stats, however it too lies with the Lightweight archetype. You may notice how responsive this weapon is, not to mention how fast the reloads are. This weapon is a Multitool in the sense it's a true Jack of All Trades. Any situation you throw at it you can manage, especially considering the main weakness of the Lightweights is burst dps, the option to quicken your MS speed considerably allows you to set up the area to either make better use of the sustained boost the higher Reloads give you in PvE or the faster animations in PvP. Optics are very simple, certain scopes you notice give boons to your Range, the hidden stat simply builds on top of that, a higher Optic magnifier boosts your range further than what the base Range increase shows for that scope. This is most felt on weapons that have a capped Range, otherwise unable to further increase this stat the Optics magnifier scales beyond the potential cap of a weapon.