Edit: to all the people complaining "But it's a Year 1 weapon!" "Who cares?" It's going to be coming into Year 2. Sooner or later, it's coming. And if it remains the way it is now when it makes the transition, Trials and Iron Banner will be added to the list of playlists that will be infested with it. THAT is why people should care, THAT is why I'm complaining about it, and THAT is why action should be taken now, before the problem gets any worse (and we saw what happened in Year 1 when Bungie didn't take aciton...). And to all the people saying that Thorn is balanced, you're simply wrong. It is less powerful in relation to what it was in Year 1. That is an undeniable, solid fact. BUT, it is still far too powerful. Can you honestly defend a hand cannon that kills in 3 body shots? Can you explain to me why "sweaties" is filled with Thorn and not other, arguably more powerful, weapons like MIDA and Last Word? I'll tell you, if you think that it's balanced, Bungie will think it's balanced. And the problem will continue to get worse and worse, and, eventually, when the gun comes to Year 2, we'll have the Crucible in the state of Year 1 all over again (allbeit to a somewhat lesser degree). We have to make our voices heard to SOLVE the problem, people. If I shut up and don't come here to the forums, and Bob does the same, and Joe, and everybody just keeps their mouth shut, how is Bungie going to know it's a problem? Also, no TLDR. A TLDR gives the basic points with no evidence to back it up. If you're going to come at me based on a paragraph-long TLDR, then chances are you won't be as knowledgable about my opinions than if you read the post. Thanks. (End Edit. Continue reading for the actual post.) Let's be honest here for a second. Thorn is completely and utterly broken in the current PvP meta. Granted, it was a hell of a lot worse in Year 1. Nonetheless, it is making a massive comeback. Any game mode aside from Trials and Iron Banner usually is plagued by AT LEAST one Thorn user in EVERY game. 3v3 sweaties has been reduced to using Thorn 24/7. The weapon is a monster, and it has to be stopped. But how? Let's examine what makes Thorn far stronger than any other weapon in the game. The DoT that it has (Damage over Time) is undoubtedly the source of the problem. Now, this DoT used to do 7 damage per tick in PvP in Year 1, and it made the weapon far too lethal. Now, it only ticks for 3 damage, but it has a stacking effect (2 hits will result in 2 sets of ticks, 3 damage each, for basically 6 damage ticks. 3 hits will set upp 3 sets of ticks for essentially 9 damage ticks, etc.) This means that the weapon is STILL capable of 3-shot kills to the body. That is just wrong, and I'm not even going to explain why. If you think 3 shots to the foot, resulting in a kill, with a weapon of this type is ok, then you should probably leave this post right now, as I'm going to assume reason doesn't work with you. But it is not just the lethality that makes the DoT too strong. The mechanics of the DoT make it so that you can hit a guardian, and, while it may not kill them, it will force them to back down until they stop burning, keeping them down until their health begins to regen, then until they are fully healed again. This process can take anywhere from 10-20 seconds, depending on your recovery stat (no tests here because I'm lazy). What this means? Someone can shoot you ONCE in your pinkie finger with this weapon and force you out of an engagement, leaving you weak for something like 20 seconds. Again, that is just wrong. So how do we go about balancing this atrocity? We should have two goals in mind when thinking about Thorn's rebalance. 1. Reduce the lethality of the DoT to disable its ability to get 3-shot body kills and tear through guardians in their super, with enough stacks. 2. Reduce the time the DoT forces you away from an engagement. Let's begin to tackle the first goal. Reduce the damage over time. This one's an easy one. Reduce the Thorn's base Damage over Time to 1 damage per tick in PvP. This greatly reduces the lethality of the weapon in PvP and will prevent the weapon from killing in 3 shots, much less tearing through guardians that have supers. The 1 damage will see almost meaningless, but it will keep a guardian's shields down without resulting in an overload of damage. Now all of you filthy scrubs that ACTUALLY USE this weapon in PvE will no doubt be complaining right about now. "Nerfs in PvP affect PvE too! Waaah!" Here's what can be done to remedy that. Increase Thorn's base Damage over Time by X% in PvE to bring it back in line with where it is at now. (X representing the exact percent needed to keep it where it's currently at.) And don't say this can't be done. The DoT should be coded no differntly than any other form of base damage in the game. And, as we've seen numerous times before, the base damage can be reduced, and then buffed by a percentage in PvE to counteract the base damage nerf. We've seen this with pulses and autos, and it can (or should) be replicated here. Next mission: reduce the time DoT forces you away from a fight, causing you to hide in a corner until your health regenerates. This one can be done fairly easily as well, believe it or not. Put quite simply, Reduce the time between damage ticks for the Damage over Time. Essentially, this means that you will be doing the same amount of damage in a shorter amount of time. Let's set the time to about a third of what it is now (although Bungie should be able to tinker with this and determine what they think is right.) 1This can actually be seen as a buff for the weapon. No damage is being lost, and the only difference is that the enemy will die quicker (in PvE). Whereas in PvP, players will burn for less time, causing players to be able to get back in the fight sooner and heed Lord Shaxx's constant screaming, "FIGHT BACK!" Additionally, I've heard an interesting suggestion from PopeBear on Planet Destiny's podcast. He was upset with the fact that a person spraying the Thorn should not be rewarded for getting a lucky ankle shot, doing decent damage, and forcing them to back down. He suggested that Thorn's DoT should ONLY proc on precision hits. I think this is a very good idea. It rewards players that would actually take the time to aim with the thing, and punishes ones that spray it at the body. Only problem is, this change would probably affect PvE as well. It would be very difficult to code in the DoT to only proc on GUARDIAN headshots, while not affecting PvE in any way. Additionally, I feel that this nerf, in combination with the nerfs I suggested, would be a bit too drastic. Maybe people would prefer my ideas, and maybe they would prefer Pope's.  I would love to hear some feedback on this issue. I know the community is very vocal about the problem, and I have confidence that Bungie is aware of it as well and is looking for solutions. We can only hope that it won't take 6-7 months to balance, like last time...  That does it for me, Guardians. I'll see you out there.