Watched Aztecross's "Power Creep" video and I was surprised to hear this, especially from one of the people who most of the players that call out D2 Youtubers/ streamers on the forums say has a lot of influence over the game's balance. What surprised me was hearing one such person say that pre-nerf Recluse wouldn't be so bad in the current AR meta. Personally, the only problems I ever have are the shotgun rushers who are often spawn killing and half the time are assisted by at least one other shotgun noob. Recluse? I've only asked for the crit multiplier on MoA to be restored. In the 2 months leading up to the nerf, I died more to Antiope and Bugout Bag than Recluse. A weapon being powerful is one thing, but I was almost never on the receiving end of a buffed Recluse. Why? Maybe because I play on console? Maybe almost no one used it for whatever reason? Maybe I was just lucky? It made a hand full of my kills a match, often enough that I only had 700 or 800 some kills with it in PVP before it was nerfed. I figure if it was OP, those numbers would've been doubled. On PC it might have been OP as Luna/ NF were on console, it might still be quite powerful on PC as pointed out by him, but reduce PC recoil to match console and I can't guarantee it's usage will drop significantly even if they had their aim assist increased to match console. I can't remember the last time I've seen anyone use it in PVP. I've barely touched it since the nerf, and at most it got me 4-6 kills on average before the nerf, almost every time I was already low on heath because of the last guy. TLW, AoS, Redrix, Blast Furnace, and Revoker were my go to weapons. How I still see it is like this. Powerful doesn't mean viable. If almost no one uses a weapon, is it really an issue in how balanced a weapon is? A very small percentage used weapons like Ace when Luna/ NF dominated console for 9 months, but it still got nerfed on console because of PC performance, it was the other way around too for several weapons. Amazing on PC either meant unusable on console or good, but at much closer ranges. Look at Huckleberry or for a perfect example. I almost never saw anyone use Recluse and it's "reign" was what? Six months, and almost every one used it mainly for PVE? If a weapon is OP, it will often be the first, and main weapon choice for people who have it. Some may just be better than others like Blast Furnace to Go Figure, Spare Rations to Midnight Coup, or Antiope to Atalanta, but that doesn't make a weapon OP. Usage is significantly more of a problem than power. If almost no one used Whisper, would it have been nerfed? How about Izanagi? GLs like Swarm of the Raven? How about Luna/ NF? Perfect examples of OP weapons: Pre-rework TLW on PC. Hand cannons in general, especially before the range nerf. Pre-nerf/ fix LoW. Pre-fix Prometheus Lens. Pre-nerf fusions, especially with Backup Plan. Pre-nerf aggressive frame GLs. Pre-nerf Luna/ NF on console. Pre-nerf Wardcliff. Hard Light, though I would argue against it being OP, mainly because of it's **** performance in D1 compared to Monte Carlo or Zhalo Supercell and it being **** for almost all of D2. I know I'm forgetting several weapons, but I wouldn't count Recluse among those weapons. It was only good for every other kill, and to my experience, almost no one used it. Unless the person was a tryhard shotgun ape with Chaperone, the vast majority of a players kills would be with their kinetic weapon or with their energy special. It could chain kills easily, but that was only in it'sbuffed state. It couldn't be used as a main weapon if not because the other guy's weapon could kill faster, then [u][b]because[/b][/u] of how it's [b][u]supposed[/u][/b] to be used.