I don't know anyone who wouldn't mind seeing auto rifles (AR's) get buffed. Bungie should have address this issue yesterday... and I don’t think they will address it appropriately any time soon. There are a lot of opinions I have on why they won't but I'm going to leave them out of this post. I work with data. It's what I'm good at. The way Bungie used their data to come to the conclusion that lead to them changing the current weapons balance and then consequently acted on this conclusion that now frustrates every single player (whether they use AR's or not ) is beyond bad research and into the territory of malpractice. Ok, that’s a little much, but I hope you get my point. First, was the chart; the chart that showed that most of the kills in crucible during an Iron Banner weekend were in fact attributed to AR's. There are several problems with the data being used to come to that conclusion. 1. Vex Mytoclast (basically tied for number one on the chart) is not an AR. It was not hit by the AR's nerf. Oh, and it's not an AR, it’s a fusion rifle. 2. It was during a distilled crucible setting with AR bounties as THE ONLY primary weapon to complete the bounty. This is like trying to get an understanding of the types of cars that drive on a certain section of highway but only looking at data collected during a street race, or a garbage truck parade… You get my point. It was not indicative of the actual traffic of weapons during PvP. Your play style might change depending the type of PvP you are currently engaged in but the weapons stats don’t. Thus, changes to weapon stats will benefit one play style and kill others. 3. There were a lot of hand cannons on that list. Now-a-days I would bet that Red Death and Hand Cannons are the most used. Maybe some scouties and definitely Vex (btw, not an AR). Second, Suros was special but then Xur sold it during the Dark Below and everyone got it. Suros (Vanquisher VIII and the like) was used a lot not because it was easy but because there was no equivalent Pulse Rifle or Scoutie that could fend off charging shotgunners. In fact, I would hypothisys that the decrease in AR’s was positively correlated with the decrease in Fussion Rifles (taking into account that FR’s were nerfed as well). Now, this is a correlation not a causation. However deliberate, it shifted the game and shifted it hard. These days all PR are good enough to go up against Suros even when it was at its best. And I think this is great! However, and I can’t stress this enough, AR’s act very differently then PR’s. In so many ways it is ridiculous that Bungie doesn’t see this and try to fix it like yesterday. Third, what data weren't they looking at? Where is the PvE data on AR’s collected during the same timeframe? What are the PvE stats now? They nerfed shotguns in PvP but boosted them in PvE. They understood that Shotguns were used too much in PvP at too far of a range and not nearly enough in PvE. So, why did they Nerf AR's in both realms? I did not use an AR over a Scoutie or a Hand Cannon, but definitely over a PR. However, I didn’t have Suros. What Bungie did was made a HUGELY imbalanced game, both in PvP and somewhat in PvE. Keeping constant and continuous damage on a target is now impossible. You might think I am over-exaggerating by saying hugely imbalanced. Nope, they shifted one type of play for another. I want to find AR’s useful, but just can’t. I’m going to keep an eye on weekly update but am also going to ditch Destiny till they fix this mess. Trondur Out!