Ya they don't really fix anything... or do they? People are not going to use Ice Breaker anymore. It will be a dusty vault-dweller now. They know this. It will be all but dead and I'm sure they are tired of seeing it. It's personal with Ice Breaker. It's everyones goto weapon. Raid weapon of choice. It's not because people are botching about Ice Breaker, it's because they are playing BUNGIE with our weapons. Also, without Ice Breaker... you are going to have to buy and grind for special ammo. Ice Breaker has saved many a player from having to go to a tower to pickup more ammo. GRIND GRIND GRIND. Period. Black Hammer, what a perfect weapon. Again, BUNGIE apologizing for it's unintended success. What they don't advertise is that Black Hammer, thanks to White Nail Perk, has a lot of AIM ASSIST built in. They just get the White Nail working and now they are again removing anything that stops ammo grinding. Evidence of greed? I notice the the precious Universal Remote gets spared on Range again (because its an exotic right?) while still allowing for the possibility of long range shotgun with sniper combo... or even worse, long range primary shotgun with a Party Crasher+1 for secondary. Blink... ouch. Also, why buff No Land Beyond? Because it requires skill to use. They want to promote good sniping, which I applaud, but its more proof of personal agenda, not community interest. Just saying. Ice Breaker... one day they will decide that "they" feel its balanced enough and rebalance whatever they want to. Pisses me off really. Weapons should be sacred and no one should touch them after creation. Period. Bungie loves to use the community to their advantage sometimes when the real reason is obviously that they have had preconceived ideas of what role each weapon would take. They are "tuning" the game in part to feedback but also in large part because THEY WANT things to be a certain way. I can't help but think about the little kid who has control issues: "My GAME! MINE! I GET TO DO WHAT I WANT WITH IT!" Ok, fine. AIM ASSIS will be the next perk that is nerfed. In order to give crappy snipers a level advantage they gave certain snipers a ton of AIM ASSIST. You can again reroll snipes to have basically AA stats that are on par with Shadow of Veils. This will be the next OP perk that gets nerfed. Already leveling up my Subtle Nudge DN7 and SoV. The changes are going to be endless. If Bungie really cares about its community then this release will be the test. What they did was announce changes TOO EARLY. Now the community has largely rejected the announced changes. Let's see what they do... I must say, Bungie, I love this game. I can't help but wonder though, did I get into an early sweet-spot in the game? A time when it was raw and fun? Is that time now becoming the past? These changes are making some of our hard-earned grind time pretty worthless and that's a slap in the face. The second guessing on weapons also points to some pretty large ignorance. You can only say OOPS! so many times before people start to wonder about your judgement. SALTY ABOUT MY WEAPONS.

Another thought for consideration. Are we not fighting for the survival of Human species and "The Light"? If that is so should we not have best weapons to face the challenge? Oryx is coming and you are nerfing Black Hammer, Ice Breaker, Gally, Shotguns. If my logic is correct than the only Darkness that guardians should worry about is "Bungie".

[quote]Simply put, the best way to handle most PvE boss encounters is to stay at a distance and empty bullets into the boss – that’s what needs to change. [/quote] This line of logic bothers me. The whole purpose of the Sniper Rifle in game and in real life is to kill from extreme distances. If Bungie frowns on sniping your way to victory, why put those sorts of weapons in the game at all? Why am I being penalized for map and scenario design? If you don't want me to snipe bosses, then design the scenario and the map so that the constant or persistent advantage of extreme range is routinely taken away. Put in more boomers and countersnipers (I HATE HOBGOBLINS~!) or spawn trash mobs at irregular intervals that flush players out of sniper nests or create bosses that always benefit from Angry so that you cannot easily stagger them with high impact precision shots from long to extreme range. Don't get mad at me as a player for using the appropriate tool for the appropriate job.

It's not always the quickest way. Maybe if you're soloing the content or trying to avoid dying, sure. But actually playing the encounters as they were intended is much faster. Every cheese we've used has significantly increased boss kill times (with the exception of devil walkers - I feel bad for them around a trio of black hammers). It's not like Bungie is unique in this. Every online game has always patched its exploits and nerfed its OP weapons/abilities. Bungie is actually much slower as responding to exploits than most games, and maybe that's the problem. We are all used to using an exploit and when they finally get around to taking it away, no one knows the "right way" to do an encounter. Am I going to quit using Gjallarhorn on sponge bosses? No. Am I going to stop using Ice Breaker to solo nightfalls? No. Why would I change my strategy due to a minor nerf that might force me to spice up a boring play style? I can empty a few mags from a scout rifle between IB magazines, I can still wreck a devil walker with BH, just not completely. When I'm with a group, I do all those encounters as intended anyway. On a side note: People have often brought up Borderlands. I finally got the handsome jack version thanks to the PSN sale. I've been enjoying it, but I fail to see how BL2s waves of adds during missions and bullet sponge bosses (with adds) are any different than Destiny. It's the exact same formula.

Ok Bungie, What choice do I have when fighting bosses. I come to close with a shotgun, Bosses all slam the ground and fly me across the map. So can't come in close. I take a primary and empty full ammo into them and I only take down 10% of their health. Using a super on a Boss is a complete waste. Nova Bomb does not even scratch Archon Priest. So what then.... Rocket launchers? Well you seam to think that Gally does too much damage so you are nerfing that. You dont like us sniping. I'm confused.... How is this game supposed to be played???

I would be more willing to fight bosses up close if almost everyone of them didn't have a One hit AoE melee. But, since they do I will keep my distance.

Good article. While I'm ok with some of the nerfs, I do not agree to the nerfs to BH, Icebreaker and to some extent, TLW. We all agree that the nerf to BH and Icebreaker is unnecessary. However for TLW, I'm worried that the blanket nerf to handcannons plus the specific nerf to TLW will render it all but useless to the point it will only be lethal at shotgun range (I might be exaggerating, but you get the point). Plus, TLW only has 8 bullets in the mag. What would be the effect of the hc magazine nerf to it? Perhaps most worrying of all is the fact that Bungie never really seems to have a solid grasp of the extent the effects their nerfs would have. Remember the 2.5% nerf to AR damage? Planetdestiny had a review of that and found that the damage reduction was significant, and certainly seemed more than just 2.5%. Remember the nerf to fusion rifles' blast cones? Well that affected the Mythoclast in a bad way, where every bolt fired went in all sorts of directions and you couldn't hit anything more than 10 feet away accurately. And now they're gonna nerf fusions again. Ok... Let's not forget that the Pocket Infinity and Queen Breaker's bow bugs still have not been fixed. In regards to Gjallarhorn, I'm a little mixed about this. It is overpowered in solar burn situations or against trash mobs, but I don't really agree that it burns bosses all the time. Have you tried using them on those major servitors in PoE 34 and above? More than a couple gally rockets in and they're still standing(or floating). These are just regular enemies, mind you. Yea it sucks that some people can't find LFG groups because they lack this weapon, but I myself have never restricted anyone from joining me solely based upon that fact. Even in raids I only use them on the Deathsinger and Crota's shield. What Bungie should look at is WHY exactly weapons like Gjallarhorn is so widely required. I'll leave that to your imagination.

agree, we all find our way (cheese) the only thing that will happen after that is another exotic warming a slot in our vault, and about the icebreaker, wont be anymore a reason to farm Crota's raid.

What you and planetfanboys dont get is that nothing about this version of destiny was really calculated and designed in an organized fashion. After Joseph left the company because of activision pressing for a sooner release date they had to re-write the story and come up with a design that depends on delaying all the content they created over the 4 years of development. The "design" of this game is and never will be for the sake of a player sitting far far away sniping at the face of his/her enemies without a worry in the world of any harm coming their way. Even if it was, do you really find it appealing to hide in fear of very easily manageable and watered down AI? Wouldnt you prefer challenge from a video game?

I agree. I feel like Bungie doesn't really know their game. If something's not right, it's just nerf this, nerf that.