Part 2: Scouts and Hand Cannons (Work in progress) Part 3: Secondaries Part 4: Heavies and exotics (part 1) Part 5: Exotics (part 2), PvE changes and other stuff. Allright, so I've been working for the past month on ideas for a new weapon balance, something that, in my mind, will bring back balance and actual diversity in weapons. I'll go through the changes in PvP for weapon archetypes, then the Exotics, I'll then do the same thing for PvE (because weapons also need some serious changes over there, weapon nerfs really affected quality of life over there). If this post is too long for everything to fit, I'll put the links to the other threads in here and on the others as well. Obviously, this is going to be a [b][u]VERY[/u][/b] long thread (I prepared 5 actually since the character limit is 10 000) and I will probably not make a TL;DR (sorry, but you gotta read sometimes [EDIT: Actually, this might be a thread on it's own]). During my surfing in the forums while I was not writing this, I found this nice thread with some good points to make the game better:[url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/190932707/0/0/1]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/190932707/0/0/1][/url] [b]Feedback will be greatly appeciated[/b], your opinions will help me get the best possible (but probably never implemented) patch for the game. The statchart I'm going to rely on is found [url=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L7FV9l4hXo2tHD3XlFUp854XvJIwTKFIPvASLduPPS4/edit#gid=0]here[/url], since most of the stat bars shown in-game are incorrect and this stat chart also shows Time To Kill (TTK) and Rate of Fire (RoF) for a good amount of archetypes. The hardest to do will be fusion rifles, since they don't really have distinct charge times and other stuff, so I will generalise for those as I don't really have any other choice. DISCLAIMER: Numbers in parentheses are for crits (headshots) and the slash (/) is for high armored ennemies (Mostly Titans) and are rounded to hthe nearest number (>.5 is rounded up, <.5 goes down), as for the weapon in brackets, it is a reference for you to see what type of weapon I'm talking about, for my calculation of damage, I decided to take 200 as the amount of health a character has (so it is simpler to calculate). [b][u]PvP general weapon archetypes[/u][/b] [b]Auto Rifles[/b] Fast RoF (900 RPM [Necrochasm]): I'd say that these weapons are in a pretty good spot currently. Their Damage is 13(16 crit), giving them a 0.93/1.00 (0.80/0.86)secs TTK, which is a 15/16 (12/13) shots to secure a kill. The only thing I would do to those weapons is maybe reduce the range by a little, but it's not something that is really necessary, the damage doesn't need to get nerfed since it uses so much ammo for a kill already (16 is almost a quarter of your the bullets in the mag already). Medium RoF (600 RPM [Hard Light]): These weapons are also in a good spot, but I feel like they need just a little bit more power. Their damage is 16(20), giving them a 1.20(0.90)secs TTK, which is a 13(10) shots to secure a kill. Maybe increasing bodyshot damage to 18 (giving a 23 headshot, if rounded up) would make it better, only 1 shot less would give it a 1.10 (0.8)secs TTK, which is not really noticeable (it is exactly 6 frames at 60fps, or 3 at 30, which is REALLY short), also, maybe a small range decrease to make it less competitive against slower autos and even pulses. Slow RoF (450 RPM [Suros Regime, without perks]): These weapons are in a "mehh" spot, I rarely see them being used in PvP. Currently, their damage sits at 20(25), giving them a 1.20(0.93)secs TTK, which is a 10(8) shots to kill, making it easily beaten by pulses. Since I will do changes to pulses, I'd say that the stability of those weapons should be increased, it should be a long-range auto, on par with the faster pulse rifles. Slowest RoF (300 RPM [Suros with Focus Fire]): Using Focus fire on autos is currently like shooting yourself in the foot, the RoF is so slow, and for that, they shoot marshmallows. Their damage currently sits at 27(33) (Abyss Defiant is 21(27)), giving them a 1.40(1.20)secs TTK, requiring 8(7) shots to kill, which is REALLY slow for autos, barely faster than the fastest scout rifles. For using a perk that makes it shoot slower, it should hit more and at ranges that would be close to scout rifle range. I would increase the damage to 32(40), which would make it a 7(5) shots to kill, and will give them a 1.20(0.80)secs TTK. I would also maybe add an accuracy increase, to make it more reliable to use at those ranges. [b]Pulse Rifles[/b] (RPM shown is Burst+Delay) (TTK comes from the data, I was too lazy to calculate the time per bullet and stuff) Fast RoF (450 RPM [(No Exotic) Oversoul Edict, Grasp of Malok]): This type of pulse is rare to get AND to see, no real surprise there, because only 6 weapons are in this category, with only 1 being year 2 (Grasp of Malok). So, I really had to dig to find out if the archetype was good or not. It currently does 15(23) damage on ennemies, making a total of 1.60(0.93)secs TTK, wich is a 5(3) bursts to kill, pretty good on headshots, less on body shots. I would increase the damage to 19(29), so it will have a 4(3) bursts to kill, which would give it a 1.27(0.93)secs TTK. Medium-Fast RoF (415 RPM [Bad Juju]): With the nerf, these pulses took a huge noticeable drop. Their damage sits at a 16(23), wich is almost identical to the faster ones and takes 5(3) bursts to kill for a slow 1.46(0.92)secs TTK. I would remove the buff made on this type to give it a little more power. The damage would be set back to 17(25), making it a 4(3) bursts to kill for a 1.56(0.92)secs TTK. Medium-Slow RoF (360 RPM [Red Death]): The damage nerf didn't really hit those pulses hard surprisingly. Their damage is currently sitting at 17(26) (noticed a pattern here? Pulses got downgraded by 1 level.), making it a 4(3) bursts to kill for a 1.56(1,00) secs TTK, which is the same number of bursts before the nerf. I'd say that it doesn't really need to have any changes for now, but i'm open to some ideas for a change, if you think that it needs one. Slow RoF (318 RPM [(No exotic) Spare Change .25, The Messenger]): Another category of pulse wich is hard to see in-game, because, again, only one year 2 weapon is there (Spare Change .25, coming back from House of Wolves). It currently does 19(28) damage, giving them a 4(3) bursts to kill for a 1.34(1.14) secs TTK. I would give a good buff to them so that they do 23(35) damage, wich looks like a significant buff, making it a 2 bursts headshot, but we have to consider the range at which it's going to be used and also, the speed at wich it shoots, anyway, it only reduces the TTK to 1.14(0.94), but maybe a slightly bigger kick will be needed as well. Fast RoF Häkke (360 RPM, 4 rounds [(No exotic) Apple of Discord & Herja-D]): Using these pulses makes no difference now compared to the 3-shot bursts counterpart but, they deserve to at least, get the stats for them and maybe, get some love. Currently, their damage [i]should[/i] be 13(20) so that it takes the same number of bursts to kill, with likely a slightly longer TTK than the 3-shot burst weapons. I would be okay with a buff to 15(23) damage, wich should not change the number of bursts to kill, but decrease the shots to kill and/or make the ennemies slightly easier to kill, but not giving a huge advantage. Slow RoF Häkke (318 RPM, 4 rounds [(No exotic) Lyudmila-D] The only one of it's category, this legendary was known for its capability to be the only pulse to be able to 2-burst kill with headshots. Of course, it also got set back to be in line with it's 3-shot burst counterpart. It's damage [i]should[/i] be 14(21) so it has the same amount of bursts needed to kill as the 3-shot burst ones, with again, probably a slightly longer TTK. I would increase it's damage to be at 20(30), giving no change to the number of pulses needed to kill, but giving it a slightly higher damage per burst than the 3-shot pulses.