I recently posted my opinions on Patch 2.5.0.2., and what should be done with primary weapons going forward. Now it’s all about special weapons, exotics and class abilities. If you didn’t read my previous post, I highly recommend you do so, as many my suggestions in that post are highly relevant to this post, especially regarding Exotics. https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/222763923?showBanned=0&path=0 But lets just get right into it, with Special weapons [b]Shotguns[/b] I personally had a few issues with the changes to shotguns in 2.5.0.2. Not only did it nerf all shotguns, even though only a small handful of them are a problem, but it also reduced the skill gap when it comes to shotgun usage. There’s a common misconception that shotguns take no skill to use. That is absolutely not true, but the skill lies in mastering your movement. A shotgun is not hard to aim, so the factor that seperates and average shotgunner from a great shotgunner is the ability to use movement to outplay the opponent. By taking away mid-air accuracy, you take away the ability to outplay other shotgunners. Most shotgun engagements now consist of two players sliding at each other, and hoping you time your trigger pull better than your opponent. And other than that, it’s just a shame to have so much fantastic movement and not be able to use it to its full potential. I would revert this mid-air penalty on shotguns, to allow more of a skill-gap once more. The rest of the changes in 2.5.0.2. were quite good in my opinion, but I would still make some changes to bring low impact shotties in line with their high impact counter parts. First, I would increase the base range on all low/mid impact shotguns, so they can achieve max range. They will still not have the one shot kill range of Matador, but alteast they are slightly more viable. No one wants to use a low range, low impact shotgun. I would also make a change to the Matador and Last ditch-001. Either they should be moved to the Party Crasher archetype, both in terms of impact and RoF, or they should have their fire rate reduced to 5 (Identical to Conspiracy Theory-D). Ultimately, I don’t think the change to low impact shotties will be a gamechanger, but I think shotguns as a whole need a rework to make low impact variants viable, without nerfing high impacts into the ground. [b]Snipers[/b] Controversial as ever. Snipers are supposed to be long range marksman weapons, rewarding a skilled hand. This just… doesn’t really work in Destiny. Destiny’s map design is based almost entirely around CQC. Snipers should never be reliable option up close, but the should be an option. To be able to use a sniper consistently should be a high risk/ high reward play, but it should be possible to do, for highly skilled players. Currently snipers are slow and sluggish, preventing them to be used up close, and they flinch like crazy making it very difficult to do anything other than sit as far in the back as possible, and hard-scope. I would bring back Sniper handling (Both equip- and ADS speed), to pre-april update levels, and tone back the flinch just a little bit. Find a middle ground between where there are now, and before Rise of Iron. To emphasize that these weapons are high risk/ high reward weapons, I would significantly decrease bodyshot damage, to prevent easy bodyshot + clean ups. Such a change would inevitably hit low impact snipers hard, but it is necessary emphasize a high risk, high reward playstyle with snipers. The most popular archetype is of course the 19 RoF/ 31 impact class, featuring LDR, Longbow etc. These Snipers could be brought down as far as 100 bodyshot damage, but with a 4x headshot multiplier to compensate. A less dramatic change would be to decrease damage of the LDR archetype to 140, with a headshot modifier of 3x. (Obviously, also adjusting bodyshot damage of other snipers to compensate for the increased headshot modifier) To retain the current headshot damage with a 4x modifier, the other archetypes would have a pretty significant decrease to bodyshot damage: - 37 impact (Event Horizon): 113 bodyshot, 452 headshot - 31 impact (LDR): 100 bodyshot. 400 headshot (Yes, capable of 1HK on roaming supers) - 22 impact (Laughing Heart): 84 bodyshot, 334 headshot - 16 impact (Seventh Sense): 67 bodyshot, 267 headshot - 13 impact (Bitter Edge 010): 63 bodyshot, 250 headshot - 10 impact (20/20 AMR7): 54 bodyshot, 217 headshot This would be a pretty severe nerf to low impact snipers, so an alternative, arguably preferable change, would be to lock ALL snipers at 100 damage for bodyshots, and simply have their headshot modifiers differentiate. But I realise that such a change would probably be near impossible to make. [b]Fusion Rifles & Sidearms[/b] I believe Sidearms and Fusion rifles currently work as intended. Slight buffs may be necessary if any of my suggested changes were implemented, but I would personally wait and see how it plays out before changing these weapon types. Too keep this post within the character limit, I will mostly resort to bullet points when it comes to Exotics and Class abilities. When it comes to [b]Exotics[/b], a lot of them feel unremarkable. Some will undoubtedly benefit greatly from buffs to their individual weapon classes, but others could definitely still use some tweaking. All Hand Cannons: From my testing, all Exotic Hand Cannons still have a little bloom, even on the first shot. Their perks are hardly overpowered anymore, and their base stats are not great. No reason they should have an accuracy penalty. Hawkmoon: Hawkmoon honestly doesn’t feel very exotic at the moment. An LITC headshot & a normal headshot usually won’t land you a 2 shot kill. I would increase the damage of the LITC rounds by 2. This would guarantee a 2 tap with Aggressive Ballistics. Of course, this also comes at the cost of range and stability, when compared to Field Choke or Accurized Ballistics. I would also increase stability by 10. Possibly replace Hammer Forged with Send It. First Curse: First Curse should have its base range increased to 62, and the perk First Curse, should push damage drop off to 45+ meters. This would make it an unspectacular, yet truly Exotic marksman hand cannon. Ace of Spades: Maverick returns 3 rounds to the mag on precision kill. Outbreak Prime: Hand Loaded and Fitted Stock replaced with Hammer Forged and Perfect Balance, respectively. Khvostov 7G-0X: Scout Rifle and Pulse Rifle variants need to share RoF and Impact with actual Scout- and Pulse Rifles. No one has a trigger finger capable of firing at 900rpm. Hard Light: Reduced visual recoil. Ice Breaker: Snapshot is currently bugged, and doesn’t seem to increase ADS speed. [b]Hunters:[/b] Quickdraw: The nerf to quickdraw (and Ophidian Aspect) seemed unnecessary to me. It was definitely always a strong ability, but was no more overpowered than Shadestep, titan skating or Life Steal. I would revert this change. Blink Strike: Bring the range of Blink Strike in line with basic Warlock melee (Is currently ~0,5 meters shorter) Backstab: Replace with range increasing perk? Throwing knives: Revert damage to 122 for non-crits, 158 for crits. [b]Titans:[/b] Lightning grenades: Reduce damage cone, to reflect visual effect. Shoulder Charge: Animation speed increased to pre-nerf levels. [b]Warlocks:[/b] Firebolt grenades: Increased tag radius. [b]All/multiple classes:[/b] Spike grenades: Reduced cone (Both damage wise and visually) Sticky grenades: Explodes immediately if user dies, dealing 50-100 damage in a smaller radius (Prevents panic-trading. Still highly effective if used smartly.) I’m on a bit of a roll here, and I realize that a lot of these suggestions, especially regarding Exotics and Classes are more wishful thinking than anything. But I really hope that this feedback will be taken into consideration for future sandbox updates. Thank you for reading - ApexCris