There isn't much debate in this game over Rate of Fire vs. Impact when it comes to weapon selection. [b]TL:DR is at the bottom. This thread has been vastly updated. The topic is mostly about inconsistent balance with Pulse Rifles and Scout Rifles. While originally the topic was meant for a broader meta, most of what I was arguing for has already been implemented.[/b] For Pulse Rifles, there are currently four archetypes. So in order of fastest TTK to slowest, the archetypes RoF range from 360, 318, 450, 415 RPM. So as you can see, there is no correlation to the rating of Impact/Rate of Fire with TTK. It is purely based on seemingly arbitrary balance factors, and it's all over the place because of this. Examples of guns that fit into each archetype respectively are Red Death, Hopscotch Pilgrim, Skorri's Revenge, Bad Juju. What should be happening is a correlating trend in TTK such as 318, 360, 415, 450, or the reverse, 450, 415, 360, 318. To me, it makes most sense for faster RoF weapons to have the best TTK; this is something you will see currently with Hand Cannons and Auto Rifles. The reason being that RoF is directly tied to difficulty to use. The faster it fires, the more difficult to use; disregarding certain overpowered Exotics of course. For Scout Rifles, there are currently three archetypes. In order of fastest TTK to slowest, the range from 200, 257, 180 RPM. Again, there is an inconsistency as to what makes the archetype best. It isn’t RoF or Impact, its some combination of the two. The fact that the middling RoF variant is the best in terms of TTK is not bad balancing in itself, but it plays into the inconsistency I am writing about, and I think that it should be one way or the other. Why do I think that Fast RoF weapons should be potentially better? Slow rate of fire weapons typically reset on the reticle on pace with the gun’s rate of fire, making stability almost negligible as a balancing factor for those weapons. Only on weapons with a high rate of fire does stability come into relevance, key point: Atheon's Epilogue. Without Perfect Stability equipped, this gun is nearly impossible to use, and due to that, there is no reason to use any other perk instead. Higher RoF weapons should have less predictable recoil patterns, but less base recoil overall. I think it makes the most sense that high impact weapons would have a greater base recoil, considering that they fire higher caliber rounds, but due to the lower RoF, the recoil pattern should be predictable. Sustained fire is more difficult to pull off in general, and more risky, as opposed to for example the current two headshot Thorn and Hide method or the two bursts from a Red Death. Bungie has been consistent with their balance of both Hand Cannons and Auto Rifles. If you look at the data, they are both linear in terms of RoF/TTK. The fastest RoF guns have the highest TTK, the slowest RoF guns have the slowest TTK. While I believe that they have Auto Rifles correct (when comparing ARs to one another), Hand Cannons are different. Hand Cannons are designed to reward accurate shooting, yet the TTK with precision hits from the slowest firing HC is only .09 secs faster than body hits from the fastest firing. What is the take away? That RoF is king with Hand Cannons, not accuracy. Instead of well placed precision shots that may or may not be at max RoF, we have guns that shoot much faster doing almost the same if not far better. This is where Bungie can be creative. Hand Cannons could be balanced so that TTK is best on guns with greater impact, but given that the RoF is so slow, missing a shot could be potentially disastrous. For Auto Rifles, and Pulse Rifles as I mentioned earlier, RoF should be the determining factor for TTK based on how difficult it is to use those particular weapons. For Hand Cannons and perhaps Scouts, Impact should be the determining Factor for TTK. I am not trying to say that the balance is wrong. I am looking at the data and seeing that there is an inconsistency in what makes certain guns better than others, and would like to see a more consistent approach to weapon balancing in the future. I would also like to see viability across the board. Although a lot of what I put into this thread may seem like esoteric numbers, if you look into what I am talking about in game, you will see that the comparisons are somewhat confusing, in particular the Pulse Rifles. [b]TL;DR: Pulse Rifles and Scout Rifles suffer from inconsistent weapon balancing with no correlation between RoF and Impact towards time to kill. Hand Cannons are tilted towards RoF as opposed to accuracy, with high impact variants being almost useless.[/b] What do you guys think? Should there be more consistency to what defines the best weapons, or should they leave it as is? Do you like the ideas I have suggested? Here is the TTK database I use as a resource: [url]https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L7FV9l4hXo2tHD3XlFUp854XvJIwTKFIPvASLduPPS4/edit#gid=0[/url]