its a competition... if you cant beat someone better than you, then you dont deserve to go to the Lighthouse... simple as that... giving you shitty teams to beat all of a sudden would be unfair to the teams that have to bust ass to beat other skilled teams, while both of you get the same rewards... suck it up

This is a really good insight I feel for the current state of Destiny's armory. Personally, I feel like ToO is thematically accurate: The Disciples are looking for Guardians that are better in some undefined way, but basically boils down to Guardians who are either 'better' or 'don't lose.' So, if I was a Disciple, it wouldn't be my job to moderate the skill levels of fire teams. It'd be "there's 3, there's 3. Here's a map. Knock yourselves out. *begins to take notes on who kicks more ash.* Unfortunately, that doesn't translate well mechanically, or results in a lot of players becoming overly frustrated and sh1t-posting certain things all over the forums about broken things. Don't get me wrong, I'm sorta behind some of the 2.0 tuning (namely Thorn and "shot-rifles"). But when I see people complaining about Blink being 'totally broken' then I gotta question their credibility. Granted it's 1 part in the 3 part recipe of disaster that is the 'blink shotty melee' combo but that's what blade dancers are supposed to do: get up all in yo' face. Strikers can do this too, they just don't blink to get there, they bloody bull doze you. AND THATS FINE! Neither of those abilities are 'broken' but equally lethal and useful. Further, and I feel I might be going on a tangent, it is possible to set things differently for pvp and pve as demonstrated with the shot gun buff back during TDB. So when PVP players are complaining about people sniping them with a hand cannon (not thorn, a hand cannon. Ill Will, Timur's, what have you) then Bungie probably does have to fix how the gun acts in the Crucible, change the damage fall off or stability just as players need to realize the potential of a hand cannon. But... this doesn't mean you have to destroy the hand cannon in pvp by reducing base mag size, stability, and reducing the range of the damage fall off in one shattering patch. And finally, this doesn't need to apply to PVE. I started destiny playing with hand cannons because I enjoyed the pacing of killing an alien or two with heavy bullets and then hiding. But since you've applied the above nerfs in PVE as well, you've basically made it impossible to use hand cannons effectively in PVE (or, if you want me to be fair, end game PVE. Imagine for yourself a moment in the future where you feel like going back and gunning down Skolas in the PoE. You want to use a handcannon... except for you don't because you know you can't shoot skolas with it across the map [fair, already its hard to do good damage to skolas across the map with a cannon] and even worse you know that you'll have to just put yourself out on a stage over all those Reaver captains with repeaters to get... what, half of one's shield down before they vaporize you? IF they're close enough for you to hit?) It makes hand cannons relatively ineffective, and I felt that Sidearms really helped to differentiate between a hand CANNON and a pistol. So why bring a CANNON closer to a Sidearm? All in all i just feel that before TTK, there really needs to be a heavy influx of discretion. Discretion between powerful players, new players, and "broken" players (you know who you are, Thorn, Mat64/PC+1) in ToO and Crucible. Discretion between theme and mechanics by both the players and the creators. And finally, discretion in how we observe, request, and apply buffs and nerfs to certain weapon types depending on the situation. I think this will eventually lead to a better experience for everyone regardless of their play style.