X-post reddit We've come a long way since the age of S U R O S R E G I M E. I appreciate Bungie's dedication to support and refine the sandbox, and I'm very optimistic about the changes in December's update. Nevertheless, it's hard not to let out a sigh upon realizing how long we've had to wait for Bungie to get to this stage when they were already so close before - a year ago in fact. October 14th, 2014 | Hot Fix 1.0.2.2 Auto Rifles just got a small 2% damage nerf and nerf to their stability. Vex Mythoclast's damage was nerfed by 34% (it was overdone, but sorely needed) Shotguns got their first shot package nerf (lol) Scouts and Hand Cannons were buffed For the next 6 weeks, the Crucible was very close to being balanced. After scrapping the bottom of the barrel in the Beta, Hand cannons were finally climbing the ranks, with Scouts on the far end to keep them in check. (Vision of Confluence was actually part of the meta!) Autos were still very good, but not as good, and Fusions and Shotguns played off each other well. Snipers also weren't aimbots. The only benchwarmers were the Pulse Rifles, as seen here.[2] (note: Xur sold The Last Word for the first time on November 15th, 2014. Nobody knew about the 111 precision bonus glitch. Up till then, Hawkmoon and The Last Word were rare sightings and nobody was using Thorn at all. The best Hand cannons were Legendaries that had a fair bit of range, but still weren't dominating the game.) At this stage, a nerf to Auto Rifle and Hand Cannon ranges, Fusion Rifle and Shotgun ranges, and a small buff to Pulse Rifle damage may have "balanced" the Sandbox as far as damage and range goes. (Nuanced changes like initial accuracy, hip fire and equip speed would then be added later, as they alone don't significantly change weapon behavior.) However, In November's Iron Banner, Felwinter's Lie was introduced along with Reforging[3] . This gave players access to a high damage Shotgun with the ability to reroll its perks to max out its range and produce a lethal killing machine. Felwinter's was arguably better than every other Shotgun except Universal Remote, as it didn't require two body shots or a melee to kill from insane ranges. This allowed the Blink + Shotgun playstyle to creep into the game to compete with the range on Fusion Rifles, which were limited in their mobility, unlike Shotguns. December 1st, 2014 - The Dark Below | Update 1.1[4] The main takeaways here is that Plan C and Thorn were buffed. Plan C became a beast of a Fusion Rifle, on top of the already good vendor Fusion Rifles from The Dark Below. As for Thorn, many of us knew that it was already a great PvP weapon with some unrealistic tradeoffs that made it unattractive, and especially useless in PvE. Love it or hate it, this buff eventually created mean green DOT machine we all came to know. At this point however, Autos were still at the top of the food chain, with Hand Cannons creeping up to compete and Scouts eventually falling down. Autos needed another nerf as evident by this chart [5] . So in February, they were. Destiny Update 1.1.1: https://www.bungie.net/7_Destiny-Weapon-Tuning/en/News/News?aid=12557[6] Update 1.1.1. ruined everything. Auto Rifles and Fusion Rifles were hit bad, effectively removing the entire mid range niche from the game. Autos weren't there to keep Hand Cannons in check; Fusion Rifles weren't there to keep Shotguns in check. This gave way for Hand Cannons and Shotguns to move right in and take their place. What happens when you remove a species' natural predator? Their population explodes. Hand Cannon accuracy and range was also nerfed in this update, so this made virtually every Legendary Hand Cannon suck. The only Hand Cannons that were competitively viable were Thorn, The Last Word and Hawkmoon. Each of these weapons behaved completely different to normal Legendary Hand Cannons - a trait that wasn't really shared by any other Exotic weapon - so they effectively dodged this Hand Cannon nerf. If you weren't using one of them, you just weren't using a Hand Cannon. (I mean, look at the goram numbers of the update - 1.1.1 - a perfect trinity. I'm not saying it's aliens... but it's aliens.) Pulse Rifles received a 9.7% damage increase. Scouts were already pushed back by the Exotic Hand Cannons, and now with Pulse Rifles coming up as much as they did, it's no wonder they disappeared. (note: Fusion Rifles were secretly buffed during House of Wolves for weeks, but nobody noticed because everyone was using Felwinter, Matador and Party Crasher!) Ever since update 1.1.1, Destiny has become a Frankenstein of a game where changes to all sorts of stats like reticle bloom and equip speed are being made to reverse these early updates. And it's usually because of one weapon. Autos were nerfed because the Suros was too good; Hand Cannons were nerfed because Thorn was too good; Shotguns keep being nerfed because the high-impact archetype is too good. Was the sandbox perfect back then? Absolutely not, but I think we were very close considering how similar the December update looks. We as a community have seen some [green] shit, and Bungie has gotten smarter about approaching weapons by focusing on tradeoffs and unique perks, among other things. But if you feel like the weapons are becoming less consistent and less rewarding to use - especially in PvE - it's because the problems introduced back then are still around to this day. And rather than undo changes that don't work, new [often unrelated] changes are made on top that introduce new problems without addressing the underlying issues. I'm no developer and we don't have access to their databases, so we'll never really know what the best or least offensive routes to balance the game are. Hell, Bungie may not even know, and may change their minds at any point. The December update seems to be coming full circle in a lot of ways, and the "weapon seasons" may be a philosophy they are retiring; therefore, it's important that we at least seek to understand where things may have gone wrong to prevent these mistakes from being repeated in the future. *Players will always seek out the best weapons; a "meta" is inevitable and that's fine provided those weapons are not the only logical choices, as /u/DeeJ_BNG [7] once said. But If Zhalo Supercell becomes the next big bad thing, let's not nerf every Auto Rifle again! TL;DR: The sandbox could have been balanced a year ago, but half of it ended up being removed from the meta, causing the other half to spiral out of control. And once it did, the best weapons therein began to power creep while Bungie once again nerfed the entire class to fix them. So now that the sandbox is coming full circle, a lot of the nuance and feeling of the weapons has been sacrificed amidst dozens of changes to how they function.