For those of you who weren't here Year 1 or don't remember how blatantly overpowered the Damage over Time was, stop asking for a buff to the damn Damage over Time to Thorn. Beware that a wall of text is about to come and I really don't know how to possibly make a TL,DR out of it. Thorn IS almost balanced as is. If hand cannon bloom was removed and its Range stat was buffed to it's previous state, then Thorn would be a top tier hand cannon. The Range stat is the only thing holding it back. Damage over Time is not intended to give the ability to two tap people. In case you don't remember or realize this, it broke the Crucible for a period spanning the middle of May to mid September 2015, also when Trials of Osiris was introduced and a much bigger thing. The gun became a crutch, but it was a crutch you had to use to be able to compete online if you weren't using the Last Word when it was also broken. I have seen countless posts and comments on how the Damage over Time should be at least 6 points of damage per tick, so let's look at some numbers. High Rate of Fire, Low Impact Hand Cannon (Thorn-Archetype) deal 51 body shot damage and 77 headshot damage. If you do the math, you'll realize that this archetype is unable to 1 headshot, 2 body shot kill for optimal time to kill. This totals in at 179 damage. This is just 21 damage shy of killing an average armor player at 200 hitpoints, but armor can change this from 190 to 210. Now note that those three hits trigger the Thorn Damage over Time 3 times, at 8 ticks of 1 point of damage, meaning an additional 24 damage. This means you can kill anyone in crucible with 203 hitpoints or less with the Mid Impact, Mid Rate of Fire optimal shots to kill, not needing a second headshot as you would for any other hand cannon in Thorn's archetype, excluding Luck of the Chamber rolls. Even then, it isn't hard to hit a follow up shot in a headshot if you've already gotten one. Still, this really isn't needed as most players sit at an average armor stat. Now, the Damage over Time. As I've said before, Thorn currently does 24 total damage with this Damage over Time, which is substantial enough, in my opinion. The beauty of that specific number is that it doesn't cause the chance for 2 shot killing. Increasing the Damage over Time tick damage to 2 would be acceptable, equating to 48 total damage over 3 shots, would allow for the unique ability to kill any player with solely body shots on this Hand Cannon Archetype, still remaining in the acceptable 3 shots to kill. However, this cannot go past 3 per tick. This would bring back Thorn's infamous 2 tapping on slightly above average hitpoints (201), albeit both being headshots. 4 damage per tick is unacceptable. The Damage over Time would equate to 64, allowing for a definite 2 shot headshot, with the total damage equating to 218. Now we'll jump to 7 damage per tick, because all between 4 and 6 become roughly the same, except for the fact that 5 and 6 damage per tick will always kill in 2 headshots. All the damage over time equates to 112. Add 2 body shots at 51 damage each, and you surpass the 210 damage threshold to 214 total damage, once again allowing 2 shotting, but this time with bodyshots. Now read this part very carefully. In Thorn's current state, you have the ability to kill in 1 headshot and 2 body shots with most players almost you would be able to kill anyone with a Palindrome-Archetype Mid Rate of Fire, Mid Impact Hand Cannon. The caveat is that Thorn fires noticeably faster than this archetype with its higher Rate of Fire, so you are actually attaining this optimal shots to kill quicker than a Palindrome. This is how I'm ending my argument against buffing damage over time because I really don't know how to do it. Bungie, if any of the community managers read this, just refer your Live Team to this if they even have the thought of listening to the community on the Damage over Time buff. It would become a crutch once again, and if you really are looking to balance the Crucible, leave Thorn alone, maybe buffing its Range stat to its previous state. There are other disasters of guns to work on, especially High Impact Pulse Rifles and Auto Rifles and maybe even add Sniper Rifles due to excessive flinch, so don't focus on what is essentially as balanced as it could be with your design philosophy. Edit: It appears I have made a slight mistake on the tick rate for Destiny. I figured that since Destiny's frame rate was 30 frames per second, the tick rate would match it, but I was wrong. Bungie has chosen to go with cheap servers, probably due to the funding from Activision. The tick rate is at 10 ticks per second, meaning the burn damage for Thorn is slightly under a second, after the last shot that hits, meaning your full damage potential is 8/10 or 4/5 of a second after your last hit.