I was always under the impression that the Special Weapons were balanced like so: Shotgun - Close Range (Terrible at any other range) Fusion Rifle - Mid range (Charge Time) Sniper Rifles - Mid to Long Range (No hip fire cross hairs) The recent nerf they got in Crucible have made them pretty terrible at killing anything past a decent range. Don't get me wrong, I hated the players that would go the whole game using Fusion rifles only as much as the next Guardian, but I feel like the nerf was the wrong way to fix that. In my opinion, they should have decreased the amount of Special Ammo you get from crates and lower their spawn rates so that players would be more inclined to use their primary weapons. As a result of the Fusion nerf, most players just switched to shotguns and snipers and you rarely see Fusion Rifles in Crucible anymore. This is a shame because they're the only non bullet weapons in the game, which makes them interesting. Edit: So the general feel I'm getting while reading these posts is a bunch of people that hated fusion rifles are happy they got nerfed to almost-oblivion. There are certain weapons that I hate getting killed by as well (namely Hawkmoon and Thorn, which in my eyes are pretty OP considering their range even after the patch). Does that mean I think they should be nerfed to oblivion? Heck no. What I'm trying to say is, try not to bring personal bias when debating weapon balance. I think a mix of the old balance and the post-patch range is the ideal way to go. I'm looking for balance, it seems a lot of you just want to see them go away altogether. That isn't balance. Edit 2: I noticed in the 1.1.2 general overview it was mentioned that Crucible Special Ammo will finally be addressed. Thank you Bungie! In that case, can you reconsider the nerf to the Fusion Rifle cones and bring them back to something in the middle of where they are now and where they were before? The inconsistency of their one-hit-kills are making lots of players use shotguns, and Crucible has become even more of a shotgun fest than before, despite their nerfs. It is also a significant problem in PvE as many Fusions have become useless when you could use a sniper rifle or shotgun that does way more DPS. Fusions should have a benefit to using them in PvP, especially now that ammo will be reduced fairly soon!