You don’t. Forgive my deception, but you don’t nerf it, because as it is, Thorn is in a perfect place right now, as are the other Exotic Hand Cannons, Red Death, and Vex. They kill effectively—more so than regular weapons, and I think that’s what makes an Exotic a supreme weapon: consistency. Note that before this, Thorn was an awful weapon that people complained about, going through a cycle of nerfs and buffs that didn’t really improve anything. The cycle ended on the buff we have now, and no one really complained about dying by it until after TDB dropped. Now we find the forums waging war over this weapon. The polls show that the majority of people are COMPLETELY fine with Thorn’s efficacy—if anything, they just don’t like seeing it so often—but the majority of posts visible on boards are titled something along the lines of “THORN OP” or “BUNGIE/DEEJ BAN THORN.” There’s a problem with nerfing Thorn that I don’t think these posters understand: it creates a [b]CYCLE[/b]. Remember Day One SUROS Regime? It was a BEAST. It hit hard, hit fast, and was all over Crucible. Those who had it reaped the benefits, and those who didn’t complained about its strength. Then it was nerfed. TWICE. To make matters worse, Bungie went ahead and nerfed auto rifles, ensuring that only 3 of 4 primary archetypes were usable in Crucible. Most forgot about SUROS, and plenty still don’t know it was ever that godly. The same can be said for Pocket Infinity, but it wasn’t hit with 3 nerfs, just 2 (individual and FR nerf). Up to this day these two weapons, and several others are classified as useless. SUROS’ situation is not unique. The “Glory Stage” of its "Regime" is where we are now with Thorn. If we keep pushing for nerfs, we’ll add another to the trash pile and move on to the next target (TLW, Vex, or Red Death, most likely). There will always be a weapon people hate and want nerfed, and this cycle will not end until we have a boatload of weapons with massive TTKs because they were nerfed to the ground. Instead of taking forever to get a kill and be killed, I would rather kill fast and die fast, keeping my engagements as fresh and me on my toes—constant cat and mouse is wasting game time IMO. I’m suggesting that instead of nerfing Thorn and others, we should instead buff underpowered weapons to a similar tier, so we can have more choices and counters, and finally be able to get off of Thorn, as a “crutch” and as a topic. If Thorn must be altered, I suggest removing Perfect Balance, decreasing fire rate, or decreasing the mag to 7, but, in the meantime, this is what I had in mind for buffs: [b]General:[/b] - Rollback Most Recent Auto Rifle Nerf - Rollback Fusion Rifle [i]Spread[/i] Nerf (Keep Ammo Nerf) [b]Specific Exotics:[/b] - Buff SUROS Regime (Day One or 1st Nerf efficacy) - Buff Necrochasm (Small Impact Increase, Base Mag to 55, Guaranteed Thrall Explosion) - Change Hard Light’s Exotic Perk (Suggestion: [url]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/122782655/0/0/1[/url]) - Buff No Land Beyond (No Swaying, No Glare, Slightly Less Zoom, Mulligan Replaced (Potentially By Hidden Hand), Add Increased Accuracy to The Master Perk, Make Sights Less Obstrcutive) - Buff MIDA Multi-Tool (Increase Range) - Buff Universal Remote (Slight Increase to Impact, Increase Range) - Buff Fourth Horseman (Replace Return to Sender with Hammer Forged, Increase Impact) - Buff Pocket Infinity (Increase Base Magazine Size to 5, Increase Stability, Decrease Charge Rate) - Add “Lock-On” Capability to Truth - Increase Size of Dragon’s Breath’s Solar Grenades, add 3sec Ignite DoT With these buffs and changes in mind, Guardians will have so many more options in Crucible that will get the job done. Thorn would become less of a threat because it would stop appearing so often, now that people can use the weapons they like to do well, instead of the few well-made ones. I am anticipating A LOT of people who will read the first two words of the post and write essays on why I’m wrong and why we should only nerf-Nerf-NERF everything. These posts will be ignored. Besides those unfortunate souls, please, tell me what you think.