Bumping this thread because aboniks is an awesome writer and in hopes he writes another.

TL;DR - Don't nerf gear globally to balance the Crucible, Make the Crucible balance the gear when you enter it. Bungie, Please stop changing the weapons willy-nilly in an attempt to make the Crucible "fair" or "Balanced"; instead, focus on fixing the [i]system [/i]that supposedly removes level advantages in the Crucible. [b]There's nothing wrong with the weapons[/b]. They work perfectly well in every part of this game that isn't the Crucible. If the Crucible balance is broken, [b]fix THAT[/b]. Once you've got code in place that actually normalizes the damage for each weapon class, and each weapon tier, then it won't matter how OP and badass they are in PvE fighting the alien hordes. Everybody will be geared equally in [i]the only place that [u]equal[/u] gear matters[/i] in the slightest. All this dicking around with autorifles also overlooks the fact that they are fundamentally different from every other weapon in the game aside from the HMG. Players physically behave differently in order to use automatics vs. semis; their hands and brains are working in significantly different ways. You can't balance an autorifle and a hand cannon or scout rifle based on stats alone, because the difference is far more basic than stats. You need to stop trying to make apples and oranges taste the same just for the sake of the one recipe in your cookbook that calls for both of them. The result is fruit that tastes like cardboard everywhere. Once the Crucible code itself is balancing the weapons we bring into it, you'll have the Iron Banner fixed as well: All you have to do is make the balancing from the Crucible something you can turn up or down with a slider, and then when IB starts you slide that "everybody is special" slider down to about 20% and let people use the facemelting kickass OP weapons and meter-thick armor plating that they poured dozens or hundreds of hours into your game in order to acquire. The Crucible is a supposed to be a playing field for skill, with [b]no advantage[/b] given to people grinding for sick gear. Great, write some balancing code that actually supports that goal by dynamically normalizing the OP/unbalanced PvE weapons that make PvE grinding and loot meaningful. [b]Don't just nerf all the things[/b]. Or did you not want us to love loot again? Iron Banner is supposed to be a playing field for armor and weapons. Stop normalizing all the loot across the board, or the Iron Banner will never be anything other than a bad joke. Ask yourselves: [i]What happens to the Iron Banner once we succeed in nerfing every gun in the game so that it is effectively equivalent to every other gun? What happens to "loving loot"? What happens to grinding PvE events?[/i] Answers: [b]There is no Iron Banner. There is no need for loot. PvE players have no activity rewards.[/b]

Another amazing read. Hope you get featured in the weekly update!

[i]Is that a bump in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?[/i]

I personally didn't see anything wrong with auto rifles before the patch. I did however notice the other guns were lack luster in pve, and pvp. Now we have a gun class that's nerf'd, and the rest of the guns are still lack luster.