(Poll included to show that nerf is in vast minority). Okay, so we know that there have been a few people in this community complaining about snipers for a while now, about the aim assist, about the ammo, about the scope sway. I am here to refute all of those arguments. First, aim assist; people have been complaining about this since The Taken King shotgun nerf. First, let me show you some of the aim assist stats of [i]popular[/i] snipers in year one: Prudence II (Original): (Mid-High 70s-Original Stat wiped from database). Prudence II (HoW): 53 Shadow of Veils: 69 Y-09 Longbow Synthesis: 53 LDR 5001: 48 Eye of Sol: 61 Praedyths Revenge: 20 (Although not seen often due to low impact). Now, let's compare these to the most commonly complained about sniper in The Taken King: 1000 Yard Stare: 56 Now comparing these aim assist stats, what do you see? I see that the 1000 Yard Stare is a middle of the pack sniper in terms of Aim Assist, and it only surpasses it by 1 Aim Assist if it has Shortgaze and Shadow of Veils has no scope at all (However I have heard rumors that Shortgaze no longer adds aim assist). Although, this is barely even a matter at all in the first place due to the fact that aim assist simply doesn't do the work for you. CopicX FireA Gun does a very good job of explaining this on another post so I will just leave what he says here: [quote]I will try to explain aim assist from 'my' experiences and research. Remember this is only my experience and it is not 100% correct. However I do believe it is very accurate. First of all let's get two things straight. 1. There are different types of Aim Assist. 2. Range=Aim Assist=Bullet Magnetism=Accuracy The higher these stats, the better the weapon is. Why was Thorn OP? Why was Hawkmoon so easy to get Headshots before the patch? Because of Send it/Hammer Forged. (Increases RANGE and ACCURACY) Basically it increased Range which made headshotting from a distance possible AND easier, it also increased Accuracy (Bullet Magnetism/Aim assist). Weapons have something called Bullet Magnetism. Which is most noticable on primaries. What this is is basically how 'forgiving' the game is when you miss the head by a little bit. This is why Thorn was a headshot Machine! The Hand Canon blanket nerf that everyone thinks is overkill for example. What Bungie did was reduce the accuracy of Hand Canons OVERALL.... Have you noticed point blank shots completely missing? Or shots that would've hit before not hitting at all, or bodyshots registering as headshots?! This is what is happening, hand canons now have reduced accuracy and the 'bullet magnetism' is less forgiving. Rapidly firing a Hand Canon further reduces accuracy. Making them only ideal in very close range situations. Now to Snipers. To me snipers have very little Magnetism but have significantly higher 'Crosshair Slowdown'. This when you hover your reticle over an enemy and it 'sticks' onto them. Primaries have this too, but at a much weaker extent. Hidden Hand FURTHER increases this 'stick' by an unknown amount. The better the range of a sniper, the better this 'stick' will be from range. Do you notice how sometimes your aim is pulled by another player jumping across another? To explain this, you need to understand the concept of HOW your crosshair slowdown pulls it. There is an area of an enemy I like to call 'hit detection area' (my own weird personal language). Basically when you hover over an enemy, your crosshair will slow down. Try it on the Spider Tank/Goliath Tank for maximum effect. If you shoot anywhere in this area, the target will be damaged. The game purposely slows down your aim in this area. Now go to patrol and scope in on head level. Do not move your scope and do not shoot, just ADS perfectly still. Wait for a Dreg to strafe past your center and you will see the 'stick' happen. If your sniper has High Aim Assist, it will stick so hard onto that Dreg that your screen will move slightly as your crosshair passes his 'hit detection area' even though you are standing perfectly still. Now imagine in crucible, you are aimed at someone. You hover over an enemy head and it sticks, it's perfect, he's not moving, he doesn't notice you, poor bastard is AFK. You are about to make the shot, however an enemy player jumps over him, making the hit detection area OVERLAP with your target, one is standing still, however one is moving quickly just like that Dreg was on Patrol. And the mobile targer 'pulls' your crosshair. IMPORTANT: People are confusing this for Auto aim. It is NOT auto aim. It feels like Auto aim, but it's not. This is the exact reason why 1000-Yard stare feels so smooth. (Note how I don't say easy) Base Aim assist of 56+15 from Shortgaze makes it's natural aim assist very high. Combined with Rifled Barrel which increases Range, your Crosshair is guaranteed to 'stick' onto enemies very well. This doesn't make it a headshot machine, or some magical noob sniper. It simply makes guiding your reticle over the enemy heads 'stickier'. Snipers like kjhovey and realkrafty take full advantage of this and sweep scope. Hope this cleared things up.[/quote] So, in summary he explains that snipers with a higher range/aim assist stay will simply stick to the head more easily, however they will not drag bullets at all, or at least very minimally, on snipers. Now the scope sway argument, in other games such as Call of Duty and Battlefield (which Is a whole other beast so it will not be taken in much weight in this argument) there is scope sway on the sniper rifles, however have you noticed that they [b]do not need to hit headshots?[/b] This means that although there is scope sway, they have a much easier time killing opponents, tell me, how many times have you seen a 7 on screen with a sniper rifle on a 6 man team in destiny? None? I didn't think so, this is because snipers in that game have aim assist as well, and although have scope sway they one shot pretty much above the chest. I appreciate any other arguments you guys want to make, and I will happily debate with you.