While I am not in the highest tier of players, I have hit the top 200 in elo on xbox with a 50 true skill. I understand enough about balance and design to know when things are out of tune. There a few things that stand out to me as not "balanced." Consistency: This is the theme that applies to basically all of the issues found in destiny today. Vendor hawksaw and Mida Multi Tool are not overpowered, they are strong and CONSISTENT with their strength. Weapons that are not strong are guns like Spare change with its awful recoil direction and horrible range dropoff (dmg too...). Perks: Hawksaw is strong due to its fantastic set of perks. This is the biggest single issue with destiny balance. You need the RIGHT perks for nearly EVERY gun to have a competitive loadout. Nearly every autorifle needs counterbalance to even perform decently and consistently within the intended range. Handcannons MUST have a high range stat to stop ghost bullets, since they are used as a long range tool to complement shotguns, typically. Fusions are worthless without high range and high stability. Sidearms work best with rangefinder. Perks in this game unlike nearly every other fps are used to maximize capability, not complement your playstyle. One solution is to allow your guns to have completely customizable loadouts for purely competitive play (trials and iron banner). Another is to normalize range stats across weapon archtypes and remove range boosting perks on weapons as well as remove counterbalance and boost and normalize recoil direction across the board. Weapon Specifics: Snipers need a much larger amount of flinch when being shot by any type of gun (flinch direction could also be randomized since that would really throw off aim). Buff weaker archytpes ( high rof hand cannons, high and mid impact pulses and high impact autos) accordingly. Thousand yard stare impact snipers should have reduced body shot dmg so last word and mida quickdraw body shots can no longer finish enemies. Luck in the chamber should also be removed for all eyasluna impact handcannons excluding hawkmoon to give it a defined meta presence. These are most of the things I can think of in terms of weapons. I have my own thoughts about how to balance subclasses but I've always hated shoulder charge so :/ Edit: There's been a lot of constructive response to this post so thanks ^_^ I've posted responses to most comments for further discussion