I guess nobody in Y1 read what HC's rolls were back then. Bungie stated that HC's were hand held scout rifles. Remember this is make believe game so why not have a long range hand held weapon? Year 2 Bungie, after a lot of salt from the community, changed the role of HC to a short range weapon. Did it really matter that you got two shot from Thorn across the map in Y1 and instead of one shot across the map from a sniper in Y2? I mean dead is dead no matter how it happened. Snipers are so easy to use and green ammo so plentiful that snipers are used as a primary. I don't see much of a difference between a year 1 Thorn and a year 2 sniper except there is a lot less salt about snipers.