The exotics were never meant to be "the strongest weapons in the game". There was in year 1 but a couple weapons that poked above the rest. In a game where bungie tries to keep the PvP relevant and NOT turn this into another Borderlands, they wanted a semblance of balance. Hereafter's exotic perk is the blinding effect. Perfection is on Stillpiercer as well. The Blinding effect though, does need a buff. Either actual damage connected with the ability, decrease the time it requires for the effect to happen, AND in addition to either or both of those make the shot guarenteed to blind. Hereafter is more useful than Patients and Time. Patients and Time's exotic perk was nigh useless. You had to be hard scoped for a long time, and people could still see you. Ace of Spades? it might be meh, but it's at least a solid weapon. Having Rifle Barrel and a naturally high base range actually makes it one of the few GOOD Hand Cannons in the game that you do not need a "god roll" for because it's static. It's great against mobs because you do not have to reload as often and it's got Firefly. How is this worse than Hardlight? It's also a better PvE weapon than say Hawkmoon because of that. Or lets look at First Curse. For PvE at least it is currently the most reliable Hand Cannon in the game. Which one of the highest base ranges, THE best reserve for a hand cannon in the game, what is effectively double Range Finder, Triple Tap, and automatically gets bullets back on first precision kill of a mag? Almost NONE of the drawbacks of Hand Cannons currently are holding this thing back. The only reason it's not that great in PvP is because it's archtype in PvP has always been subpar, that's not the guns fault. Your also greatly underselling Zhalo. Zhalo is good not just because it's elemental. Multikills grant free bullets and super energy. Chain-lightning actually procs decently often, increasing it's overall damage dealt and destroys mobs (which makes it very easy for it to get multi-kills). This thing is a monster in PvE, and would still be even if they removed the element. Sleeper Simulant hits retarded hard. And is an excellent boss killing weapon to use at near sniper distances. It's exotic perk is supposed to be a tossaway because of how much damage it can deal. No Time to Explain is the best primary weapon to use against Bosses short of Touch of Malice. You can infinitely drill into a boss or any high tier enemy without having to stop to reload, and is just natively strong when either or both small arms and/or juggler is on. Tlaloc is disputed in the community as to whether or not it's overpowered in PvP. == Y1 had dud exotics too. And not just "1 or 2". Hardlight ring a bell? it's been buffed multiple times and it's still subpar. Monte Carlo was also the same. It's exotic perk wasn't that usefull save for making some bounties easier, which is inconsequential. Dreg's Promis? it was trash in Y1, and it's buffed Y2 counter part is also trash. Super Good Advice? Now it's a decent gun, but back in Y1 it was garbage. Patients and Time was never that an astounding weapon. Dragon's Breath before it's change was just not that good, and even now it's only got niche uses. 4th Horseman was a rollercoasted, from suck, to amazing in PvE, back to suck in Y2. Midas was merely a solid weapon, but nothing all that special. It didn't get used at all until everything around it was nerfed and it itself was buffed to have the intrinsic High Caliber rounds. It was the "Ace of Spades" of Y1, for PvE at least, functional, but not impressive. Lord of Wolves was meh, On paper pretty damn good but was and still is in a way outclassed by the High impact/range shotguns. Badjuju needed a couple buffs before it became good. People are too hung up on the romantic memory of Ice Breaker and Gjallerhorn to remember the fact we had to have MORE THAN ONE PATCH DEDICATED TO BUFFING DOZENS OF EXOTICS AT ONCE because they were not that strong. Do a portion of existing exotics need some blanket buffs? Yes, yes they do. But don't run around saying that Y1 was better, Y1 merely had a couple outliers that Bungie learned not to do again (exotics with blanket higher DPS than other guns, like Gjallerhorn and Thorn). It was just as bad, if not worse. Many of the Y2 bland exotics are far more functional than the Y1 dud exotics before their numerous buffs, hell some Y1 exotics STILL need buffs. At least off the top of my head, I can't think of a Y2 exotic weapon that is as bad as Super Good Advice (was) and Dreg's promise (is). Those Y1 weapons were/are downright unusable. Y2, the worst of the Exotics, like Fabian Stratagy or Boolean Gemini, are just subpar at worst. Not unsusable. TL;DR. Again, I do agree that Exotics overall need some buffs. But please don't go spreading the false statement that Y1 had such great exotics. It was a mess that was all over the board and had propotionally more potatoes than we got with the Taken King that only stopped being such crummy weapons after numerous buffs, and even then still remain kind of lousy.