In a game with shields, where times to kill with primary guns exceed 1 sec and snipers and shottys still have the potential to kill in one shot with in their given distance of common usage. Many struggle to point out that its not snipers and shottys that are the problem but the simple fact that primary guns are too weak. With 4 archetypes of pulses and scouts, it is imposable to truly balance them with out realizing that in common sense that they are in fact assault rifles with varying rates of fire. Consolidating these archetypes is a good start in balancing them. Making 2 archetypes of pulses and 2 archetypes of scouts and 3 archetypes of autos and 2 types of hand cannons. Slow rate of fire with high impact. high rate of fire with low impact. And with in this setting exotics could break the mold and truly feel exotic. With having too many guns that are not viable. Guns that are currently in the low rate fire archetypes would see more efficient usage given the increase in rate of fire and the increase in impact that I have purposed. We currently have 3 archetypes of pules that kill with 3 bursts to the head (clever dragon, blind perdition, hopscotch pilgrim). The 2 slowest RoF pulse being your hopscotch pilgrim and Parthian shot. so if these 2 are consolidated so that they have the hop. pilgrim RoF with the impact of Parthian shot. that means that a 2 burst head shot would be more efficient but given that clever dragon and blind perdition would also maintain their faster rate of fire and still kill in 3 bursts. A natural game wide buff would take place with primary guns, but autos would still need a damage buff to compete with gap closing shottys. Just to clarify. take the 2 archetypes of the lower RoF and keeping the faster of the 2 RoF and give them the high impact of the 2. and take the 2 archetypes of the faster Rof keeping the higher RoF and give them the higher impact of the 2 archetypes. for scouts, pulses, and hand cannons. And again autos would still need a damage buff.