i feel like xenophage should be a good dps weapon for sustained damage and a good weapon for killing majors. there’s no way a weapon that shoots that slow can be amazing for red bar clear. it pales in comparison to thunderlord which is already lackluster simply because of its ammo capacity. you’re 10x better off with 21% delirium or any other 900 rpm machine gun when it comes to red bar clear because they do enough damage and they have double the ammo.

There are still some advantages to xenophage that when likened to a grenade launcher makes it better and that's the hitscan design of it. Hitting a boss that's standing still with a grenade launcher isn't hard at all, but a moving target is tricky. Xenophage being hitscan gives it not only a tremendous range advantage, but also ease of use once you control the recoil. If they made xenophage do grenade launcher damage and ALSO made it better than thunderlord for killing ads, or even close, it would be THE BEST heavy weapon in the game. Which is what thunderlord was for a very short time until they nerfed it because it did the exact same thing that you are specifically asking for xenophage to do. It had near unbeatable range, top tier dps and insane add clear because of its perk and reserves. That 25% nerf dropped it from top tier boss dps but it's still a good weapon. I think the way they designed xenophage is just stupid as explosive rounds don't have any damage fall off, but there are benefits via aim assist that the stats and perks bring. I still don't like it, but whatever. My point is...is that if they buff it to work more like a heavy machine gun while doing grenade launcher damage, it would mathematically be unstoppable. You have no damage fall off, you do insane damage, you can kill a bunch of ads per shot and have enough rounds to kill groups upon groups and then you have the ability to use its hitscan nature to hit a target for full damage across the map instantly. You see the problem right? The thing bungie is trying to do, is make it more relevant and not just replace everything else because it does have the potential to do that.

I really really want to like it, I want to use it outside patrol. Problem is it just doesn’t compete. If it were legendary I might run it for giggles. I can do more damage with one burst of 1k voices than I can do with a whole clip of xeno 😢

They aren't going to buff it by 75% because they are planning on releasing the ability to crit as the catalyst. Ship half functioning exotics and "fix" them with a catalyst that requires mucho grindo. That's the new MO at Bunghole.

just wait till they nerf the other exos, so it will feel strong than.

Bungie likened Xeno to that of a GL. Which it kind of reflects, with low ammo count for an lmg, high (lol) per shot damage etc... But since I can get a bare bones Love & Death from Eris that completely dumps ass all over Xeno, it's gonna need way more than a 50% buff to warrent using over a regular GL. Heck, give it Spike Grenades intrinsically and make the bullets actually EXPLODE when they hit stuff. I mean like big "enemy burning" explosions. Maybe give it a dot effect like Prospector?? It has a hive buggy in it's frame, make it so poison damage or something?!

It definitely needs a big buff but not as big as your stating. I think the 50% increase and additional ammo in crucible next season will be pretty good but we'll have to see. I'm predicting it will become a popular choice for invading in Gambit after that change. Its 2 shot at any range in gambit and will do considerably higher DPS than other MG's after the patch. It will light somewhere between grenage launchers and MG's.

The mission wasn't that hard. You can easily solo everything up to that point. In my opinion, the 'hardest' part was the puzzles in the lost sectors and that was only because I tried solving them without looking it up. You can brute-force the first encounter in pit and everything leading up to the boss. Imo, I found trying to get wish-ender solo was more difficult. Y'know, because the Ogre encounter is literally the -blam!-ing worst. And you have to do that encounter twice for Wish-Ender.

Personally, I agree with the ammo complaint. Damage wise it’s actually fine but it could use an increase in rate of fire. My fix for xenophage is this. Make the MAGAZINE size 26-20, ammo reserves 52-50 (depending on mag size) Increase the rate of fire. It just fires so damn slow. So, why does this fix xenophage even without increasing its damage numbers? To start, I think xenophage should crit. But also, this makes it more of a hybrid. Right now, it’s too much like a grenade launcher, but without all the damage that comes along with grenade launchers. Xenophage actually does some work, it can melt enemies, but the problem is it takes a lot of ammo, which is normal for lmgs, but this isn’t a normal LMG. I suppose the incoming buff will help, but I would prefer xenophage get a smaller damage buff and become more like an LMG

It needs to fire full auto an have increased ammo idk what the dev team was thinking when they shipped us this gun.

[quote]IT IS AN EXOTIC WEAPON, yet it's worse then Legendary Grenade Launchers, or even The Mountaintop, a Kinetic one, for killing red bar enemies. The damage increase you plan to do will not be enough for it, it will still be a far weaker option then Thunderlord, which is a great enemy clear weapon. Xenophage will not be used even after the 50% increase, it will be thrown away. Basically it should be a Whisper of the Worm level Exotic, especially with it's mission being rather hard, and also the fact that it really gives that vibe it should be like that. So in order to make it really feel like an EXOTIC POWER WEAPON, give it 75% increase in Damage in PVE, and increase it's base PVE Ammo.[/quote] I’ll take a hard pass on doing any activity that allows me to obtain it

The buff won't matter. No one in their right mind would equip this POS over just about any other heavy in the game. If I had a choice between this and any blue heavy?, I would take the blue heavy in a heartbeat. It will never be an ad clearer and it would need some super serious buffs to bring it up to the level of a boss weapon.