Since 2.0 dropped the bitching about sniper rifles has steadily increased to where we are now and every other post has turned into a nerf snipers thread. Even though there have been countless posts on those threads explaining how aim assist actually functions, the misconception that the bullets curve, magically track players heads, etc. refuses to go away. Planet Destiny did a video about this months ago that has been put on tons of these posts. Here are the stats for all the popular sniper rifles from year one in the 31 impact class from planet destiny’s database: [b]Dark Below: [/b] My personal favorite sniper rifle in destiny the[b] LDR 5001[/b] [b]Primary stats with min/max[/b] RoF: 19 19/19 Impact: 31 31/32 Range: 68 60/93 Stability: 52 44/86 Reload: 60 60/73 [b]Secondary Stats with min/max[/b] Aim assistance: 49 39/79 Equip speed: 43 28/63 Recoil direction: 79 79/79 Zoom: 40 40/95 [b]Longbow Synthesis[/b] [b]Primary stats with min/max[/b] (RoF and impact will be ignored for the rest): Range: 68 58/91 Stability: 56 47/90 Reload: 65 65/78 [b]Secondary Stats with min/max:[/b] Aim assistance: 53 43/83 Equip speed: 50 35/70 Recoil direction: 59 59/59 Zoom: 40/95 [b]House of Wolves:[/b] [b]Her Benevolence[/b] [b]Primary stats with min/max:[/b] Range: 66 50/96 Stability: 46 21/97 Reload: 54 40/81 [b]Secondary stats with min/max:[/b] Aim assistance: 40 30/70 Equid speed: 35 30/85 Recoil direction: 72 72/72 Zoom: 40 40/95 [b]Shadow of Veils[/b] [b]Primary stats with min/max:[/b] Range: 74 74/82 Stability: 41 37/65 Reload: 59 59/69 [b]Secondary stats with min/max:[/b] Aim assistance: 69 69/84 Equip speed: 51 51/56 Recoil direction: 70 Zoom: 40 [b]The Taken King:[/b] [b]Thousand Yard Stare [/b] [b]Primary Stats with min/max:[/b] Range: 66 50/96 Stability: 57 31/100 Reload: 62 43/97 [b]Secondary stats with min/max:[/b] Aim assistance: 56 31/71 Equip speed: 54 39/104(wat) [b]Eirene RR4[/b] (not technically in the 31 impact class as it has 34) [b]Primary Stats with min/max:[/b] Range: 76 66/100 Stability: 44 27/78 Reload: 57 43/85 [b]Secondary stats with min/max:[/b] Aim assistance: 21 21/21 Equip speed: 51 46/101 [b]Stillpiercer [/b] [b]Primary stats: [/b] Range: 66 56/70 Stability: 57 46/57 Reload: 65 65/93 [b]Secondary stats:[/b] Aim assistance: 51 41/56 Equip speed: 59/59 Zoom: 40 40/45 Now after being presented with the numerical values for all the popular legendary sniper rifles in that RoF impact class over year one and year two, you can see that thousand yard stare is right around where all the other popular sniper rifles in terms of Aim assistance and stats. Players are looking for a scapegoat for to blame for the sudden increase in snipers and they are blaming the wrong thing. While the thousand yard stare is popular since everyone got a well rolled one from a quest line, of course players are going to be using it. If re rolling was still a thing we would see everyone running one with shortgaze, performance bonus or unflinching, and hidden hand like they were with Her Benevolence during HoW. The increase in snipers is because the primary weapon type has shifted from hand cannons to pulse and scout rifles, favoring longer engagement distances. Shotguns, while some would argue they have been nerfed into the ground, are still very very good, especially the high impact class shotguns, which everyone also got a perfectly rolled shotgun from a quest line, at a higher light level in fact. Players getting sniped need to take into account that the meta and weapons usage has changed in the past few months. You can no longer basically go on auto pilot and get a ton of kills with blink shot gun and actually need to use some form of intelligence and map awareness in order to be effective with shotguns, as it should have always been. Use flanking routes, blink, shadestep, titan skating, sliding, etc. to get around or past sight lines. A lot of players still scarred from the Thorn and Last Word days are equating over use with overpowered. 1000 yard stare has a flat 1.0 k/d among equipped players. In other words Bungie’s data shows it is very balanced. MIDA too has fallen victim to the cries for nerf simply because a lot of players are using it when it isn’t overpowered at all. Now if you are going to complain about sniper rifles, there are two things that could be argued are actually worthy of your tears. 1. Special ammo is too frequent still and allows players to get most of their kills using special ammo. I’m personally convinced that a good amount of players in the crucible have no idea what a primary weapon is 2. Players are using sniper rifles to go for body shots. As the TTK has risen with the hand cannon nerfs to closer to 1 second it allows time for players to get the two body shots off with high impact snipers, something that was harder to do in year one. Decrease the body shot damage in the CRUCIBLE only to compensate for the increase in TTK. a. For some context 1kys was 22.5% of ToO kills this weekend and only 41.72% of those were head shot kills. b. Decreasing the body damage in the CRUCIBLE would promote and reward those of us that have high precision kill percentages and would increase the skill gap on sniper rifles a bit more. [b]TL:DR Complaining about 1KYS and aim assist is the wrong thing to complain about, if there is anything to complain about at all.[/b]