They are fine you are using the wrong pulse rifle

Some context from someone who actually uses and likes pulse rifles: high-impact, high-stability pulse rifles are already really effective. They're a two-shot kill in the Crucible, for instance, and in PvE they function like scout rifles with a higher skill cap but higher damage. Something like a Strange Suspect with the FItted Stock perk is a wrecking ball. The problem is that high-impact, high-stability pulse rifles don't really exist by default. According to data pulled from destinydb, there are 21 pulse rifles that fall above the median for all pulse rifles (59), of which 7 have 30 impact (the rest have 14, 7, or 4). Of those 7, 6 are rare (and therefore all but useless in PvE). The sole pulse rifle that's worth using, from that perspective, is Super Pox VLO... which you can no longer buy from the Vanguard. So now you're compromising in either impact or stability. You can make up stability with a perk like Fitted Stock or, if you're lucky, Perfect Balance--although that's coming at the cost of other perks like Hammer Forged or Field Scout, which you might otherwise want, and it also still means you're left hunting for one of just a handful of legendary pulse rifles, and then hoping it has one of the two perks that make it useful. (Of special note here is the version of Three Little Words currently sold by the Crucible Quartermaster. With the Red Dot ORES sight and a Fitted Stock, it has pretty good stability, and it also comes with the always-useful Third Eye and a pulse-rifle-specific mod that increases precision damage after a body shot.) So if pulse rifles got a buff--and I think they should--I'd like to see two things happen: (1) Increased stability across the board. It should still feel like you're firing a burst instead of a single round, but they need to be easier to hold on a target than they currently are--and Fitted Stock/Perfect Balance should make them feel rock-solid, rather than making them merely usable. (2) Improve damage for lower-impact rifles, and/or update the impacts to reduce the gap between "classes". It's just not enough at the moment.

Pulse rifles are the weakest, yet most interesting weapon type IMO. I want to use them more often, but they're so shitty damage wise, it's really not worth it.

Bbbbbbbbbbbuuuuuuummmmp! That counts as like 3 bumps, it was that emphatic.

In my experience currently Pulse Rifles are just too weak when fighting higher level enemies. When fighting lower level (than you) they work fine. So whatever that % difference is in damage, is what they need to add to buff the Pulse Rifles. They should also buff them for Crucible, like they had improved/fixed the Scout Rifles with a damage buff increase. Specifically critical damage multiplier should be increased.

Red death has second quickest time to kill, right after The Last Word. Red Death is fine. All other pulse rifles usually have such sporadic recoil that they are unusable. Here are my thoughts on fixing pulse rifles: 1. Make all pulse rifles recoil straight up, not off to the side. That's it. They fit the niche between scouts and AR's already, any stat tweaks will make them redundant IMHO.

Yes please. As someone else already said, buff scout rifles also. Thanks.

Please buff them! I love the feel of them but I just can't justify them, it's just like an auto rifle that has the hiccups.

Yes! With the bad juju, you can't do much damage on body shots, maximum 50 for all 3 of then, but with head shots 125 for all 3 of them. Please fix this destiny!

The new pulse rifles suck. Just let me update the attack value on my Strange Suspect and I'm good to go.