I've listened to the podcasts and the head weapon dev always refers to usage when commenting on why nerfs happened or didn't happen. For instance ruinous effigy was nerfed because of super high usage and last word wasn't because it's not super high usage. This is quite frankly a terrible way to justify nerfs, especially when they only apply this logic to the weapons they want to while clearly ignoring outliers that are insanely broken but not widely used or hell very widely used. If we look at last week of trials its breakdown is this: Kills 24.1% - Hand cannons 14.3% - Shotguns 10.3% - Fusion Rifles 7.1% - Sniper Rifles 6.0% - Pulse Rifles 4.5% - SMGs 4.1% - Linears 3.1% Scout Rifle Every other week has some fluctuations but what always remains true is hand cannon/shotguns being the top 2 spots. Even on maps like bannerfall with long shooting lanes its the same. The only ones i could find recently(back 5 months) that didn't include those 2 at the top was widows court which was hand cannons/snipers and wormhaven which was hand cannon/fusions. Hand cannons are always at the top yet nothing is done about them. Last word absolutely ruins the game for everyone in the receiving end of it in a lobby. Yet nothing is done about it. I get hand cannons are destinys main signature weapon type and people love them. This whole thing of pretending they are the only skillful option while shooting cannons balls with perfect accuracy from the air while doing incredible dmg that excels at peak shooting and shooting from the open is quite ridiculous. I don't even care about hcs getting nerfed honestly, i just think its ridiculous that soon as something else competes with them it gets gutted. They are talking about messing with SMG zoom levels which i can only assume is to nerf their range. DMT which isn't even consistent to begin with is gutted. Main ingredient is getting gutted. Outside of an occasional trials weekend none of these things even get remotely close to hand cannon usage. Bungie needs to quit being terrible at balancing and ignoring obvious facts.