Autos, scouts, and sidearms are severely underpowered in every activity. All need a buff to be at least viable.

Let's look at it like this: A 140 rpm handcannon can put out around 24451 damage per headshot against a vex goblin in the lamplighting section of the menagerie. A 600 rpm auto puts out around 5002 damage per shot. Can a 600 rpm auto shoot 5 bullets fast enough to deal the same damage as a handcannon over time? If we look at how the ttk chart works in crucible, it should help this out a bit. It takes exactly 9 headshots to kill a guardian with a 600 rpm auto rifle in .80 seconds, .87 with 10. It takes 3 headshots to kill a guardian with a 140 rpm handcannon in .87 seconds. So it takes 3.3 bullets from an auto to kill at a similar time as a handcannon, or 3 to kill slightly faster. But in pve, it takes around 2 bullets more to deal just barely higher damage. If we use the numbers we got from crucible with the ttk and compare that to the damage dealt in actual play, the difference in damage becomes incredibly ridiculous. In 3 shots from a 140 rpm handcannon, you deal 73,353 damage. In 9 rounds from a 600 rpm auto, which in crucible kills faster, you only get 45,018 damage. So you are basically getting half the damage at a much slower rate. So how many rounds from an auto does it take to simply match a 140 rpm handcannon with just 3 shots? It takes around 1.6x more bullets to deal the same damage, or around 15 bullets (rounding up because you don't round down bullets) just to get similar damage. Now this is something to keep in mind, I had a minor spec on my handcannon, but not on my auto. This is roughly a 7% increase (handcannon damage decreases to 22739 per round and 68,217 per 3 rounds give or take) in damage on each shot, but even if we remove this bonus damage from the handcannons numbers, it still takes a considerably larger number of bullets to deal similar damage, aka 1 less bullet (14 bullets rounded up). And in crucible if it takes 4 less bullets to kill at the same ttk as a handcannon, your net damage over time becomes considerably lower. Most 600 rpm autos, give or take, have 41-43 rounds to work with. 41x5002=205082. Most 140s have 10-11 rounds (mine has 12 with no back up mag mod equipped). 10x22739=227390. Now let's use the larger sized magazines. 43x5002=215086. 11x22739=250129. As handcannons continue to get larger magazines, their damage per reload greatly increases, where on an auto rifle, little to no difference is there. I don't want them to increase the magazine size of auto rifles at all, because extending the number of rounds I have to fire from an auto rifle won't make them any better in pve. According to numbers, in order for a 600 rpm auto with 41 rounds to simply match with a 10 round 140, it would take an 11% buff. In my honest opinion, bungie should go for 15% because the damage done in a burst is still considerably lower than a handcannons, and to only match what a handcannon can do with far fewer rounds is...honestly stupid.

Don't even waste your time with that catalyst it does literally nothing.

NO!!!! The Uriels Gift meta was annoying AF!!!! Buff scouts!!!!

I dunno. My Ringing Nail hasn't left my energy slot since I got it.

Sorry, but they're too busy pumping out another hand cannon.

How can we disagree with an AR buff while SMGs absolutely destroy everything at crazy ranges? An AR should be better at medium range, but it's not.

The reason I think bungie won’t buff auto rifles or scout rifles is because of their stance that if a weapon has more range it should do less damage. That’s why scout rifles do less damage or have a much lower dps than most primaries, and why auto rifles are much worse than smg’s especially the high impact archetypes, because they have more range.

Yeah because even a roll like outlaw rampage doesn’t make them viable. And that setup basically makes any weapon viable. I think autos and scouts need somewhat of a rework. Hand cannons and smgs just do everything better. Like maybe give all scouts explosive rounds across the board and all autos the lightweight perk in addition to their archetype intrinsics. Autos need probably at least 10% damage buff and scouts need to one shot headshot all trash ads.

Can’t disagree enough. BTW I played the D1 beta. As a top tier player my opinion means something. Don’t get it twisted or start tripping. Edit if y’all wanna start tripping I’ll drop bars on y’all BTW dont get burned by the molten lava that’s my words made into rhymes. Edit- tried to warn y’all Uh yeah uh yeah uh yeah Don’t be tripping or you be slipping All up in you grill like a Ferris wheel Fell off my bike then got in a fight Donkey punch donkey punch donkey punch x3 Fools be tripping in my face so I got out the mace Tripping tripping tripping Slipping slipping slipping Edit stop tripping or y’all will get more.

You seem to have been pretty specific about where it should be buffed. Any reason you didn't include PvP there, because they need it there too.

This needs to happen in PVP a little too. But not a huge buff however. We don't need a meta shift just additions to it to tweak it. No need for another Urials meta!!

Hard Light acts more like a 600 rpm AR, and you're probably used to using the 450s. Also if you've been taking it into the Strike playlist or Menagerie, the "Iron" modifier has been active a lot recently. Which gives trash mobs a lot more health, and makes them harder to kill. But Bungie isn't going to buff ARs. They want them to be easy to used by low skill players (best TTK by pure body shots) but want them to be out-performed by precision weapons in the hands of skilled players (so they have one of the slowest TTK when landing headshots). The way to use Hardlight is to take into the open world where you aren't hitting up against modifiers.....or make it a point to match the burn when you take it into end game content. Also take advantage of its lack of range drop off (another reason they won't buff it). The real problem with Hard Light has been----for 5 years-----the screen shake. The screen shake makes it hard to chain together headshots. Hopefully the catalyst will fix this.

I know this doesn't speak for literally every other AR in the game, but Cerberus +1 works well in PvP if you get close enough.

The Recluse is a good auto rifle.

I love how the topic has "pve" in it and yet people talk about PVP here. Kind of sums up the problem with balance in this game, don't it? I haven't used an auto regularly since early Forsaken. I liked the Braytech AR but the second a halfway decent Go Figure dropped I stopped. I had a good roll on a Tigerspite, but the second I got my Outlaw/Rampage Go Figure it was game over. These days I alternate between that and Huckleberry as my primary, and honestly Huckleberry does a better job being an AR than most ARs. I used ARs in D1 Iron Banner because frankly, I was so bad I needed to empty a magazine into someone to kill them, but I wouldn't dream of doing that now.