This is a gif showing the nerf to handcannons was to much, it is the last 8 seconds or so. These shots were not fired at the max fire rate, there was a very small delay between them. It seems that another fraction of a second is needed to hit that head shot that was missing. I'm not the only one (a lot of people are reporting here) having the same issues with all hand cannons in general now. Additionally I actually find it more consistent to kill at hand cannon range with high impact scout rifles because when I pull the trigger on someone's head it registers as such and I get a 3 shot kill. The reason they feel (and I would argue are) over-nerfed is that the cost of missing a shot is MUCH higher for hand cannons than for pulse/auto rifles, with the huge losses to accuracy you can't count on the shots you make to register as hits. And when they don't due to the RNG of where the shot actually goes based on its accuracy cone what used to be (as you stated) the objectively shorter time to kill (sub 1 second) with what is supposed to be a close-mid range PRECISION weapon is now out the window and becomes an OBJECTIVELY longer time to kill weapon (1.3+ seconds) because you've just lost 30% of the damage you were counting on with the shot you should have made based on the UI telling you you were on target but the game feedback telling you otherwise. While I don't want handcannons to be top again. I feel they should atleast be usable, the nerfs also make them useless in pve aswell since half the shots don't crit for some "cone" reason you empty your hole magazine (which is reduced) trying to kill things then realise they nerfed your reserve ammo and can literally only kill a few things before your out of ammo. The nerf has forced all handcannons into the same problem AR's had when they got nerfed. That being they just don't work. Exotic handcannons were op and I don't want them back, I just think handcannons need to be looked at again. You know something is wrong when it's more reliable to use a scout rifle in close to medium rang then it is a hand cannon for the simple reason the shots actually go where you aim. Bungie you should cap the range instead of adding RNG to the bullets from a handcannon. Also I understand you want to make a shifting meta or something, like other online games. but you need to understand balancing a gun type doesn't mean nerf them to near unusable levels so one type of gun is on top. This is not BALANCING its being lazy. Credit to https://www.reddit.com/user/khajiitFTW and https://www.reddit.com/user/Fbndrsntch