We've had a couple of weeks to try out Patch 2.5.02., and having played extensively in most playlists, i wanted to share my opinions on the patch and provide my opinion on what should be done with weapon balancing going forward. First, i wanna applaud Bungie, and Josh Hamrick in particular, for communicating openly with the community, following the patch, and giving us some idea of what changes are to come. With Patch 2.5.0.2., the sandbox team definitely got some things right, but there were also some glaring oversights, and very confusing changes. The biggest game changer being the change to the Special Ammo Economy. The new special ammo economy has essentially forced a Primary weapon meta. While this is enjoyable at times, it has worsened the overall experience in most playlists. Special ammo is an important part of how Destiny PvP plays out. It is crucial for breaking setups in Trials of Osiris. Taking down a super in 6v6 without special ammo requires a coordinated team effort - Something you rarely have with your random teammates. Taking away special ammo on death has allowed roaming supers and heavy machine guns to run rampant, as you have very few options for shutting them down. And unsurprisingly, there has also been a massive spike in the usage of No Land Beyond, Ice Breaker, Sidearms and to a lesser extent, Invective and Universal Remote. As long as there are weapons that can bypass these special ammo changes, people are gonna resort to said weapons. Special weapons are meant to be used in special situations. A meta were special weapons are used as primaries is not fun. Case in point, pre-patch 2.5.0.2. “Metador”. But forcing a primary weapon meta by taking away our special ammo, is not gonna work in Destiny. Primaries should be the most used weapons because they are the [i]best[/i] option in most situations, not because they are the [i]only[/i] option. To achieve this, we need to keep special ammo on death. Maybe we shouldn't keep all the ammo we've hoarded. Maybe we should only keep 33% or 50%. Maybe only a magazine. But dying should never leave us without the option the engage the strongest abilities and weapons in the game. That takes away from counter-play. Equally as important is, significant buffs to primaries. They should feel strong and versatile, without breaking the balance. I understand why we have seen so many nerfs, especially to the top primary weapons. Power creep has clearly been a concern. Understandably, buffs were not an option in House of Wolves, when Thorn and Last Word were running rampant. But were legendary hand cannons overpowered in House of Wolves? Or low impact pulse rifles? Not if you ask me. As a matter of fact, i would argue that Bungie found the sweet spot for Time to Kill in House of Wolves, only, this was overshadowed by how incredibly strong exotic hand cannons were in that era. But even these weapons that were viable but somewhat unremarkable have since been nerfed multiple times. The top weapons today would not be able to compete with average weapons from year 1. I do agree with the nerfs to range that both Hand Cannons, Pulse Rifles and Auto Rifles have received. They were necessary for Scout Rifles to have a place. But the constant damage nerfs we've seen over the past 18 months has basically resulted in inverse power creep, for the lack of a better word. In my opinion, some of these nerfs need to be rolled back. So lets start with [b]Hand Cannons[/b] Increasing the initial accuracy on Hand Cannons was a fantastic change. There is nothing more infuriating than continuously losing gunfights, because RNG wasn't on your side. Legendary hand cannons now function like they [i]should[/i]. For the most part anyway. The medium impact archetype, featuring guns like The Palindrome and Eyasluna are, unsurprisingly, top tier weapons now. They are formidable dueling weapons up close, but quickly drop off and lose efficiency outside of their effective range. While i do think that the minimum damage nerf was an overcorrection, the Hand Cannon changes in 2.5.0.2. were overwhelmingly positive in my opinion. With that said, The Palindrome style medium impact Hand Cannons still feel like they are easily the strongest option. The Low Impact archetype generally struggles to fulfill its potential, as its difficult to land multiple headshots, while also firing the weapon as fast as possible. The high impact Hand Cannons on the other hand, don't really have a place in the meta. It doesn't have the raw time to kill of the other archetypes, or even Pulse Rifles for that matter, but they also don't have the range to compete at medium range. So what should be done about Hand Cannons? For starters, I would minimum damage to 50% instead of 33%. Low Impact Hand Cannons should have their stability increased across the board (+10/15), to make it slightly easier to land consecutive headshots. High Impact Hand Cannons should be allowed to exceed the current Hand Cannon range cap of 62, in addition to a slight range increase across the board (+5/10). This would allow them to function more like marksman Hand Cannons, relying on precision shooting at medium range. [b]Pulse Rifles[/b] Pulse Rifles are generally in a good spot. They are strong, but they certainly don't have the stopping power of a Hand Cannon. With the reduced fire rate and magazine size of low impact Pulse Rifles such as a Clever Dragon, these weapons just don't feel viable. They're not weak, but they don't really have any advantage over the other low impact archetype (Blind Perdition, Hawksaw). I would undo the changes applied to the Clever Dragon archetype in Patch 2.5.0.2. These Pulse Rifles could compete with Hand Cannons in terms of Time to Kill. It is harder to achieve the optimal time to kill, as it requires 9 consecutive headshots, but it makes up for it by being more forgiving than Hand Cannons. a Hand Cannon will usually have a better time to kill, but miss once and you will likely be punished. The one nerf i would consider for the Clever Dragon archetype, would be a slight range decrease (-5). In game they basically play like Auto Rifle/ Pulse Rifle hybrid, it would be fitting if the range also reflected this. I would restore the damage of the Hawksaw/Blind Perdition archetype to its 2.0.0. damage output of 27 for headshots and 18 for bodyshots. This change would [i]not [/i]improve the optimal time to kill of the archetype, but simply make them more consistent and able to compete with Hand Cannons and the Clever Dragon archetype. I would apply the exact same change to the Hopscotch Pilgrim/Nirwens Mercy archetype, reverting their damage to 32 for headshots and 21 for bodyshots. This would enable them to 2 burst minimum armor targets, but most of the time they would still require atleast 7 shots to kill. Just like with the Hawksaw archetype, this chance would enable them to more consistently compete with its low impact counterparts. Lastly, High Impact pulses. This archetype is tricky to balance. It was the only legendary weapon type in House of Wolves capable of consistently compete with Thorn and Last Word. Fast forward a year and they had faded into obscurity. The slight increase to rate of fire has helped, but they are still not top tier weapons by any means. Giving them a slight damage buff, increasing its headshot damage to 35 and bodyshot to 22/23, might make them truly strong option once again. But even a slight over-correction with this archetype could make them very overpowered. [b]Auto Rifles[/b] Auto Rifles have also proven hard to balance. They are still not exactly strong weapons, but the buff to headshot modifiers was a step in the right direction. In vanilla AR's had a headshot multiplier of 1,5x. Significantly higher than the current 1,3x. I personally see no reason that AR's shouldn't share the same headshot modifier as all other primary weapons. An increase would effectively bring them back to their vanilla state, except of course, the range of AR's which is frankly abysmal compared to their vanilla state. And that’s ok. this would make AR's a force to be reckoned with up close, similar to how Hand Cannons currently operate. AR's would essentially be Destiny's answer to an SMG. A [u]slight[/u] damage reduction may be in order, for both high impact AR's like the Shadow Price and low impacts like the Doctrine of Passing, should be modifier be increased to 1,5x. I would also like to see the hip fire accuracy of AR's significantly increased, playing into the SMG-like playstyle. [b]Scout Rifles[/b]' Scout Rifles are in a good spot. They don't fit most Crucible maps, but used at their intended range and they absolutely dominate. One thing i might change is how much flinch they receive. They are long range marksman weapons, and Scouts have historically struggled against Pulse Rifles, due to the latter causing massive amounts of flinch. Scouts being more resilient to flinch would play very well with the marksman playstyle, and allow them to compete slightly better on smaller maps. Those are my thoughts on what should be done with primary weapons going forward. I would have rambled on about special weapons too, but it seems I hit the character limit for a blog post. I will post my thoughts on special weapons later this week. They definitely need some tweaking if they are too feel strong an rewarding, should the above mentioned buffs to primaries ever become a reality. I’ll be sure to link my post on special weapon in the comments below, when I post it. For now I wanna thank you for reading. I hope this post provided some usable feedback and food for thought, both for the sandbox team and fellow players. - ApexCris