What I'm going to say is coming from a position of pro balance but not pro nerf... I believe, that as long as we are moving towards a game where weapons, abilities, and grenades are all viable(in relation to each other), I'm willing to accept changes, even if those changes hurt my own play style. However, I don't support changes that have no statistical back-up, and are purely emotionally driven. I believe this to be the case with both stickies and sidearms at the moment. The game is hands down, more balanced at this point, and honestly has been since the Clever Dragon/matador meta. Time to kill, effective range, special vs primary, and class vs class are all more balanced in the actual experience of playing, and are backed up statistically. The recent, as well as current "metas" pale in comparison to metas of the past, where certain guns wavered around 35% to 75% usage in comparison to other guns. During HOW, Thorn and TLW's combined usage numbers alone accounted for more than half the kills in the game(these were numbers given to us directly from Bungie). The fact that stickies are designed to "Kill" is definitely the simple truth about stickies, but the truth about this community is more complex... Here's a good example: the MIDA is the most used gun right now(despite the numbers being more perPortunate than in the past), and the distribution of numbers are no where near what is presented by the community... so why then, if the distribution of guns is demonstrably more even, are people still complaining about the meta? Well, I have the answer for why people still complain about our current, weak meta: 1. They are trials players: there is, and always has been a very limited selection of weapons being used in trials. It doesn't matter if God himself, or some master God like artificial intelligence balanced the game perfectly, there would still be at meta-in trials. This is not hard to understand, for these people, even if it is speculation, they don't want to take any chances about what weapons are going to give them an edge in going to flawless. 2. They primarily play 3V3 modes, and have a decent kill to death ratio/ELO. At this point you might as well be playing trials, most of these people are using these modes to practice for trials anyways. 3. They are a politically driven, forum ideologue. In an effort to illustrate the negative impact of changes/nerfs, they complain that the new meta is worse. Behind the position that nothing should've ever been changed, they unknowingly feed more metrics for future changes. 4. They are below average players who have enjoyed the benefit of edged out metas past(not necessarily to win the majority of engagements, but to even be able to compete period). These players want to be able to pull up a YouTube video and have a content creator tell them the exact weapon/roll/class combo they will need to compete... recently it was the wormwood. To many of these player's surprise, picking up the vendor roll wormwood didn't provide them the same level of success as OHK weapons like Matador, or 1K stare(where you could get that lucky drag or a one hit kill trade). 5. They are a traditional, dyed in the wool complainer. Anything that kills them is OP. ANYTHING! I recently played with a player who complained incessantly about necrochasm... I mean... seriously. 7. They are unhappy about the new special economy and how much it has changed the crucible. These players are still struggling with concept that Bungie has been making changes since year 1. They simply refuse to adapt, and will be the first to blame others for not adapting(and complaining, which is exactly what they are doing day in and day out on these forums). Side arms are a new force to deal with... and players haven't adapted to using or fighting them. Is my opinion that the current meta, from my own experience, and my analysis of the data, is largely perception. Unfortunately, the environment where for whatever reason, the community feels that they can change the game based on their own emotional experiences, is a creation of Bungie. If stickies are changed in any way, it won't be for any reason other than the "salty 7" I mentioned, raising hell on the forums.