It should be a sniper that uses primary ammo at this point and bungie can make it so only headshots get the one shot but body shots do absolutely nothing lol

I don't think Bungie knows what to do with Snipers in general, these days. The increase in enemy density from a couple years ago, while it has been good for the game, has left Snipers behind because they struggle with high numbers of enemies at close-ish ranges (as you would expect). It's very rare that you'll find strong enemies positioned high up and far away; when you do, a Scout, Bow or Machine Gun can do the job just as easily. Izanagi is only ever used for the Honed Edge shot against bosses and Cloudstrike has its cult following, but the weapon type is severely languishing now. Speaking of, those were the last two Exotic Snipers added to the game, released 16 and 9 seasons ago, respectively. There are only 5 in total and 2 of them are heavy weapons. Only Hand Cannons are also on so long a drought for a new Exotic, but there are already 10 of those and there were once complaints that too many were being made. It almost suggests that they don't know what they could make a unique Sniper do that would break the mould and also be worthwhile.

Maybe what it needs is to become a 'Support Heavy' for precision Heavies, like Gjally is for rockets. Make hitting multiple rapid precision hits highlight the spot for allies and give them a 15% damage buff. Kind of like Div, but you (the D.A.R.C.I. user) get to deal more damage in return for not making the massive crit bubble. Or give it the ability to stun any kind of Champion after 1s ADS at them. Giving it more damage will just put it in direct competition with Whisper, and moving it to a Special puts it in direct competition with Cloudstrike. Whatever happens here, an Exotic will become pointless. So instead, lean into that combat assistant fantasy it comes with.

Because it would be equally useless in any other slot without a buff, and if you're going to buff it, you might as well buff it to make it a usable heavy. If you're not going to buff it, there's no sense in moving it. Nobody is choosing it over the other special snipers we have available to us, namely Cloudstrike. It's just got too much competition to move. The answer is a buff to make it a viable heavy, but they don't seem keen to do that for whatever reason.

Darci won't work in the special slot either. Just buff it more.

Make it work like a laser designator , after 3 precision hits you can hold down the action button and call down a high damage artillery strike

Darci just doesn’t do well at all, let alone in the heavy slot. They have it jolt, only to nerf jolt immediately... it seems they’re actively trying to stop themselves from obtaining their odd goal of making Darci a useful weapon as opposed to a tool. Mida is still less of a tool and more of a weapon, and it’s a multi-tool.

If D.A.R.C.I worked like Y1/Y2 Merciless (Ramps up fire rate for non lethal blows) and added damage that scales in stacking bonusses for crits landed/kills with D.A.R.C.I or any other weapon then it would justify the heavy slot. Stacking will work as follows and stacks with surges as well. (Stacks are Stored and not time limited) STACKS 5 Critkills with any weapon = 1 Stack 10 Critkills with any weapon = 2 Stacks 15 Critkills with any weapon = 3 Stacks. Or 3 Consecutive Critkills/hits with D.A.R.C.I = 3 Stacks DAMAGE 1 Stack = 25 % 2 Stacks = 33 % 3 Stacks = 50 % Stacks with arc surges. So in term up to a maximum of 75% Damage increase on tier 4 Surges with 3 Stacks. Reloading removes 1 stack. Talking DPS numbers (Ascertained from Aztecross vid) On Templar it does 27 784 damage per shot. Mag size is 7 with the catalyst. So 27,784 x 7 = 194,488 per Mag. With a maximum of 75% increase (145,866) it brings the total DPS per mag up to 340,354. Lets use on average 3 Mags per DPS phase (with the maximum 75% Increase) the total DPS would be 1,021,062 which would justify the heavy slot.

agree on everything except one, darci was pretty meta for scourge of the past raid for some reason, cant remember why, but it melted the final boss. but ya either buff darci significantly or leave it as is and make it a special.

Whisper is a total damage monster with decent DPS but requires high precision for optimal use. There are niches that exist besides that in which DARCI could theoretically fit in. I think applying Jolt is already interesting utility, although it’s not exactly rare to come by. Making it a utility/support weapon that emphasizes a bit of a “tunnel vision” mindset seems to fit its design philosophy so here’s some ideas: -This weapon gains increasing bonus damage as you land consecutive shots (applies to the Jolt damage as well) -This weapon increases legendary sniper damage for nearby allies for a short duration after landing three shots, is refreshed when hitting more shots, is lost if a shot is missed (will go on a short cooldown when it deactivates, so you can’t just spam shots to get around this.) -Landing three consecutive precision hits makes nearby allies deal bonus damage to Jolted targets -Defeating a target grants a damage buff to all of your weapons against enemies of the same faction for a moderate duration. -This weapon deals more damage the further you are from the target. While locked on a target, bullets do not experience range, aim assist, or accuracy fall off (get to put that yard stick to good use lol) -This weapon deals progressively more damage the lower the enemies health is (again, using the info given by the weapon for good use) -Landing two precision hits on a single target makes bullets auto lock on the target’s crit (lasts until you reload or break focus on the target) -When this weapon’s magazine is empty, it automatically reloads the magazine based on the number of bullets hit on a single target (basically Rewind Rounds but would refund a higher percent and only counts bullets on the most recent target) I think you can see that the design space for DARCI is definitely full of potential. I won’t say these would be easy to implement, but there is certainly a lot of room for them to experiment while still maintaining its identity as this adaptive AI assistant. Any one or maybe some mix of these perks could dramatically improve DARCI’s efficacy while not treading on Whisper’s design space.