The thing with Fusion Rifles is that, historically, issues caused by them have more often than not been one weapon, rather than the whole weapon type. Erentil, Main Ingredient, Likely Suspect, Iterative Loop (with Antaeus Wards), I'm sure it won't be long before people start throwing Plug One into that group. These have been weapons that were solely responsible for getting perks nerfed. By contrast, there have been any number of Shotguns and Snipers throughout the game that have all been good simultaneously. There's always going to be, by definition, a best item and a best roll that sees the most use, but you can use anything decent in times when the whole class is good. Since Final Shape launched, there hasn't been a single Trials week where Fusion were used more than Shotguns, it was rarely even close. The community doesn't avoid using overpowered items, and will always gravitate towards what is best. I think your take on "checks" is a bit dismissive of how Fusions work. The Shotgun movement skill is often just rushing in a straight line and getting there faster than a primary TTK with the occasional swerve thrown in. Snipers have an initial accuracy check but the chance is gone if you take even a slight amount of damage, so it has to be done before a fight even starts. Fusions reward positioning and tracking, and leading your engagements - baiting the opponent into a situation that's more favourable for you. To be clear, I don't think [i]any[/i] of these take that much skill to pull off, but it's certainly not right to say that only one of them takes none at all.