Two guys I play with frequently often rage in pvp and hand cannons are one of the more frequent things that get brought up. Between the slide shooting bs, cheaters (which according to one is one reason why they deserve to be nerfed), and set ups that make them feel strong, it I still don't see the issue. * Most players I think are flick shooters so it probably feels strange tracking a target with a semi automatic weapon and probably even burst weapons sometimes, especially when said weapon flies up every shot and blocks view of the target and the sights for any length of time. So of course especially with how connections work in this game, slide shooting will feel strong regardless. * It will never make sense to nerf a whole weapon type because of cheaters who won't even notice the difference anyway. They could reduce the stability and AA of all hand cannons to 0 and I doubt cheaters would see a difference. If they do, they'd just swap to a faster killing weapon type and rush you or swap to another weapon with comparable peek shot and slide shooting potential. So this would only lead to cheaters being the only people that don't have stormtrooper accuracy. * And they have the second slowest ttk of all primary weapon types, and damage?Excluding weapon stat or perks, 120s require perfect crit accuracy for a kill and have the lowest AA and stability of all frames, 140s (and 150s when they existed as an archetype) require perfect crit accuracy, 180s require 2 crits 2 body but are easier to aim with, and all the burst hand cannons I think also require 3 full bursts to the head. And the very point of damage perks is to reduce the ttk or increase ease of use, no reason to have it if neither happens. * So damage-wise, that from a purely logical standpoint leaves only team shooting as the actual problem because you can die almost if not instantly if you've got two guys shooting you at once. Otherwise damage only becomes a problem with specific weapons like Kindled Orchid with it's 2 tap combo or if a player BUILDS into it like I do with Graviton Spike which can 2 tap in both modes still. Even Hawkmoon I think can 2 tap with weapon stat investment and 3 or 4 stacks of it's buff. And stat-wise Hawkmoon CAN be one of the best, it already has the highest AA of all hand cannons, but have fun waiting for Xur to sell your preferred roll which we've all missed probably 80 times over by now. Mine being Smallbore with Rangefinder or maybe Opening Shot with Heavy Grip (59 range before RF and catalyst, 80 stability). But any time I've asked what Bungie should've done, the answers would just make the weapon type useless. * Nerf AA or magnetism? Sure, after they change the recoil pattern to match 180s because I can promise if other weapons had the same problem where the gun flies up every 3-5 bullets hiding both the sights and the target behind the barrel, no one would use them beyond spraying distance. Imagine that every time you shoot, your gun's position changes like you just got flinched with any of the iron sight snipers. If that would be unusable to you, imagine that on every primary, it'd make more sense to turn the game into a hack and slash at that point. * Damage? How without nerfing other weapons by extension if it's perks that get nerfed or making the second slowest killing weapon even slower? If you should need more than 3 head shots to kill a guy with a 120, it should basically be impossible to miss with or the ROF and other stats should be increased accordingly. * Range? How much before they should lose every fight on paper? Not a number either gave before, but I remember reading one guy on here saying the maxed range before they suffer fall off should be 23 meters (roughly 1/3 of their range since they can do full damage up to about 35 or more depending on the archetype), ALL without exception, exotics included. Okay, basically remove peek shot potential and force the second slowest killing primary into dueling distance or rushing distance with sidearms, smgs, shotguns, and fusions, and what do they get in return? I could only see this work if they all required fewer crits and got a stability buff or recoil pattern adjustment. And if ALL would actually be included in that range nerf, there'd be no reason not to give ALL that same buff, probably more than that considering how hard exotic outliers would get hit like Last Word losing 5 of it's 16-17 meters of range where it'll be forced to compete at shotgun distance (just use a sidearm, a spread shot hand cannon, or shotgun at that point). Or Crimson (which doesn't have recoil matching the burst fire hand cannons) even with 92 range still suffers fall off sooner than any other archetype. I see no reason why outliers wouldn't deserve a greater buff for getting hit much harder by the nerf. So Last Word in this case would either need to require 1-2 less crits to keep up with the other primaries which have more range, stability, accuracy, and aim assist and logically would be a worse problem, or it would need it's performance increased to match what pre-nerf RDM did for it. When were hand cannons actually OP like when they could kill you at sniper distance instead of just made to look strong like cheaters and slide shooting tryhards do? And I specifically mean the weapon type, not when less than a handful of weapons were actually a problem like pre-nerf Luna's Howl/ Not Forgotten?