Hello fellow Guardians and Bungie! As a huge fan of machine guns I was really excited about the new Exotic HMG Xenophage and had great plans about it. Alas I heard it had damage issues which in turn got me interested and I decided to do some extensive testing and get a clearer idea of the problem.Get ready for a long post and some numbers. What I/We know so far: -Bungie received a lot of complaints from players about Xenophage not doing enough damage -Xenophage is unable to crit and that was intended -Low ammo reserves + slow reload(5 sec with animation/4sec actual if you cut the animation) + not enough ammo in the Cruicible -Bungie plans to increase the base damage of the weapon by 50% Before I start with the data - a couple of things I'd like to point out: In order to start off from somewhere I decided to use my heavy weapon ''Throne Cleaver'' as a damage/impact anchor to Xenophage. So that I'm as objective as possible to Xenophage I haven't put any mods on the anchor weapon.Here are images of both: Throne Cleaver - [url]https://ibb.co/kMknFJy[/url] Xenophage - [url]https://ibb.co/N9DyXMj[/url] My Current Light used for the data tests - [url]https://ibb.co/vV8C8D3[/url] So at first I thought the damage problems might be related to a specific zone so I decided to start off comparing things at Earth and then move on to other planets.Have a look of the damage values on Earth in the Outskirts for both Xeno and my sword: I. Earth Xeno dmg: [url]https://ibb.co/3Fcz92c[/url] 1310 dmg on a single target Sword dmg: [url]https://ibb.co/R9R40Y4[/url] 1494 dmg on a single target Since I know that damage numbers change depending on the location you are, I ran the numbers through a percentage calculator so I can get a more reliable value of the impact between the two.So basically my sword does roughly 14% more damage as you can see from this image: [url]https://ibb.co/ph2Dvkh[/url] Even though my sword isn't as good as a spike GL dps wise, I know that a single sword swing lands an almost equal damage to that of a single round from a legendary spike GL .It might not have the speed providing it but it does the damage.So having a Xeno bullet land and do arround(14% less) the damage of a single sword swing and also Xeno having a similar RPM to a spike GL ( 120/150RPM) felt like a good sign for good dmg.At this point I was wondering what all the fuss is about.Sure Xeno wasn't better than a spike GL with loading holster but it was in the zone. In any case I went on to other planets still thinking it might be zone related: II. Dreaming City: [url]https://ibb.co/rvFcXJB[/url] Xeno dmg: [url]https://ibb.co/5cNk6d8[/url] 9666 single target Sword dmg: [url]https://ibb.co/yqpGfmK[/url] 11022 single target Percentage Calculator: [url]https://ibb.co/VLFXDHC[/url] 14% difference Again 14%!Happy Days!Or so I thought....the moment I tested it on a major add, Xeno did a bit lower damage than the numbers I expected to see. Major Sword dmg:[url]https://ibb.co/b2dWxYL[/url] 11022 single target Major Xeno dmg: [url]https://ibb.co/0YvkV0G[/url] 7733 single target Percentage Calculator:[url]https://ibb.co/RHJP1rn[/url] 42% difference Having played Destiny 2 for a while I know there's a bit of damage value lost when you fight major or boss adds ( usually not much - arround 2% max maybe ? ) but this is the first time I see a weapon have such a major % drop off when switching from minor to major rank.Anyway I ran back to Earth - found a major there.Have a look: Major Sword dmg:[url]https://ibb.co/WvDMTBq[/url] 5476 single target Major Xeno dmg:[url]https://ibb.co/wQLdDdF[/url] 3842 single target Percentage Calculator:[url]https://ibb.co/QX6qmx4[/url] 42% difference Next I decided to test it on a big major add/world boss? in the Dreaming City Have a look: Boss Sword dmg: [url]https://ibb.co/kDjTbyQ[/url] 11634 single target Boss Xeno dmg:[url]https://ibb.co/kGcSJ6b[/url] 6122 single target Percentage Calculator:[url]https://ibb.co/sm2x49h[/url] 90% difference!!! Seems like the bigger fish you want to kill the more useless this weapon becomes.I went on the Moon to test out the pattern.It didn't dissapoint :( Boss/Big Major Sword dmg: [url]https://ibb.co/0DKnFKg[/url] 22151 single target Boss/Big Major Xeno dmg:[url]https://ibb.co/dkGDz0z[/url] 11655 single target Percentage Calculator:[url]https://ibb.co/HCHzg2H[/url] 98% difference!!! And again on normal adds on the moon it's all good: Xeno dmg: [url]https://ibb.co/nzsJcTG[/url] 17461 single target Sword dmg: [url]https://ibb.co/7XxK6pz[/url] 19911 single target Percentage Calculator: [url]https://ibb.co/vjVMh4M[/url] 14% difference I have about 10 more tests but I believe that by now you understand that the pattern and the percentages are pretty much the same everywhere you go. My thoughts and recommendations on the matter: This does not appear to be a problem where the explosion damage overshadows the main damage.This is simply a different impact based on the rank of enemy the weapon faces.It sounds more like something went wrong during the coding process.Unless it was intentionally set to low.. which I don't believe to be the case.If the weapons' damage was to be low , why the hell does it do so much dmg vs a rank-and-file enemy compared to the other ranks ? It just doesn't make sense for Bungie to have their servers calculate big numbers for the sake of calculating when they know that a rank-and-file enemy can be killed with say 10k on the Moon compared to 17k. That's why common sense dictates it's an unintentional occurrence. I'm no specialist there but saying ''Pve damage will be increased by 50%'' is quite vague in this situation.Based upon my knowledge of the matter so far I see 3 ways of interpreting the 50% pve increase as follows: 1. If all ranks's damage is increased by 50% and that 50% is applied on top of the current base damage each rank has right now.(To me this is the worst possible update) 2.If major and boss' damage catches up with current rank and file damage.(If you subtract 50% of the rank-and-file dmg and give it to the major and boss you get the 50% increase.It's a bit of a mirror tactic if you understand what I mean -which would basically even out all damage in the dreaming city Xeno does to be 9666** for instance) 3.If major and boss' damage catches up with the current rank and file dmg and on top of it is added another 50% ( that would be quite, quite good - if that happens Xeno will be able to compete with and probably beat a SPIKE GL and will be one of the top 5 weapons in the game - next to Wendigo, Prospector, Whisper and Worm by dps) To anyone who is in official capacity - I would be happy if I helped with this post somehow/or if we could be given a statement as to which of those 3 cases is actually happening. Kind Regards to All, Atomlad