To Bungie, Cozmo, Deej, Jon, and fellow Community members: Weapon Tuning 2.0.0 has been a long time coming, and now we are less than two months away from it. I think I can speak for the community when I say that some things were certainly missed with the intended weapon rebalancing. There is a lot on everyone’s mind, and I’d like to go over some of the current landscape while analyzing the intended changes. Auto Rifles The tower is going to get very dusty as guardians begin pulling these old friends out of the vault for the first time in months. Buffing Auto Rifles is the single most important thing that can happen for balance among primary weapons. The exotic Handcannons have flourished in the absence of AR’s, because quite frankly, Auto Rifles are the bane of Handcannons. Before 1.1.1 it was hard to pop someone twice in the head with Thorn when your target was spitting a steady torrent of hurt at you. These weapons will absolutely change the landscape of PvP as the exotic Handcannons become rivaled at close to mid-range once again. (and Suros health regen procs on Thorn burn, woot) Changes: - Increase base damage - Boost damage by 10% against AI combatants Well I guess I need a Necrochasm now, and my Arc Summoner is good for something, but, seriously, give us a number to the “increase[d] base damage, and one at the absolute least to the tune of 2.0% - Start damage falloff closer to the player to emphasize its role as a close to medium range weapon - Small reduction in base stability. Landing shots at optimal range is unaffected, but repeated precision hits require more weapon control to land consistently Handcannons beware, and no more autoscout rifles, except of course for scout rifles with full auto Pulse Rifles If you were to ask me what pulse rifle I used before 1.1.1 I would have either laughed or worriedly asked you if there were other people that actually used them. Now they are incredibly solid weapon choices and the archetype doesn’t make that big of a difference, each archetype has a different feel and they are all interesting and fun to use. They are certainly in their sweet spot right now Changes: - Reduce base damage of the medium RoF by about 2.5% - PVP: Bursts-to-kill (all precision hits) is 2 or 3, depending on victim’s Armor stat what archetype are we talking about exactly, I would assume messenger’s but it would be great if you could clear that up - Small reduction in base stability. A burst should still land all shots at optimal range, but three precision hits will require more weapon control to land consistently nothing wrong here and secret round is now more rewarding - Increase magazine size on for all base inventory stats somewhat unforeseen but not a bad change at least for low impact pulses Scout Rifles I love Scouts, I hate getting beat by Handcannons at the full length of the hallway in Pantheon. A lot of us know that pain. Scouts are moving in a good direction with 2.0.0 Changes: - Increase base damage for medium to high Rate of Fire Scout Rifles - - PVP: Does not affect TTK in PVP on a Guardian with full health four to five crit shots to kill with a semi auto rifle does get a tad annoying - Increase magazine size for all base inventory stats this is great but makes lucky bullet even worse for Scouts - Reduce Final Accuracy when firing from hip - - Fast firing outside of ADS will be less accurate as it should be, Handcannons should be the close-range semi-auto option - Boost damage by 5% against AI combatants maybe I’ll use my Arc Scholar instead of Fatebringer, maybe these are all good changes but I probably would have increased the precision multiplier for medium to high RoF Scout over a base damage increase, Scouts should reward precision Handcannons When I first saw gameplay footage for this game, I was immediately drawn to Handcannons; they are very unique to this game and very much loved among the community (try to touch Fatebinger and see what happens). If the intended tuning of these weapons as a class (forget the exotics for a moment) follows through unchanged, the viability of these weapons in PvP content will take a crippling blow. The exotics are certainly a problem, but as exotics, they are beasts in their own right. The proposed nerfs for the class target the exotics, and those weapons don’t represent the class as a whole. This is exactly what happened when auto rifles were nerfed to basically just target Suros. Changes: - Start damage falloff closer to the player to limit long range lethality it is important to note that not many people are complaining about any Handcannon’s range besides the exotics. The Last Word had no business having the ADS range that it had (unless it had rangefinder, but hidden perks, don’t be ridiculous) and Thorn and Hawkmoon were given range perks (send it on Thorn, hammer forged on Hawkmoon). both of those weapons are also greatly helped by their unique sights; the reticles for both are higher off the frame than normal Handcannons, so they have more of a Scout Rifle feel to them, which brings me to - Reduce base Optics (zoom) for all Hand Cannons - - ADS now grants more width in favor of depth This is the key to fixing the problems with Handcannons. There are Scout Rifles and there are Handcannons, they are both semi-auto weapons meant to occupy two ends of a range spectrum. However, the proposed changes to Handcannons stand to make Scouts dominate most of this spectrum partly because of the increased damage of mid to high RoF Scouts but mostly because of the range nerf to Handcannons (which is unnecessary if the optics change as they should) and - Small reduction in ADS accuracy, targeted at making long range snap-shooting less reliable - Reduce final accuracy when firing from hip - - Fast firing from hip is less reliable the above changes will make Handcannons much more difficult to wield and there is no proposed compensation for that. The hip fire reduction makes sense when you can get easy DoT or take a 25% shot for a lucky bullet, but for Handcannons--as a class--how are either of these changes supposed to “[reward] agility under fire, precision targeting, and snap shots? In short they counteract those desires for this weapon class. If the optics are properly reduced then it will certainly be more difficult to snap into long range shots so the ADS nerf is probably unnecessary and finally - Reduce magazine size for all base inventory stats again this does not reward “agility under fire.” This will push the close quarters landscape toward Auto Rifles especially when some Handcannons (like the devil you don’t) currently only have 5 round magazines. Perhaps a better move might be to cap the mag capacity for all hand cannons at 10 (Hawkmoon with holding aces would be an exception at 12) or continue with the class wide mag nerf but simultaneously buff the class reload speed (again, for “agility under fire.”) the review google doc with all topics from the update preview is in the link above Special/Heavy weapons tuning analysis: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/140571033/0/0/1 Exotic Weapon tuning analysis: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/140574067/0/0/1