The video shows my testing and a few examples, but you’ll get 95% of what you need from the text if you'd rather read: [b]Intro[/b] I tested the changes to aerial accuracy in the latest patch. If you didn’t know, Bungie has increased the in-air accuracy for Pulse Rifles, Scout Rifles, and Auto Rifles. Before the patch, sometime last week, I went into a private match and took shots at clanmates under a variety of different scenarios that I’ll explain in a minute. I recorded that information and then ran the same tests after the patch. I did this to answer 3 questions: 1) For starters, I wanted to know roughly how much Bungie increased aerial accuracy. The reason I say “roughly” is because shooting while airborne is RNG. You could land 10 shots in a row or you could miss 100 in a row, even if your reticle is right on your opponent’s body. I’d have to take about 1000 shots before and after the patch to give an accurate percentage, which I was not down to do, so my estimates are based on testing 6 weapons from 3 different distances. 2) Secondly, I wanted to know if it was reliable to use my vertical space while wielding a primary weapon. Hand Cannons have always been reliable when airborne, but the other primaries haven’t, so I wanted to figure that out and pass the information along. 3) And lastly, I wanted to know if we’re better off aiming for the head while airborne, or for center mass. [b]Testing[/b] The testing is pretty straightforward. The weapons I chose were the Jade Rabbit, MIDA, Doctrine, Vision Stone, Nirwen’s Mercy, and Clever Dragon. No real reason for why I chose those weapons, just weapons I’ve used in the past. I ignored Hand Cannons since they didn’t get an aerial accuracy change in the patch. With the 6 weapons I mentioned, I fired a set number of bullets from each of the guns at three different distances – 20m, 30m, and 40m. Hitting jump shots consistently becomes pretty difficult outside of 40m, so I capped the testing there. I ran these tests while aiming center mass, and then again when aiming for the head. So to quickly summarize the procedure, that’s 6 weapons, at 3 distances, one sample aiming for the head and one sample aiming for the body, both before and after the patch. [b]The Aerial Accuracy Change[/b] I want to remind you again that aerial accuracy is RNG, and my sample size isn’t big enough to give exact percentages. Everything is subject to a margin of error. There’s a graph ([url=http://www.bungie.net]http://imgur.com/a/1ahC4[/url]) with the full results, so I’ll just give you the highlights here: [u]MIDA[/u]: 20 shots from three distances – 26 shots hit before, 38 shots hit after. [u]Jade Rabbit[/u]: 20 shots from three distances – 24 shots hit before, 32 shots hit after. [u]Clever Dragon[/u]: 10 bursts from three distances – 30 shots hit before, 47 shots hit after. [u]Nirwen’s Mercy[/u]: 10 bursts from three distances – 29 shots hit before, 50 shots hit after. [u]Doctrine[/u]: 20 shots from three distances – 21 shots hit before, 27 shots hit after. [u]Vision Stone[/u]: 20 shots from three distances – 30 shots hit before, 33 shots hit after. [u]Scout Rifles[/u] combined were 40% more accurate post-patch (50 vs. 70). [u]Pulse Rifles[/u] combined were 64% more accurate post-patch (59 vs. 97). [u]Auto Rifles[/u] combined were 18% more accurate post-patch (51 vs. 60). With Pulse Rifle shots prorated to the same number of bullets as Autos and Scouts (20), these 6 weapons landed 39% more bullets overall post-patch. [b]Reliability of Using Vertical Space[/b] After reviewing the results of my tests, I will definitely be using my primary while airborne more often, but I won’t be doing this all the time. Based on my tests while airborne, about 54% of my shots landed on average, which is about half. That rate isn’t high enough to persuade me to run around and constantly jump, because the shots you miss by jumping will likely be more than the shots you cause your opponent to miss with your increased evasiveness. Also, that 54% is in a controlled scenario where my reticle is already lined up and there’s no pressure. You won’t land 54% in an actual gun fight because no one has perfect accuracy. How I feel might change over time, but after the testing and some brief gameplay, I think I’ll still primarily play boots on the ground, but definitely use jump shots in a lot more situations. In my gameplay, I quickly learned that forcing the jump shots often doesn’t always work out very well, which supports my recommendation to use your vertical space situationally. I didn’t play very many games because I was focused on the testing, but there’s one example where I thought I used my aerial evasiveness well. My enemy was closing in on me quickly and was already weak, so I jumped to the left and land a couple shots to finish him off while taking minimal damage. Another thing to consider is you controller and button layout. I have a custom controller so jumping and shooting is a little more manageable for me since I never take my thumb off the right thumb stick. However, even before I had the custom controller I was able to do it, so it’s definitely possible with practice. The other thing you can do is change your button layout to Bumper Jumper. It will be extremely frustrating to make the adjustment, but with aerial accuracy playing an increasing role in Destiny, that’s a road I personally would encourage you to go down to remain competitive and improve on your skill. If I didn’t have a custom controller, I would certainly be switching to Bumper Jumper, but that’s just my opinion. [b]Head or Body[/b] Given that aerial accuracy is now reliable enough to be depended on in more situations, a very important question rises. Are you better off aiming for the head to get the precision damage, or body to maximize your chances of doing any damage? To determine this, I re-ran my tests with Autos and Scouts while aiming for the head. I was going to do Pulse Rifles as well, but the recoil and burst fire almost guarantees the second and third bullet won’t hit. While aiming for the head, I consistently hit less bullets than I did when aiming body. That makes sense, because any shots that go left, right, or high will whiz passed your enemy because, well, there’s less hit box around the head. You only hit the shots that actually go where you’re aiming or if RNG sprays the bullet low. In most cases, the majority of the shots that actually hit were precision hits. However, aiming for a less forgiving and smaller target causes too many shots to miss, which more than counters the damage bonus of the precision shots that do hit. Therefore, it’s of my opinion that you’re better off aiming center mass when jump shooting. [b]Summary (TL;DR)[/b] Let’s summarize what was covered today: - Assuming the sample size and guns I tested are representative of all primaries in Destiny, Bungie increased aerial accuracy by roughly 40%. - You can count on about half of your shots to land while airborne in the range of 20m to 40m, obviously with a better success rate the closer you are to your enemy. A 50/50 chance for each bullet is not enough to justify flying around the map, because the amount of shots you’ll miss is higher than the shots your opponent will miss from you being more evasive, against most opponents. As a result, I’ll be using my vertical space more, but situationally, not all the time. - And lastly, aiming for the body does more damage on average than aiming for the head while airborne because RNG bullet spread while aiming for the head is less forgiving than aiming for center mass. So, I did this analysis after getting home from work on Valentine’s Day. I pulled some serious strings with my girl to get this out as fast as I did. Lol. I hate begging for upvotes, but I would really appreciate one to make it more worthwhile. Also, go ahead and share this with anyone who would find it useful to increase visibility. Have a great hump day, friends. Duke