Thorn is the only answer here, with The Last Word as the clear second. Thorn is a nearly guaranteed kill in two headshots (only barring a certain class with a certain build using a specific exotic armor piece), while other hand cannons require three headshots to kill. Hawkmoon *can* kill in two shots, but it it only does so about 1/3 of the time, and it's random. Thorn also has max fire rate for a hand cannon, meaning it fires faster than most other hand cannons and takes the fewest amount of shots to kill. The easiest nerf for Thorn in my mind is to simply lessen the strength of the damage over time, it currently does 7 ticks for 7 damage each, if it did 7 ticks 3 damage each it would only be capable of 2 shotting certain classes that spec for low health (much like some high impact legendary hand cannons), but any class could spec for enough health to survive two shots.

The Last Word is also much too strong, but not quite as much as Thorn. The biggest issue with The Last Word is that there is currently a bug which results in it dealing more damage than it is supposed to. The perk for The Last Word is supposed to allow it to deal bonus critical damage when firing from the hip, but sometimes the bonus damage triggers during aiming, which makes it too easy to score these bonus shots and makes the gun capable of delivering a two shot kill to low health spec characters while aiming down sights. This bug needs to be addressed. The gun will still be very strong, since it's exotic fan fire perk allows it defy it's rate of fire stat (which is technically the same as thorn) and fire even faster, so it can get off those three shots required to kill faster than any other hand cannon. The gun also seems to defy it's range stat. Hand Cannons in general have too much range, but The Last Word has an incredibly low range stat, yet still manages to perform fairly well at the outer edges of mid range.

Finally, shotguns. I don't think singling out Felwinter's Lie makes much sense anymore, since the House of Wolves has introduced many more shotguns of a similar archetype (some of which could be argued to be better than Felwinter's Lie), but shotguns in general need to be addressed. They have far too much range, and perks like shot package and any that increase the range just make for stupidly powerful weapon. Shotguns needs to only one hit kill at extremely close ranges, but I think part of the shotgun issue is the movement ability blink. Blink makes it too easy to close the gap on players and get into shotgun range for quick kills. If they added a 1-2 second delay on weapon readiness after blinking, shotguns would just naturally become much less overpowered.

As for some of the other weapons mentioned in the poll. Any notion that MIDA Multi Tool is even remotely overpowered is just silly. Red Death kills pretty fast, but not as fast as hand cannons, and not too much faster than legendary pulse rifles. It can kill in two bursts, but you need to be super accurate, landing a majority of the six bullets in those two bursts on the head, which isn't quite as easy as simply hitting a hand cannon shot. Vex Mythoclast is borderline, but it's complete ineptitude at mid range means it's easy to counter. Sure, it beats anything at close-mid range, but it's supposed to. The easy to counter the Mythoclast is to avoid engaging the person up close. Hawkmoon I think is fine also. It can kill in two shots, but like I said before it's not a majority of the time and it's not reliable. It also fires slower than Thorn and has less aim assistance. 2/3 kills with Hawkmoon will have the same time to kill as any legendary hand cannon. The 1/3 of the time that it two shots is what makes it an exotic (It also has about a 1/2000 chance of 1 shotting, but those odds make that scenario irrelevant).

I really like PVP in Destiny, at this point having played over 2500 games, but clearly the meta at this point in time favors too few weapons. I think the changes I mentioned above need to be implemented, but I also think Auto Rifles need to be brought back up to a point of relevance. I also wouldn't mind seeing base player health raised by about 50% (from about 190-200 HP to around 300 HP). This would slow down the kill times, making prolonged engagements more common and making outplays and turnarounds more likely. I want to see mid fight maneuvering and tactics more at the forefront, rather than who can get two or three shots out of their hand cannon first deciding engagements.

Thorn. The damage over time is just one step too far in PvP. I get killed with it probably 95% of the time.

Worst part is, I can't even finish the bounty for Thorn. Since they made special ammo drop less often, and special weapons are the ones that have void damage to complete the Thorn exotic bounty, I can never make progress.

Thorn should've been called Bane of Existence. I'm working through the last step of the bounty for it, which is stupid, so I hate it even more.

I would say the thorn. Running through trials of osiris this weekend, for a span of 5 matches or so it was literally all thorns on the other team. The damage over time impedes shield regeneration, two headshots equals a kill, three body shots equals a kill and with a fast rate of fire it's quite easy to land them. I think all hand cannons could have their range nerfed because it defeats the purpose of using one of the semi-autos if you can shoot across the map with a handcannon. Shotguns could also use a nerf as mentioned above. Some of the ranges with the perk shot package are ridiculous. They should of just nerfed the suros and left auto rifles where they were because as is, assault rifles are pretty useless. I would argue that fusion rifles are also useless now with the ranges some shotguns can fire at.

You need to get a void secondary weapon. I used a shotgun myself and used a heavy machine gun with void(when I could get special ammo). It was a pain in the ass, but if you play REALLY safe it doesn't take as long as you think.

Using a void-focused character also really helps. Do the bounty with a void Warlock if you can, or a void Titan if you don't have a warlock. DON'T try the bounty with a Hunter, because they don't have a void subclass. If you have House of Wolves, get a shotgun that you can re-roll, and try to get void damage and good range. Oh, and use a chest piece that lets you hold more shotgun ammo.

Then just play super aggressively, but safely. Try not to use anything but void weapons and abilities, and if you can stay above a .5 K/D ratio, you should be making progress towards the goal.

I've completed the PvP portion of the Thorn bounty after the special ammo changes, so it's definitely possible.

Unfortunately, I only play a Hunter haha. I'm probably in the minority of most Destiny players, in that I had no desire to handle 3 characters. Also, you can't transfer bounties between characters...right?

Hidden Answer: Sunsingers.

They are filthy. Just straight up filthy. They are so overpowered. Here's the thing:

Golden Gunners can murder someone by shooting them anywhere, but they can be murdered just as easily as anyone else. Bladedancers have increased damage resistence, but they need a melee attack to do it, which means two shotgun shots and you can still down them.

Fist of Havoc is ridiculously powerful and almost cannot be avoided if you failed to take down the charging/airborne Titan, but it only has an area of effect and cannot be used beyond it, limiting the possible kills. The bubble can block something off, but can be removed by other supers quite easily.

Voidwalker's are basically the same as Fists of Havoc except from range and you have time to get out of the way.

Now, Sunsingers have 2 grenades as a perk, get a shield merely for hitting something, not even killing, and have a perk for damage reduction while their super is active. Which... they still have damage reduction when they do not choose that perk. Which means infinite grenades and shields while being harder to kill. Which they can do while dead which blinds everyone near them.

Seriously. They're filthy.

@nickhead You're going about it all wrong. Just get yourself a Void primairy. Solves the problem easily. I usually pick the Thorn bounty now, just because it is the easiest to do and takes the least amount of time after Super Good Advice.

Thorn is the biggest offender. When the overwhelming majority of people you play in say Trials of Osiris use it, there's likely a good reason. As stated earlier in the thread, it's a fairly consistent 2-hit kill with its dot damage. It needs to be looked at again, though i'm not sure what should get changed. The dot damage alone? Impact? Fire rate? Not sure what the right solution is.

The last word is fine, except the bug as mentioned above. It has a more significant drop off than the other hand cannons as it should with its ridiculous fire rate. However, it's small clip coupled with its fire rate and stability make it pretty difficult to use well. I'm not sure what i would change about it.

In general, I think all the range stats for every weapon need adjusting. As it stands there is no real reason to use anything other than hand cannons as they have sufficient range to engage on most maps and in most situations. As a result, pulse rifles, scout rifles and auto rifles see little use in PvP. You basically need to get into the large maps like Bastion or Skyshock to really see long range situations where hand cannons don't really dominate.

Shotguns need to have shot package and rangefinder removed from their possible perk list and/or just removed. Without those perks I feel like shotguns will fall back in line with the other secondaries. Though maybe an additional 10% range is removed?

Finally, final round on sniper rifles should be removed as well. Nothing like playing a game of skirmish, or trials only to hear firing of sniper rifles just after spawning. It's not that big of a deal, but it's also really dumb.

Well, if you want to wait until September and pay 40 dollars more, every character class will be getting new abilities that match their currently missing element. Solar Titan, Arc Warlock, and Void Hunter.

I'd say make the damage over time less powerful, but last longer. Get the numbers so that all characters who put even half their points into armor can't be killed with two headshots, but it still happens for low armored characters. Also, since the DOT effect would last longer, thorn users could "see" their enemy behind walls and such for longer, and there would be a greater chance of the person shot with thorn being able to kill their opponent before they died themselves.

At least I think that would do it.

On the Planet Destiny podcast, they mentioned that first and foremost, they should make Mark of the Devourer unable to kill a target, at least in Crucible. Which makes a whole lot of sense. I think if they did that, Thorn might not need any other nerf.

That might be part of the solution. I still feel like some other things need to be looked at. Again, I don't know what the actual answer is though. In any case, that's why Bungie is making the big bucks.

I've also been thinking about the range stat fix i mentioned above. If they did something like that they may have to fix a bunch of other stats to compensate. For example, I feel like the Last Word could become totally useless in the game if they nerfed the range too much. So with that in mind, would they boost the impact/damage on the thing? How would they make it still useful in the realm where it excels, which is only PvP really. As in PvE content there is no real reason to use it.

So maybe the range thing shouldn't be a consideration.

Mythoclast or Suros. I haven't been in a game where a Mythoclast or a Suros aren't topping the board unless no one is using them.

@itwongo: Weird. That has not been my experience at all. End of last year? Absolutely. Lately, the sound of Thorn has replaced the sound of good ol' Suros in the games I've been in.

It sounds like you haven't played the game in several months. SUROS is almost useless now in the Crucible and especially in Trials or Iron Banner. Mythoclast is good, but it loses 99% of the time against Thorn, Hawkmoon and Last Word.

As someone who played pvp the first month and never again I have to say I for one am glad Thorn is OP now. That thing was basically the worst exotic for basically the first 5 months or so and that buff was a godsend. But yeah that shit is OP in there but it's super fun in PVE. :p

Thorn was always really good in PVP, it was just hampered by some of weaker aspects in the early months of the game. It has always been a two shot kill, but the reload speed was an eternity and the magazine only held 6 shots. When they buffed thorn, they only increased the magazine, quickened the reload, and improved the stability. It always an extremely quick killing weapon, it just became more usable overall after the buff.

@ll_exile_ll: I wouldn't call it good when it would take a full moon to reload and fire rate was crap compared to the other speedsters but yeah it was usable. The normal buffs mostly changed how good players would use it the DoT is where the problem lies since that's where the bad players are realizing you can get cheap kills just off that even though you're already dead.

Honestly, I think the entire PVP needs to be rebalanced. Far too many one hit kills + the weapon/armor enhancements make it where its less about skill and more about what you're using.

In terms of weapons, the Vex Mythoclast is pretty OP. Personally, they should just do what they originally promised and make it where all the weapons and armor have the exact same base stats across the board. The only thing in multiplayer that having the items should do is change your appearance.

@junkboy0 even in the early game, it wasn't the worst exotic. The one Fusion rifle (name escapes me, but I used to own it) was pretty terrible...same for the shotgun.

The buff to thorn didn't change the fire rate at all. It has always had the maximum fire rate allowed for hand cannons.

@sammo21 I think in the greater sense (no just pvp) even the other bad ones like Universal Remote had better uses than Thorn. And on the Fusion front PI and Plan C were both pretty OP just hard to get used to. I would normally get top spot with PI back in the day with the 8+ shot bursts. The various nerfs it received most certainly made it a worse weapon but not too shabby. Plan C is just a monster that needs the right hands.

@junkboy0: At the time I was doing better with Light/Beware than I was the exotic...same even when going up against others with the exotic in PVP.

I voted Thorn because it's busted as hell. And I only just got it too, but even still I wouldn't be sad or surprised to see it nerfed.

Personally, I think they should leave Thorn as it is. I think Exile hit it right on the money. They should change the base health to around 250, and maybe tweak how much impact your Armor, Recovery, and Agility has in PvP so that high armor builds have noticeable differences in time to kill. I think the 1/2 second weapon ready cooldown after blink is a great idea too, as that would almost exclusively stop blink shotgunning. Buff both Auto Rifles back two debuff's ago so they are again viable in PVE and PVP, and buff Scout Rifles damage output. Then in PvP only, decrease shotgun range by 15%. Honestly, I wish they would repeal the renerf on Fusion Rifles, if only in PvE because Vex is much less useful than it was in PvE the first week after HoW launched. Then buff Necrocasm's impact to be the same as Abyss Defiant, which would make that weapon actually useable.

You really don't need blink to kick ass with a shotgun. The range decrease wouldnt be enough either, I can come top of pretty much every game I play just by a knee slide-shotgun-melee combo that always guarantees a kill and is basically impossible to stop unless your opponent sees you from a long way away or also shotguns you at the same time. I would say it's a bummer that it seems like the only way to play if it wasn't so darn successful for me.

That said, I really think BladeDancer and Gunslinger are incredibly un-fun. Other supers average case is killing one opponent, if you get lucky you might get 2 or 3 in the blast radius. Those two are a guaranteed 2+ kills if you activate it in the middle of the enemy team. The main problem with it is you are basically invincible while doing it. They just need to make it possible to actually kill the person in the super before they reach you. Maybe have the extra shield decrease as the super goes on for longer so you can still get at least 1 kill before you become vulnerable.

I loved being able to slide shotgun then melee people for the kill. That should always be viable. I did that a lot early on and it was pretty effective. But, the problem is now people can drop you at 15ft with one round, so there is no opportunity to slide or melee if your opponent isn't terrible and has an OP shotgun. Now that being said, I've given in and now run Thorn, a Matador 64 with max range shotpackage and army of one, and an Ash Factory with Tripod and Horseshoes. But that's mostly because I'm a mid level PvP player and wouldn't stand a chance in Trials otherwise.

Bladedancers are not even remotely invincible. They get 50% damage resist (which essentially means they have about 380 HP). Close range shotguns do about 300 damage, so 2 shots or a shot and a melee will kill a bladedancer outright. High impact snipers do over 400 damage with a headshot, so one headshot will kill a bladedancer. I routinely kill bladedancers single handedly with both shotguns and snipers. Focused team fire will decimate a bladedancer in no time at all. Gunslingers get no damage resist whatsoever.