I know there will probably be a lot of Guardians making a return next week when Rise of Iron drops to Destiny. With Rise comes a lot of new changes and many of those are focused on PvP. There are a lot people on this forum who haven't really played much of/any PvP in Destiny so I wanted to give a few recommendations and talk a little bit about where weapons are with Destiny currently to help you guys prepare for the new game modes like Supremacy, Custom Matches, and the relaunch of both Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris. So without further ado.

Keep in mind the average Guardian health ranges from 187-200 depending on armor spec, but can go as high as 208 running specific perks. 200 will kill over 95% of players, but 209 will guarantee any kill.

Primary Weapons

Scout Rifles - There are 4 tiers of Scout Rifles, High Impact, Mid Impact, Mid-Low Impact, and Low Impact. They have the highest range and least damage falloff of any primary right now.

High Impact - These have the fastest TTK (Time To Kill) of all Scout Rifles in PvP doing 73 Crit, 49 Body, with an optimal TTK of 0.8 seconds and a max TTK of 1.6. They also require near perfect accuracy to obtain this TTK in almost all situations.

Recommendations for Exotic is only Jade Rabbit on PS4, since it is the only Exotic in this tier. It can allow 1 Body and 2 Crits in PvP due to it's Exotic perk giving more damage to Crits after a Body shot. For Legendaries in PvP look for perks such as Life Support, Hand-Laid Stock, and Third Eye. In PvE look for Triple Tap, Extended Mag, and Firefly. Keep in mind Explosive Rounds specifically on Hand of Judgement (Prison of Elders) does 50 Body, which increased it's CCB to 196, killing all Guardians armor 6 or below, and causing increased Flinch, so it's a very worthwhile perk to have on that specific gun. Does extra PvE damage as well.

Mid Impact - These have the slowest but most consistent TTK in PvP. They should be used beginner or non competitive players. They do 61/41 with a TTK of 1.0 and 1.33. They only require 2/4 Crits for a kill.

Recommendation for Exotic is for Warlocks with Super, the Tlaloc, or class specific gun from the Gunsmith. With Super available this gun goes from good to the best in the game currently. It start firing as fast as the Mid-Low Impact tier of Scouts and it's TTK drops from 1.0 to somewhere in the 0.7? range and still only require 2/4 Crits. Legendary recommendations are the same as the High Impact tier for both PvP and PvE.

Mid-Low Impact - This tier is defined by one gun right now, The Mida Multi Tool. One of the best Scout Rifles for both PvE and especially PvP. It has a TTK of 0.9 to 1.5 requiring 3/4 Crits and does 57/38. The Mida is one of the top 5 Primaries in Destiny because of it's sheer utility. It has high flinch, high rate of fireThere will be Legendaries with Rise of Iron in this class, but it's hard to say what would work best. I would stick with what works on High Impact and maybe look into Lightweight as these benefit from added movement speed.

Low Impact - These are a mix between High and Mid Impact, as they are less punishing than High Impact, but more rewarding than Mid Impact. Overall a solid group of weapons with good perks. But those perks are very different than the other Scouts. They have a TTK of 0.93 and 1.4 and do 45/30.

Perk recommendations for PvE stay the same, but the ease of use of this PvP setup may be fun to use. For PvP, look for the Gunsmith's Suros DIS-47 with Full-Auto, Perfect Balance and Small-bore. This is an incredibly easy to use Auto Rifle type Scout. It is a lot of fun to use, from personally experience.

Auto Rifles - The go to for any game, once the powerhouse of the Crucible, now the Red Headed Step Child. High Impact, Mid Impact, and Low Impact. Really rough damage falloff outside of short range.

High Impact - These reigned supreme at the launch of Destiny behind their father figure, the great Suros Regime. Now they are a shell of their former selves. At 26/21 they have a TTK 0.93 and 1.2, but can only obtain that while sitting within shotgun "gank" (One Hit Kill + movement speed) range, in other words within 30 meters. They makes them, at least currently, a near unuseable class.

Recommendations are to not use them at all. If they do get buffed, look at perks that Increase Stability and especially Range. Perks like Counterbalance would be great. Suros Regime is ok in PvE, but there are much better Exotics to use out there.

Mid Impact - Slightly less awful than High Impact, they sit at 0.9 and 1.2 doing 20/16. But they suffer the same problems as High Impact except they cause slightly more flinch.

Exotic recommendations for PvE are Zhalo Supercell. While being in a poor class of weapon this gun shines in PvE. It is the only current light level Primary with an Elemental damage (Arc) and it chains lightning to mobs of enemies when it hits them, simultaneously regaining ammo for multikills. A great PvE gun. If you use this tier for PvP, try Hard Light. It doesn't suffer the same damage falloff that others in this tier do, but beware of it's stability issues, it can be hard to control much outside of that intended Range anyways. Still don't recommend these guns for PvP.

Low Impact - This is the only recommended Auto Rifle right now. They have a TTK of 0.87 and 1.07 and do 15/12. They are the embodiment of consistency and ease of use. But they do require a specific set of perks to be able to be used effectively at all.

With the Khvostov 7G-OX coming back with the ability to change it's fire rate, I highly recommend setting it to this fire rate, and choosing both Counterbalance and Braced Frame. The same perks go for any Legendary Low Impact Auto's you find out in the wild. The top tier Legendary in this category is still the Doctrine of Passing, as the Counterbalance roll was literally a perfect roll for this archetype of weapon. I doubt this will still be available once Trials launches so I hope you got a chance to pick one up. But the new Khvostov should work almost exactly the same anyways, it will just take up an Exotic slot.

Pulse Rifles - Probably the most competitive Primary weapon class in Destiny right now. They come in High, Mid, Mid-Low, and Low Impact. They have excellent range, flinch, and TTK on the lowest impact tiers. There is also a readily available God Roll from the Crucible Vendor in the form of the Hawksaw, so go pick that up before next week if you do not have it, seriously, it's a top 5 primary in Destiny right now and it's only 150 marks away from you owning it, go buy it.

High Impact - These guns have the lowest optimal TTK at 0.73 and 1.33 and do 34/23. But they are completely unforgiving, in that you cannot miss a shot to hit that 0.73, so you will likely always be hitting a 1.33 TTK which makes them an almost non-existent gun in the Crucible.

I do not recommend this tier of Pulse Rifle for either PvE or PvP, but a random Lyudmila with something like Crowd Control can be used in PvE.

Mid Impact - This tier has 1.0 and 1.5 TTK doing 30/20. I would only recommend this to newer players as it's 1.0 TTK can be rather consistently hit because it only requires 3/9 Crits, but it would not be recommended for any players that can hit a higher % of Crits.

Red Death steals the show here in PvE for Exotics. It is a great Exotic and worthy of use due to it's health stealing ability. Upon every kill you regenerate your entire health bar as long as you are not shot and interrupted. This is a great weapon for beginners on Raids and really any PvE activity you find yourself losing health often. No Time To Explain can also be used quite effectively in certain situations where you can Crit enemies for extended periods of time in PvE.

Mid-Low Impact - This is the most dominant class of weapons in the Crucible today and for good reason. They boost great range with little falloff outside extreme range, quick TTK, and good Flinch. Their TTK is 0.87 and 1.33 and they do 25/17. It can hit the 0.87 TTK with 6/9 Crits.

I cannot iterate enough, go buy the Crucible Quartermaster Hawksaw. It's so close to a perfect roll it isn't even funny. As far as the top God Roll on this archetype, you are looking for SPO-28, Perfect Balance, Counterbalance, and Rifled Barrel. Keep in mind Aegis of The Reef can roll in strange ways. Mine is pretty amazing with Smallbore, Full-Auto, and Counterbalance. But generally look for high Range/Stability with Counterbalance. Hidden Hand is a decent alternative though.

Low Impact - This class is defined by one weapon, the Grasp of Malok. It has a TTK of 0.8 and 1.33 doing 23/16 but requires 8/9 Crits to hit the 0.8 TTK. It also boost one of the highest base range stats of any Pulse Rifle, which is unusual since it also has the fastest firing rate. The only downside to this weapon is the way in which it is obtained. It can only be obtained by killing Omnigul in the Will of Crota Strike mission.

Recommended perks for this gun vary. But generally an OAS sight, Braced Frame, and Counterbalance are the pillars on which it is built.

Hand Cannons - By far the most controversial weapon class right now. Hand Cannons are plagued with Accuracy issues stemming from Bungies introduction of a Bloom mechanic during The Taken King. See TripleWreck's recent video here that has even garnered the attention of Deej after months of player unrest about the topic. In essence though, the initial accuracy doesn't always allow shots to land at where the reticle is placed. The issue just gets worse as shots are fired in quick succession without allowing the gun to settle back into a resting position. Tangents aside, HC's come in 3 forms, High Impact, Mid Impact, Low Impact, and The Last Word. They suffer from steep range falloff and with Bloom, have severe Accuracy problems that are hopefully resolved in the future.

High Impact - This is the most uncommon HC class in Destiny at the moment. It does boost one of the fastest TTK's on low armor guardians, of 0.5 doing 190 damage, but almost nobody runs lower than 3 armor so that will almost never happen without a buff like Weapons of Light/Shadowshot/Crowd Control/Reactive Reload, etc. It usually has a TTK of 1.0 and 1.5 doing 95/64.

The First Curse is fun to use in PvE, but it's a pain to unlock, and it's really worth it unless you are a collector like me. A Crowd Control and Reactive Reload Judith is fun to use though in PvE, the thing hits like a Semi truck with both active, but you only get 7 shots.

Mid Impact - These are the all intents and purpose work horse class of Hand Cannons. They are the most common and for good reason. They have a TTK of 0.87 and 1.3 doing 86/57 and only require 1/3 Crits for the 0.87 TTK.

The signature gun in this class is The Hawkmoon. It carries 3 lucky rounds that can grant huge boons to damage in both PvE and PvP and make it a great gun for both scenarios. Due to "Ghost Bullets" in PvP though, and low range, it suffers right now in PvP more than it's Legendary brethren. But it does have the potential, upon stacking 2 rounds and hitting two Crits to kill in 2 shots still, coming in at a hot 0.44 TTK, but this is pretty rare. Look for Legendaries with perks like Truesight, Quickdraw, or the best sight Sureshot, Rangefinder (a must have due to the changes in range dropoff), and either Hidden Hand (my preference) or Icarus if you plan to take to the air to take advantage of the boosted in air accuracy HC's offer.

Low Impact - With one of the fastest Primary TTK's, coming in at 0.8 and 1.2 these guns do 77/51. They aren't used as frequently because they require 2/3 Crits unlocks their harder hitting brethren and suffer from Range problems more frequently right now. If "Ghost Bullets" are removed, look for these to become the King's of the Crucible though.

I would not recommend these guns in PvE. However the King and despised Champion of the Crucible, The Thorn, may soon be rearing his ugly head back with it's swan song in Rise of Iron. Coming in at 79/52 plus 4 ticks of 2 poison per hit, Thorn is still dangerous indeed. Add to that near max range and Final Round and you have a very dangerous gun. It did get hit a bit on it's range, which made it go from one of the most consistent HC's to just slightly more so than Hawkmoon, but a two Crit on bullets 8 & 9 will hit for a total of 198 (79+103+16), giving it a walkaway TTK of 0.4 in that situation on 85% of Guardians not spec'd 9+ Armor (I don't think any Hunter can survive that, only Warlocks/Titans). It can also kill with only 1/3 Crits doing 207 damage, making it the easiest to use Low Impact HC, but that relies on the DoT to kill. To kill outright you will still need to 2/3 Crit. Now, there is an anti-DoT/Burn Artifact coming out that would put Thorn in it's place, but it would come at the expense of much better and useful new Artifacts. If Bloom is removed from Destiny, Thorn is by far the 3 headed monster to watch out for.

The Last Word - This gun gets it's own category because it is unlike any other Hand Cannon in Destiny. It is full-auto, has drastically reduced range, and has one primary reason to exist. To pair with a Sniper Rifle to fight off Shotguns at close range in PvP. It is the ultimate Gunslingers 6 shooter, or in this case 8 shooter. It has a 0.53 to 0.8 TTK, doing 75/50, but with drastic range falloff and massive recoil. It also suffers by far the most from "Ghost Bullets" of any HC in Destiny. In it's current form both Fan Fire (it's name for full-auto) and Hip Fire (it has 2 whole perks dedicated to being used like this, include Last Word, it's namesake perk) cannot even be used due to bullets not landing on target above a 25% chance. Currently ADS is the only way to reduce the obnoxious amount of "Ghost Bullets" on The Last Word. Considering it only carries 8 rounds at a time, this can be infuriating at times, when it frequently "Ghosts" half the magazine. Now the good stuff, it boosts one of the fastest TTK's in Destiny, so even with "Ghost Bullets" you will still frequently win 1v1 situations. But 2v1's will leave you looking for cover to reload. I would never run TLW without Hand Cannon Reloader Gauntlets. But it can be an invaluable tool for a great Sniper in Destiny. I personally use TLW frequently, and although it makes me want to break a controller at times, it is still one of the top Primary weapons in Destiny, and for good reason.

I recommend running The Last Word if you are a very skilled Sniper, but do not run it without HC Reloaders, and I highly recommend having Quickdraw on your Sniper if you plan on running it as well. If you don't have QD, and are on a Hunter, look at running a Bladedancer with the Quickdraw perk. That combination will get you out of a lot of situations when you are unexpectedly rushed by players.

Special Weapons

Sniper Rifles - Unlike Primaries, Special weapons are generally more defined by things such as Stability, Aim Assist, Fire Rate, Damage Output, Range, etc. So this section may be a bit different. Snipers come in 5 flavors, High, Mid-High, Mid, Mid-Low, and Low Impact. Snipers now suffer much more exaggerated flinch after the last patch, unlike any other weapon class in the game.

High Impact - This tier is defined by 1 gun in particular right now, The Black Spindle. It has a brother on Playstation called Zen Meteor, but it won't see Microsoft's console until Fall 2017. It is likely however that we will see some new Legendary Weapons in this Archetype like the Efrideet's Spear from Y1 in Rise of Iron, at least I hope. Otherwise Roaming Supers will now roam the wild free and clear, which makes the recent nerf to High-Mid Sniper damage even more of a completely boneheaded move by Bungie. These Snipers do 452/181 and have a body shot TTK of 1.0 in PvP. But do not double body shot with this impact tier, it's a waste of a bullet, finish with your primary. This is the only current tier that can kill a Roaming Super in 1 Crit. It can also Revive Snipe, like all Snipers but the Low Impact variants. This tier has Low Aim Assist, Low Stability, Low Mag size at 3, and low reload speed. Basically worst in class in everything but Impact and Range (useless advantage on Sniper).

Black Spindle is a great weapon for skilled Snipers in PvE on static, elongated Boss encounters when you can shoot a Crit spot for longer than 10 seconds at a time. Reloading the mag on 3 Crits is a great perk if you can maintain hitting Crits for an entire magazine of shots. I don't recommend Black Spindle for PvP, it's low Aim Assist, mixed with about a 5.5x scope make it too hard to use. It just feels heavy and cumbersome.

High-Mid Impact - For a long time the King of the Crucible as far as Snipers go. They have medium Aim Assist, highest Stability, Lowest Range (still plenty of Range), and average reload Speed/Mag size. They do 388/156 and have a body shot TTK of 0.83. Their biggest advantage for a long time was that they could both Revive Snipe and kill Roaming Supers, but the ability to kill Roaming Supers has largely been removed doing only 194 as opposed to the 209-213 they used to do. Also, almost all Snipers now Revive Sniper, another ability given from this tier to all Sniper classes.

I only recommend using this tier of Sniper if you already have a God Roll, or one that you are extremely comfortable using, and do not want to change to another Sniper. The only advantage this tier now has is it's blinting damage ability, or doing 156 to the body and switching to primary to finish that extra 44 damage off. It is below average in every other statistic now, with very little upside. As far as perks go, look for the same on all Snipers in PvP. Optics are Shortgaze (4.9x with better handling, my least favorite, but everyone else loves it), Ambush (4.9x with -25 AA, but added stability), and Longview SLR-10 (5.2x with +3 AA, +Range, -Stability). These have the lowest zoom potential and cleanest sight picture. Then look for Performance Bonus/Underdog/Eye of the Storm/Life Support, but the big two are getting Quickdraw and Hidden Hand. Snapshot is ok and I prefer Stability perks like Perfect Balance next, but Unflinching is the only ok perk outside of Hidden Hand in the final column. You really want Hidden Hand though. In PvE look for the same Scopes, but look for the perks Spray and Play, Triple Tap, and Casket Mag.

I want to make a special callout to the Hunter Gunsmith Sniper, Stillpiercer. It's highly worth noting that this sniper when equiped with Accurized Ballistics, will increase the impact enough to do 199 to any Roaming Super. This is enough to kill all but Max Armor Sunbreakers with Solar Armor and Ramlocks with Max Armor even without matching Chest Armor. This to an extent negates the nerf to this tier Snipers Impact. But I personally find it hard to use Stillpiercer, as something just feels off about it. Personal preference thing. It can also only be used on a Hunter. But it does have Snapshot on it, so using a Bladedancer with Quickdraw with drastically increase Sniping prowess.

Mid Impact - While on paper these seem to be the new darlings, they are hard to come by, and perk selection isn't the greatest. The best hope is for a Defiance of Yasmin, which is also the most common weapon in this tier. This tier has High Aim Assist, low Stability, High Reload, High Range, and normal Mag size. They do 334/134 and have a Body shot TTK of 0.67.

I would not use this tier in PvE, but the Defiance is probably one of the best Snipers in PvP right now. It's open scope design, and high Aim Assist make it a favorite for people like True Vanguard, one of the top Snipers in Destiny. No Land Beyond also kind of falls into this category doing 290/126 without The Master active. It can Res Snipe, is a primary, and has no scope. If also suffers the least from flinch and allows you to run a Sidearm or Shotgun, so it's worth mentioning.

Mid-Low Impact - This tier houses probably the number 1 Sniper in Destiny now. The Glass Promontory. With great overall stats like High Range, Medium Stability, High Reload, and Medium Aim Assist, it comes out as one of the top contenders in the Crucible right now. It's brethren in this category has significantly lower Aim Assist though, keep in mind. Coming in at 267/107 and a Body Shot TTK of 0.53, it is likely we are entering the double body shot Meta for Snipers due to the damage nerf to High-Mid Impact.

For PvP, if you got ahold of a Hidden Hand variant of the Glass Promontory you are in for a treat. It has a built in God Roll of Hidden Hand, Quickdraw, Performance Bonus, and either Shortgaze or Ambush, whichever you prefer. This is the Sniper Rifle I have set down my amazing Hidden Hand 1000 Yard for the past week, and I'm not sure I will go back.

Low Impact - This tier is defined by the recent Iron Banner Sniper Weyloran's March. They have Best in Class AA, Low Range, Medium Stability, Best in Class Reload and Mag Size at 5. It does 250/100 with a Body Shot TTK of 0.53. This tier CANNOT Revive Snipe, as it is the only tier that cannot.

This tier is pretty worthless, I wouldn't use it for either PvP or PvE honestly.

Shotguns - Shotguns are currently the most common Special Weapon, and for good reason. Max Range Shotguns carry a OHKO range of 7m but can close a gap of roughly 18-23m before they can be killed dependent upon Class and setup. That give Shotguns a killable range of between 25-30m in Destiny due to slow Primary TTK and swift movement abilities. Some abilities can exasperate this range by a bit like Stormtrances Amplitude Melee, Strikers Juggernaut Shield, and the Nightstalkers Shadestep. Hunter Control jump with Bones of Eao, Warlock Focused Burst, and especially Titans Control Jump can all be used to significantly increase movement speed of Guardians. Another thing to watch out for is the Titan Exotic Twilight Garrison that can further increase movement speed and alter approach directionality. These are all abilities many Shotgun users use well and effectively to close gaps quickly on other Guardians. Within the Shotgun family there are 3 major tiers of Shotgun to be aware of for PvP and PvE, Max Impact, High Impact, and Low Impact. There are also 4 special Exotic Shotguns that function outside of these constraints. The other Shotguns in Destiny are rather useless currently.

Max Impact - These are currently defined by the Conspiracy Theory D and Her Champion Shotguns. But Dead Orbit will be selling a new Shotgun called the Last Ditch 001. These shotguns do Max Impact of 67 doing 264 damage with a ROF (rate of fire) of 5. Keep in mind while Her Champion can hit Max Range, Consipiracy Theory D cannot, so it's therefor not as good of a Shotgun.

I highly recommend getting started with the Nightfall quest CTD, as it has a near perfect roll. But since it doesn't quite hit max range, you are better of with a Her Champion or looking for the new Last Ditch 001 next week. Look for rolls with Rangefinder, Rifled/Reinforced Barrel, and Performance Bonus or Final Round/Underdog. The barrel upgrades to use on this tier are Linear, Accurized, and Field Choke, since this tier already hits max Impact.

High Impact - This tier is defined by the best PvP Shotgun in Destiny currently. That gun in the Party Crasher +1. It starts out at an Impat of 64 doing 252 with a ROF of 11. It naturally has a higher base Range, Stability, Reload Speed, Magazine Capacity (6 instead of 5), and Aim Assist than it's harder hitting bigger brothers. The real kicker is that with it's excess base range it can equip Aggressive Ballistics which increases the Impact by 4, giving it Max Impact of 67 with 1 to spare, and allowing it to hit for 264 as well. In other words it does literally everything better than the Max Impact Shotguns with a 2.2x ROF.

I definetly recommend using a PC+1 if you can find a great roll on one. They are fantastic Shotguns. Look for a roll with Aggressive Ballistics, Rangefinder, Rifled/Reinforced Barrel, and Performance Bonus or Final Round/Underdog. (I still don't have one after 12 months of looking, so good luck)

Low Impact - This is your PvE shotgun. Stick it in a Hive gut and you won't ever hear them scream, just find their bloody bits on the floor. This tier has an Impact of 40 doing 216 damage in PvP with a ROF of 35. It has best in class Aim Assist, Reload, and Mag Size (6).

Look for a Burdon of Proof XI from New Monarchy. Previous to the April Update, they sold a God Roll with Full-Auto. But if you didn't pick it up look for Aggressive Ballistics, Full-Auto, Reinforced/Rifled Barrel, and Final Round. The Exotic that dominates this class is everyone's favorite T-Shirt launcher, The 4th Horseman. Just walk up to an enemy, pull the trigger, and smile. The only thing not having a good time will be your Special Ammo Syths.

Exotics - There are 4 Exotic Shotguns worth mentioning that don't really fit into these categories. Those are The Invective, The Chaperone, Universal Remote, and Lord of Wolves.

The Invective is a full-auto Shotgun that regenerates it's ammo, 4 rounds at a time, for every 30 seconds the player remains alive. While it does hit Max Range, it's lower impact and Full-Auto keep it from OHKO from the same 7m distance as other Max Range Shotguns. Instead it can quickly drop two successive shots directly to the body of another player. This makes it incredibly deadly against any non Max Range Shotgun user, but allows it to be outclassed by those Shotguns with further OHKO potential.

The Chaperone is a tricky little beast. It shoots a slug instead of pellets and can do 224 on a Crit, and can do so at further range than the standard 7m OHKO. But it's Body Shots only do 183, leaving many with just a sliver of health on a miss. It does however boost a 35 ROF, allowing it a quick double tap Body Shot potential. It was a favorite for a time in the Crucible by many, but has seemed to fade of late. It is a lot of fun to use however.

Univeral Remote can of late be called Univerally Hated. A Primary Shotgun, that up until 2.4.0 had Max Range when ADS while having a ROF of 14 was a hard thing to be ok with, especially in a time when other Primary weapons are so weak. The range has been dialed back and it was given Full-Auto to both increase the ROF and increase the spread of pellets, thereby decreasing the effective range. It is much less of a powerhouse than it was a week ago, but a Shotgun with unlimited ammo is still something to be careful around.

Lord of Wolves is the most unique Shotgun there is, coming closer to firing like a short range Pulse Rifle than a Shotgun. It fires 5 bullets at a time on a 30 round Mag, but boost a higher Range than any other Shotgun. It can OHKO a player but it requires most of the hits to be Crits rather than Body Shots, which is hard to achieve. This is one of the reasons you rarely see it in the Crucible. Either way it is an incredibly fun gun to use.

Fusion Rifles - While Fusion Rifles might be the most fun Special Weapon to use, they are also the least competitive currently. They still suffer heavily from unreliability. They sometimes 4 bolt, 5 bolt, and sometimes a perfect hit only registers 2 bolts. This is something Bungie desperately needs to fix pronto, but I guess they just hate Fusions, so it probably will never happen. There are only a few things you need to know about Fusion Rifles because of this. All Fusion Rifles benefits from a select set of perks. Stability is kind, therefor look first for Braced Frame. Next look for Range perks such as Rangefinder. Target Acquisition perks are great as well, things like Hidden Hand and sights that boost that. Then look for perks that boost, even temporarily, accuracy. Perks like Hot Swap are great for Fusion Rifles.

As far as specific guns go the current vendor Hitchhiker from Dead Orbit and Vacancy from Future War Cult are both amazing rolls. Get those as quickly as you can this week before reset. Darkblade Spite is another Fusion Rifle I would suggest. The reason I suggest these 3 is due to them only requiring or likely (Vacancy) only requiring 4 bolts to kill. The Hitchhiker does 51 damage per bolt, or 204 per 4 bolt, it can also do significant work to Supers if 5+ bolts attach on one burst. The Spite does 50 damage per bolt or 200 per 4 bolt. The Vacancy hits for 49, or 196. All other Fusion Rifles can kill, but all require 5 of 7 bolts to land, which is somewhat rare with how bad the base stability is on Fusion Rifles currently. But those other Fusions also have significantly improved ROF's. Some people prefer Thesan FR4's and Ashraven's over Hitchhiker's due to that Charge Rate, personally I want a kill every time I fire a burst at a player's chest. So I stick with and recommend The Hitchhiker as a Fusion Rifle of choice.

The Exotic on this list that is hard to ignore is Plan C. While it also requires 5 bolts to kill, it can also fire that burst using it's namesake perk. It remains a favorite in the Fusion Rifle category for many players.

Sidearms - Sidearms only have 2 tiers with very little differences and can most easily be distinguished by their magazine size of 12 and 15. 12 Mag Sidearms hit for 61/49 whereas 15 Mag's hit for 60/48. 12 Mag's fire just ever so slightly slower giving them just a touch slower TTK of 0.7 instead of 0.6 that 15 Mag's do with a body of 0.93 instead of 0.8. In other words a 15 Mag Sidearm will have a more consistant 0.8 TTK, but in rare situations a 12 Mag will kill a low armor Guardian in 0.75, just ever so slightly faster, but honestly not at all worth it. Sidearms can be used effectively, but they sit in a weird place against other specials range wise. They dominate primaries in close Range, but get decimated by Shotguns within 15m. They also lose effectiveness more than 20m out. Staying in that 15-20m Range is hard, and why many stay away from Sidearms right now.

If your looking for a good Sidearm go for a Queen's Choice from Prison of Elders. It's one of the best in the game right now. It's a 15 Mag that functions like the old Vestian Dynasty, the original Sidearm. Prior to 2.4.0 it was a powerhouse that could 4 tap to the body with a Body Shot TTK of 0.6 as well, but if was moved to the same tier as the other 15 Mag Sidearms.

The Exotics Sidearms are limited to two, one good and one bad. Both function as burst weapons like Pulse Rifles. The bad is the Dreg's Promis, a waste of an Exotic if you ask me. But it has a 0.73 and a 0.8 TTK and requires more than 2 bursts no matter how many Crits you get. That is unless you use Aggressive Ballistics (do this if you use this gun). This allows you to barely get a kill on all Crits in 2 bursts, bringing your Crit TTK to 0.5 seconds, but this is also very hard to achieve as Sidearms are hard to hit Crits with. The new Exotic Sidearm is The Tresspasser. It seems to be in a better spot than Dreg's Promis, but only ever so slightly. It seems to 2 burst more frequently, but since we don't have factual numbers yet, it's hard to say what TTK's and damage are exactly. But it does appear and according to players feel better than Dreg's right now.

Heavy Weapons

The short of it until I can actually update this section. Swords are amazing in PvE, especially the Razelighter. Thunderlord can be used effectively and so can Super Good Advice. People have been getting real cheeky with Dragon's Breath, using the DoT damage to cheese lootable encounters. Both Gjallarhorn and Sleeper Simulant will be your big boss killing Heavy Weapons. Other than that use High Impact Legendary Machine Guns in PvE. In PvP, Truth is King, although I think you may see Gjallarhorn rear his head again as Wolfpack rounds tend to track down and kill missed targets frequently. I may start using it myself. Legendary Rockets with Grenades and Horseshoes have always been the go to but they already weren't very effective and just received another huge nerf to their targeting range by over 30%. I'm not sure where the Meta goes on that front. Using Machine Guns in Trials is nothing short of insane, but in normal PvP, if you can stay alive past the initial rocket barrage, then you may set yourself up for an easy 5-10 kill spree. Surprisingly Bolt-Caster can be used quite effectively in Trials and other PvP, but other swords just don't cut it there. It's ability to shoot a blade is what sets it apart. I can see using it with the new Sword Artifact during heavy to great effect at times, though that's a lot of switching for each heavy round in a mode like Trials. So that's it in a nutshell, my advice on Heavy Weapons. Whenever I get a chance I may update this section, but seeing as how the Shotgun section got deleted and took me a lot of time to rebuilt, I may not.

I hope this information helps a few of you guys at least.

omg ur such a nerd. Just use a shotgun TT

@morrelloman: I know (hangs head in shame). It is sad that the current Meta seems to be ignore primaries all together, grab shotgun, put on either Shadestep Nightstalker, Double Amplitude Stormcaller, Manacles Voidwalker, or Juggernaut Striker and slay. Primaries are only used to kill those newbs (like me) who can't let go of their Sniper Rifles easily because even a single bullet from a Doctrine from across First Light that only does 1 damage because it's far outside it's effective range slings your scope into the ceiling now. I promise I'm not mad that they also pretty much killed the ability to make an amazing play on Supers with a Sniper Rifle now. The amount of times I've already Headshot a Roaming Super only to not kill them, have them slay a teammate to completely regen health and then slay me is maddening. Happened twice, just last night. I'm getting really worried that Trials is going to be an absolute Nightmare the first few weeks. Triple shotguns were already the best possible loadout in Trials, and now Snipers are kind of garbage. I doubt any of the best teams will run more than 1 Sniper ever anymore.

I use Hand Cannons in PvE. I actually would recommend them if you are a good shot. I consistently get headshots and if you do, HC actually have the highest DPS out of regular primaries, in addition to being able to one shot most trash mobs. Also, Thorn's base damage will be reduced by 25% which is more than enough to negate a two-headshot kill it had before. Though I haven't done the math, I think one headshot, two body shots actually won't even kill someone now. It's utility is still fantastic, but I think Hawkmoon will be a better weapon in most situations. Though random, it has one-headshot one-body shot kill capability. Not to mention it will be more consistent in TTK even if the lucky rounds don't proc.

@hestilllives19: You can't say snipers are bad because of primaries, then say primaries are useless, then say shotguns are the kings of crucible while you said they shouldn't nerf high impact shotguns. If they rebalanced shotguns everything should be fine:

Maybe a slight modification to fusion rifle consistency would be in order too.

@pyrodactyl: I remember in very vanilla Destiny fusion rifles were annoyingly OP. While they certainly could use a slight buff, I think slight is more than enough. Remember those testing weapons and getting the fusion rifle one that you have to use in the Crucible? You'll actually consistently get kills with it currently. So they are by no means absolute trash.

@zevvion: The weapons balance changes were already done Zev, where did you hear it was getting a 25% damage reduction? It took at 25% base range reduction already last week, but that was the only change they made to it. A 25% damage reduction would take it out of it's HC class all together. It would start doing significantly less damage than The Last Word and would become one of the worst Crucible weapons out there doing only 59 damage per Crit, making it a 4 Crit to kill. I don't think that is happening at all. You have to be referencing the 25% base range reduction from 38 to 29, a loss of 9 range, but it still has Send It, the best in class Range Boosting perk in Destiny. It puts it's range from best in class to just below that of a Eyesluna with Rifled Barrel which makes that gun, in this Meta much more consistant than Thorn. I still think Thorn is a gun to watch out for though. If all shots register it can kill quicker than most other Primaries in Destiny, hitting that crispy 0.8 TTK on 2 Crits and 1 Body.

As far as Hand Cannons in PvE go I completely agree. I think as far as consistent DPS goes either Hawkmoon or Jade Rabbit are the best Exotics in the game. I also like something like Cocytus with a specific perk set or a Hung Jury with those same Extended Mag, Firefly, and TripleTap rolls. Hung Jury is far better for low trash mobs and Cocytus for heavy hitting mobs. But those Lucky Rounds on Hawkmoon come in handy real often.

Can someone direct me to an assault rifle that isn't crazy difficult to earn, but is reasonably effective for both PvE and PvP? I recently returned to the game, and I find myself a little lost. I won't be putting dozens and dozens of hours into the game, but I'd like a relatively effective and fun assault rifle to rock in various situations.

@hestilllives19: Ah, I misread it. Thought it was a damage reduction instead of range. That's still not concerning though. I don't think Thorn will reign supreme anymore since everyone will have a back-up artifact that nullifies DoT. I know I will. Fuck Sunsingers.

@pyrodactyl: I actually watched that the other day. I kind of agree to a point with TrueVanguard, but I don't think making bad Shotguns worse is the answer. Like I've said many times, Shotguns are a powerhouse, but it actually has absolutely nothing to do with the Shotguns themselves. They aren't the problem at all. And that's why Bungie is so confused, because they don't understand their own game very well. Shotgun range itself, even on an absolutely perfectly rolled Shotgun is pretty balanced, coming in at only around 7m in Destiny, which is very short. Any less and they become rather useless in their own right. The problem is actually a few things. 1 - The movement speed in Destiny is extremely quick. Most classes have one or more movement abilities that make moving around the map incredibly quick. So making up ground on other players happens rapidly. You can easily make up about 25m within 1 second in Destiny on any class, and on a Titan, you can do it in under 0.8 seconds. 2 - Map design for the most past significantly favors Shotgun and other close range play within about 35m, often throwing in cover or obstacles in that area that can be used to regen health. 3 - Primary TTK is the slowest it has ever been in the history of Destiny right now. The very fastest TTK's only come in at 0.8 seconds and most of those require ranges of 25-40m to be effective at. That said the overwhelming majority of "Optimal" TTK's sit at around 0.9 or higher, or that of a weapon like Mida Multi-Tool. Keep in mind these are "Optimal" meaning you Do Not miss shots and hit the required amount of Crits to hit your Optimal TTK of your weapon. 4 - Subclass perks vastly favor Shotgun play. Only 1 Subclass/Exotic Armor has a Sniper favoring perk, Bladedancer with Quickdraw. Compare that to Juggernaut Striker, Shadestep Nightstalker, Amplitude Stormtrance, and Titan Twilight Garrison. These all highly promote Shotgun play and closing speed or evasiveness in close quarters. Add all of that together, then cripple Shotguns biggest competitors in the Sniper Rifle and you have the current Meta we are seeing and will start seeing more of. Which is Shotguns easily being able to close/kill from 32m in the exact perfect TTK of the best Primaries in Destiny.

All of the top Snipers in Destiny, TrueVanguard, KJHovey, TripleWreck, nKuch, RealKraftyy, MTashed, SirDimetrious and many others have actually stopped Sniping all together and started Shotgunning. This is a big sign that Snipers have been hit too hard. When some of the best in the game are putting them down because they just became too much work to use efficiently. TipleWreck recently stated that this is by far the worst Meta (speaking about last week and the future for Rise of Iron) that Destiny has ever seen. I'm far from alone in thinking this. The only people enjoying Crucible right now are those that despised Snipers before. The truth is Shotgunning was actually superior in high level play before 2.4.0, but now, it's entirely lopsided and Sniping in Competitive Destiny is just unheard of. Shotguns are dominating every game mode's kills right now other than Elimination, and there Snipers have taken more than a 7% dip since the patch.

Shotguns being overpowered isn't the problem, it's Bungies silly decision to continue on the warpath of nerfs instead of fixing their actual issues.

For refrence, SirDimetrious talking about 4v4 competitive and why nobody Snipes, Mtashed talking about the nerf, and TrueVanguard talking about the same.

Edit: To clarify, Primaries are bad in comparison to Shotgun/Melee closing speed. They still make Snipers feel like they got kicked in the face by a mule from any map distance, no matter the impact. This is a huge problem and something that needs to be readdressed. A better fix would have been to make Flinch more closely related to gun impact, and given flinch range falloff just like damage falloff so that if you are out of effective range it doesn't stagger as much. Allow higher fire rate guns to stack light flinch quickly. This is kind of how it already worked, but instead of reinforcing this, they just doubled both the stacking power and the actually flinch recieved. In my opinion, this was nothing short of laziness by Bungie to fix what was a minor problem, and it doing so they created a massive hindrance to a whole weapon class. Flinch already took you out of play before 90% of the time, but what it does now is disorient you so much that you cannot get away the vast majority of the time, turning what was a missed opportunity before into a near guaranteed death now. In essence primaries now work great at ranges beyond 40m, but are still absolutely terrible within 30m. I hope this clears up what I said about Primaries being both terrible and ruining Snipers.

@aquablak:Be on the lookout for the new Exotic Khvostov 7G-OX. Set it to a high fire rate with Counterbalance and Braced Frame and you should be in amazing shape. Otherwise look for another Low Impact and High Fire Rate Auto with those same perks. Those are the best Auto Rifles for PvP right now and they put in work for PvE as well. For PvE specifically though it's hard to beat the Zhalo Supercell Exotic. It absolutely melts trash mobs and is the only Elemental Primary in Destiny right now (has Arc Damage). It's ok in PvP, but has terrible range and and a slower TTK than it's higher fire rate brothers. Hope this helps.

@zevvion: Haha, I doubt you will see many Sunsingers anymore, they were nerfed into the ground with the last class balance update. They are much more dangerous with Double Fusions now if you see one, so that artifact won't help you out there. Might against Sunbreakers and Gunslingers with Incendiary Blade or Grenade though. But I wouldn't waste my Artifact on that one, ones that are so much better for PvP coming out than it.

@hestilllives19: I would never sport only one artifact. If you see an opponent using Thorn, it will always be good to equip that artifact.

@zevvion: It will be interesting to see exactly how that artifact works in practice as well. Will it drops all ticks to 1, or negate them entirely, or just cut them in half or something. It will be very interesting to see.

@hestilllives19: But then you don't actually offer any solutions. Nerfing high impact shotguns by cutting their range stat in half would be a good solution. Mostly normalizing the kill range on all max range shotguns by having the range falloff curves be different for every class of shotguns would be another good solution (nerf to high impact, buff to low impact and mid impact would stay the same).

It's about making all the shotgun classes useful while making side arms and fusion rifle more competitive in comparison. You could also balance the nerf by improving the consistency of the spread.

This crusade on time to kill is real dumb. Destiny is my kind FPS. More slow and methodical. A game where you can survive even when the opponent gets the drop on you if your positioning and evasive abilities are good enough. If you liked the garbage meta we had in house of wolves better you can go play CS, R6, CoD or another 100 different FPS that offer that fast time to kill experience.

For now it's clear Bungie agrees with me on this issue so all they need to do is fix the shotgun situation and everything will be fine

@hestilllives19 I see a lot of people with Two To The Morgue in Crucible; how does that fit in to the meta currently?

Exactly, right around 1.0 TTK on average is exactly where this game should be. The problem isn't that primaries kill too slowly, it's that one hit kill secondaries are too easy to use. The sniper change was a good first step, but until they address the effectiveness of shotguns, it doesn't matter.

Snipers should be difficult to use, especially in 1v1 gunfight situations. You shouldn't be able to trade fire with a primary and still land an easy headshot. Shotguns should be something in your back pocket for when you find yourself in a close quarters situation, not your number one choice for zipping around the map and using nothing else.

The goal should be to put special weapons in a place where they're used situationallly. Snipers are for when you get the drop on someone at a distance, shotguns are for unexpected close quarters engagements. If these weapons lose their effectiveness as all purpose weapons and retain their effectiveness in these situations, primary gunplay will flourish without any changes having to be made to primary time to kill. The last thing we need is a return to the year 1 insta-kill primary meta where many primaries would melt you in half a second before you could even react.

Thanks for the info! I don't plan to get the new expansion anytime soon, as I'm just now getting into the Taken King, but I'll keep an eye out for Zhalo through Xur. Hope he's got it available soon! Cheers!

@pyrodactyl: This argument that lowering TTK slightly is turning Destiny in to COD blows my mind. COD and others have TTK's in the 0.25 second range. Asking for TTK's to go back to roughly 0.75-0.85 doesn't change the pacing of Destiny much. It's still fits right in between a game like COD and something like Halo. It's just asking to go back to Destiny's roots of Y1 TTK and feel, a game that many feel was an all around better game for Crucible. But with the added effects that hindered Y1 Crucible like Range Falloff, something I personally love. But if your asking what I would do, if I was Bungie, here goes.

1. Remove Bloom entirely. Every shot would hit exactly what it was aiming at 100% of the time. This would effect HC's, sidearms, and Fusion Rifles, and some low range Shotguns.

2. Remove collision effects of Ghosts, they would no longer have presence in game and the ability to deflect/block bullets or abilities. Along these lines abilities would no longer be able to cancel another out. An example would be a Lightning Grenade thrown through a Vortex Grenade. Right now the Vortex consumes the Lightning Grenade before it attaches to the wall behind, that would no longer happen. Both would be active.

3. Melee Registration would take another pass. It still far too often doesn't register but uses the ability.

4. Primary Weapon TTK's would be reduced starting with Pulse Rifles. They would go back directly to their state prior to the December patch. Auto Rifles would then be increased in damage to reflect similar TTK. High Impact Scout (Jade Rabbit) would be increased enough to only require 2 Crits, 1 Body to kill. Mida tier increased to only require 2 Crits, and low impact Scouts to kill in 4 Crits (a 12% increase for reference, as I don't want to do the math on all of these). Hand Cannons should be left alone except for The Last Word and Thorn. TLW would have it's range falloff shorter and starts now at 25m as opposed to its now about 35m. But hipfire and ADS should again register 100% of shots, a huge net buff for the weapon. Thorn would have Send It replaced by Reinforced Barrel which makes you make an actual choice between it and Perfect Balance Aggressive build. Those buffs would brings primaries roughly to around 0.75 for Optimal and 1.35 for Body TTK's. In my opinion, the perfect place for Destiny's Primary Weapons.

5. Remove the Flinch changes to Sniper Rifles from 2.4.0. In their place add that flinch power only to the Explosive Rounds and High Caliber Rounds perks.

6. Increase the Crit Multiplier to Mid-High Impact Snipers to the tune of 7%, thus giving them back the ability to kill Roaming Supers but keeping the Body Shot damage nerf. Apply the exact same 7% base damage nerf plus 7% Crit Multiplier to High Impact Snipers to lower their Body Shot damage potential as well.

7. Reduce base Aim Assist from all Sniper Rifles by 15, thereby removing the amount Hidden Hand effects them without removing the Perk. Reduce the Aim Assist penalty for running Ambush from -25 to -15. Change Shortgaze from 0 to -5 AA, and Longview SLR10 from +3 to +5 AA.

8. Add back Shot Package to Shotguns, only instead of tightening the spread, it makes it fire a slug similar to Chaperone. High Impact Shotguns, that normally do 264, still do 264 to the head, and have a max kill range of 9m, 2m further than Rangefinder, but they only do 183 to the Body. Chaperone is tested to make sure it has the same 9m max kill range.

9. Shotgun's weapon ready speed and agility nerfs are applied to all mobility including Jumping/shadestep/Twilight Garrison/Shoulder Charge/etc. This change is since it currently only effects on ground movement.

10. Fusion Rifles base Range and Stability get a 5% increase.

11. Warlock Class Balance - Sunsinger Firebolts increased to 95 damage. 130 damage brings it in line with other grenades. Stormtrance's Amplitude melee ability reduced by 30%.

12. Hunter Class Balance - Gunslinger Tripmine damage increased to 196, plus the 3 for the arm trigger. Swarm Grenades damage increased to 135 if all particles attach, tracks more aggressively and increased arming radius by 0.5m. Bladedancer Flux Grenade damage increased to the exact same as Fusion Grenades. Skip grenades track more consistently, but damage is reduced to 135 if all particles attach. Nighstalker Shadowshot direct hit damage increased by 50%.

13. Titan Class Balance - Striker Juggernaut Shield only activates while touching the ground like it originally did. Lightning grenades cone of effect is reduced by 25%. Fist of Havok area of effect height is limited to only 12m above the animation where it impacts the ground. Sunbreakers Hammer tracking is increased by 10% while using Flameseeker (currently doesn't even appear to work at all). Suncharge ability damage increased by 25%. Hammer Explosive radius increased by 5% (small tweak to prevent the runaway hammer to the back of the head only 55 damage glitch, happens rarer now).

14. All Anti Super Super's Defense % reduced to 45% (Fist of Havok, Nova Bomb, and Shadowshot). Both Striker and Voidwalker have an Exotic/ability that boosts resistance, which would add another 10%. One should be introduced to do the same for Nightstalkers. Along with this, running Radiant Skin only increases damage reduction by 5%.

So, these are some of the things I would start with in an attempt to "balance" Destiny. I think the game would be in a much better place with these changes. But hey that's just me.

Edit: Added some Aim Assist changes to Sniper Scopes. Also, moving that dice on Shotguns specifically from 7m down to say 4m doesn't do anything to fix the issues we have. Shotgun OHKO range is around 30m mainly due to movement speed. So you have two options, make Primary Weapons kill slightly quicker, enough to move that dice from about 0.9 to 0.75 or 20%, which moves Shotgun range down to about 25m, or ruin movement speed with a Shotgun equiped. The only way to do that is 5x the nerf they already did to Shotgun movement speed which many felt was over the top last time. This would make using a Shotgun feel like you were standing in swamp water. Those are pretty much your only two options. If you increase TTK on Primaries Destiny maintains it's quick movements speed and pace, something most people love. On the other your slowing the game down further than you already have. It's one thing to be worried about Power Creep, but Destiny has always had the exact opposite problem, we are constantly playing a slightly more watered down version of the game we bought two years ago.

@lasaan: So Two To The Morgue actually falls in a category that didn't make the list. It's a Mid-Low Impact Shotgun. I think it does around 240 damage and has a slightly shorter max range than the 7m. I think it's around 6-6.5m, still not bad though. It's about the same as the Quest Conspiracy Theory D (CTD does higher damage but doesn't hit max range, which is why this happens, whereas TTTM can hit max range at lower damage, I hope that makes sense), so a perfect rolled one is still pretty great. It also has a faster bodyshot TTK since it has a faster fire rate. It's biggest problem is consistently killing Resurrected players since it has a slightly lower Damage output. It requires a Headshot plus melee on Res, at least I think. That is why it's not considered a top tier Shotgun and didn't make this list.

@hestilllives19 Thanks; will probably stick with the nightfall CTD for now then; Have got a PC, but not a great roll.

@lasaan: It depends on your roll. If you have a Rangefinder/Rifled Barrel roll, I'd use the TTTM over the Quest CTD. But since the CTD came with pretty much a God Roll, if you didn't get that roll stick with the CTD. Reason I'd go with TTTM with that same roll is due to the higher fire rate at the same max range roughly. Also, in PvE, the TTTM is a much better Shotgun, always use higher fire rate in PvE because it equals higher DPS. Hope that helps.

@hestilllives19: A few of of those changes are no brainers. The flux grenade and ghost colision for example. But I'll be honest with you, most of that stuff feels very armchair game designer-y. Some of those numbers are just coming out nowhere. What does a Fusion Rifles base Range and Stability 5% increase even mean gameplay wise? How about Lightning grenades cone of effect reduced by 25%? Why not 15, 20 or 30%? Point 14 is particulary random. Why 45%? Why nerf those supers? Have you ever tried landing a shadow shot without getting shot out of the air?

But about your main point, point 1: you're asking them to go back to a time when there wasn't more than 3 competitive primaries in the entire game. With the present primary archetypes there doesn't seem to be a way to go under 0.8 TTK without making some archetypes completely dominant (cough hand cannons/high impact pulses cough). Besides, they've said many times the old TTKs were too fast and I agree with them. What you're describing is not the PvP game they want to make. End of story.

i know this might sound the ranting of a crazy man but hard light is actually a viable option for crucible for close-mid range engagements thanks to the exotic perk that negates damage falloff. You'll be able to down shotgun rushers before they can close the distance and you become a real pain to deal with for the other team when bursting at people in the open. just don't engage anyone at long range where the recoil makes it impossible to quickly take someone down. I played a bunch with it and people were busting out their doctorines to come after me.

@pyrodactyl: A 5% boost to Stability means a slightly tighter bolt pattern spread. That makes Fusion Rifles more frequently land 5 bolts as opposed to the 4 bolts they land now and increases consistency, one of their biggest flaws. The same is true of the Range boost. It makes bolts fire faster thereby giving Fusion Rifles a bit more Range by hitting that Range quicker. It also slightly reduces the impact of them not being a hitscan weapon, not requiring you to lead targets as much. By only increasing it by 5% both you don't run into a situation where Fusion Rifles are overpowered though. As far as Lightning Grenades go, their Cone effect is far too wide, roughly 90 degrees. A 25% reduction bring that to just shy of a 70 degree angle, which in my opinion is a much more valid angle for them to arc at. As far as 14 goes it is the least important thing on that list, but it's there because far too often those Supers should be killed by Roaming Supers that had the drop on them and GG, Hammered, or Stormtranced them to 5 hp only to be activated and insta killed. This ability would also be given to Shadowshot under 12. Another way to fix this same problem would be to further increase the damage output of all Super abilities so that the first Super to hit the other wins 100% of the time. Fist of Havok and Nova bomb would still have massive advantages against other Supers, just not the insta win button they are now. As far as using Shadowshot goes, getting shot out of animation has never once been a problem for me. Not killing the player I shot, check. The tether sticking to any surface close, including the ceiling seemingly 5 ft above where I"m shooting that it auto sticks to, check. Arrows curving nowhere near where I shot it into a wall, check. But getting shot out of animation, no, I've not really had that happen. (You know I play every Class/Subclass frequently, I've played against you this week in Privates as a Voidwalker/Stormcaller/Striker/Sunbreaker/Gunslinger/Bladedancer/Nighstalker)

Hand Cannon TTK is 1.0, 0.87, and 0.8 right now. Notice I didn't even suggest they adjust that. Under those changes, Hand Cannons would actually be the slowest TTK primaries. They would only be dominant if Bloom was removed without adjusting TTK's for other Primary weapon classes. And boy would they. It's not like we don't have guns in Destiny right now with the TTK's I'm talking about though. Look at Jade Rabbit, Grasp of Malok, and others that hit that 0.8 TTK. Tlaloc has the fastest TTK in Destiny with Super at around 0.7 seconds and only requires 2/4 Crits. That TTK isn't even unheard of, it's just limited to a few guns. Heck, even your favorite Spare Change has a current TTK of 0.73, just has to hit 6/6 Crits. Everyone is scared of going back to House of Wolves Meta, but they aren't taking into consideration the specific nerfs Thorn, Last Word, and Hawkmoon got since then. Would they be strong again, absolutely. But they would actually have challengers in that same TTK range now unlike they did back then. Honestly I don't think it has anything to do with the game they want to make, I just don't think Bungie has a grasp on how to take criticism of Destiny's Crucible and actually balance the game. What they have consistently done is slowly adjust down the things people complain about 1 by 1 until we are where we are, a just overall weaker game.

@oldmanlight: While I wouldn't say it's a good PvP weapon, I'd definitely say it's the best PvP weapon in that Mid Impact tier of Auto Rifle, exactly for the reason you described. I still think it has too slow a TTK to kill a skilled Shotgun rusher unless outside of 30m, and suffers Stability problems past about 35m, but withing that 25-35m range it's a solid choice. Just make sure to back pedal while shooting at Shotguns but keep in mind a Jugg Striker will tear you apart as I don't think those rounds penetrate that shield. If they do, and I'm wrong, that would change my recommendation dramatically though. I'd have to do some testing to see. Either way in other situation it just isn't as good as something like Doctrine for hitting that consistent TTK, which is what Auto's should excel at above all other Primaries. Also, I updated the top post to reflect as much so thanks for suggesting this, I hadn't thought about Hard Light when I was writing it.

@hestilllives19: And yet you've never played as much crucible as you are right now. Maybe just learn to accept some of that stuff? Primaries have never been more balanced, people run a variety of different subclasses and exotics. Seriously, the only real problem is high impact shotgun dominance.

You hear me complain about how sticky grenades are cheap bullshit but I never said they should nerf them, remove them from the game or buff competing grenades. I just learn to live with the good and the ''bad''.

Again, nothing is bad for the game unless it's unbalanced and completely dominates the weapon landscape. Every other complaint about the meta is up to personal preference.

This is such a deeper dive into meta than I am ever going to go. I hope you don't hate me when I use an Auto Rifle and whatever armor I find coolest looking in PvP and PvE.

@hestilllives19: cool thanks, yeah i agree, consistency isn't its strong suit but it's more viable than it has ever been IMO. Also, i feel like PvP is in decent spot at the moment where nothing seems super unbalanced, you just have different weapon classes that are good at different jobs. Within those classes, there's room for improvement to make sure all archetypes are viable but that's a larger discussion. Nice post BTW!

Suggestion for PVE from a returning player:

1) Get Bad Juju

2) Melt trash mobs.

3) Never reload again.

Seriously though, I picked it up from Xur a couple weeks ago and it's been incredible. In most strikes it let's you handle add's like none other, and it has decent DPS for tougher enemies, although I rely on tripmines for them mostly.

@sloppydetective:There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Honestly, I think the vast majority of GB Guardians are in that boat with you. It's just the few crazy pants guys like me and Pyro that like to know and digest this kind of stuff for High End PvP content. For everyone else they are mostly concerned about using mostly effective PvE weapons that are fun to use. The whole point was for the crazy pants like use to have some detailed info and you guys to get a glimpse into that while giving you a few pointers about what types of good PvE weapons to look for. For that your looking at Mid Impact HC's, High Impact Scouts, High Impact Snipers, Low Impact Shotguns, Machine Guns, Swords, and the Exotics that fill special roles for situations like Hawkmoon, Zhalo, Bad Juju (as Ragnarok7038 mentioned), Jade Rabbit (DPS is crazy good on extended fights, just Crit until the last couple bullets, then body and Crit to regen ammo, and keep on firing), Black Spindle, Gjallarhorn, Sleeper Simulant, Razelight, etc. I just know some people left for awhile and the game has changes as far as weapons go a lot in the past year with several balance updates, so that was the main reason for this.

@ragnarok7038: Bad Juju is great for general PvE (outside of stuff like the Weekly Heroic with Arc Burn, Zhalo is much better in this instance). But it tends to lose effectiveness in higher end PvE such as Raids. General Super chaining with others is much more effective, the purpose of Bad Juju, mixed with that tier of Pulse serving better in PvP (you want high damage primaries per shot in PvE to dispach enemies quickly, ie HC's and Scouts), and just overall better use of the Exotic slot for High End PvE, and I wouldn't recommend Bad Juju. Zhalo Supercell and Bad Juju are the top two Exotic weapons for Solo low end PvE trash mobs though, there is no doubt, but neither can really hang in harder content. At least in my opinion.

Bad Juju and Zhalo are top tier PvE period. Red death is in that category probably too with black spindle and a few others. The fact that these weapons were not the greatest in King's Fall was not indicative of their place in the PvE meta. That raid was just badly designed. With well designed, varied end game content each one of these weapons finds a place to shine.

Zhalo is essential for arc burn and murders blue shield enemies. We ran the nightfall yesterday 10 to 18 levels under the recommended and it was the most fun I've had in PvE in a full year. Zhalo, a good team composition and good players made it happen.

You can have the same discussion regarding Bad Juju or red death in other end game PvE scenarios. Those guns will be very useful in the raid unless they just pull King's Fall bullshit again.

@pyrodactyl: Red Death is easily a top tier PvE primary, not sure how that came into contention. Both Zhalo and Red Death are called out in the Guide because of that. Zhalo is king when a large number of small enemies congregate together closely. It absolutely shreds. But it struggles against harder hitting opponents due to its low impact. This is mitigated by two things, Arc Damage modifiers and Arc Shields. Those two specific instances help put Zhalo on top. Don't even talk about a Small Arms and Arc Burn stacked, it's an absolute monster. But when I say High End PvE, I'm not really talking about events with modifiers at all. It has specific uses, but there are also modifiers, like Firefly on a Scout that put it to shame in most of those same instances if you can accurately hit Crits on AI. You can clear those mobs plus hit bosses harder.

Now, as far as Bad Juju goes, it very specifically didn't make this list. The reason why is that it's whole reason to exist is to grant users a quicker super by giving you more Super energy per kill. With any skilled team, this is completely negated by stacking Supers such as Shadowshot, Hammer, Bubble, Stormtrance, etc. Doing this effectively creates infinite orbs for the entire team to virtually always be in Super. In instances where you cannot kill ads, Bad Juju wouldn't shine anyways, thus defeating it's purpose. So my point is the biggest advantage the gun has in entirely negated by having a solid team surrounding you, thus making it not the killer PvE weapon it would otherwise be.

So the moral is, your Exotic slot is extremely precious, and you never want to waste it on a gun that doesn't do a job that something else can't do or do better. Along those lines, Black Spindle appears to be falling into that category now too. While a 1000 Yard Stare could put up adequate numbers to compare to Black Spindle on Boss DPS that could be compensated by a stronger Heavy Weapon, an Event Horizon with Sniper Reload Gauntlets and procing Spray and Play will undoubtedly put out near identical DPS as Black Spindle. Seeing as how Ammo Economy hasn't changed, you are now far better off running that plus Gjallarhorn or Sleeper Simulant as your heavy than using Black Spindle. The difference between Spindle and Event Horizon will be so small, and those Heavies far out DPS any other Heavy in class (in other words Black Spindle is the best in class PvE Sniper for DPS, but it doesn't win the race by enough to justify using an Exotic slot). I would maintain that the list of top tier Exotics for PvE is pretty limited to Red Death, Jade Rabbit, Hawkmoon, Razelighter, Gjallarhorn, and Sleeper Simulant. Black Spindle and Touch of Malice kind of had their day in King's Fall, but without some specific encounter instance bringing them back, I don't see them being used as frequently anymore.

@pyrodactyl: By King's Fall bullshit; you mean over committing on mechanics and not having gunplay be the more important factor? I actually thought several parts of King's Fall were actually accommodating to that though. Warpriest is a boss you beat with damage efficiency for example.

@zevvion: King's Fall plays like a stupid wack a mole game. After Crota's end they got so scared of free form combat in raids introducing exploits that they built King's Fall as a very rigid, boring series of DPS checks. You stand somewhere, fire at enemies that don't pose any threat to you, then stand somewhere else and fire your high impact sniper (or touch of malice depending on the encounter) in a weak spot. Rinse and repeat. basically all the encounters in the raid work the exact same way. No improvisation, no combat sandbox. You learn the specific steps and it's over. You don't have any reason to use anything but a sniper and a scout rifle. You barely use any class abilities/supers and when you do it's in the most boring way possible. There is no creativity, no variety, it's the opposite of what makes Destiny combat fun.

@hestilllives19: I just think we're fundamentally at odds with our analysis of PvE combat and what actually makes a difference in most situations. bad juju is a crowd control monster better than zhalo since it actually procs crowd control on every kill, doesn't need to reload and charges your super. Also, ''when I say High End PvE, I'm not really talking about events with modifiers at all'' then what event are you talking about? All end game content outside of raid have modifiers and a bunch of weapons might have their place in the raid including weirder options like Telesto.

@pyrodactyl: High End PvE would primarily be Raids. It can also include Nightfalls and Heroic Strikes, but only when modifiers that fundamentally change the game aren't introduced, at least in the way I was referencing it. Modifiers change everything about an encounter so it would be hard to call something like Telesto a PvE monster when that just isn't true 95% of the time. Now throw on Specialist, Void Burn, and Juggler and I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find a better gun for that event than Telesto. Same thing goes for using any gun if your in a Void Burn with Catapult because you should be using Nothing Manacle Grenades instead of guns at all. A ton of Exotics can have great usefulness in specific Nightfall/Heroic modifier combinations, but that absolutely doesn't make them a PvE top tier weapon in the general sense.

@pyrodactyl: I understand where you're coming from. It's not my favorite Raid either (that's Crota's End ironically enough), but I did have a ton of fun with some encounters. Golgoroth using the full rotation method is shittons of fun. It's unfortunate the encounter had some seriously flawed design where cheesing it was actually the safer and faster strategy, because doing it 'as intended' is a ton of fun.