The thorn really comes into its own once you unlock the Mark of the Devourer perk. With his you can usually kill people on PvP with 2 body shots and it continues to drain the players enemy for a while. Other than that the rest of the gun it much like any other hand cannon. I've hot had any trouble shooting with it, but I don't really use it in PvP. I'm much more of a vex fan :)