Greetings fellow Guardians, Last night I put up a post and poll grading weapon tuning for each weapon class which can be found here: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/139266548/0/0 It was late and I ran out of space to get to the second half of the update dealing with Exotic Weapon Tuning, but almost immediately started getting requests to discuss it. Besides it being late, I also wanted to take a bit of time to really let these changes sink in and think about how I really feel about them. I'm only going to focus on the fallout from the 4 weapons I've used extensively, [b][u]Thorn Fallout[/u][/b] [quote]•Changes: ◦Reduce base damage of Thorn’s Mark of the Devourer DoT (Damage over Time) to roughly 1/3 of what it was in PVP and PVE ◦Allow DoT to stack up to 5x across multiple landed projectiles ◾This is a net buff for Thorn’s DoT, but reduces the lethality of the weapon in PVP[/quote] I will admit right now, that I was a Thorn defender and made my share of posts denouncing nerfs. But if it was going to be nerfed, I'm not sure this was the answer. Thorns DoT was never the issue with the weapon and messing with the DoT takes away from the character of the weapon in my opinion. Yeah it is probably what pissed people off the most when they died, but if you were dying to Thorn, it was more likely from 2 to the dome than from the poison. The 2 to the dome just didn't need to be from quite so far out. I think a slight range reduction was all that needed to be applied. This weapon is SUPPOSED to be great. It has the most intense bounty chain in the game to acquire and has made a hundred thousand Guardians cry. Those that soldiered through deserved their beast. [b][u]Icebreaker Fallout[/u][/b] [quote]•Changes: ◦Increase recharge time for Ice Breaker rounds to 1 every 8 seconds. Was 1 round every 5 seconds[/quote] I'm going to tell you a story. It's not going to be a good story or a fun story or have anything remotely well thought out or clever in it and honestly it's probably the stupidest thing you'll read today. In fact, it's so dumb; I'm going to let Bungie tell it for me [quote]Hunker down in the back of the map with your lunch box, picnic table, a sci-fi paperback, and Ice Breaker. Kill all the enemies, wait for more to show up, kill those ones too, put a few shots on the boss, make a sandwich, finish the strike, and then collect your reward-that-isn’t-Hawkmoon and move on. The recharging ammo of Ice Breaker has become a staple for the PvE game. We don’t want to completely destroy that, because a really great thing happens when all of a sudden you need Ice Breaker and you’re still waiting on that next round to show up. In that moment there is an interesting tension at play; you need to think about how you spend your next few seconds while it recharges. We are going to amplify that tension by increasing the recharge duration by a few seconds.[/quote] Hey Bungie, do you want to know how I spend the next few seconds while my Icebreaker recharges? BORED. Hey Bungie, know what players do when they get bored playing? They play other games. So gloating and making jokes about how long it takes for the sh*t to recharge and then upping the wait doesn't make you clever, funny or avant-garde, it makes you pretty much clueless. [b][u]Black Hammer Fallout[/u][/b] [quote]•Changes: ◦Increase ammo inventory to 18 rounds ◦White Nail perk now pulls ammo from your inventory[/quote] I get where you were going with this. You don't want players endlessly shooting a boss with infinite ammo, but the White Nail perk does require precision and rewards those who can land their shots quickly and efficiently. You had to know that this was going to piss people off and I'm not sure how you come to this as the best solution to what you perceive as a problem. The only place this can really be an issue is on endgame bosses because they're the only ones you program to pretty much stand still firing while we shoot endlessly into the bullet sponges that they are. Honestly the fault isn't in a weapon that grants free ammo, it's bosses that don't require any more "strategy" than pulling a trigger as many times as you can. I would have suggested that a better or at least more reasonable solution would have been to not allow the perk to proc 2 times in a row. Therefore if a player landed 6 consecutive rounds, they would be required to reload before trying to land 6 more. With this system, you still get free ammo, but can only get enough to double your inventory instead of extending it indefinitely. Fair and reasonable? I think so, what do other BH owners think? [b][u]Gjallarhorn Fallout[/u][/b] [quote]•Changes ◦Reduce damage of Wolfpack Rounds[/quote] Okay, pull up a chair because shit just got real. Before I go further, I want to say that I think it is interesting that Bungie gave pretty detailed percentages for every other announce change, but only state a generic "reduced damage" here. What does that mean? By how much? 5%? 25%? 50% We don't even know how to begin to contemplate the possible ramifications. My initial reaction when I first read it was eh, it's wolfpack rounds and they're overkill anyway. Gjallarhorn is the only weapon in the game that can kill pretty much any endgame shielded enemy in one shot no matter what element shield they have, because the rocket knocks off the shield and the WP rounds finish them. Honestly do I think nerfing Wolfpack Rounds will be game-breaking? Unless the nerf is substantial, no. Honestly I don't think any of these changes are gamebreaking, but they're just annoying and pointless. Why do it? What is the end game, because it really doesn't make a lot of sense. Which brought me to my second thought after sleeping on it. I kept coming back to this statement by the DeeJ [quote]the essential dream of playing Destiny is that you’re always becoming more powerful[/quote] No matter how many times I read that, I can't figure out how any of these changes support that claim. How have we become more powerful by nerfing hand cannons, shotguns, fusion rifles, pulse rifles, TLW, Thorn, Icebreaker, Black Hammer and Gjallarhorn? Oh and btfnw, they're nerfing base weapon stats going forward. Has anyone out there fit those puzzle pieces together or connected those dots yet? I have a very interesting thought that's been percolating all day and maybe it's time to pull out the tinfoil hats, but riddle me this. What if TLW, Thorn, Icebreaker, Black Hammer and Gjallarhorn's nerfs won't be so game changing because TTK is going to bring shiny new weapons to take up those mantles? You won't need your Gjallarhorn when you have the Oryx Ball Buster 3000. You'll never miss your Icebreaker with you Taken-killing Soul Salvation HK117 sniper rifle. So it will all be okay, right? ...Until you contemplate the motivations of a Developer for nerfing the best weapons in the game right before an expansion that they maybe are sweating whether or not people are going to actually re-up for. [quote] our goal is to compel you and to inspire you to see new and more powerful things that you need to embrace, you need to learn, you need to upgrade and you need to master so that you’re always pursuing that next way in which your Guardian is more powerful. Be it a new ability, a new way to channel the powers of the traveler as a weapon towards your enemies or just the weapons [themselves]. -DeeJ[/quote] Until now, Gjallarhorn was the end-all-be-all endgame weapon. Now, if we buy TTK, maybe we can get something better. The question is, is it actually better or is it better than Gjallarhorn post-nerf? If the reason they are nerfing these weapons is to help sell more copies of TTK by tapping into people desires for the best gear, I'd say Activision are running more than we thought. What else could the reasoning be? Are Icebreaker, Black Hammer and Gjallarhorn changing the competitive balance of PvP? No. They excel as PvE weapons and they're FUN. In fact the point of the game is to have FUN. Do Bungie hate FUN? Considering we are running yet another Nightfall and Weekly combo with no burns, I'd say they despise FUN. Nerfing shotguns isn't more FUN. Killing shit with Gjallarhorn? FUN! FUN! FUN! Bungie actually gave reasoning for Gjallarhorn and I saved this for last because this is the funniest shit I've read the last 6 months on this forum: [quote] What we did not intend, and what we unfortunately saw, was pick up Raid and Nightfall groups gating participation based on whether or not players had this weapon. Gjallarhorn was so strong that for many people it had become the only answer to getting through tough encounters, and therefore they were less willing to spend time with other players that didn’t have it. In the new world Gjallarhorn is still worthy of its legacy as an exotic Heavy Weapon, but we hope it promotes inclusive behavior rather than exclusivity. [/quote] Know what solves that problem, Bungie? [spoiler]OPTIONAL IN-GAME MATCHMAKING OR LFG.[/spoiler] [spoiler]Worried about inclusion? https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/126184301/0/0 [/spoiler] [spoiler]I wonder what people will play after the Fallout from these 4 weapons?[/spoiler] ---Edit--- Final thoughts: I think Bungie are lost at sea. There are too many issues that they fail to acknowledge and the ones they do fix, they create 3 more problems for every two they address. Their biggest problem with weapons being that once you get on the nerf train, it's real hard to stop. [spoiler]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/114553028/0/0[/spoiler] I don't think that what everyone wanted out of weapon tuning 2.0 was NERF EVERYTHING (that wasn't an AR).