After reading through the coming changes outlined in Weapon Tuning 2.0, I've got to say Bungie, it seems like your hearts in the right place, and you're trying to make Destiny's weapons require more skill to master, yet be more rewarding when mastered. I'm am totally ok with that. In fact, I think that's a great weapon design philosophy/target. However, while I think some of the changes you've outlined will push Destiny further towards this goal, there are also some that strike me as, in a word, absof***inglutely terrible. I'll give you a full rundown of my thoughts/reaction. [b]Auto Rifles[/b] This has been a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time coming. Auto rifles are also a case example of the flaws with your balancing philosophy. Given the overall dominance of auto rifles, particularly Suros, you nerfed them to make other weapon class more viable and compelling choices. In this effort, you were largely successful, and guardian primary preferences became more diverse. And then you decided to keep nerfing them. The result? You nerfed them into oblivion and by 1.1.1 auto rifles became the new pulse rifles. And in the end, what did you accomplish? Suros Banner became Thorn and Felwinter's Banner. Let me let you in on a little secret: Crucible is completely and totally unbalanced. Destiny is loaded with incredibly powerful weapons. If all you do is reactively nerf one OP weapon (say, Suros), two more take its place (Thorn, Felwinter). Seeing as how Thorn, Hawkmoon, TLW, Felwinter, and Red Death are all about to be nerfed, my personal prediction is that you are about to bring Crucible full circle. But, hey, I could be wrong. Maybe there's some OP Taken King weapon that everyone will flock to. So, I'll break it down goal by goal, change by change: Goals: * Auto Rifle is optimal at close to medium range -- this makes perfect sense for a fully automatic weapon. Sure, I would think that we'd have figured out some sort of recoil compensation technology by the time we've mastered FTL travel, but whatever, it's a video game. Plus this leaves a place for the persistence perk. * Damage, Stability, and Range are tuned such that players desire Stability for reliable close quarters damage, or Range for better accuracy and increased damage at a distance -- this makes sense, no real problems here. * Elevate Auto Rifles so they are a more competitive option in PVP, and simultaneously more satisfying to use in PVE--a lofty goal, I take it this is your objective for all the underused weapon classes. Changes: * Increase base damage -- I take it this is to make them more competitive with pulse rifles and full auto/high RoF scouts. Makes sense, but with respect to pvp, stability and fall off will need to be carefully managed to keep ARs competitive, but reasonably so. * Small reduction in base stability. Landing shots at optimal range is unaffected, but repeated hits require more weapon control to land consistently -- this is going to be the deciding factor in whether ARs become a competitive option, or the overly dominate other classes. In the beginning, ARs simply shredded everything and you had to be very, very good to outshoot them with another weapon class. It was doable to outshoot a Suros, but it wasn't easy. It sounds like you're trying to keep that from happening again, but you don't have the best track record when it comes to balancing (or updates in general). * Boost damage by 10% against AI combatants -- the sooner you start balancing PvE completely separate from PvP, the better. It seems like you've overwhelmingly focused on pvp when balancing your weapons, often to the detriment to pve (see: fusion rifle nerfs and how no one uses them over shotguns anymore). We'll have to see if 10% is the right buff, but that shouldn't be too hard to tweak. Continued in [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/140680579]Part 2 with the Exotic ARs[/url]