Continued from [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/140806221]part 11: sniper rifles[/url] [b]the Exotic Snipers[/b] [b]No Land Beyond[/b] Finally, the NLB is getting the love it deserves. It's so cool and has so little going for it. Mulligan would be awesome... if the proc rate wasn't 5%, so it's useless, and the Master barely lasts long enough to chamber your next round and fire, and then it doesn't seem to proc again. Other than showing off in pvp, there's not really much of a reason to rock NLB, but it sure does look exotic. Changes: * Increase weapon handling speed for faster time to aim, ready, and stow – nice. It's not quite removing the silly lens flare from a gun that doesn't have a lens (I guess those are the shiniest iron sights in existence), but with a faster aim speed that should be a non issue * Adjust sights to fix overlap/parallax issue while aimed – if I understand you correctly, this means the sights will be slightly less crappy. Awesome. * Increase time decay of The Master to 8 seconds – yes please. Also, I'm just throwing it out there but The Master should stack. At the very least, each precision kill should reliably re-proc The Master (maybe it's been fixed, but it would trigger on first precision kill, second kill would have increased damage, but third precision kill would not, fourth would again) And now things are about to get really, really ugly. [b]Icebreaker[/b] What is there a siren that goes off whenever we start enjoying a weapon too much? Of all the exotics in the game, Icebreaker is one of the ones almost everyone agrees you managed to nail and nobody in their right mind ever called OP. If you see someone using it in Crucible you laugh as you put them down, and with the advent of Black Hammer, there really aren't that many times that call for Icebreaker. That really interesting tension at play that you think exists? It doesn't. It really doesn't matter that your ruining Icebreaker, and it doesn't even matter that you're ruining Black Hammer at the same time. Why? Because here's what's going to happen: people are just going to stop using them altogether. There are plenty of videos and posts by now detailing the math behind it but the basics of it is very, very simple: it won't be worth waiting those 8 seconds. We already have ten trillion special ammo synths and can easily buy more, and even if you somehow managed to run out you can always just use a scout rifle. You're not making Icebreaker more interesting. You're making it useless. Here's what's going to happen: nobody's going to run Icebreaker. As it stands the only place I really see people pull it out is oracles. Allow me to list all the alternatives that will now be superior to Icebreaker: Black Hammer (yes, even broken it'll still be more useful than Icebroken), Efrideet's Spear, LDR, Long bow Synthesis, and, most critically given its ease of acquisition, Her Benevolence. So, you're not going to see people sitting back and sniping with Icebreaker, instead, they're just going to whip out their solar sniper (which, by the way is what we all do when it's arc or void burn) and then when we run out of ammo we'll pop a special synth and get back to business. If you really want to stop us from doing that there's only one thing you can do: design more interesting enemy encounters. You're about to turn Icebreaker into a no trick pony. Sure, there'll still be some nominal utility at oracles, but we're just going to use VoC and may just end up using Praedyth's. Even SuperGood Advice is going to be better than Icebroken, because while SGA is only really good at one thing (destroying oracles and detainment shields), it is better than anything else in the entire game at that one thing. Icebroken's just going to suck. [b]Black Hammer[/b] Yes, Bungie, this gun is exotic, is arguably the best Crota's End reward, and is the coolest raid gun you've made since Fatebringer... and now you want to ruin it too. Nobody ever called Black Hammer OP. Know why? You actually have to be good with Black Hammer to get the most out of it. Any fool can hammer a spider tank to death, but it takes real skill to white nail anything else, especially mobs and the more agile enemies and bosses. And that's part of what make this gun so great: it truly rewards mastery by making you feel like a giant badass, and punishes every single missed crit shot by forcing you to reload or face running out of ammo. It wasn't just enough to ruin Icebreaker, now you've got to break the Hammer too? Changes: * Increase ammo inventory to 18 rounds – a poor trade-off at best. I'd take having only 3 bullets in reserve and the [i]real[/i] white nail any day. * White Nail perk now pulls ammo from your inventory – so I get a glorified instant reload? Screw that, you can easily roll a flared magwell on a Her Benevolence or an Efrideet's Spear. You have now turned a very special weapon into a very mediocre one. Two fan favorites down, one more to go. There are quite a few video breakdowns as to why Black Hammer will no longer be worthwhile without its signature perk, but here's the basic reason: Take away white nail and you have a subpar high impact sniper with an absolutely usless 3rd row perk, mulligan. Honestly, this new crappy white nail is what phantom gift should've been to begin with. And I thought it was bad when I found out you were rebranding phantom gift as triple tap and bringing it to snipers, scouts, and hand cannons. How little I knew then. Instead of screwing up white nail why don't you just make phantom gift draw 3 new bullets from reserve. That would make the Word of Crota freaking awesome, and it wouldn't have to feel so insecure whenever another guardian whips out Black Hammer. And the worst part is, Bungie, you didn't even have the courtesy to make up some bullshit excuse for ruining Black Hammer. So, here's what's going to happen: no one's going to bother running Broke Hammer any more. Oh, sure, a few of us will run it from time to time for nostalgia's sake, but most of us are just going roll a nice solar high impact sniper (if we don't already have one) and get back to murdering your bullet sponges as fast as we can. Congratulations, Bungie, I didn't think it was possible, but you managed to make NLB and Black Hammer swap places. [b]Patience and Time[/b] Seeing as how you haven't announced any incoming changes, and Patience doesn't have final round, Patience is going to be completely and totally unchanged. So, it's still going to be a really cool and really nice exotic, but it probably still won't be used all that often. Why? Well, the camouflage sounds awesome, until you realize that it's temporary, only lasts until you make your first shot, and you still have massive lens flare. Why on earth anybody would put a giant laser on a cloaked sniper rifle is beyond me. I'm getting the funny feeling that more people are going to be using NLB than Patience, because you're basically just getting a really nice stable arc sniper with 3rd eye. Get rid of any of those 3 shortcomings and people will start using it more. To be continued in [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/140818474]part 13: the heavies[/url]