So, one thing that has me hung up at the moment is thus, a large portion of pvpers use pulse rifles, mostly red death, nirwins mercy and now no time to explain (guilty as charged) and to me at least, this in itself is an imbalance, but really, why so many pulses?
I see most posts that complain and outright state that pulses are OP get slammed, badly. Is this just folks defending their new favorite weapons, or are they on the right track? If 80%+ of crucible uses pulse rifles, doesn't this show up that imbalance? If the common consensus is 'just use a pulse rifle yourself' doesn't that indicate a bad balance?
Honestly, I can't make my mind up here, I've started to use high stability PRs and tlaloc (depending on the map/team) and it certainly doesn't make me a godlike scrub, but the proliferation of pulses, and the general consensus on countering PRs is to use one yourself (to a much lesser extent, scouts are offered up as a viable counter too) confuses me.
To conclude, I'm not saying PRs are OP, they definitely aren't weak, but I can't come to a strong formulated answer to 'are PRs OP?' So come forth, educate a scrub. I'll also save you some time looking up stats: I'm terrible, and should feel bad.
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From what I can tell, pulse rifles are not more powerful than the other weapons, they generally have a similar time to kill (with a few exceptions). The reason for pulse rifle domination is their extreme versatility. They are very effective at any range except extremely close and extremely far (and even then they are still useful). This makes them the logical choice for most engagements because it covers so many possible scenarios. The problem lies with making them less appealing, if you lower their power then they have a longer ttk, and thus no one will use them. But if you change their effective ranges, then they're not really a pulse rifle any more.