There's something we need to discuss as far as Heavy Weapons are concerned, and that's Machine Guns. Before I continue, I need to point out: This is solely for PVE. MGs are fine in PVP, so no worries there. It's exclusively their problems in PVE that's holding them back, and statistics show that they've started to generally fall out of disuse. Let's not mince words: They're [i]bad[/i] in the current meta. They were also bad in the previous meta, and they're likely to be bad in future metas without help. But what's the problem? Why is this one particular gun type fraught with so many problems? To answer that, we'll have to break down how weapons in Destiny do their damage. Most weapons in Destiny fall into one of four main "Damage Types" in a combat situation. 1. A weapon with high Alpha Strike Damage is a weapon that does a ton of damage in one shot. Weapons with high Alpha Strike Damage include Rocket Launchers. 2. A weapon with high Burst Damage is a weapon that does a lot of damage in one quick barrage - typically, one full clip. Most Full-Auto Shotguns fall into this category. 3. A weapon wtih high Sustained Damage is a weapon that does its damage over a protracted period (usually 10 seconds). A weapon with a high Sustained Damage focuses on dealing a lot of Damage over time rather than in one go. Swords in general fall into this category. 4. A weapon with high Situational Damage may not do that much damage on its own, but has secondary features that make it much more powerful than it would otherwise be. Good examples of Situational Damage include the Flares from the Dragon's Breath, Critical Damage from the Sleeper Simulant, the randomized crits of Hawkmoon, or the residual lightning AOE of the Bolt-Caster. Now, conventional wisdom would establish that, given these, Machine Guns, given the high rate of fire they have, large magazine, and relatively meaty damage setup, that they'd be the absolute kings of either Burst Damage (for fast fire-rate MGs) or Sustained Damage (for damage-focused MGs), but this is not, in fact, the case, as anyone who's used one in PVE will tell you. In fact, most of the time, they struggle to keep pace with auto rifles in the same category in PVE, and this is a major concern. Whereas a player can just pop out and fire a single rocket (exposing themselves for very little time) or draw a sword and butcher a Minotaur who gets too grabby, a player with an MG is reliably going to have to spend half a clip or more to take down a major - and that's if the player has solid aim and is going specifically for headshots. Though MGs do more damage than Auto Rifles, the increase isn't as big as most think it is, and it's extremely visible for some of the more powerful MGs. In most cases, the advantage of an MG isn't even the damage it does, so much as it is the fact that you've basically got an over-glorified Auto Rifle (in every sense) in your heavy slot that happens to have elemental damage. Every single MG, from the weakest white-rarity kinetic MG to the mighty Thunderlord suffers from this problem: They don't have enough punch relative to the weapon slot they're in when it comes to PVE. Everyone who has ever used an MG in PVE has run into this problem, and it's reflected in user statistics - In PVE Stats, [i]not a single Machine Gun was in the Top Ten for most-used as of Dark Below[/i]. As of TTK, this has changed, but solely because the damage-dealing monsters of the Rocket Launcher Family (Hezen Vengeance, Hunger of Crota, Gallajhorn, Dragon's Breath) fell by the wayside, not because Machine Guns were improved. With Swords added to the pile further draining any and all desire to use MGs, there's less of a reason to even bother with this weapon class than ever before. In fact, the only MGs really actively sought-after by the playerbase were ones like the Jolder's Hammer (AKA maximized fire rate) and THE SWARM (AKA slightly weaker but faster), and these were specifically grabbed for PVP. For PVE purposes, Machine Guns clearly need help, and need so significantly. An entire weapon class is falling out of favor in PVE, and this trend will not be rectified if nothing is done. When Blue-Level Rocket Launchers are better in PVE than an Exotic MG, then it is the Exotic MG that will cease to be considered a good option.