Here is a video breaking everything down: [url]www.youtube.com/watch?v=XndFK8pQwaQ[/url] [u][b]Intro[/b][/u] Bungie had a reveal stream in which they revealed the content of their new balance patch which dropped February 14th. It was after they reveal the increase to weapon accuracy (including aerial accuracy for all rifle primaries and initial accuracy on hand cannons) that I had the idea to test the pre patch accuracy of these weapons to see just how much of a buff they saw in the patch. [u][b]Methodology[/b][/u] I tested the accuracy of these weapons by going into the "Last Rites" mission on the moon (the mission where you steal some of Crota's soul or some shit). Near the beginning of the mission, you go invisible and are put in a 3rd person perspective in order to aid the player with "sneaking" in. An unintended side effect of this is that when you ADS, you can actually see your weapons cross hair, when normally, in first person view, you cannot. So I used this information to record footage of multiple weapons in multiple states (neutral, ADS, crouching, firing, airborne, etc.). I then took screenshots of each reticule in each state and measured it's cross hair size in Photoshop. I repeated this test after the patch dropped to see just what changed, and how much. [u][b]Results[/b][/u] http://imgur.com/a/iBfKo Primary rifles had an aerial accuracy of 95x95px pre patch, and 53x53px *post patch. This buff does help, but overall these weapons are still terrible from the air. The Last Word, the hand cannon with the worst accuracy and range in the game, when running minimum range, has an airborne spread of *45x45px. HOWEVER, Icarus is a saving grace for these weapons if airborne accuracy is what you crave. Pre patch, a rifle with Icarus had an aerial spread of 33x33px. Post patch, they have an airborne spread of 21x21px, which is immensely good. To put that into perspective, my max range, Rangefinder, Icarus Eyasluna - the most accurate aerial weapon in the game - has an aerial spread of 15x15px. Furthermore, a max range hand cannon (sans rangefinder), without Icarus, has an aerial spread of 31x31px. So the only way to be more accurate in the air than an Icarus rifle is to be an Icarus hand cannon. If you get a rifle with Icarus on it, DEFINITELY give it a spin to see how much success you can wring out of it in the Crucible [u][b]Give Me a Hand[/b][/u] There is an auto rifle called "Her Right Hand" that you can obtain from the year 1, level 28 Prison of Elders. This weapon is re-rollable at the Gunsmith for a small price. This weapon can be re-rolled to have Icarus, Rifled Barrel, and Rangefinder. You should get this weapon, and try to roll this specific build. Range is very necessary on AR's. It not only keeps their damage from dwindling at range, but a low range AR has very little aim assist and is very hard to manage. Plus, having low range on an AR does actually increase it's spread (high range spread is 9x9px when ADS, low range is 13x13px when ADS; this also impacts aerial accuracy), it just impacts the spread of hand cannons a lot more. TL;DR http://imgur.com/a/iBfKo The aerial accuracy buff to rifles was good, but they're still ass in the air. Unless they have Icarus, and then they become pretty accurate while airborne.