Hawkmoon is a great gun in D2. The quest is fun it makes sense as to why it isn't exactly D1 Hawkmoon. It rewards skill. It's also just fun and exciting to use to get dat sweet sweet one tap. It also shreads in pve I used it yesterday in a master nightfall and it was great.
I feel like you're testing your own waters to see if bringing back D1 guns changed is ok. I feel as long as you explain it through a good quest it's fine and the perk pays homage to the original like Hawkmoon still one shoting.
The random rolls remind me of the choice ones you had on D1 exotics. It also makes me want to grind for a better Hawkmoon like exotic armor. I like that too and feel your also testing waters with that.
Next this is a side note. The next exotic I feel you could bring back and change due to its D1 lore is ice breaker. As the original one we used was a prototype. I even believe it says it in its lore card from D1. Bring back the full version and give it a spin. Like idk focus on combustion instead of regenerative ammo. Like the engineering team making ice breaker found the regenerative explosive ammo had a chance to blow you up so they made the explosion more powerful and made it take ammo idk just spitballing here. You could go wild with this.
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For me, there's just never going to be a situation where this will be my choice for PvE or PvP, there's just better options. Perhaps a catalyst will change that. Having said that, if you enjoy it, awesome. That's the point of games, to enjoy them.