Thunderlord has recieved 2 great tools this season, with the catalyst and intrinsic overload, but I feel like this weapon still has one big glaring issue: Its ammo reserves.
Thunderlord gets a measly 220 rounds total without any reserve mods, and 265 with 2 reserve mods. For the sake of comparison, let's pit it against an equally capable, 450 legendary machinegun: Corrective Measure.
Corrective Measure gets 283 rounds with no reserve mods, and 328 with 2 reserve mods. Machineguns are primarily used for ad clear and sustained fire, and Corrective Measure doesn't fall back here compared to Thunderlord at all (depending on your roll of course).
A Rewind Rounds/Firefly roll gets a great tool for ad clear (which also lets you deal solar damage with the headshot explosions btw), and a great deal of sustained fire.
The one big upside Thunderlord has over Corrective Measure is its damage output against single targets, but even that is gimped because of its low reserves (although it is true that Thunderlord can get more dmg against single targets out more quickly than regular 450 Machineguns because of the lightning strikes and the fire rate ramp up).
Now, Thunderlord also has intrinsic overload, which may lead you to believe that it's a good tool to dispatch of overload champions, but here it also falls flat on its face because of its ammo reserves.
Thunderlord takes about 40 shots (give or take) to take down an overload champion in a legend lost sector. With no reserve mods, that's about 18% of your total reserves to dispatch of a single champion. The situation doesn't get much better with 2 reserves mods either, taking about 15% of your reserves to down the champion.
In my opinion, Thunderlord needs some help with its ammo situation. Either increase its maximum reserves, or "spice up" the catalyst a bit.
In terms of ammo reserves, even a "small" buff would help. Something like 250 rounds with no reserve mods, and 300 with double reserve mods.
In terms of "spicing up" the catalyst, a solution could be to make the catalyst put 5 out of the 7 rounds back in the magazine from reserves (as it already does), and 2 of the rounds pulled from thin air (with the game prioritizing the reserve ammo first, so it can't be exploited to have infinite ammo against very low health enemies).
Let's please have a civil discussion in the replies, and if we make enough noise, hopefully Bungie will notice this post.
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Ok but like, Corrective Measure is a fast firing lmg, Thunderlord is a midrage one, It's just how it is.. harder hitting weapons have less ammo