Hi Bungie Forum readers and maybe Bungie employees. I've been wanting to give feedback on the second most recent Whisper of the Worm changes ever since they happened... checks notes*... half a year ago. Better late than never right? Since the changes happened, lots has changed. The Witch Queen dropped, the Derelict Leviathan came, many vendors got updated, we got weapon crafting, every light subclass has gotten reworked, and more! Whisper itself even got another change! Granted, it was a bump to airborne effectiveness that one should never try to make use of (I've tried), but it's there :D. The reason I've hesitated so long is twofold. First: the people on this forum can be mean :(. Second: this weapon has weaknesses intertwined with the fundamental core of the game (landing crits), and as such care needs to be taken to ensure feedback with Whisper doesn't just boil down to "the boss keeps turning around >:|" or "I clearly hit the crit spot", but still needs to take into account certain fundamental factors of the game as part of how the weapon feels to use (i.e alternative weapons, overall build around Whisper). Onto the main body of the post, I've been playing with Whisper of the Worm for around half a year as my main exotic heavy in PvP and PvE. I'll start with the most important part of this feedback: would I ever recommend someone casual to try out Whisper of the Worm? Would I tell my friends to try it out and have fun with it, like I would with Fighting Lion, or Sleeper Simulant, or Hawkmoon, or DMT? Probably not, it's not a weapon you can use effectively without practice, it has one of the highest skill floors in the game in terms of mechanical skill and build crafting, [u]for a reward that is just not any better than simply running a more forgiving option. [/u] Now I'll get into my own experiences, someone who has actually taken the effort to squeeze the most out of this weapon that they possibly can. Let's start with basic PvE: public event bosses, and vanguard ops/strikes below Master. In these situations, Whisper has always been kind of weak, the buffs seem to have targeted this aspect though. One can charge Whispered Breathing relatively start damaging a boss now, though the ammo regeneration really doesn't make up for the fact that it takes so many shots to take out a bigger enemy with Whisper, not to mention that bosses generally don't die on the last bullet of whisper, it's usually on 2nd or 5th (unless they are at the end, then they usually have more HP). Certainly better than before, props to the Bungie team for that. I find myself running out of ammo way too often though, I have run Nightfalls with Sleeper and Whisper back to back to see the difference, it's quite eye-opening as to just how much more it takes to kill something with Whisper vs Sleeper. The one ammo from thin-air, once again, certainly helped, but Whisper is still very ammo inefficient, even for a heavy weapon. One still has to use it as an exclusively BIG boss killer, akin to a Golden Gun that takes longer to fire. So the consensus on Whisper of the Worm as a lower-tier PvE weapon for me: better, but still pretty bad, you are essentially just tied down to using your primary and special since using Whisper for anything other than the final boss and one mid boss is just going to run it out of ammo. For raiders, you guys probably know what's up. Raiders tend to have their own ideas about how to play the game and what's best for what, generally you shouldn't choose raid weapons based on what you think is best (or what is best), but rather what will reduce the chances of someone throwing a hissy fit due to "your weapons being bad". Raiding is babysitting with extra steps, don't try to use a weapon if someone insists that you don't, it's better that you keep the team relatively happy, it is a game after all... That being said, my friends are very cool and like it when we use weird -blam!-, so I have the privilege of using Whisper as much as I want in raids. Generally, it's pretty bad for basically every encounter in comparison to something that can empty faster (certain Legendary LFR rolls with damage perks even beat its total damage). People thought it would be good for Warpriest but... that hasn't really turned out to be the case for me specifically. It's okay for Templar only if you are blocking teleports, but very hard to land shots due to flinch and proximity. In DSC, if you somehow don't have anyone with Divinity, then it's a solid option for final encounter. Using it in GoS and Last Wish made me want to die, but that's just more due to encounter design not favoring Whisper in those two. For Gambit, this is where I noticed a shocking result of the buffs. It's like, pretty good for invading now. Cutting the time to proc WB in half makes you essentially able to constantly have it up whenever you go for a shot, you just slap people through supers, over shield and damage resistance. Requires some skill and practice with snipers, but if you get Whispered Breathing you can kill pretty much anything in the game. For Primeval DPS, still sucks, but that's not a fault of the weapon, it's not meant to kill enemies with health gates that are constantly turning around. Its Crucible strengths are less notable than Gambit, given that you have to fight for heavy in the first place. You still have that one shot potential on basically anyone, but it's way harder to set up and way less worth it because other heavies essentially do the same thing in Crucible, and in Crucible abilities/supers generally recharge slower due to less orb generation, so a regular sniper will do the same job 80% of the time. Still decent though, snipers are just good in general and mulligan can give you a bullet back if you miss. It's been a long post, I hope I didn't bore you too much with my assessment of Whisper's new strength. It still isn't good and is very awkward to use, it always feels more like I'm using a special weapon than a heavy weapon most of the time. That being said, the buffs certainly covered one thing that was really important: the long time to get Whispered Breathing up. Despite the flashy ammo regeneration, and the obviously good damage buff (not very noticeable, but damage = good), it seems that the most impact of the Whisper buff was actually just the 1 second reduction of Whispered Breathing. The 1 ammo regeneration doesn't fix the fact that Whisper's damage per shot is way too small for a heavy weapon, and the damage buff doesn't really put Whisper in competition with Rockets, GLs, and LFRs for heavy ammo (it's better than Machine Guns though :p). That's my feedback, please take a look at the weapon if possible, I'll end with my own suggestions: Whisper as a potential special weapon is a fun thought, it would become a little bit more forgiving, its damage per shot could be freely reduced again without losing the main draw of the weapon (auto reloading). Whisper already has a weakness, its tiny magazine, which is mitigated by hitting all crits, which is hard with low aim assist, low stability, and high zoom. It doesn't also need to be hamstrung by being a heavy weapon, and its entire identity doesn't need to be that it competes with LFRs and Rockets for best DPS in the game, it can be just a decent special weapon DPS sniper between Cloudstrike or Izanagi's (Izanagi's would be strictly better for DPS because it can combo with other heavies since you don't need to stay scoped in, Cloudstrike better for ad clear since it can also create lightning strikes). The downside to this change: it would be [b](probably)[/b] hard to implement technologically. Whisper as the premier total damage heavy precision weapon is also a fun thought. Decrease damage to pre-buff levels, and make it give back two bullets instead of one. This makes it the go-to choice for super long damage phases. The downside to this change: it would make the weapon pretty -blam!- everywhere in D2 except maybe Warpriest and Templar. Whisper as the premier precision DPS heavy. The best way to do this would be increase damage and decrease reserves (to prevent it from also having high total damage). This makes it the go-to choice for raid bosses with lots of HP and limited time to shoot em. The downside to this change: this one actually breaks the DPS meta unlike the previous two, Whisper would be the best weapon for DPS until they either nerf it or buff something else to that level. Whisper as a champion weapon. I hate this one, but give it Unstoppable on top of Whispered Breathing and call it a day. The downside to this change: it shifts the use of Whisper to champion enabled activities only.