So I see a lot of topics about the hand cannon being inferior. And don't get me wrong I absolutely agree, but there are certain things Bungie cannot do. I will explain why the [b]damage[/b] of Hand Cannons simply can not be buffed. And what actually can be done to balance it. Now, If you take the Hand Cannon with the most Impact (and least RoF), according to my tests in PvP crucible, It does 50 Damage to body and 75 damage as headshot. In case of bad math skills: 50 + 50 + 50 = 150 75 + 75 =150 Seeing as the base player health is somewhere [i]right above 150[/i], that means theres a tiny sliver of health left after a couple of headshots or three center mass. [b]Important part of this long-winding spiel:[/b] Therefore, if you added even a slight damage boost to the Hand Cannons, the stronger ones would become [b]Two Shot[/b] weapons. Meaning; [i]Bap Bap youre dead before you could even raise your Shingen-C Autorifle to aim[/i]. If they did buff the damage, they would have to remove the more powerful Hand Cannons, resulting in very little variance in the weapon class (stat wise). Ergo, its probably not happening. [b]Heres what I would encourage you to ask them to do instead:[/b] [spoiler] • [b]Very slightly[/b] raise the [b]rate of fire[/b] without nerfing impact. Same addition across the board on all Hand Cannons, in percentage of total. (Total being Sahara full auto facemeltting bullethose.) • Raise the [b]Range[/b] of these weapons so you have the same damage at least as far as the Scout rifles. (No need to increase the aim-assist range, Im just talking about the damage drop-off curve). • Drastically decrease the amount of [b]suppression[/b] received from incoming fire when using Hand Cannons. (Making it slightly easier to aim). • Increase the stability (make the gun move, not the whole screen) • Don't have time for a whole Dirty Harry speech during the [b]Reload[/b] animation. I don't [i]feel lucky[/i]. • [b]Decrease[/b] the snap-on aim-assist in PvE. Yes I said decrease, because it seems theres more aim assist in PvE than in PvP. This is understandable for competitive reasons, but having a different style of aim in PvE can ruin your aim in PvP. Just a hunch. • Consider improving the magazine capacity by +1. Making the capacity[b] 6 and 7 instead of 5 and 6[/b] respectively. (It already looks like they run on batteries.) In the end this still gives you that wild west kudos, because there still is a gun with 6 rounds in it. Everyone wins. [/spoiler] -Edit1- [b]And in case DeeJ/bungie actually sees this thread:[/b] [spoiler]•Option to disable aim assist. •Separate slider for ADS sensitivity. •Option to disable aim acceleration. •Option to disable drift control •Hitbox for AA can be smaller than hitbox for hitscan[/spoiler] -Edit2- FYI I dont personally have anything agaist a Damage buff to the HandCannon. I just think a 33% reduction in an [i]established[/i] kill time is unlikely to happen. But it would have to be in the form of increased [i]critical damage[/i], leaving the impact/attack/base damage as it is. [b] -Edit3- This thread was created Pre-release as a response to the beta. The changes we where looking for have already been implemented. See the patch notes for details. Thank you for reading.[/b]