First off, you've only played 151 games in Crucible. So regardless of your understanding of meta and competitive games, you lack the experience to really judge how well fusion rifles perform as a whole. I'm gonna do my best to invalidate every point you made without coming off as a douche. Using them in the Thorn bounty I'm assuming you're referring to the void kills in crucible. This isn't even almost enough to say that Fusions are best used Defensively. All you need is a FR with a medium high charge rate and good impact and you're beyond set to wreck face. Many people use FRs exclusively. This is because they have better range than shotguns, the ability to kill more often than snipers, and more ammo than either making them anytime weapons. Thinking that the entire game would devolve into shotgun rushdown is just a bit on the extreme side. Shotguns wouldn't have anymore dominance than they already do. Saying that ARs lack the power to compete is something only someone new to the game would say. Makes sense seeing how all the new ARs have extremely low impact. However, guns such as the Shingen E, Galahad, Shadowprice, and of course the Suros Regime that'll kill before you even realize you're being shot at. Scout rifles and handcannons are both precision based weapons capable of dropping a shotgunner from mid range so long as the user is accurate. Handcannons killing in 2 to 3 headshots, and scout rifles killing in 3- 5 depending on rate of fire. They would still be used by the players who actually think and don't want to eat shotguns all day. Knowing that so many people use them would cause players to use weapons to combat them, and nothing beats a shotgun quite like being out of range. I'm not quite sure about the matches you've been in, but I assure you that taking cover from a fusion rifle is rarely an option. If Destiny were a 1v1 game then sure, but in a 3v3 or 6v6 environment that isn't very likely or safe. Not to mention the person with the fusion rifle can just charge while chasing you. I can agree that fusion rifles are meant to shutdown rush players from mid range. What I can't agree with though is the hipfire accuracy and auto rifle range that many of them have. It's not fully true that any gun will kill you because you flank someone. I've been flanked and managed to dodge enough shots to win battles with my scout rifles or handcannons. You mentioned missing with fusion rifles which just doesn't happen under normal circumstances. They're accurate to hipfire and pinpoint when zoomed. The high impact ones can literally score a kill with only half of the bars hitting. The high stability ones can be used while airborne, and the high range ones will outshoot even ARs and some handcannons depending. You can CERTAINLY run and gun with a fusion rifle, just don't have one with really low stability and you're good. The sound doesn't even last long enough to let your opponent prepare sadly. Anyone who's good with a fusion rifle wont begin charging unless they know they're going to take someone out. So the sound doesn't help the combating player. I learned very early on that testing a fusion rifle is never a good idea. Especially with varying charge rates. You don't know how soon it'll go off. But it's faster than 3 shots from any scout rifle that's for sure. Jumping and strafing won't work on someone using Pocket Infinity or good reflexes. (or a person with 10 Sensitivity for that matter) Sliding won't work unless your opponent with the FR doesn't know how to look down. Jumping over them can be countered by sprinting forward 9 times out of 10. It's only going to really work if that person was devoted to getting off that shot.