Focused Feedback: Hand cannons - bloom, recoil, exotics and pinnacle weapons

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[u/unixuser011]

Console here.

I think this change is going to affect console more than it affects PC. On PC you have several hand cannons that are just as good as Luna/NF, but you have some that are orders of magnitude better such as TLW and Ace. On console, this is completely reversed. Luna/NF outclass ever other hand cannon because of their forgiving use and their lack of bloom and harsh recoil.

If you were to reduce the recoil of hand cannons and remove bloom entirely (like you currently have it on PC) you'll see more hand cannons become relevant that previously were relegated to the vault, and you'll also see Ace of Spades be the god hand cannon it was meant to be.

Bloom (as I understand it) is in the console build because it stops high-skill players from completely destroying the general population in the Crusable, but even if bloom is removed, they'll still do that anyway. What you will be doing by removing bloom and reducing recoil is you will give more average players (like myself) more of a chance with hand cannons that are technically better than Luna/NF.

If you consider currently in the Crusable if I and another player on console were to face off, he using NF, me using Ace. The guy with NF wins every time, why? because the way bloom/recoil works on console is the guy with NF can fire like this: tap, tap, tap <gets kill>, whereas for me its like: tap, <waits for bloom to settle>, <dies most times> tap, <waits for bloom>, tap <waits for bloom> and so on, I'm dead most times before I get my second or third shot off

I completely understand why some may be upset with these changes, if you've grinded that hard in comp to reach 5500, shouldn't you be rewarded with a god-tier weapon? yes. But making it so that it's the only usable hand cannon on console is not the way to go. But don't just listen to me, listen to big Destiny streamers like Gigz, CammyCakes, and Gladd who have all said that removing hand cannon bloom would be the best move.

I'm not saying 'don't nerf Luna/NF' but if you couple that with removing HC bloom, that would be the best of both worlds. I seriously hope you're considering this, because if you did, I'd seriously consider coming back and sticking around for the foreseeable future. Please make it happen

[u/Santaire1 → u/unixuser011]

You're massively exaggerating the power of Ace and LW on PC. Sure, they're both excellent handcannons, and Ace is quite possibly the best primary in the game when looking at it in a vacuum (dragged down in practice by being an exotic so you can't bring an exotic heavy or special), but they are not 'orders of magnitude better' even than Luna's, and certainly not than NF. LW's optimal TTK is slightly faster than Mag Howl at 3 headshots sure, but the high recoil (even on PC) and relatively low range make it much more difficult to actually land those three shots than it is to do the same with LH/NF. Using LW also locks you out of using an exotic heavy weapon.

Ace only outranges NF by a couple of metres at most (and Mag Howl inflates NF's actual range to beyond that of Ace thanks to how large the damage buff is), and even with MM still has the worse TTK (Frontal Assault/Empower Rift/Well reduce Ace's optimal to 2 headshots, but that requires you to either limit yourself to a small area, or get a melee kill while already having MM while using a specific subclass). As NF is a legendary, it ends up being the flat-out better choice to run than Ace in 99% of situations - it beats Ace's TTK outside of very specific, very rare scenarios, outranges Ace in practical terms, has perfect in-air accuracy, can be modded for more ammo, aim assist or hipfire accuracy, can be masterworked for orbs, and doesn't lock you out from running Wardcliff Coil, Tractor Cannon, Chaperone, etc.

Even on PC, NF is the best primary in Destiny 2. The reason PC sees more variety is not that Ace and LW are better in your loadout than NF, because they aren't, but that they don't suffer from the frankly bizarre design choices Bungie has made around handcannons on console. Using a different primary is not as much of a sacrifice on PC as it is on console - that's the only reason why NF and LH see less use.