My fellow Guardians, I like many of you, have had mixed reactions to the newly proposed weapons update put out on Thursday. This update has left our little community in an uproar, and it seems like one that will not end anytime soon. I've had some time to think about all the proposed changes, and what they mean for the future of the game; I've read very well articulated opinions on both sides of the aisle, and find myself agreeing with elements of most arguments, while not fully accepting any of them. Ultimately, I think these changes need to be placed into two separate categories: 1) general changes/balances (these are the slight tweaks to overall weapon class stats), 2) specific, targeted changes (Thorn, TLW, BH, IB, and Gally). Firstly, I don't disagree with any of the changes in the first category. They are relatively minor, and are pretty much all geared towards balancing weapon types in PVP. The one exception being the 10% damage reduction in PvE for shotguns, but I'm ok with this. Since their initial PvE buff to shotguns, fusion rifles have pretty much ceased to be seen in PvE activities. Now, when it comes to the specific nerfs though, I truly think that these point to a systematic flaw in Bungies planned leveling system that they have no way out of: power creep. For the rest of this post I'm going to leave the Thorn and TLW out of the conversation, and focus primarily on the IB, BH, and Gally. I think this [power creep] is the real reason the BH, IB, and Gally nerfs were included in this new update. In a nutshell, what they saw with the HoW release was that people were much more excited to level their Fatebringers, Vision of Confluences, and other such older legendaries up to 365 than they were to get the new HoW weapons. Bungie is worried about the same thing happening with TTK. If everyone is content to continue running VoC or Fatebringer, BH, and Gally as their go to set up for most encounters, then why bother getting the new TTK weapons? They want those TTK weapons to look more appealing, and the only way to do that without making them far too OP was to nerf the shit out of the best weapons currently. Could you imagine what kind of power they would have to give a new exotic rocket launcher to make it more desirable than the Gally? Or to make a sniper rifle more desirable than the BH or IB? Their solution to this problem is to nerf those most desired weapons now, so that when they tell us what is in store for TTK weaponry, we will be enticed into the grind again. The problem with this, is it pisses off not only the people who have the current OP weapons already (it feels like our effort was for nothing), but also people who don't have them, because now those weapons simply are not worth the grind. Worst of all, however, and what will end up hurting Bungie the most on this, is now there is no sense of security with any new weapon they put out. Lets say they have a new rocket launcher that replaces the Gally as the end-all-be-all of rocket launchers that drops with TTK. Let's say that it is just ridiculously OP, and is the ultimate melter of all yellow barred enemies. After what Bungie has just pulled with this latest weapons update, it seems to me that there would be not much point in grinding for this hypothetical new gun, because anything that the community finds a way to exploit in any kind of OP fashion will simply be nerfed down the road. More than anything else, that is what this latest update says to me: "any OP gun will only be temporarily OP to make you grind for it, then after a certain threshold of people have acquired it, we will make it drop less frequently to keep the game from breaking. Finally, when we are ready to release new content, we will nerf the shit out of it so that you only want the new weapons we are putting out anyway." Get ready Guardians, this is going to be the meta for how Destiny progresses over the next 9 years, because it is the only way they can consistently get us playing the grind. Just be prepared to say goodbye to your favorite, OP weapons, replace them with new ones when the next big expansion comes out, and ultimately see those get nerfed into oblivion as well. Just you watch, the TTK will have some awesome, OP weapons that you have to grind for. And those will get the shit nerfed out of them when it comes time to launch Destiny 2. My advice? Buy some popcorn, hop on the merry-go-round, and enjoy the ride for the next 9 years, just don't be surprised when this type of "weapon balancing" update becomes an annual tradition.