Will change title if mods get upset about it. Not to be in anyway rude just thought it was a clever title since a book series called "for dummies" exists. Anyway the goal of this post is to bring to light what these changes can actually mean. Auto rifle changes: In short it's good. they get their damage buffed in general and for PvE and they have a sharper damage drop off. what this means is auto rifles will be viable again but not able to compete at longer ranges. Pulse rifle changes: In short why? What this is saying is for guns like red death (medium RoF) it will still be a 2 burst on most enemies in crucible due to low armor. people with higher armor or max will need 3 bursts. Also bigger magazine. Pulse rifles will still be good. Scout changes: bigger clips less accurate when hipfired. I think the full health change means scouts are to be the new team shot weapon. Also a damage increase in pve. So in short meh? scouts won't really be different. Hand cannon changes: In short NO. smaller clips because why? If any legendary hand cannon or exotic is stuck with 6 rounds Bungie officially ruined hand cannons and reversed them back to beta days. Shorter ranges as well which is fine I guess? but they already suck at range in pve so I guess HC's will be even less of an option for pve. They should have just reduced range in pvp and left clip size alone. Shotgun changes: in short "best shotguns" will have less range. Sad thing is Universal remote gets hurt even more. imo all they needed to do was remove shot package and slap it on universal remote. At least the changes for the most part only effect the really good shotguns. Fusion rifle changes: in short okay I guess. Basically less sniping from FR's. the actual question here is if bungie is smart enough to make sure the vex mythoclast doesn't effected yet again. Sniper rifle changes: in short meh. Final round only works on headshots now. meaning final round is no longer a useful perk in pvp unless the extra damage FR gives is increased. meaning head shotting with lower impact snipers will finally one shot people in pvp when they have protection of some kind. previously only do-able on high impact ones. Rocket launcher changes: in short meh. Not much changes. It hurts Ghorn and truth though. like truth needs anymore reasons to not get picked. Should have just removed nades and horse shoes from the legendary table and keep it for exotics. Hard light: basically a fast firing low recoil weapon that won't suffer from damage drop off is what it sounds like. Unless they mean the bullets that bounce are not effected by drop off. which I don't see why that would ever matter. net positive change. Nechrochasm: Basically a worthy weapon now. gets a damage buff due to auto rifles getting a damage buff. it's also got less recoil. it's turning into a bullet hose. that is worth using especially due to curse bringer being active with every precision kill. net positive. Last word: It's becoming the hipfire machine it should be. and people choosing to hipfire are getting rewarded more besides damage. It's also fixing the bug and making holding the trigger down while ads less effective. meaning people actually need to get good with hipfire now. net positive. Thorn: Basically removing the 2 shot head shot with thorn. New numbers leave that at 196 damage with the 2 stacks of DoT. 4 points short of killing a guardian. However the poison is stackable now. Making thorn more of a choice in pve. maybe. Hand cannons are getting worse range in general and a smaller clip. So basically thorn is not worth picking in pvp and maybe an option in pve. net negative. Hawkmoon: not much changes. no more one shot even though that rarely happens to begin with. also a bigger clip by 2 and less damage with luck in the chamber (3%) I'm going to say net neutral. Mainly because hawkmoon already had a big clip and super range. So while it will be effected by the HC nerfs it will be hurt much less. So hawkmoon will probably be the new king for exotic hand cannons. Hopefully the 3% loss in damage doesn't remove 2 shot capability if it procs on the second headshot. Ice breaker: longer recharge time. Not needed. Net negative. No land beyond: Faster handling, no longer stupid iron sights, and better damage in pve. If only they could have gotten rid of the scope glint. Net positive. Black hammer: net negative. No reason to run it if you have other high impact snipers. Sorry for everyone who has this gun. Lord of wolves: tripple recovery effect. so instead of +2 recovery for your team it's plus 6. so basically instant charging on health. nice. but the range is still small and it still doesn't apply the buff to the user. so net positive but they could have done better. Ghorn: net negative. they also avoided how much damage they are being reduced by. But it's still negative. And it backfires too. Now potentially one person can't cover damage wise for someone who doesn't have one. I think it's going to be demanded for even more. Ghorn shouldn't have been nerfed. All they had to do is make dragon's breath apply a burn effect on shot. then it would have a competitor. weapon stat changes: really vague here. From what it seems like really powerful stats in certain areas are getting slightly reduced. to me this means the high impact shotguns might have less impact as an example. Super good perks like perfect balance, field scout, hammer forged etc are getting nerfed "slightly." basically meaning they won't be super good anymore. only good. And it seems like the weapon columns that you pick from will no longer require you to by the first one to get to the rest after you unlock them. instead once you have the ability to choose one you can choose any in that column. So there it is. Super duper summary! TLDR: hand cannons might possibly be not worth using in pve or pvp anymore, every other primary arc type is still fine or better. Some exotics are better and some got nerfed for no reason. PvE is getting an over all boost weapon wise for useful weapons. PvP will be slightly better. but rockets and perfect rolls in general will still be prevelant and annoying. Super good perks will be less good.