The PvE meta is wild right now and it's been actually pretty refreshing and rewarding to be able use a multitude of loadouts that can all be effective in their respective situations. Other than the helm of dire ahamkara being seemingly broken now, I think the nerf to super regen exotics has been a positive thing for the game and has encouraged communication and teamwork to complete endgame activities rather than just ability spam. Why do I bring this up in a topic called scout rifles: even with all this loadout diversity, they're the only weapon that feels out of place. Smgs can be amazing at close range, hand cannons are crisp and powerful at close-medium range, pulse rifles are great at medium range and offer some room for error, auto rifles can chain multiple kills with one magazine, bows hit hard and are easy to use at all ranges, and even side arms can be used to conserve ammo. Where do scout rifles sit, then? They have range, but a good pulse, bow, or sniper can do the trick better. You're punished too heavily for missing and even with headshots the damage is just too low to use over any other option. I'd rather miss with a sniper and hit the next shot for massive damage than have to hit several headshots in a row to do the same amount of damage. Scouts worked with the original Destiny 2 weapon system because you had to equip two primaries so you wanted a scout for longer ranges and an smg, sidearm, or hand cannon for closer ranges, but now we have access to a whole array of powerful weapons that are better in every way than scouts. I bring this all up because yesterday I got the Oxygen SR3 while grinding for wendigo, and initially I was excited since it seemed like a cool weapon and I've always loved omolon scouts. The perk is useful and fun in certain situations, I wouldn't mind it lasting a little longer, but other than that it's a nice weapon. The problem is that scouts in general are so underwhelming that even this "pinnacle" weapon suffers the same fate as every other scout in the game. It takes two headshots to kill a red bar vandal, and with a perk that relies solely on getting headshot kills it really lowers the potential of the weapon. It just doesn't make any sense, why would I use the oxygen which requires a headshot to proc a perk that does minuscule damage to nearby adds over loaded question which can melt a yellow bar and every enemy in a three mile radius with one shot. While every other pinnacle weapon has specific uses that it's the *best* at, the oxygen is mediocre even within its niche and at its strongest it's a worse alternative to Polaris Lance which outclasses every scout in the game by a country mile. The conclusion is that we need a reason to use scout rifles over other weapons, and that just doesn't exist right now. They should feel somewhere in between a hand cannon and a sniper, they're supposed to be workhorse precision rifles for medium to long range, so let them fill that role and buff their damage in PvE accordingly. At the very least, add some strong unique perks to their pool like something that increases precision damage for a short time after rapidly landing precision hits so you can one shot adds you normally couldn't, or a kill clip skill that increases rate of fire rather than damage, or getting multiple hits on the same target increases damage on that target, I'm just spitballing off the top of my head but those could make scouts worth using if they were exclusive perks. TLDR: Kind of got carried away with this one and turned it into a novel, so my main point is that Bungie needs to give players a reason to use scouts over other weapons - therefore buff them.