Luna’s Howl has been straight-up murdered (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, June 05, 2019, 13:06 (2009 days ago) @ Claude Errera

I don't play competitive that often, or even PvP for that matter. I also don't consider myself a terrible PvP player, but nothing is more annoying than rounding a corner and getting two tapped and dying before I can even respond. It brought be back to the days of D1 sniper fest where you couldn't contest. Yeah, I'm sure it takes skill, but it also kills the game for others.

I totally think it deserved a nerf, I'm honestly sorry it got nerfed the way it did. And maybe I would feel differently if I had it, but being on the receiving end as much and as often as I have without having a fighting chance just felt bad. I hope they make it more fun for you in the future.

P.S.
I'm not trying to say that your experience is wrong by any means, I'm just putting up another experience on the other side.

I don't have Luna's (though it's a good bet I'll earn it this season). I definitely die to it in Crucible... but I agree with Cruel, it's not unbeatable. (I win a significant chunk - maybe less than half, but not much less - of 1v1s where they haven't already proc'd Magnificent Howl with my combination of Blast Furnace and Jotunn. (Even when I don't win, Jotunn can often give me a trade instead of a direct loss.)) I feel like it's (it WAS) a pinnacle weapon... and as such, SHOULD be better than what it's facing, at least somewhat... otherwise, what's the point of a pinnacle weapon quest in the first place? (That's a different argument; if you think that the rich shouldn't get richer, and there's definitely an argument to be made there, then don't provide a pinnacle weapon quest for PvP at all. Why let people who are good enough to successfully complete the challenge of the quest have something that puts them even FURTHER in front?)

If you accept the idea of a pinnacle weapon to strive towards, though (and I do), it seems unreasonable (to me) to make that weapon no better than the stuff you can earn through RNG.

I think Luna gets a disproportionate amount of hate, relative to its strength. But I think there’s also a good reason for it.

As I described before, Luna is very strong within a specific range window. But it isn’t uniquely strong within that window. Service Revolver, Trust, Bygones, Claws of the Wolf... there are many guns that can be extremely effective in that specific window. Luna’s is one of the best guns at that range, but not by much.

Now let’s look at Blast Furnace. It is CRAZY overpowered compared to other weapons within its ideal range window. I’ll cross-map players on Equinox in 2-bursts while they’re struggling to land a shot on me with their Jade Rabbit. It’s almost comically better at long range than any other primary.

On the flip side, there are guns like Recluse. At close range, Recluse will absolutely MELT anything. I played a game yesterday where I made the mistake of getting too close to a Recluse user. He killed me (triggering the Master of Arms perk in the process). And then I got to watch 3 of my teammates rush him 1 at a time. He burned through all 3 of them before they could pop his shields (while I tried not to scream at them for taking turns instead of pushing him TOGETHER, lol). At its ideal range, no primary weapon comes close to matching Recluse.

But here’s the thing. Luna’s ideal range seems to line up perfectly with the average range of most encounters in D2 crucible. There’s surprisingly little variety in the ranges of common encounters, due to the way D2 maps are generally designed. So when you have a gun that is a tiny bit stronger than most at that specific range, EVERYONE starts using it (if they have it). Which makes people think that it must be crazy overpowered, because “why else would everyone use it”. Meanwhile, we have guns that truly are drastically overpowered, but at such niche ranges that it hardly ever comes up.