Really? I've been killed by HMGs (everything from The Swarm to blues I don't even remember the name of) a WHOLE LOT in the last week or two. Lots and lots and lots of them.

True enough, he hadn't mentioned Heavy weapons so I just thought he was ignorning them. I have seen a pretty balanced percentage of HMGs vs Rocket Launchers, maybe a little more HGMs because of the bounty. I see a ton of Radegast's Fury though, and I'm super stoked that one just dropped for me :)

Man, I never get matched with those guys. Everyone in my games is either shotgun/blink, thorn, or mythoclast (this is maybe a slight exaggeration), and they all have Gjallerhorn heavies (this, sadly, is not an exaggeration at all. I don't know how that works, but dear god it's painful.

I see Gjallarhorn in PvP way less than I expected to; Mig rolls with one when I'm playing with him, but I don't often see them on the other team. I think most people would rather not waste an exotic slot on a weapon they only get to use 2-3 times in a match. (Mythoclast, though... ALL. THE. TIME.)

Just did it for a maybe two week's worth of games to get a feel for it. But I have switched it up. That Jolder's Hammer -- oof!!

How do people live at that speed? I get mad when my respawn timer makes me wait just 1 second before respawning me (of course, some times it makes me wait 30 because goddamn netcode).

It's only 5, really; after the five, you can respawn anytime you like, by pressing X. If, however, you let 10 MORE seconds go without touching anything, you respawn automatically.

(Maybe it's less than 5 for the manual respawn. I just know that it's 10 MORE for the auto one.)

The great thing about Halo's TTK was that it rewarded skilled players, while also encouraging longer gunfights, more back and forth. T

Also teamwork. We could call for help and actually have a hope of arriving in time to save a teammate.

I am baffled as to why it hasn't happened alreay. They nerfed the Suros twice when it was the king weed; the mythoclast received several tweaks before they found a good spot for it. Why have they waited so long on thorn and TLW?

Short answer: Because they probably have MOUNDS of data telling them that - on the whole - Thorn and TLW are not as dominating as some "feel" they are. (and believe me, I definitely feel it often)

Longer...

You can't buy Thorn - it's a b*$%! to get (still haven't myself), so it's not in the same access-category as things you can just get dropped or pick up from Xûr.

Last Word, while quite potent in close encounters, has CRAP range and kicks like a bronco when fired full-auto; i.e. it's not a cinch to land every shot (not saying it's impossible, just not easy).

SUROS and the Vex on the other hand(s), are friggin' LASER BEAMS of easy-peezy death making. They're just not in the same category (literally and otherwise).

User-data has also probably shown that just as HC's began to see more use, players similarly quickly learned how to counter them. As opposed to SUROS, the solution to which was just "use a SUROS".

On Xbone/PS4, though, this is feasible.

And exploitable. Pick up heavy ammo with field scout on a thunderlord, then switch to perfect balance. You keep the extra ammo, so you get the benefits of both perks :-)

Someone in an earlier thread suggested 3-5 second TTK, and I have to agree. You need time to react to being shot, find cover, and return fire. Right now I feel like "how did I die? Oh, okay, so there's a guy back there now. Great."

That's just bonkers, If I have to shoot a guy that much, I might have to reload to finish him off. Halo had such a slow TTK in comparison and I realize how much better it is to get the jump on a guy and because you positioned better, you will most likely win the battle.

My issue with this idea is that your placement relative to the enemy in Destiny (or most other competitive FPS) is rarely under your control. More often than not, if an enemy gets the drop on me its because they spawned behind me, or I spawned in front of them. How is that fun or fair?

I actually think Destiny's spawn mechanics are pretty solid. It's almost impossible to get spawns perfect in an FPS, but spawn camping hasn't really been something I've found to be problematic in Destiny's PvP (we'll see how that spawn locking fix works).

I think Destiny does an excellent job of allowing strategic play to stand up to skill play. If you use grenades and radar tactically, you can compete with enemies who shoot straighter than you. I've never been a particularly excellent skill player in any FPS; I was especially poor at Halo 2 BR play (probably the Halo I played the most PvP in). H2 really demanded skill play; if you missed shots in that, you lost 1v1's. I've missed my fair share of shots in Destiny (that trend hasn't changed), but damn if I can't seem to outplay a fair number of my opponents through strategic play.

Knowing what loadout to role on what map, what grenades to use, how to play the radar, when to be aggressive and when to play defensive: these are all ways to counter the short TTK on Destiny's best weapons in a skill player's hands.

Some of the guys in my games switch weapon loadouts when heavy ammo comes out. It's not unusual for me to be killed by a Mythoclast, then see heavy ammo come out, and then have the same guy kill me with a Gjallerhorn a few seconds later.

I'm guessing that's going to happen to me a lot more once I switch off the 360. (Time to switch weapons on the 360 in-game can exceed 10-15 seconds; it's not really a feasible option unless you like taking an extra death for no reason. SOMETIMES I've done it before I auto-respawn - but usually I'm already back on the playing field by the time I'm out of the menu... and whether I'm alive or not depends entirely on how lucky my spawn was. So I do it as LITTLE as I possibly can, and it seems most other people on the platform are the same.)

On Xbone/PS4, though, this is feasible.

Back when heavy ammo stuck around longer post-death, you could pop it, leave it, switch when you died naturally and then come back for it. Anymore, though, you have to take some serious risk to switch that one out.

Some of the guys in my games switch weapon loadouts when heavy ammo comes out. It's not unusual for me to be killed by a Mythoclast, then see heavy ammo come out, and then have the same guy kill me with a Gjallerhorn a few seconds later.

I'm guessing that's going to happen to me a lot more once I switch off the 360. (Time to switch weapons on the 360 in-game can exceed 10-15 seconds; it's not really a feasible option unless you like taking an extra death for no reason. SOMETIMES I've done it before I auto-respawn - but usually I'm already back on the playing field by the time I'm out of the menu... and whether I'm alive or not depends entirely on how lucky my spawn was. So I do it as LITTLE as I possibly can, and it seems most other people on the platform are the same.)

On Xbone/PS4, though, this is feasible.

People will buy the guns for the look, or a different combination of the basic gun stats and perks. You don't have to make guns kill faster just to make them better.

New perks that open up new gameplay options will lure in people far more then faster TTKs. You don't have to get as crazy as Borderlands but I'm certain there are some options we could bring over to Destiny.

Well, as much as people act like Thorn, TLW, and Red Death are the ONLY guns:

1. They aren't. I get killed regularly by legendary guns in Crucible, as well as the other exotics (Mythoclast, Bad Juju, and even MIDA).
2. Remember when Suros was king? The guns may be the best now, but they weren't always and they probably won't always be.

Those 6 guns however are pretty much the only thing I die to now in Crucible.

Really? I've been killed by HMGs (everything from The Swarm to blues I don't even remember the name of) a WHOLE LOT in the last week or two. Lots and lots and lots of them.

Interestingly enough, whenever I switch from RL to HMG myself, my Heavy Weapon kills go way down; I'm usually taken out of the equation before I get a single kill. :)

Well, as much as people act like Thorn, TLW, and Red Death are the ONLY guns:

1. They aren't. I get killed regularly by legendary guns in Crucible, as well as the other exotics (Mythoclast, Bad Juju, and even MIDA).
2. Remember when Suros was king? The guns may be the best now, but they weren't always and they probably won't always be.

Those 6 guns however are pretty much the only thing I die to now in Crucible.