I am curious to know how fusion rifles are gonna work in PvP now…

It's obviously super early at this point, but so far I'm equal parts thrilled about it and also somewhat confused.

I absolutely love this system in terms of how it changes moment to moment gameplay. I was running around Mars using the Winter Wolf, EP Shotgun and Sleeper at the same time, and it was a blast. I finally felt like I was getting close to my D1 guardian in terms of power, effectiveness, and flexibility. I ran strikes for a while using Whisper and some random Grenade Launcher. Super fun, and such a different experience than I've been able to have up till now in D2.

On the flip side, I find the implementation of this system thoroughly confusing. Between the different slots, ammo types, and weapon archetypes, I'm having a really tough time getting my intuitions to adjust. Why does Perfect Paradox use Primary ammo even though its a shotgun? I know it now sits in the primary weapon slot, but ammo type and weapon slot are no longer tied to each other (for example, there are plenty of weapons that sit in the secondary slot, but use Primary ammo). It also doesn't seem to be based on the lack of elemental damage, as that isn't tied to ammo type either (Graviton Lance does void damage, but uses primary ammo, and sits in the secondary weapon slot).

The more I try to figure out the reasoning behind this system, the more it starts to look to me like Bungie may have made all of these decisions on a weapon-by-weapon basis. There are definitely some general rules. I haven't found any Kinetic weapons that use special ammo or heavy, for example. But then there also seem to be exceptions, where they've just chosen the slot and ammo type that seems to make the most sense for that gun. Total conjecture on my part, obviously.

So yeah... I'm puzzled and a little overwhelmed by trying to navigate the new system. But when it comes to actually using these combinations of weapons together, I totally love it.

In Crucible... I did well, but wasn't at all thrilled about it. For the first few matches about all I said over chat was "Oh look! I have a heavy!" as I melted people with Telesto over and over again. Later into the night people started figuring it out and I occasionally got melted or shotgunned. But that's about it. Primary battles were almost not a thing. Even melee is almost gone. As more and more people figure it out, Destiny 2's Crucible will be about special weapons and only special weapons. And that sucks.

The new weapon slots also had a couple of big negatives:

1. My standard Crucible load out of a medium to long range Pulse or Scout rifle + a Sidearm + Fusion Rifle is now impossible as far as I can tell. All Fusion Rifles take the slot of my Sidearm. So... I'm not thrilled about that.

2. I really really feel like the Power Weapon slot is almost a useless after thought now. I mean... why should I bother even glancing at the Heavy Ammo when I already have a Telesto and most enemies will drop me more ammo just by using my Telesto on them? Rockets are nowhere near as good as they were in the D1 days. Swords are a big risk now that everyone has either a Fusion Rifle or Shotgun pointed my way... and I can't snipe worth a damn. Before this update, hearing Shaxx laugh as I got heavy ammo was inspiring. Now... it's just a bad joke.

All in all, I liked Destiny 2's primary focused Crucible. But now that's gone. I can still compete but I will probably be playing PvP a whole lot less once everyone figures out that Special Weapons alone are the new meta.

Forsaken is going to have to really bring it with the weapons for me to give up the IKELOS shotgun.

Forsaken is going to have to give me the IKELOS shotgun before it can make me give it up.

I find it to be too jarring a shift in the meta. The meta was a much more passive, pulse rifle-y meta, where you didn't have to worry a lot about getting destroyed from any angle. Now everyone has ammo with the most powerful guns all the time. It's hyper aggressive.

I played a couple hours yesterday and found the only way to be successful was to shotgun and be aggressive. It's definitely not my preferred play style. I can kind of do it, but I don't enjoy it as I do it. Maybe that's weird, but it's how I feel.

I liked the idea of the slots changing because I want to snipe more, it's what I enjoy, but it's really hard to run snipers when across the board people are moving faster and playing more aggressively.

There are at least 2 other factors that I think will make this a shotgun meta, 1) the flow of getting a kill and then getting the ammo is very rewarding. When I would snipe someone, I was too far away to get the ammo frequently. It wasn't rewarding. Think it would be cooler if you were rewarded with ammo into your reserves for a kill rather than had to pick it up, and 2) Range is pretty long on some of those shotguns, too. I was getting slide-shotgunned from 15-20m away it felt like last night. This might make maxing out mobility on a hunter a viable crucible option, as you'll just be able to go too fast for a lot of opponents.