HC's are borderline unusable in PvP with the range nerf... (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Friday, June 17, 2016, 11:56 (3024 days ago) @ slycrel

So, I did some crucible tonight with DogCow and was playing around with the Vanity and Finnala's Peril.

The Vanity... It's by far the best overall HC I've got on paper and yet I can't seem to do anything with it. We were playing inferno clash on the cauldron. I was standing up on the platform by the outside heavy, towards the door. There was a guy sniping, looking up the stairs, close to the far wall. He wasn't against it, but about in the spawn location there at the bottom of the stairs.

I took slow, careful aim with my vanity, and fired. Miss. Again. Miss. Again... Miss. Again...! 22 damage body shot.

The whole time he was standing there and I didn't rapid fire anything -- I let my reticle settle because nobody else was around. The first shot I lined up with the guy's neck and let it sit there (he didn't move throughout the first 3 shots, he moved on the 4th because it hit him). I really wish I had thought to save a video clip -- it was insanely unproductive.

I've used finnala's peril quite a lot in PvP, it's my go-to gun and has been since early in TTK. I am doing noticeably less damage with it at range. On the order of magnitude of 15-20 damage less per headshot and about 10 damage less per body shot. That puts it as needing another bullet in many mid-range cases to finish someone off. I think we will see less HC's floating around without a long range secondary to support them.

So I'm in the market for a primary that has good damage at mid-range and doesn't suck close range. I'm thinking a pulse, but the TTK seems rough for those now. Any suggestions?

So I did some crucible last night, and ended up running with The Last Word for several matches. It's a gun I almost never use, but after getting owned by it a few times during our Trials run on monday, I figured I give it a shot. It worked out really well. I was playing very aggressively, as usual. The trick, I found, was to avoid combat completely until I was at the optimal range. If the enemy saw me coming and I was still too far away to use TLW, I'd dodge, or back up, try to lose them around cover. If I was still slightly outside optimal range but I had the drop on them, I would open fire and usually finish them off before they had time to react. I lost a couple mid-range duels against Hawksaws and Grasp of Maloks, and I got shut down by a couple shotgun rushers, but other than that I the gun still out-performs just about anything within its intended range.

If you're not into playing quite that aggressively, I would go with a Hawksaw/Grasp of Malok, or Doctrine of Passing. I used my less-than-perfect DoP last night as well. It has persistence, braced frame, and range finder, so the stability really isn't great until persistence kicks in. Despite that, and despite the damage nerf, I was still melting people with it. I used it during a match on drifter and was easily winning most 1v1 encounters. I had a moment where I found myself just under the platform in the large middle room, facing off against a pair of enemies in one of the side rooms (where the special ammo spawns). They both appeared in the doorway and opened fire... I held down the trigger and was able to kill both of them before they could kill me, and I still had a couple bullets left in my mag (and that's with the decreased Mag size that comes with braced frame). It has a slightly longer time-to-kill than TLW, but it also has better range. Not to mention that had I been using TLW, I would have run out of ammo before killing the second target.

I still think Pulse Rifles are better than DoP as you get into mid-long range territory, but for my money DoP remains the best mid-range weapon in the game :)