Gotta disagree with you. (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Friday, January 12, 2018, 12:18 (2322 days ago) @ Claude Errera

In Destiny 2, Kinetic and Energy Weapons essentially perform the same utility role. Yes, there is some variety thanks to the different kinds of weapons (hand cannons vs auto rifles vs Scout rifles, etc). But while those options do impact your optimal range of engagement, they basically perform the same role. A Kinetic Hand Cannon and an Energy Auto Rifle both get used in the same way against the same enemies. They are both general, all-purpose weapons with similar time-to-kill at similar ranges with similar ammo restrictions and DPS potential. The Energy Weapon has the perk of burning shields faster, but that is a relatively minor difference, with no downside or drawback to prevent you from treating it like a 2nd primary. So while playing with 2 primary weapons does give you the ability to chose 2 different weapons that are ideally suited to 2 slightly different ranges of engagement, they don’t have that much impact on how you play. Your killing the same enemies equally quickly, just from a little closer or a little further away. You’re not “switching gears” the way you would in D1 when you go from using your Scout Rifle to your Fusion Rifle.

This paragraph might be mostly accurate if you're discussing Patrol, but it's way off the mark when playing any higher-level activities (Nightfall, Raid, Heroic Adventures, even Heroic Strikes, to some degree). There's a HUGE difference between an Energy AR and a Kinetic AR, in terms of how much ammo is required to take down a tough shielded enemy (all of these activities have LOTS of these).

If I'm not paying attention, I can go through a whole clip of Better Devils ammo (14 rounds in my MW version) before I even TOUCH a Wizard's health - it all gets used on shield. If, instead, I spend half a clip of Positive Outlook AR bullets first, to remove the shield, I can burn her down with Better Devils in less than a half a clip. That's not just considerably faster, it's much less ammo. If I took your advice, and treated the two slots as pretty much interchangeable, I'd be out of ammo for most of my fights.

It's not a relatively minor difference. It's HUGE.

Against shielded enemies during high-level activities, the difference in effectiveness does become more significant. You’re absolutely right about that. But it doesn’t change the way you play in the manner that switching between Primary and Special Weapons did in D1. And considering special weapons also did elemental damage, that additional tactical layer was still present on top of the dynamic gameplay changes.