Are hand cannons overpowered in PvP ?

[Xenos]

Hi,

Let's compare to, i think, the most popular primaries weapons in PvP :

Hand cannon vs pulse rifle.

Ace of spades :

84 damages
85 range
50 stability
50 handling
42 reload
70 aim assistance
14 zoom
14 airborne effectiveness
100 recoil (perfectly vertical)
140 rounds per minute
13 magazine

No time to explain : (you can do the same with graviton lance)

33 damages (3 rounds burst)
80 range
60 stability
57 handling
60 reload
40 aim assistance
17 zoom
24 airborne effectiveness
73 recoil (a bit on the left side)
340 rounds per minute
24 magazine

The hand cannon does nearly 3 times more damages and it's not burst. It has a bit more range. A bit less stability, handling and reload. Much more aim assistance. Zoom is nearly the same. Perfectly vertical recoil vs a bit of left recoil. Vertical is easier to control. The pulse rifle shoots a bit more that 2x but it's burst so in practice, it does not feel much. 13 magazine with so high damages is more than enough. At the opposite, 24 magazine for 33 damages is not a lot.

So the hand cannon does much more damages, much more aim assistance, perfectly vertical recoil, a magazine that's enough to do a least 2 kills.

In game, i do much better with a hand cannon than with a pulse rifle, and at every range.
I think hand cannons need a damage nerf or more side to side recoil or smaller magazine to punish bad aimer.

It's not fun in a game to have one single weapon category that dominate.

[N33MA]

You shouldn't compare stats between archetypes since they don't translate the same. High impact pulse rifles have a much more range in practice, kill much faster (only 2 bursts without tier 9 resilience), and are able to flinch much harder than most guns since their damage per burst is over half your health in most cases.

I will agree with you on the aim assist since Bungie themselves have commented on how massive the handcannon aim assist is, however even by their standards it needed because handcannon ttk suffers a lot more from missing than almost any other archetype in the game.

[Xenos]

Still, i do better with ace of spades than with no time to explain.

[󠁳⁧⁧ ShadeShot]

hand cannons are super punishing but when you can land your shots it deadly at most ranges, but at a certain range there is a hard fall off i experience where pulse and scout rifles absolutely STOMP on any hand canon
if you nerf anything damage related with hc's then they are going to become almost useless in every encounter because they need that 3-4 shot and missing one time can cause you to lose most of your fights
if you nerf the usability with ammo or recoil then in pve they go from a fun thing to use in lower level content to the literal worst choice

also increasing recoil on hand canons would be pretty useless as they shoot slow enough where you don't even really need to do any recoil control, you would need to add an insane amount to start effecting people

[N33MA]

Originally posted by Xenos:

Still, i do better with ace of spades than with no time to explain.

You understand that's not evidence of anything right? I can say the opposite and your point would be mute.

[Fearagen]

Originally posted by Xenos:

Still, i do better with ace of spades than with no time to explain.

You're just good with that weapon, that is like me saying that I dominate with a specific shotgun or something but suck with anything else. Like N33MA said, that is not evidence, just you being good with a specific type of weapon, maybe you played with the ace of spades more than anything else and that is why you do better with it.

[Kylito]

If you are in range, and hit all your shots and are able to weave in and out of cover while not losing any RMP hand cannons are impossible to lose gunfights with. But if you miss a crit, or are slightly out of range, that TTK drops HARD[b\]. With any auto/semi weapon, you can make up for missed or out of range shots with relative ease, but with hand cannons you can't do so.

Let's say:
A 140RMP handcannon with 2 crits 1 body goes 70,70, 47. With missing only 1 crit or being out of range once, your TTK goes from slightly over 1 second to almost 2 seconds.

With NTTE or really any pulse, it shoots in bursts, and 5 crits 1 body kills. Optimal TTK is a little over 1 second, and missing a shot or crit boosts that only a few more fractions of a second. Your range is much longer so that is less of a variable.

Handcannons are not overpowered due to their inconsistency and being punishing if used incorrectly. If you are able to hit all/most shots and have a god roll, they may feel overpowered. But in a trials/comp match, if you get flinched off once, you just outright lose the duel to a pulse/auto/smg.

[Kormit the Frag]

yeah you can't compare ranges between weapons. mind you, you can't compare them because of zoom either.

[Jagdtiger]

Originally posted by Kylito:

With missing only 1 crit or being out of range once, your TTK goes from slightly over 1 second to almost 2 seconds.

It goes from 0.87 to 1.3.

Originally posted by Kylito:

With NTTE or really any pulse, it shoots in bursts, and 5 crits 1 body kills. Optimal TTK is a little over 1 second, and missing a shot or crit boosts that only a few more fractions of a second.

The optimal TTK is 0.67, and missing even a single crit against 9 or 10 resil, or 2 against 8 or less resil will dump your TTK down to 1.2. It's substantially more punishing than a hand cannon.

Hand cannons in general are very weak, and lose in direct gunfights to almost any other weapon in the game, as well as having the 3rd worst average range in the game, only above SMGs and sidearms. The reason they are prevalent is that they serve as a jack of all trades, capable of competing at all engagements sub 30-35m, which is where the majority occur. When using a hand cannon, you can take almost any fight you want, whereas an SMG player has to focus on closing the gap, or a pulse player needs to be aware of putting distance between him and his foes. This allows higher skilled players to have a greater average influence on a match and have greater freedom of strategy during a match. Hand cannons are objectively inferior to scout rifles, having the same damage profile as 150s despite shooting slower, and have nowhere near as much range, the only reason people dont use scouts is the fact they feel very uncomfortable.

Hand cannons are also more valuable than pulses or autos in teamshooting. Generally big chunks of damage are preferred, and the ability to instantly steal 70 of your enemies' health is very potent, rather than rapidly burning down 108 in a burst, requiring you to be exposed, and accurate, longer. Additionally, they tend to have higher handling than other options, which also makes experienced players favour them more. They are entirely balanced by being very weak objectively, but very convenient and comfortable to use, which makes them arguably the best balanced weapon type in the game.

[AuraFlash]

Yeah, punishing, that's why they still dominate despite the fact that their recoil and aim assist make it so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ forgiving to aim that missing is almost an impossibility. Seriously, handcannons with high aim assist are what people pick because of the ease of use. Don't believe me, look at the most used Handcannons and look at their AA values. Don't EVER give me the "oh if they miss they are heavily penalized" bull. how you avoid that, take a shot, if you miss, dive into cover, which is what GOOD PLAYERS DOO EVERY TIME.

[Wren]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.