[2021] SMG's Were Created in And Are Balanced Around a Game That No Longer Exists

Destiny 2 vanilla was a completely different experience from Destiny 1 and what Destiny 2 is now. PVP wise we had slower ttk, no special weapons and instead they were all heavies, slower movement and ability recharge rates, 3 hit melees, and 4v4 casual game modes. With a good deal of these differences in mind, the smg was created to fill in a void, that being infrequent shotguns and worse melees on less chaotic maps. Those voids have all since been filled, leaving smg's in a rough spot. Special weapon options in shotguns and fusion rifles have completely taken over smg optimal range. SMG's don't kill faster than a behemoth sliding at you with a felwinters, nor a top tree dawn skating at you with an atsral horizon. In very close range where the melee is jank af in this game, you are most likely gonna lose unless you just start punching too, which then raises the question of "why am I using this thing"? Sidearms work because of a great buff given to them a while back making them very sticky, smg's have large recoil and do not feel sticky at all and have too long ttk's for their intended use range. Something has to change for these weapons to be viable. They are so cool in theory, in practice they fall flat due to an outdated balance philosophy.