The D54 Battle Pistol is absurdly overtuned.

I'm just pointing out what most people already know here but it really cannot be overstated how much stronger the Battle Pistol is than any other gun in the game, and it blows all of its counterparts out of the water.

If you are not using the D54 then you are basically shooting yourself in the foot, as it mathematically kills runners **at least twice as fast** as almost any other gun in its effective ranges. You will still need an alternate weapon for long-range fighting, but there is zero reason not to run both the D54 and a sniping weapon.

 

First look at the D54's time to kill a purple shield with headshots. It takes only 0.42 seconds for this thing to kill a runner with full purple shields. That is **insane**.

 

Now consider the Bully, the season 1 terror that ruled the meta after the Wstr nerfs. Still a very strong gun that can be modded to range out to 40m. The D54 makes it look like a nerf gun. The bully takes 0.89 seconds to kill a purple shield with headshots, meaning the D54 kills targets just over twice as fast. Think about that for a second, the D54 kills over twice as fast as the meta CQC weapon (non-misriah but that needs its own nerfs) from season 1. What makes this even more ridiculous is that the D45 is way easier to control with the same tier of mods than the Bully is, in fact it's pretty easy to use the D54 effectively out to medium range with only green or blue mods, and an unmodded D54 is still a CQC monster.

 

Now look at the BRRT, probably the most direct comparison to the D54, which kills a purple with headshots in 0.72 seconds, meaning the D54 kills about 1.7 times as fast. On top of this, it's way easier to hit those headshots with the D54 as the BRRT has much more horizontal recoil. Why use a BRRT when the D54 is cheaper, available from the shop, kills faster, handles better, and is more ammo efficient?

 

What about the Overrun? Sure you can expect it to be a bit less lethal as it's an assault rifle designed for medium ranges, but it takes an agonizing 1.08 seconds to down a purple with headshots. Meaning the D54 kills about 2.57 times faster. Even after the recoil buffs to the Overrun it still has a lot of horizontal recoil as well, and in my experience the D54 with green or blue mods is much easier to control at medium range than an Overrun with blue or purple mods. You simply can't mag dump with the Overrun at medium ranges like you can with the M77 (scoped) or D54, you aren't going to be hitting those headshots consistently and that's going to draw out the time to kill even longer.

 

What do we take from this? I hate to be the one calling for nerfs but a small minority of equipment in this game (D54, Misriah, Bubble Shield) are in desperate need of downtuning/reworks to be more in line with the baseline of other equipment. It doesn't need to be nerfed into the ground like the Wstr, just give it a gentle nerf to bring it more in line with the BRRT and this gun could both be really fun and really healthy for the game.

 

As it stands the D54 serves as an accessible budget friendly weapon that everyone can buy early in progression and serves as a great equalizer against teams with high/top-tier gear. That's great, let it keep that role and don't nerf it too hard. But it shouldn't make other options obsolete like it currently does.

 

Overall I wish Bungie would be more willing to make minor tweaking balance changes throughout the seasons. In season 1 the Wstr was nerfed into the ground and was never touched again, and is still in its current useless state. The Misriah has been blatantly problematic since season 1 and was arguably buffed between seasons (the gold mod was nerfed but the base fire rate buffed) and is still dominating the meta along with bubble shields. Why not make more frequent minor changes to these equipment and see how they work out?