Bungie Doesn't Want You to Use Gjallarhorn Forever

"What comes with a new expansion are changes you may not embrace." This applies to most every MMO out there, including the third person shooter Destiny. Destiny's first expansion, The Taken King is due to launch in a little over a month and will be bringing to the table a slew of new weapons and gear. However, what comes with these additions are massive nerfs and rebalancing to existing weapons.

Two notable weapons that are receiving the nerf of justice are the handcannon Thorn and the severely overpowered rocket launcher Gjallarhorn. What comes with nerfing are disappointed players, but the changes are very much justified--according to David "Deej" Dague, Bungie has made the decision in order to lure players to newer and more diverse weapons:

"This is the challenge for us, to create things that you always want to do. If we created Destiny where it was just a game like, 'Oh, another Destiny game is coming out, which I like to [think of as just] more aliens to kill with my Gjallarhorn,' [then] I think people would probably accuse us of design failure. We want to give you new things to experience all the time, new places to go, new ways to upgrade your Guardian, new enemies to fight, new weapons to use, new subclasses to master. The act of playing Destiny is all about evolving your character. And using the same weapons for the next decade wasn't really part of that vision."

It's true though. Developers want players to adopt new weapons they've worked so hard to create rather than experience disappointment when learning that Guardians are still playing with Gjallarhorn and Thorn. Strategy is an important piece of Destiny's core, and to use the same strategy of "blow everything to smithereens" actually dulls and cheapens the experience. Referencing Bungie, Deej notes that it's time for players to move on from the Gjallarhorn.
 

"Our goal as developers is to keep you guessing, to keep you thinking about, 'I'm going into this tactical scenario, what am I going to equip? And if Gjallarhorn is an obvious choice, then we'd like to provoke you to think a little bit more about your loadout. Like I said, Destiny shouldn't be Gjallarhorn simulator version 4.0 in a number of years. There are still going to be missions where you're going to use that Gjallarhorn. There are also going to be [new] weapons that may start to catch your eye."

In short, embrace change, because you may just learn to like what's new.

However, this doesn't mean to leave your Year One Weapons as past memories. Year One weapons will remain relevant in some raids and the Crucible, so think twice before you hastily dismantle your Gjallarhorn. There's room for both new and old in Destiny.