I am a collector of the hand cannons. I have played extensively with each. Thorns aim assist is ridiculously high. Hawkmoons aim assist is not as high, but it is still up there. Thorn is OP only because of the DOT, and rate of fire, along with the aim assist. If you take away the DOT it would be no better than TLW and would pale in comparison to Hawkmoon. Hawkmoon is a 2 headshot kill, 3 shot kill with only 1 headshot, or if proc 1 head 1 body. But, it has lower rate of fire, and less aim assist. Thorn fires faster and has extremely high aim assist, which results in more headshots, and with DOT- its a 2 shot headshot kill. DOT is the difference. If I get off 2 gheleon demise headshots in the time you get off 2 thorn headshots, you will go down first, I will go down shortly after because of DOT, when in reality you got out gunned by a less aim assisted lower rate of fire gun, but still get rewarded. This is why it is OP. But, with this being said, it was much harder to get in game, and much harder to level up because of it being an exotic. And, it is an exotic, which means it should be OP. It's exotic for a reason.