You are never going to achieve the sort of balance you want in this game. Not as long as it is part of a loot-based RPG. The best you will ever get is a big game of Rock/Paper/Scissors. Where each class of weapon dominates a particular range but will be outclassed outside of that range. Thorn is [i]not[/i] OP in the context of this kind of weapon system. A good SR user will destroy Thorn at long range. Shotguns and TLW at close range. Red Death, Bad Juju and Hawkmoon will own it at mid-range if you go about it intelligently. The problem in the Crucible right now isn't that HCs are suddenly OP. It's that 1.1.1 rendered ARs UP and Bungie had been trying to fix the damag with more nerds rather than the buff that is the real solution.