Dude, they're going to standardize everything in this game. People use what works, and what works is the only thing that hasn't been touched by the nerf hammer yet. Grenades are up there right now, as are Lasers (even though Lasers are very badly broken by the skills and there's no reason to use the ELM-7).

Why are lasers on the chopping block? Range. Their effectiveness increases at range as it's easier to "track" your targets and subsequently dish out damage and in a game like this where the maps are large and open (particularly Manus Peak where there's little cover) it's a trump card by comparison to what people are used to : Assault Rifles and SMGs.

Now, Mass Drivers are next up because of the camera jump they cause and their ability to break cover. You don't have to worry about someone being behind cover because the splash damage will still harm them, cross that with the fact that the Mass Driver does damage based on the distance of the impact to the target and a skilled MD user can cause a lot of damage in a short amount of time.

Shotguns, Assault Rifles, Laser Rifles, Mass Drivers, Heavy Machine Guns, Forge Guns - they've all been called Overpowered and they've (almost) all had something done about it because CCP is willing to listen to it's Beta testers, which I honestly feel is adverse to good game quality. When the only unfair fight is the one you lose - the "Jedi Curve" (google that) becomes blurred and hard to distinguish.

The only thing left is Standardization, in which absolutely nothing is more useful than anything else with the most benefit toward any one effect being 20%. If it's an Anti-Infantry weapon it'll be good at what it does but only to a certain degree.

I've got a thread about the Laser Rifles. That's my current mission, at the moment. They seriously don't need a nerf, they're useful as hell in the right conditions.

Problem is, there's literally -NO- reward for going Advanced as by the time you get Laser Rifle Operation to 3 you're never going to have to worry about heat build up again as you'll run out of ammo in the magazine before that happens.

Thereby, Laser Rifle Operation 4 and 5 are just a formality into getting your Prototype Laser Rifle.

"Wait a second, Aeon, what about the ELM-7 Advanced Laser Rifle?"

Well, that doesn't have a damage increase. It just has reduced heat build up and increased cool down speed. Lot of good that does you being as the skill needed to access it, again, removes the worry of it ever overheating.

"So, why use it?"

Exactly.

"Well, what about the Prototype?"

It's good being as it has slightly increased damage output, albeit the skill required is a little high. That and the fact that Laser Rifle Proficiency reduces the cool down time - something you're not going to have to worry about, remember?

This is all due to standardization of weaponry. If enough people ***** about it there's never going to be anything that's more useful for a situation than anything else. Assault Rifles already can hit the same distance as Laser Rifles, further in fact. Issue is that the Assault Rifle does decreased damage at long distances where as the Laser Rifle excels at long distance. Hence why people say it's over-powered.

We should be worried about power creep from the addition of new weapons making older weapons obsolete, not older weapons being too powerful for everything else.