A list of combat shotgun improvements

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
21

Yeah, I also tend to avoid Weapons that struggle against Carapace but that’s a matter of personal preference. Different weapons should excel AND struggle against different armour types.

I use Folding Shovel and Recon Lasgun together on Veteran for my main Loadout. I like to set Crushers ablaze from a decent distance and by the time they get close… I’m able to just shove my Folding Shovel’s Pick directly into their skull. They’re dead. I can comfortably rinse and repeat this to a whole pack of them, but I wouldn’t expect that from… well, most players.

That’s my favourite example of compensating for a Weapon that struggles against Carapace with one that doesn’t!

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22

What do you think currently falls into this category? Ourside of Ogryn’s power maul I can’t think of anything else… Maybe Agri revolver, it’s really pointless outside of the meme magdump build for Psyker.

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23

Off the top of my head? Mk VI Combat Shotgun, Mk IV Helbore Lasgun, Mk IX Infantry Lasgun, Power Maul, Mk VI Ripper Gun and Shredder Autopistol.

Mk VI Combat Shotgun, Mk IV Helbore Lasgun, Mk IX Infantry Lasgun and Mk VI Ripper Gun are specified because they’re Sh*t Marks that come from otherwise Underperforming or Balanced Weapon Families.

I haven’t used it in a while and they’ve buffed it since, so my word on Mk XIV Revolver’s to be taken with a grain of salt. My friend @Wahid’s a much more reliable source. From what he’s told me… it fits into the Underperforming Category.

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24

Ogyrm’t

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25

Ryshekn’t

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26

No need to make it so personal /=

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27

It’s all in good fun :purple_heart:

28

You know, I thought really hard on this.

And you have to ask yourself 2 questions, what does carapace armor do to neutralize kinetic force against the body, and is penetration required for their to be substantial damage?

According to the Wiki, carapace is made of ceramite or arma plas. To me that makes it a metal akin to modern day ceramic plates. Ceramic plates are amazing at dissapating kinetic energy - but it comes at the cost of the plate becoming compromised after taking a hit. Sadly we don’t have anything we cool as a crusher sloughing off plates of armor where he’s been hit multiple times. So we’ll have to operate under the assumption that the armor is basically the equivalent of an ar500 steel plate. In which case it isn’t dissapating much of the energy, which means that energy has to go somewhere, and that means it’s going into whatever is behind the armor.

I terms of ballistics the terminology behind that is called back face deformation a lot of YouTubers measure it with clay. Long story short, just because the slug/pellets didn’t penetrate doesn’t mean that the kinetic energy disappears. Sometimes, it would be flat out preferable for the bullet to simply travel through. Shooting someone point blank in their armored chest with a shotgun would murder them. We’re talking internal bleeding, shattered ribs, ruptured vital organs.

At their core shotguns accomplish one main thing, the transfer of kinetic energy into the target. A bullet passing through the target means that kinetic energy was not transfered 100% and that is the goal. It’s the entire reason why we use hollow points, we want the bullets to expand and transfer as much as possible.

With all of that said, yes, shotguns should be terrifying at close/mid range. It’s their role. They should poke holes better than a shovel made of sheet metal vs carapace.

29

Autopistol. Just makes me angry every time I use it.

The weakest melee is prolly tac axe and there’s still a video of someone soloing havoc 40 with one so I would say the melee weapon situation is more about what is too strong (DS4) rather than what is too weak.

This is for normal human weapons. Ogryn is a whole conversation.

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30

Woah, woah, woah.

You gotta remember… this is a universe where Chainswords don’t IMMEDIATELY get clogged up by viscera, where Space Marines have fused ribs yet are still able to breathe, where Laser Weapons have more in common with Ballistic Weapons than they do with real Laser Weapons.

I appreciate it, but realism isn’t exactly held in high regard here! :joy:

31

Hey man, if that’s the case, then yeah, sure. Shotguns can shoot through carapace bc space magic.

I can’t remember the book, but I still recall reading a line about a short barrel shotgun hitting harder than a long barrel shotgun…

Which is kind of ridiculous on the face of it, the longer your barrel the more combustion is taking place inside of the barrel which is what you want. Maximum burn inside of the barrel. Gun powder combusting outside of the barrel is loud and showy, but it doesn’t relate to performance.

Light has recoil, tons of it.

32

You can do it… Yeah… But it feels like carpal tunnel…

33

Dunno mate, the highest damage combat shotgun needs 3 shells to kill 1 single Gunner as soon as the Gunner moves from short range to short-medium/medium range…

…let’s remind a weapon with small magazines and looong reload… you practically spend more time reloading than shooting

I currently feel that the 90% of other weapons have more DPS vs elites, specials, ranged, disablers

In my opinion Power Creep can’t be always an excuse

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34

I don’t know where to begin with a reply because Crushers are elephant sized people wearing very thick plate armor.

I don’t think realism is the most reliable metric here since my immersion is already being broke by varying ammo capacity and auto-adjusting choke based on how you hold the weapon.

Genuinely, I’d be stoked if realism could save combat shotty, but I just don’t see it.

For fairness sake I did run with the Combat Shotty this morning and I was not emotionally prepared over how bad they feel against the buffed armor ragers. And it can’t stagger Ogryns like it used to, either.

So, you say they’re bad against armor? Yeah, kind of definitely that.

In the end I used all three CS like a lasgun staying in ADS the whole time and rarely shot at the horde. The Ammo Economy on these things is so tight that missing a shot is about as bad as the housing market crash. I’m basically playing a different game when I’m using the CS and like all of you I don’t particularly like it.

Hate to say it, but Doom Eternal probably did it right giving their Combat Shotty a grenade launcher/rapid fire thingy so it could have a reason to live in the shadow of the SSG.

My opinion fwiw:

  • They all need more ammo
  • the Accatran’s base damage feels like the bare minimum all three of these guns should do
  • The Lawbringer needs its boring horizontal shot replaced with actual space magic to be good (I’d f*ck with it if it shot five assail darts on special shot)
  • The Accatran’s fire shot mostly just exists as a light show and offers not a lot even with hyper density
  • my least favorite shotty, the Agri, is possibly the better combat shotgun since it just works when you get a headshot, has the most ammo, the slug works (can’t stress that enough) and I felt compelled to use all three shotties the same way, anyway.

And to further seal their fate, I cant see myself caring about their horde clear even if they do get a massive ammo boost because the SSG is here and every bit as good as the kickback. I just don’t need horde clear on the CS.

So… no I don’t agree with using realism as an argument on how to improve these very, very silly shotguns.

Debatable about breakpoints because I was getting 1 - 2 shot kills on gunners, shotgunners, unarmored ragers, specials, stalkers, 3 shot kills on bulwarks and reapers, and sat in timeout when bosses, armored ragers, maulers, and crushers appeared.

But they have great swap speed which makes them great for snap shots against specials even tho they’re kinda eh at that.

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35

Yeah, a physics sim won’t solve anything.

They seem like a cool opportunity to combine various technical game mechanics (ranged stagger, cleave) and apply them to ranged combat but in practice they’re just a handicap.

Their limited ammo pool locks them into being ranged backup for primarily melee specs but ammo inefficient horde clear and complicated special sniping is not very attractive compared to other options. Buffs should start with ammo.

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36

I appreciate that out of you. One of the big changes that hurt combat shotty badly was the change to scab ragers, giving them carapace chest pieces.

The accatran is incentivized to hit center mass. This change hit the accatran hard.

A portion of what makes combat shotguns feel bad now, is that originally there was a talent that allowed you to instantly reload your gun during executioner stance. That is gone. I think for the health of combat shotguns reloads should be fast, without unnecessary animations, damage should be meaty at close ranges and ammo capacity should be around 100. Shotgun shells are heavy. At least that would be my vision for them.

I am against the re-introduction of automatic full reloads for guns for veteran, because that makes the gun work well only for them.

That would make the shotgun feel agile and not like a clunky over encumbrance.

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37

Not specifically what I’m referring to, and I am aware that light does keep the momentum necessary to produce recoil.

I’m referring to things like how the Lasguns fire in bolts instead of a directed beam of energy or how their barrel length directly influences their accuracy and effective range.

38

Agreed carapace torso ragers hurts the accatran (my favourite variant) unfairly. Also give its special its old cleave back, at least it could kinda do something before that nerf now it has no use cases at all.

Also like the idea of built in flechette for Zarona special. I did try a weapon specialist flechette + manstopper build but between special shot loading and losing all your crit chance after one shot it was way too unwieldy to be enjoyable, really just a worse double barrel WS setup in every way. If you could run manstopper + scattershot and still have T4 flechette worth of bleeds I see it working much better. Obviously also needs more ammo to have any real horde clear utility.

All shotguns should definitely have way more cleave base, manstopper is stupidly essential to get any good value out of them.

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39

crushers aren’t a big deal but all shotguns hit flak hard and picked scab ragers pretty fast. also not the hugest deal at the end of the day but it is hitting a pretty niche gun right where it did well (also coming from the rippergun here). and that talent for passive reloading is not nearly as good as it could be, but I guess the revolver would win more if they altered it. it takes a lot of stacks to get more than 1 shell back. so you might not have those sure thing crits loaded up when you do go shooting since you’ll probably be doing a lot of switch spamming while beating up a horde to do your reloading.

and yeah the cleave is so unimpressive and all or nothing. the kantrael could use a fair bit more cleave, and then the other two could probably still scale like half of that like they do now.

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40

I’ll have you know it also works surprisingly well in my meme magdump zealot build too.

And my meme big-game Ogryn Hunter ES build for Vet.

Pretty much any build that can compensate for its Agrillies heel by reducing the spread so you can still get those choice picks at ranged. There’s just something about being able to fan a few rounds into a big beasty’s brain or burgles backside that triggers my “I wanna be a Cowboy, Baby” dopamine receptors.

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