It might be really good in V2, where the game focuses on melee combat, but not in DT, where there are countless ranged enemies. If you use a double-barreled shotgun, you’re already giving up the ability to deal with gunners. In exchange for what? Double shot Bulwark twice? Or double shot Crusher (3-4 times I don’t remember). The good news is we already have weapons like the Plasma Gun, Bolter, and Revolver that can kill them more effectively without sacrificing the ability to deal with gunners.
It would be better to change the old shotguns rather than creating this new double barrels. I think the old shotguns have about 8-10 bullets per round, so they not bad against range enemies. All you have to do is to make special attack consumes the whole round of amo, and the dmg + impact will increase according to the amount of amo consumed.
However, I only tested the new shotgun for an hour so I might missed something. But that’s my impression so far.
I think it’s got some issues performance-wise, but they absolutely nailed the “boomstick” feel. Sliding into an enemy and knocking it up into the air with a double-shot is pretty amazing.
I’d like to see its mobility improved. It’s a tricky weapon to use fluidly as part of the whole ‘quick switch, in-your-face’ playstyle that it seems to be meant for because of the slowdowns that come with pulling it out. It’s also just a little bit too slow to pull out and brace for that playstyle.
I also think the effective range needs to be extended just a bit. I know it’s meant to be a niche weapon, but right now it’s a little too niche with the falloff and pellet spread being so heavily geared for that 0 to 10-ish meter range.
These two issues compound each other, further limiting its usefulness at higher difficulties. You need to get close to use it, but using it at close range is dangerous because of how it handles and how it impacts your mobility.
I really hope they can tune it up a little. It’s the first new weapon I’ve been properly excited for and the first shotgun I’ve been interested in.
Extending its range would water down its niche. We already have a supposed high damage shotgun that offers better range capabilities. The Kant Shotgun (which also lacks the needed punch).
Make it hit armored targets harder point blank and it will be a fine toy.
Well it looks cool but that’s pretty much it.
Honestly I think the niche makes it useless.
Who do you want to blast into the air? Small adds? Ragers? Welp you better hope those double shots get all 5 Ragers at once.
The point is, we give up power vs range enemies, the gun better be OP in close-range and it’s not. Not to mention, the game is much more range focused than V2. As of now, I don’t see how this can be useful. But it’s still early.
However, it can be good for Zealot knife + dagger + spd. Since the class has good gap closing, immune to range stagger, and dagger if needed quick snipe. That’s the only case I think it’s viable.
It’s fun to use but not very effective on auric and maelstrom. Even buffed with just about every ranged bonus I can get on veteran + executioner stance it doesn’t have many single headshot breakpoints so I end up using the double shot every time. The effective range is almost comically short too, if you want to deal reasonable damage to an elite or special you have to shove the barrel up their nose else you will just knock them down.
Overall the lack of range is the dealbreaker for me, maybe a psyker could make it work but on veteran it’s like taking two melee weapons and you have no answer to specials or gunner spam.
You might be right, I’m just throwing things out there.
If I had to pick one areas to tune up, it’d be its mobility stats. Speed up the equip time just a fraction and improve bracing speed and recovery time from a braced shot.
After some experimenting, I’ve softened a little on this. I’ve figured out a build which makes it perform passably at hi-stg t5. The short range isn’t the end of the world, but I definitely have to play with it in mind.
Raw performance doesn’t mean anything if it feels terrible to use. They’ve managed to make it fun to use despite its otherwise limited performance. I think that’s worth calling out.
Power wise, you can crank out some pretty crazy numbers if you build right. Like, you can oneshot everything in the meatgrinder except for crushers and bulwarks (and I think I’ll figure out bulwarks soon) with the right setup. I feel like the issue is that actually achieving those numbers in real missions is unreliable. That’s a problem because this is obviously a weapon thst’s hugely affected by breakpoints.
In terms of mobility it’s got pretty decent sprinting stats but for some reason the dodge distance is absolutely terrible. Reloading this weapon while there’s a trapper nearby is an unreasonably risky gamble that most other ranged weapons don’t suffer as badly from. Weird design decision, I wish it wasn’t like that.
I just realized one thing. The new spawn spots make some maps so toxic. Gunners are so spread out, they keep coming from all directions. Man this gonna be tough for the new shotgun but I hope it has its use where it can really shines.
I was hoping for something bridging the strengths of the current buckshot strengths and balancing it with reload time. Like having high damage, strong finesse damage and long range. Oh what could have been.
In game terms its just another beatstick into high hitmass situations. This is also why I’m annoyed I have to somehow find the best blessing for this situation again (man stopper is T2 only). Outside of this its pretty useless, but it can be literally more busted than Kickback in the vacuum of shooting it into a doorway a crowd of assorted enemies is passing through.
What really hurts it on Zealot for me is how thy wrath be swift yet again punishes you for wanting to use a shotgun, and not exaggerate the weakness you have to shooters any more than that.
Oh, one other thing: The bash sucks hard. Yet another weapon special that’s worse than just switching to your melee. Why does it even have a charged mode? When is that ever going to be the preferred option?
Before I tried it, I thought the special attack was double-shot. So I was like . . ok? . . .
This game would be so much better if they actually take time and use more creativity to come up with better special attacks for all weapons that are actually fun, or cover their weaknesses somehow, or something meaningful. I’m not saying to cover their weaknesses for free. It has to be a trade-off. It could be long CDR, self toughness damage, or other resources idc. But special attacks should be more meaningful. Right now only the latest shovels and few other weapons nailed it. They rest are like whatever. They just put it there so that the game has special attacks.
For example, a combat knife special attack could be:
Stabbing down, and only hits if you drop from above. But when it hits, it deals 300% heavy attack dmg. Just an idea. I don’t know. I want something fun and special.
A random heavy weapon special attack could be:
Smash the ground with it and enemies in 6m radius get -20% move speed. (45 sec cooldown). Just an idea.
The charged special can knock down Rager so it can be useful sometime but you would have to be a suicidal to trying to do that in the middle of Ragers pack.
Honestly they should make it something cool like a kick like I suggested in other thread. We already have ton of weapon with buttstock bash.
It’s pretty dangerous to use even if there’s only a couple of regular enemies around. It leaves you so exposed - and for no real benefit. If you’ve got ammo in the gun, you just shoot whatever it is, and if you don’t, you switch to melee.
Even a sweep like the ogryn’s kickback or rumbler would be better.
Oh, and another thing: The snapping around when you fire needs to seriously get the **** out. Seriously flow-ruining. It doesn’t even feel like recoil because it’s just an instant skip. It just feels like something in the code is broken.
Yeah i hate this the most about the weapon. It makes it really hard to just quick switch → boom → switch back without your crosshair suddenly pointing to your feet or the moon.
Anyways my current feelings about this weapon is that it needs something somewhere to make it slightly more potent.
Range is one option because the range to even 1 shot trappers is comically short or it could do with bit more close range damage or even penetration to really bust those heavier targets. Double barrel should really kill most things at close range if its going to stay like this.
I also despise that this gun does not share the shotgun family blessings. Having to farm tier2 blessings is a blody joke.
Mobility would be my first choice. Be more generous with dodge and/or cut back on the movement speed penalties while reloading. IMO, the vulnerability while reloading is its single biggest drawback. That’s fine, if a double-blast (with standard sorts of damage buffs) would kill pretty much everything short of a crusher, but it often doesn’t.
The gun actually goes really hard on vet with the right build, but I haven’t yet been able to make it work on Zealot because Zealot doesn’t have the tools to overcome these massive gaping weaknesses.
Another thing is that I’m not even sure that reload speed buffs are working on this gun. It feels super slow to reload whether I stack them or not.
New shotgun makes me realise that Vet’s longshot talent could actually be pretty cool if it instead increased the effective distance of weapons. I guess considering some guns have reverse dropoff it would be difficult to make work well across weapons but having a way to expand effective range would be nice.
Decreasing the spread with deadshot and exe doesn’t even help much here since the damage drops off so quickly past 8 metres regardless. I guess this is the weapon for those “close range” blessings since you gotta be in that range for it to work properly anyway.
