The combat shotguns feel weak and are clunky and uninteresting. I feel like having to unload an entire magazine of shells just to kill a few specialists and elites doesn’t feel punchy or satisfying considering you’re firing a huge 40k shotgun I think all 3 variants feel very similar, here are some changes I’d add to make them all feel different. Ie) changing firing patterns, the special ammo type and the effectiveness towards certain kinds of enemies
Base combat shotgun, fire way more projectiles 25x in a wide cone increased cleave and damage. Pump action (to feel like a true arbites shotgun) very effective against hordes, maniac and flak armor. Special ammo is explosive shot that staggers and wounds hordes.
Fire shotgun: Revert Current special ammo to primary fire. Decrease range and mag cap and increase rate of fire and special ammo will be an acidic shot that causes brittleness to armor. Have a burst damage version of the flamethrower that consistently put dot damage on hordes and unyielding enemies. Great support for team
Slug shotgun: Revert current special ammo to primary fire. Fast firing and accurate slug shotgun with high precision damage, special ammo is a lock on slug (present in the lore) that could be used like psykers assail to snipe elites out of thick groups of chaff
Basically use t4 full bore if you want the gun to do anything.
After using it for a while it’s a solid weapon but it’s way too dependent on one blessing. Needs a buff it’s pretty funny something like the recon las which was already a solid weapon got buffed but the shotguns have been full bore or bust for 2 years now
I wouldn’t rework the ammo tho
I think the loading system is fine as is a blessing like power cycler that has you load several special ammo might be a cool idea
Combat shotguns are the best balanced weapons in this game.
However, they are a lot weaker than a zarona, a PG, a void staff etc.
As Fatshark defined the new balance around zarona, they should buff them.
You have few ammos, and you often need 2 times the ammos of a revolver. I won’t talk about crushers that you can kill with a revolver but, except agri shotgun, you cannot with combat shotgun.
Even if they should not be as powerful as a revolver (revolver has 5 bullets, lawbringer 11, agri 13 and kantrael 9), they are too weak. The balance ammos / DPS has a problem on shtoguns. And worst, they are on the same area of the revolver for agri and lawbringer.
Strongly disagree
Kantrael is the spread shotgun. Its special is great against bulwark.
Agri is the sniper shotgun. Its special can kill a sniper at 65 meters (tested).
Lawbringer, is the middle one. Great to kill lesser enemies. Its special is an anti horde.
The combat shotgun is one family with big disparities between variants. Compare to lasgun / recon gun etc. No other weapon family has such differences.
Mate, you could’ve just hit the search button and typed in “shotgun”
My opinion: I don’t think shotguns are balanced. They’re too limited in terms of armour types you can engage with in basic mode, and the special shells take too long to activate … and are pretty lacklustre even when you do.
Add on to that the inconsistency in damage. Oft-times you shoot a (say scab) target, it sprawls on to the floor, then you have to fire again (and maybe again, as floored targets seem to have a weird hit box to me?). If you can’t one-shot scabs every time with centre-of-mass then it’s too unreliable for me! I’ll stick with a brauto or iag thanks. Or even the ironhelm; I love that on my zealot.
they are limited to weakspots… something really strange when you think that it fires pellets.
That’s the problem of weakspot hits that are often seen as body hits.
But yes, you have a limited ammo pool, and sometimes you need twice the number of bullet to achieve same result of zarona.
But, I stick with my appreciation… shotguns are really well balanced, and everything should have been balanced around them. But if Fatshark refuses to balance (and considering the number of players that returned to the game, I think they won’t, and that’s understandable), then they should or buff damages of shotguns or / and increase the ammos reserve for these guns.
Perso, I think both are needed. An increase of the ammos reserve is strongly needed. A buff to damage is also… but I would like that they are less weakspot weapons… so maybe a buff for base damages.
I agree about this, however, several weapons are a lot stronger and they will never get a nerf… and if we consider shotguns in comparison with revolver, revolver wins and by far.
And scattershot + man stopper is surely great, but a weapon should never have one mandatory blessing… and when it is 2 it is even worst.
By the way, what I say is not to increase weakspot damages, but only base damage. So a reduced gap between base damage and weakspot / critic damages.
I mean, the flamer is “great”. If we’re talking about hitting large packs of trash mobs. So’s a sword. Problem with this build (as I see it, I can see @elodie winding up there for a post… ) is that the difficult bit of DT is dealing with clumps of armour. I’ve not had much success with those two blessings on a shotgun dealing with that.
It’s not just about Scatter & MStopper tho. Since psykers got shotties and Warp Splitting, I’ve been doing a ton more builds with them on all classes.
Scatter & Flechette is fantastic for the spreads & specials if you can maintain your distance, especially for zellies to set up bleeds for Scourge. It also greatly compensates for Kantrael’s lack of range. For psykers, Warp Splitting compensates a lot for dropping Man-Stopper, and that extra cleave on Agri specials is instantly noticeable. Deathspitter & Fire Frenzy are great when you just want max dmg instead of cleave. Hit & Run’s lets non-psykers do the psyker Empathic Evasion thing and just ignore the 20 gunners as long as they keep killing something.
But I mean… OP thinks it takes a full mag to kill a few specialists, and feels the 3 variants are “very similar” when there isn’t a single weapon family in the game with as much differences between each variant. I doubt they even knew about Scatter & Man-Stopper, nvm their ADS finesse bonuses, or how finesse bonuses themselves work.
I just wish people asked when they struggle to understand something, or to make something work. Instead of doing the equivalent of reading the cover of a 500 page book, and then holding a symposium about all the ways the book sucks without ever even taking a glance inside.
It’s tiring, honestly. I apologize for my rudeness, really… still.
poor, good, acceptable, great.
With a kantrael, you stop everything, thanks to the stagger of the shotgun.
Scattershot (or deadshot) / man stopper is great and not just for horde.
Hit and run is great on any guns… until you pair with a player that use a PG and then you end on floor cause he wanted to help you and deleted enemies that could assure you to stay immune…
We agree… this is not that. You can one shot close to anything with a shotgun. But, only on weakspots…
And, I really think they are weaker than a revolver, or a PG or a void staff. Maybe I am wrong, but I often see psykers deleting everything with a void staff, I see veterans that can make a mission a walk simulator (actually it is with bolter or recon gun)… but I have never seen that happen with a shotgun. Maybe I was unlucky…
Very, very few people know how to use shotguns. I mean… I’m far from some master FPS gamer. I suck in PvP, and in DT most high precision headshot-only builds like Marksman’s Focus are beyond my skills. Yet I think I’ve only had 1-2 games with anyone who even approached the kind of efficiency I get with shotties. Most ppl just really don’t know how to use them is all. Again I’m not saying they’re better than everything else. But I am saying they’re crazy strong, provided you build into them right, and use them right.
As for the revolver, Agrishotty is the only thing that can be compared, the others are just too different.
Agrishotty has twice as much ammo and a way bigger mag
Agrishotty special is about exactly the equivalent of a revolver shot in WS / crit / critWS dmg
Revolver has slightly faster aim, way faster firing speed vs. Agri specials, and has Surgical & Hand-Cannon, and ofc the weapon itself is more mobile
The main differences between the two come down to armor. Revolver is way better at that. If I don’t need armor I’m going to pick Agrishotty almost every time, but if I do there’s no way I’m passing on that revolver.
Yeah I echo this. It’s definitely not a mutie killer but not every gun has to be, and to me that is definitely one of the specials I am most happy to relegate to my melee weapon.
I really think that Shotguns are not at same level of what I consider now as the standard weapon, so a zarona (yes the most obvious OP weapon has become the standard!).
But what you say is wrong. I don’t play psyker, but obviously @Elodie did… and I don’t read in her post that shotguns are bad with a psyker.
I play a lot zealot, and less often veteran (especially with last update that made me worried).
As a zealot, what I often use:
AIG Columnus… the famous. I would like to use other variants, but they are too bad and not as same level. AIG Columnus is clearly well balanced regarding the standard (zarona)
Brauto: Columnus again… better in my mind. (and graia on veteran to use onslaught)
Zarona: I must admit that I think it is too strong… so I try to avoid it. But when I need something to kill crushers (like cause I took a HS), this is my choice
What I rarely use:
Flamer: really bad if you get a team that cannot delete snipers (especially in a ventilation purge mission)
Bolt pistol: they did something good with last update, but still under a revolver and by far
Boltgun: yes it is good and even great with AiB. This doesn’t fit my gameplay (fast gameplays)
What I don’t use: autopistol and lasguns
And now, shotgun:
Agri: great sniping tool. This is the main use for me, as a zealot this is my “helbore”. The special can stagger a crusher/bulwark/reaper. It can kill a crusher also (but I would not rely on this to kill them, like I do with a zarona).
Lawbringer: if I want to kill lesser enemies with something enough precise
Kantrael: with special this is an anti bulwark (3 shots and you can forget the bulwark). Without, this is a gun that can stagger anything other than ogryns. Great for dreg raggers, and that’s my main use.
Advantage for shotguns: they are fast to swap to them, they are precise, they can one shot close to all specials with a weakspot hit, they have more than 5 bullets in the magazine, they reload shell by shell…
However, they are really less powerful than a revolver. And the ammunition reserve is, in my opinion, a big problem when we compare it to a revolver and the DPS that can deal this weapon.
Shotgun power doesn’t justify their reload time. Especially how inconsistent their kill time can be. I would imagine damage reduction when you hit arms and the general issues with randomness of pellet hits contribute to this. Ammo economy also kind of sucks. They work with certain builds for sure, but those are too talent / blessing dependant. I ran in the past few vet and zealot builds with all 3, but I don’t like spending all that time reloading, EVEN with reload speed talents.
There is so many better options, which often offer better range, dps, kill consistency and mobility.
This is, for me, one of its advantage. The fact you can reload just one shell is really something that saved me a lot of times.
Agree
Again agree
Totally agree…
That’s why i call for a balance… they need to be aligned with a zarona. Of course they have more ammos in the magazine, so they cannot be as powerful as is a revolver. But a little boost of base damage and ammos would be great.
you would be just able to reload your gun fully if you’re completely out of bullets and reload one by one if still got some in the mag, like revolver in helldivers 2 i believe ?
honestly gun doesn’t really matter on zealot since you’re (hopefully) using knives 99.9% of the time
…zarona needs to brought down because it’s quite overpowered
balancing weak weapons around the strongest contenders isn’t exactly what i would call smart
They’re fine, they just need sligthly more ammo (~20), since they already deal less damage than most meta weapons. They can also add the reload speed blessing to them.
Actually for me it was Achlys combat axe. But this weapon is not OP at all (i mean here it does not compete with the average weapons that players use). And you cannot “compete” with other weapons, and when you meet a team full of OP guns, you get in a boring and painful game (I use a toughness build, if you cannot kill something, you can get hurt really badly, and sometimes you can only kill what others have not seen).
So, yesterday I switched to a duelling sword just to see… well, easier to survive with it. Like it is also easier to play with a rashad or an antax.
I rarely use dagger on zealot, but at contrary, I often use it on veteran cause of the gameplay with it.
agree but face it… it won’t happen. So many months that it is like that… and worst, now several weapons are perfectly balanced toward it.
No need of a blessing to reload. You have two talents on veteran to reload faster, and one on the zealot (even if it is not the best for a shotgun).
You can already reload really fast on a veteran…
I’ll stick with a brauto or iag thanks. Or even the ironhelm; I love that on my zealot.
) is that the difficult bit of DT is dealing with clumps of armour. I’ve not had much success with those two blessings on a shotgun dealing with that.