I obviously chose one with a desirable distribution. But you’re saying i need two power increase blessings to make it viable so i will try it.
The shotgun kills trappers in 2-3 shots depending on range. Ragers take more, i forget how many. But i mostly just hit them with hammer since i oneshot all maniacs with mine.
I maintain my position the key problem with shotgun is ammo. Add ammo and we can see its general performance on the scoreboard thereafter.
Ragers take way too many investments to one shot on damnation just by headshot(for heavy, +25% maniac won’t do it without ult, need another significant source of damage if not at lower hp, iirc two stacks; for light it’s 5 stacks of slaughterer and headtaker + 25% maniac). And the main problem is they’re not that much taller than the mobs so mobs can very easily block the special.
That’s why autopistol is so useful, it not only kill ragers quickly but it also swaps and staggers quickly. And you can kill a ton of ragers with one mag(not that it matters, it reloads quickly too).
We are talking about using the special attack with the hammer to oneshot them. If i need to clear chaff around ragers i have numerous options including special shell, normal swings, or chastise the wicked.
But the subject of conversation is not my ecclectic choice of weaponry nor my performance with it, nor the vaiability of the apparently literally broken autopistol + pinning fire combo. It is how to make the shotgun a viable weapon. Having used it extensively (more than 10 hours) i can say with confidence that the correct improvement is a buff to ammo reserves and ammo recovery. With an eye towards enhancing damage to specific enemy types after review.
But that’s highly relevant.
Because autopistol is in a decent place and ideally shotgun should be there too(hence it also needs better reload and better maniac damage; it should be very deadly to anything that isn’t armored except maybe unyielding). Basically how it performs against unarmored targets on Damnation should be similar to how it performs against them in Malice.
The new Agrip Shotgun’s slug feel nice, but the shotgun part itself still suck lol. For a weapon with low ammo pool and deliberate reload, needing 2 full torso shots to kill normal shooter in Damnation really blow it. That’s unless I have buff like Fullbore or Fire Frenzy(that just got nerfed) up or only go for headshot.
Also while I say slug feel nice, it’s kinda similiar to Hellbore’s charge shot with longer preparation time and a little bit better damage so if I’m going to spam just slug round I would go for Hellbore instead.
Well, the only higlight is it can knock Bulwark’s shield ofc ,which is nice if I can do proper punish. While Hellbore have to wait until he attack.
Kantrael Shotgun could actually one shot shooter in torso because of high damage but it have even lower ammo pool than other shotgun. Incendiary Shell is nice but I’m really not a fan of using gun to clear horde, especially on gun with low ammo pool.
It really need some damage buff or bigger ammo pool just for it to be competitive with Shredder Autopistol which is really powerful yet so easy to use even monkey can do well with it.
Also Fatshark for the love of god please fix hit registeration.
Incendiary shot currently has literally infinite cleave and pierces bulwark shields just FYI. Kantrael just generally seems to have really high suppression as well.
Ammo is definitely still a problem across all shotguns but both new shotties pretty nice IMO.
I haven’t had the chance to try out the Agripiina beyond shooting range targets. But i rolled up a slick Kantrael and i cannot work it out. Its lower ammo cap is awful but its special shell is incredible. What confuses me is the normal shots. They don’t seem to have clear value. High damage (but only mildly over the lawbringer), high pellet count, high spread, low range. Its basically worse than the lawbringer in every way except the fabulous special shell.
Its not really minor with enemy mods thrown in, which is where Kantrael really starts pulling ahead. It does almost double the Infested damage, so 2 shotting Poxburster is a thing. Sniper is a body shot kill. A little over 50% more maniac and unyielding damage as well (plus DoT for Unyielding type which is bonkers like usual). Really all shotguns suffer from this clearly leftover mechanic of weapon mods. Why not just make a gun out of these special ammo types if they can only be justified using for special ammo?
Could be cool if it and shotguns in general had more ammo though, the regular shot does have great break points.
The current ammo pool for Lawbringer would probably, maybe be perfect for the Kantreal shotgun. It puts out so much damage that it is close to being ammo efficient. Fire shot is great!
Seems like every shotgun can knock away bulwark block now, but everything except slug still only tickles crusher. The upside is the slug shotgun on zealot ult can preload a slug and then fullauto all during zealot ult for over 2k dps against crusher(first shot must be a headshot with slug, ofc), and it can hit one shot bodyshot breakpoints on gunners with +%flak. It’s probably not lore-friendly at all but at least one of the shotguns can beat boltgun on single shot damage against armor now.
And ammo/reload still suck. Would be nice if ammo stat had a scaling +% reloadspeed(up to 25% at 100 at least), or doubleload, and weapon special speed scales with reload speed.
My position on the Agripinaa, having tried it, is that its excellent for zealots looking for special snipes and wanting something reasonably flexible and quickdraw to deal with shooters at any range. Quite handy actually. Lawbringer gives you a little of everything in a usable package. Kantrael is more of a special shell weapon and I can’t find value in it as a zealot for the normal shots. Its not horrible but the ammo is too low for me to waste them when special shell is so good.
Shotguns just need more ammo.
Total ammo count wouldnt be such a big deal if pickups were not tied to it.
Right now the two new shotguns both are able to pull weight, but they are so ammo hungry that its rather hard to pull that weight for the full run.
I dont get why the Shotguns (and the Revolver) have to struggle that hard with ammunition. And reading through this thread, no one really does.