Yeah I’ve been messing with it with Vet, so curious what builds people have settled on. No real appeal for me to use it on anyone else.
Weapon specialist I’ve heard before but I’d be looking to double shot it most of the time, and the whole melee kill switch switch melee kill switch to get both bullets back seems less desirable than just reloading it with some reload speed bonuses.
Actually wondering if middle path and keystone might be the play for some in built rending and reliable single target damage improvement.
Very survivable thanks to the toughness talents, VoC, Terrifying Barrage (which is actually good now), and huge CC and trash clear with the maul.
Good ammo economy with Survivalist, which generates 1 shell each time it procs.
Constant, flowy, active playstyle thanks to reload perk on Weapons specialist.
Very high damage, thanks to high availability of the shotgun + huge crit rate. I average 40% crit rate without going out of my way for it.
I’m not going to claim it’s a meta build, but it tops charts in T5++ regularly in both kills/damage and damage taken.
As for double shotting, it’s highly situational. Most of the time a single shot will do the job, which makes using WS to reload just one shell a lot more attractive. I personally think the reload time is pretty atrocious even if you stack a reasonable level of reload buffs (ie, not so much that it massively impacts the killing power). It’s the main reason I think it’s ass on classes other than vet.
After playing around in meat grinder single shots don’t seem to kill squat even point blank. Certainly not a rager and from memory even a shotgunner was a struggle.
This one of those need perfect stats and perks situations? From playing around in meat grinder it really feels like single shots are a complete waste of time unless you want to chaff clear with them.
There’s two components that are important if oneshotting all the time is the goal:
Critting - That’s why so much of the build is geared for high crit chance. I really had to get into a rhythm that managed my WS stacks to make this build shine.
Range - This shotgun is best thought of as a melee weapon. You truly need to be in melee range for it to shine.
You’re right that it won’t oneshot full-health carapace/flak with a single shot. Ragers (the ones with no armor, I forget which they are) will definitely go down with a single-barrel crit through, and shotgunners should pretty much always go down to a single shot if you aim for the neck and they’re at the optimal range.
The thing is that oneshotting all the time isn’t actually that important to the playstyle. By maneuvreing such that enemies are in a line and shooting through all of them (that’s why I run man-stopper), this gun/build will take out a whole bunch of things all at once, severely soften up and knock down what it doesn’t kill outright, and suppress nearby enemies that it doesn’t hit.
While they’re suppressed you’ve got a moment to switch to melee, get a trash kill or two, then shoot the next shotgun blast into whatever group of nearby enemies were unlucky enough to line up. Rinse and repeat.
