So, how many patches are we going to have to go through before shotguns get some buffs ?
I don’t think I need to go over it again. I mean, they’re definitely THE weapon category with the worst ammo economy in the game.
And you’d expect them to have decent mobility, cleave and crowd control at baseline, but without blessings they’re complete garbo… For how long I spend reloading the damn things, I think shotguns deserve to have a little more ‘Oomph’.
i wouldn’t expect a shotgun to have any cleave, i’d expect it to have good stagger and damage against unarmored and infested (and maybe maniac) while having terrible cleave and penetration
They could fix the short range definition bug and that would help a little bit.
I mean I think they’ve had several buffs now? Their ammo economy is much better than it used to be, it’s just been offset by the survivalist nerf.
Honestly I think they’re fine mostly. I’m still not convinced literally any of the special shots are worth the time to load them but I love Kantrael shotty for reliably 2 body shotting everything I want it to. Manstopper is an actually insane blessing that’s fun to play around with. No respite makes shotguns do serious work to maulers, reapers, and bulwarks. They’re fun with decent, actual build options depending on what you want them to do.
Last I tried it I felt like flechette needs like 1-2 extra bleed stacks to be worth using but I wasn’t working with an optimal one by any means.
@Elodie this seems like a thread that requires you to set a few things straight.
@MarxistDictator pretty sure I saw you typing there. I seem to remember you’ve developed some fondness for the shotguns too.
Maybe they’ll get some reworks when the double barrel is here. Remembering Fat Shark didn’t give chain weapons any notable buffs until they added more chain weapons.
Lawbringer is a bit of a sore spot for me, kinda disappointing outside of Heresy and definitely feeling the ammo situation. Has neither the powerful hipfire or the beneficial headshot damage, outside criticals. Kantrael and Agrippina are totally goated, for being outside the mold. Agrippina is like 2 guns but balanced by the slow load time and not being useful without a headshot on primary fire. Kantrael absolutely destroys with hipfire which feels really weird considering the others do not but actually rewards you for being close and spreading damage. It can also make better use of the blessing pool through Zealot, using the actual eh build like no respite/full bore to kill crushers and bulwarks in 2 shots, and really benefits from doing it with flak damage (it ruins all scab enemies).
But yeah I’ve noticed that if I were to compare shotguns to most weapons in the game, I would prefer the shotguns. The majority of weapons available to humans between this point are either obvious powerhouse weapons I don’t need to talk about (revolver, columnus, plasma), can’t aim or are part of the menagerie of ‘weakspot’ oriented ADS weapons with cratered damage on maniac and unyielding in addition to a carapace weakness. And suppression penalty. And no stagger effect on anything larger than a shooter. Etc etc. I guess what I’m trying to say is that shotguns are pretty useful, just limited by ammo. Except Lawbringer which is very under par of what a decent gun should be and hurt badly by the ammo nerf since it needed to 2 shot like every time.
Special shots on each could at the very least get some tune ups. I’m still not particularly sold that the ammo per dps is really there but i still can make kantrael work with some scattershot/flechette or no respite setups but i really don’t see the point for the fire dot anymore without the infinite cleave bug. Don’t get me wrong it really needed fixing but shows just how lacking the damage is in comparison to just normally pulling the trigger.
Lawbringer feels just straight downgrade, i can make it “work” but its hard to not say i could do better with almost any other weapon in the game.
Agri is something i probably need goated rolled one to really “get it”, but i’ve already spent enough dockets to not bother until they rework itemization.
I can see Elodie typing …
Here comes Manstopper and Scattershot on an Agripiina build…
(*edit PS which I’ve tried, and I can’t get on with. Feel it leaves you too open when the big guys arrive).
Omg…
Thanks for thinking about me regarding shotties, but I think I’ll try to keep it brief for once.
(Edit: I tried… and failed x.x)
If you check my message history I’m sure you’ll quickly find my shotty rants. I say rants because they’re usually long and I really am sorry for that, but there’s a lot to be said since most ppl don’t know a fraction of this stuff.
Sufficed to say, all 3 shotties are some of the best weapons in the game. But they are advanced weapons, you can’t just jump into it and expect things to work. At the very minimum you need to 1) use all 3 firing modes, 2) the right blessings, and 3) the right builds depending on the shotty.
I can guarantee having mained shotties for idk 6 months now - and having played exclusively T5+ since release - that used right they are nothing short of monstrously powerful, even OP. As I’ve said before, shotties are in this weird place where the community thinks they’re bad/mid and their ‘meta’ reflects it, but if ppl actually used them right they would get nerfed yesterday - and deserve it too.
To summarize: Shotguns are NOT a weapon you just jump into and that’s that. They are very advanced and take getting used to. You really do need all 3 firing modes, placing each where they have the biggest impact. The Scatter & MS relationship means that simply stacking Scatter and placing your shots right is the difference between hitting 1-2 mobs for mid dmg, or 5-100 mobs for +2-3x dmg each, per shot. And there are countless tricks to how to play around them. Zelly stealth gives 2 autocrits with +100% finesse bonus, letting you delete anything on demand and leaving your Scatter stacked. With their base crit, perk, and Blazing Piety & Scatter your crit rate is 95%. Vets have a whole ton of talents letting you easily get 100%+ crit rate even with Scatter less than maxed. Deadshot which on ADS lets you push the crits & use that shotty ADS finesse boost both, while recovering stamina on hip shots & reloading, is like it was built for shotties.
So finally, to address your points: Shotties can’t be buffed, without breaking them completely - for those who use them well. They have at minimum good, at best ridiculously high ammo economy - if used right. Their cleave is literally the best in the game, with the highest consistency - if used right. Even plasma with its innate cleave can’t clear a cone, and a finesse vet with Agri can do what plasma does except faster, for more dmg, with far better ammo economy, all without worrying about heat & ultra long reload times. Even that variable reload much like the guns themselves is a strength, if used right. Shotties have a massive clip size for something so crazy powerful, and the only price for that is getting used to the habit of loading in 1-3 shells between every few shots, while dodging / sliding around, and tapping into specials for max impact & economy where required. It’s a combination of ultra fast reloads when things are going well, while like bolters having the capacity to magdump pure destruction on demand if needed… except even a brief moment will let the shotty fire a few rounds again after that magdump.
Edit:
A tip for anyone who wants to learn shotties and find something ridiculously fun and powerful the easiest way possible. → Get a Kantrael with Man-Stopper & Scattershot, perked for crit/maniac/flak.
On a zelly get Blazing Piety, on a vet at least Deadshot (preferably Volley Adept or Tactical Reload and Precision Strikes too). That’s all. Ignore everything else. Ignore the special, ignore worrying about Scatter, literally all you need to do is spam that thing hip or ADS whatever into every crowd that isn’t an ogryn. That’s enough for you to see how crazy it is.
As you keep playing from there, you’ll slowly develop a feel for the rest. Like a few special rounds into that hallway to soften & burn everything in there for only 2 ammo, or to stagger some specialist+ for an easy finisher, using ADS to focus down some tight group of gunners or ragers in particular, etc. Then you’re ready to step on to the other shotties, and really building into them. 
And you can get the new model Lawbringer where the cone of fire is super tight:
(Not really 
). This was a visual bug that happened once on my lawbringer. The alt-ammo “wide” reticle was a similar size!
Yeah I went overboard again. 
But with Agri I really get it, I do. It’s hard as heck to use, and while I can make it there (barely) I have to get about every single talent up to Marksman’s Focus - which I hate. I’m sure I’ve said this before but because Agri is all about that crazy finesse dmg & tight spread, it depends entirely on your aim for weakspots & crits & a ton of talents buffing either. With my absolute mid aim just having an off-day and not hitting those heads makes me just suck with it. But I know most ppl have better aim than me, so I assumed others wouldn’t struggle as much.
There’s just so much about this whole topic to say and despite my disturbingly verbose walls of text I really, really am trying to condense it as much as I can. My neurodivergence really doesn’t help. 
Anyway… you should give Kantrael / Lawbringer a try! A lot easier to make use of than Agri.
I have an “Elodie™” Lawbringer build actually. That screenshot above was using it (on a zealot).
I get the horde clear bit with it. But when something heavier came along I was running with a knife, which was a “bad choice” as a partnering weapon. And ofc on maps with a lot of heavies I feel the shotgun starts to feel a bit limited. Personal opinion!
Your expectations are ignored by the man stopper blessing.
Sounds to me like you’re admitting the weapons are far from OP. In fact you go out of your way to explain how they need super specific blessings and builds to function at all.
That’s the opposite of the shotguns themselves being OP. Literally.
Isn’t Dance of Death active? It works with shotgun hipfire much to my chagrin - it often works counter to Kantrael-ing.
I main the mk9 combat shotgun for endgame difficulties and love it. If you want to get it buffed and make me even more unstoppable be my guest
omg. Live and learn.
I slotted the shotty on a copied “Nish” build for that test and had no idea that dance of death changes the reticle. I’d never used the skill before (or since, as it happens!). Thanks btw. Sad that my default go-to was “ah, it’s likely a bug” !
DoD is is poison for shotty on that build, I even commented about how counterproductive it feels.
I don’t think shotgun should have more default cleave, maybe on unarmoured/infested targets, and that should not go past 2 small targets hit. If you want cleave build around Man-Stopper. Values are silly there. Shotguns in general seem to benefit a lot from crits.
What shotguns probably should have revised is damage consistency (with arm shots and such issues), damage vs mag size vs reload speed ratios. The main thing holding them back is reload speed and ammo economy.
This doesn’t mean you cannot do well with them atm, they just feel a bit unpredictable with damage, and their size of “magazine” plus reload time don’t help with that impression. I wonder if some tweaking to the minimum pellet count value could fix some of those issues. The same applies to Ripper Mk II and VI really.
I know.
I remember asking you, and appreciating you testing. But I also gave it a go. And was equally reassured that it’s a bad combo !
On a separate note; I also had some minor success with the Brauto on it; but you really do have to get up close to trigger those blessings!
Thanks for all the info (I did read all of it!)
It’s funny you should mention MS+Scattershot, because I posted this after a few days of trying that build out with the Agri on Vet, after seeing on Youtube that telopots was using it too.
While I certainly did well with it on T5, I guess my complaints are that it is indeed difficult to use (with the Agri, mostly), and that it requires very specific blessings and specific talents to function at all (the +20% ammo especially, in order to not run dry).
Although, their low mobility, especially while reloading, seems undeserved, and is a sore point for me when I’m used to revolvers or the Columnus. I go through levels so slowly and methodically, Darktide feels like a completely different game…
