Seriously I need help understanding what do shotguns do that makes any sane person pick them? I’ve always been a shotgun guy in any game I play, but in darktide, it feels like shooting yourself in the leg when you pick a shotgun over any other option.
I feel like shotguns should shred hordes even if just a little bit, without the need to take “Man-Stopper” + “Scattershot” blessings, or at least they should deal high point-blank damage.
This is a genuine question, how do I make the most out of shotguns?
Kantrael with “Man-Stopper” + “Scattershot”
Only way to get a proper shotgun working…
But tbh, this should be the base.
Anyways, you have lot of better things to pick actually.
I expect a new shotgun for Arbites… not sure they will tweak the current shotguns. And if they stay like they are, they cannot compete with a revolver against a single target, cannot against a bolter for damages and are less interesting that a bolt pistol.
Don’t know why you would pick it unless you’re bored.
I think the attitude at the moment is we’re all expecting buffs to shotguns with the new class.
Currently, you’re pissing in the wind taking the combat shotgun. Slugs do the bare minimum for threat deletion and the fire shotguns base damage is numerically fine but not enough to justify the dozens of downsides you’re taking with it.
accatran is a high stagger/suppression powerhouse, gets really good value with no respite and it has incredible pellet damage at close range. On zealot, with the dance of death talent, it becomes accurate enough to snipe with. The high suppression means you can reliably push into gunners and fire a shot towards them when your dodge count starts to go into the negatives and you don’t have the stamina or skill or positioning to run perpendicular from them for reset.
Zarona on crit headshot with its wide sweep shot is really good horde damage, and has the best output from manstopper/flechette, making it a pretty good compliment to a weapon’s specialist build on vet, but wouldn’t take it on any other class. The suppression is mid, but the stagger is decent enough to stop anything from shooting at you, but its weak base damage and unimpressive finesse on normal shots make it unreliable for getting quick kills.
Agripinaa is the best shotgun for sniping, rivaling (and, in my opinion, far better than) helbore with its finesse breakpoints. In a marksman’s focus build in havoc 40 you can reliably oneshot everything with the slug except for carapace, which will require a crit headshot for a oneshot breakpoint. You’ll also be able to oneshot headshot most small elites with the normal shot. The largest effort is shooting into dreg ragers, unless you can reliably headshot them as they move they don’t take much damage from body shots. Fullbore and no respite on a marksman’s build with exe stance can magdump a full health beast of nurgle in its back on havoc 40 and leave it at little less than half hp, and if stagger sources it does similar damage to any other boss, but requires some coordination or, most reliably, krak grenades. You can also use manstopper and full bore/no respite, but I don’t find searching for good angles to multi-kill can outdps just shooting normal shots or slug shots.
double-barrel requires speed-load to get the most value out of it, or you end up spending a lot of the time it creates from its high stagger and reliable suppression reloading instead of pushing or dps. Weapon’s specialist on vet can ignore this and crit farm with manstopper, but I don’t find it particularly interesting as a playstyle. You have enough crit chance available with every class to take manstopper, so scattershot is mostly a wasted blessing spot.
Manstopper + Scattershot + Veteran’s Deadshot talent makes these things good at clearing hallways.
Aim down sights with 2 stacks of Scattershot or more to get an almost guaranteed crit.
The shotty with the best Finesse multiplier (the Agripinaa) has the best crit damage and sniping potential but also the tightest spread when not aiming. So you always need to try and line up as many targets as possible in a conga line. But when you get a crit headshot, everything in your crosshair gets annihilated.
The ammo economy, as always, is trash, and these babies need some specific-ass talents to make it work, whether you’re using them on Zealot or Vet (and probably at least 1 Stamina trinket, because Deadshot). So it’s a meme-build, essentially.
The Combat shotties also suffer from terrible mobility, even though they’re made to be switched to and from very often (weapon switching to them is extremely quick). It’s the final nail in the coffin for them, IMO.
They’re pretty cool conceptually but single shell reloads at the goddamn hobbyist bird shooter rate they reload at and the fact that you won’t kill most notable enemies in one hit without a slug headshot is a death sentence in the current meta. Even if they have around 25% more ammo and 15% ish more damage than launch, they are a pale reflection of that time when they still weren’t good. But there were so many less enemies to deal with back then you could reasonably deal with the reload.
I think one of the problems with shotguns are the enemies themselfs, an example is l4d/2, shotguns performs and feel so nice in those games but why, i think it’s because the zombies really feel like a threat sometimes, and when u shoot them feels rewarding and correct but in darktide poxwalwers and really any minion/thing that only use melee feel soo weak, and there is no need to waste ammo on them, and well yeah the damage that shotguns have (and really practically any weapon) on minions anemies is pretty low.
At their current state they are good on lower difficulties, at higher difficulties and hi intensity modifiers, it takes alot more focus and dedication to weapon & talents builds. I have to recommend going through Telopots YouTube Channel for guides and seeing his gameplay videos. He specs things to show how well they perform (and also shows where things don’t perform well) and Reginald
As an older guide I had kept that is still relevant due to how Combat Shotguns have had little changes in updates:
Kantrael Fire Shotgun
Blessings
Flechette
Scattershot or Manstopper
Zaronq (formerly the Lawbringer, the one with the wide-fanning special shot), Agrippina, and Hacker Ironhelm Double Barrel:
Scattershot
Manstopper
No Respite is OK to keep if to avoid bricking a high value rolled shotty (especially for Vet class) Note: that was advice before the itemization rework, before we were able to change blessings more freely
Zealot Talents (especially for Kantrael Fire Shotgun):
Blazing Piety
Righteous Warrior
Fury Rising
Agri on vet with all that extra crit and weakpoint damage is a nice niche anti-range / anti-special pick. You can make it work, but…many other weapons just do it better.
Flechette /scattershot/ man-stopper builds are also bit of a meme, on melee vet and zealot. Especially on K variant that makes short work on ragers.
Shotguns still remain a bit too inconsistent in their time to kill which on the top of their reload times just makes them a bit of a placeholder weapon type.
Aside from Ogryn’s shotguns the rest are hot garbage. My theory is that after VT2 they were a bit afraid about them being OP and hammered them down too much.
Sniper shotgun is good on all classes doesn’t excel but like shotguns should be, its very versatile.
CC shotgun needs a slightly buff in its effectiveness but it really deletes things in CQB
Flame shotgun deletes things in CQB and the fire is good but it uses a surprising amount of ammo to be useful. Like the CC shotgun.
Theyre backups, not really primary weapons. Like ranged is in DT unless youre 25% Ammo vet. So they fill in the gaps you’re melee/build cant or amplify it. Honestly, any Shotgun and an Eviscerator on a Zealot is good but people have the metaslave mindvirus lately. Also they require some aim which automatically means theyll be shadowbanned by the community and those who cant think much less aim for themselves will go along with it.
Case in point: Kantraels. Extremely effective weapons for what they do. Require aim and awareness. So considered bad.
The others are pretty standard at deleting anything in CQB but nothing to write home about.
The issue with shotguns like most of the game is that people cant use them properly.
