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Shotguns Are So Bad.


(PSN)Cincinnati-93
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Ive found with the right build (and really this is true for any weapon) shotguns can destroy everything. You know what my favorite shotgun is? The tigris. Yes I just said that with a straight face. The build I have setup for my tigris makes it capable of clearing entire hallways of infested in one shot so its amazing on survival missions and still pretty great in infested defense missions. Its a weapon that rewards patience and precision. If you have both the tigris will be an amazing weapon for you. A lot of people complain about the reload but just like with my Soma when everything is dead you can take all the time in the world to reload

 

The strun and boar (havnt tried the others yet) are also ok but I think theres room for improvement. Ive always felt like shotguns could use some innate punch through. If two enemies are standing side by side chances are good several pellets will hit both. If ones right behind the other you only hit one which isnt all that great.

 

Another area shotguns could improve is increased pellet count. According to the wiki the boar has 8, the tigris 4, the strun 10, the drakgoon 10, the phage 6, the hek 7, and the sobek 4. This makes hell's chamber a must have mod and for 15 points (assuming no forma) thats a huge number of mods points for so little payback. Increasing the base pellet count 50-100% would give shotguns much more killing potential in close combat and make hell's chamber much more useful

 

 

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Haven't used a Boar so I don't know is it nice.

Hek is a hand cannon but you need to aim it right.

Sobek offers good DPS when modded correctly but the reload takes forever.

Strun is a newbie shotgun.

Tigris two shots everything with punch through and correct grouping.

 

Although they're all fine, you need to be so close to make it work.

DE should buff them to compensate the range.

For example, there could be an innate punch in a certain range, a higher reload speed for Sobek, or even different types of ammo as shotguns only mods.

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One of the biggest issues I have is the reload time for the weapons with such a small magazine capacity. If you're going up against a large number of units like in T4 keys, ODD, etc, you're not looking to reload every other second. It's just not worth it and is too dangerous, especially against ancients that drain your energy. If the shotguns did more spread damage to enemies behind them, and had better reload times, etc I would be happier.

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For example, there could be an innate punch in a certain range, a higher reload speed for Sobek, or even different types of ammo as shotguns only mods.

I had considered that myself, could be nice to have a stance style mod for shotguns that dictates what it shoots.

 

Done right that could give shotguns the buff that they need.

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I agree that we need more shotgun diversity in the game since only a few shotguns are actually worth the time and resources to build.

 

I primarily use the Boar Prime with accelerated blast, seeking force, and ammomutation mod build and it pretty much destroys everything below a 100m range even behind cover, plus my nova needs it for close quarters AMDs.

 

but the Boar Prime for me doens't feel like a shotgun at all, it feels more like a machine gun with a 24 clip round firing fragmentation bullets XD hell it even sounds like one.

 

I do hope DE puts a pump action shotgun with a reasonable clip size and a damage that matches the tigris.

 

Use the BoarPrime and put a potato in it. Its definitely one of the most useful "shotgun machinegun" in game right now.

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Expanding on my previous comment, here is what I can come up with in regards to shotgun aura/stance mods relating to shot type:

 

Slug:

Shotgun fires a single projectile with highly reduced falloff damage, said projectile has perfect/near perfect accuracy regardless of vicious spread. Gives an increased chance for puncture procs

 

Buckshot:

Shotgun fires spread of 8 Pellets base with slightly reduced falloff, includes slightly reduced spread.

 

Flechette:

Shotgun fires 4 bolts with a travel time. Bolts have no drop off and give an increased chance of a slash proc.

 

Birdshot:

Shotgun fires 16 pellets. Grants increased damage, but with increased falloff. Also gives increased chance of an Impact proc.

 

Airburst:

3 pellets. Rounds detonate a set distance away from target, or upon impact. Full damage is dealt to targets hit with the shot, with the AOE dealing reduced damage.

 

 

In each case the damage dealt would be split across the new pellet count. In each case the load mod would let your weapon target a certain role. Slugs would return the Hek to its sniping glory, while a Boar Prime with Birdshot would ABSOLUTELY demolish any enemy that got close.

 

And even if you wanted your weapon to stay exactly the same, adding in buckshot would give you reduced falloff and a few extra mod points.

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Shotguns work to a certain degree on lower lvl to high lvl when put in a load of formas. Snipers on the other hand, good on low lvl with a lot of formas, and does the job if you shoot the enemy around 2-3 times on high lvl enemies. 

 

 

Essentially, focus on the Sniper buff first. Shotguns are good to what they do best, close range combat.. If you land a pellet into the enemy with all the spread intact in the head or torso, he will probably die. 

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It's not that shotguns suck, it's that there aren't many shotguns, and of the few we have, two of them very solidly suck and only two are arguably competitive against other firearms.  

 

The Strun, Hek, they're garbage.  Straight up garbage.

 

The Tigris, needs buffed.

 

I have never handled the Boar, but the Boar Prime is a fine and fun gun.  I'm pretty sure it doesn't scale well for a Survival match, however.

 

The Drakgoon is really pretty great.

 

Phage is a solid stream weapon.

 

 

Interestingly, many of the sidearm shotguns are actually alright.  The Brakk is a certified &#!-kicker.  The Bronco and Akbronco are pretty good, for low rank sidearms.  The Bronco Prime, not so much, but the Akbronco Prime picks things back up and becomes really competitive with a Catalyst and some Forma - but that's a lot of effort to put a shine on it.  The Detron, I personally love the Detron.  I'm hoping for a Dex Detron some day.  The Pyrana shows a lot of promise - I'd even call it a front runner for future Prime treatment.

 

And even at their lowest points, none of the sidearm shotties are terrible.  Everything is better than the Strun and Hek.

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Remove shotgun fall off as a start.

 

And the fact is ONLY the Brakk has a shotgun fall off, rest of the secondary shotguns don't.

Presumably as balance.

 

And since there are no primary shotguns equal to the Brakk anyway, why do we need that fall off ?

Edited by fatpig84
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My opinions on the matter

 

To begin this is a topic I have been thinking about for awhile, I even had my question about it answered on the last devstream (yay) and it was confirmed that shotguns are getting a look at at some point soon. this topic is not about that. this topic is about why they need some love and what form that love can take. Skip to the last section/paragraph if this is TL:DR material, my suggestions sum my points up decently, but I'd like you to read the whole thing =3

 

Four score and seven years ago, way back in the days of U7 the shotguns ruled Warframe, with the Hek presiding over all. However those days are now gone, and shotguns are now the weakest type of weapon (going off of mod categories) and it is time for a few buffs.

(I will say here that the Phage is exempt from all arguments here, it isn't a shotgun even if it uses shotgun mods and ammo)

 

So what is wrong with them?

 

To start with Shotguns lack a proper niche. They neither work well at dealing massive damage per hit or at dealing DPS, and even with that taken into consideration they require users to take far more risks for this lower reward. 

I think the best way to make my point here is to give you guys an example.

 

250px-DETigris.png

This is the Tigris. 

It is a double barreled shotgun that is rather fun to use. In Scott's words, this thing should hit like a truck. Well now, let us see just how hard it hits.

 

YtJq2Ph.jpg

 

This is my Tigris, it has 6 forma in it. The mods pictured will give it the highest damage possible. Literally this is the strongest the Tigris can get. So let's see how much damage this thing does eh?

 

Well 200 base damage with a 240% boost from damage mods gives us 680 base physical damage

I get an additional +420% from my elemental mods taking the total per shot to 3536, not bad

Finally if I factor in an additional 120% from Hells Chamber this takes us to 7779.2 damage per shot.

 

Of course this isn't factoring in crits or procs, but right here I want to find the damage I can deal reliably here. So 7779.2 it is. This can be doubled to 15558.2 if you rapid fire it. Sounds strong.

 

 

Now have a look at my Paris Prime

Iq8o0eu.png

 

No forma, and my serration isn't even maxed, but let's see how much it hits for per shot, it can hardly be better than a 6 forma shotgun that hits like a truck

 

again 200 base damage, but with a +150% damage boost gives me 500 physical damage

and then +180% from elementals gives us 1400 base damage, wow the Tigris is crapping on it.

But now we need to factor in the paris Primes guaranteed crits. That is a 4.4x damage multiplier taking it to 6160

Finally with Split chamber giving an average +90% damage buff takes it to 11704 damage per shot. 1.5x that of a completely maxed out Tigris.

 

And here is the real kicker, the Paris Prime will work at any range, whereas with damage falloff and the Tigris's spread (not helped by VS) unless you are point blank you will most likely NOT be doing your full amount of damage. 

 

Take into consideration that this is the most powerful shotgun in the game by a fairly large margin. In terms of per shot damage ANY shotgun is sub par compared to a bow, even if you have the shotgun completely maxed out.

 

 

But why is this?

 

To start with look at shotgun damage mods. +90%, +90% with +Spread, and +60% with +60% fire. That is three slots for a total of 240% extra base damage, as opposed to rifles that get 330% for two slots and pistols that get 286% for two slots. Three mod slots for less damage (slow clap)

But what about the damage from blaze?

Well here is some math to show you what happens to a weapons damage with each mod added

sobbYBy.png

Green boxes are base damage mods, yellow are elemental damage. I combined the damage from mod 2 and 3 for shotguns to make the math a bit easier. The numbers in the damage row show how much damage a weapon with 100 base damage would deal with that number of mods

 

But as you can see there is a pretty big difference in how much damage your mods give you on shotguns. 

Put simply, shotgun mods are bad.

 

 

The next problem is the falloff. 

This was a legitimate fix back in the day to stop Hek sniping, but nowadays it feels kinda redundant. Vicious spread actually accomplishes the same goal. Either you run it and lose the ability to shotgun snipe, or you run it with Tainted shell and lose out on damage and DPS OR you drop Vicious Spread altogether and gimp yourself out of even more damage.

Basically the mod system has given us a means to reduce shotgun sniping without the need for damage falloff

 

 

The final two issues with shotguns I'll go over together

Status

Shotgun status chance is stupid. Either all pellets proc the same thing or none do. A per pellet chance, in the same manner shotgun crit is calculated would be a lot nicer and would make status mods actually worth it on shotguns. You wouldn't even have to buff the chance. just split it up per pellet.

Risk vs Reward

Shotguns are typically a close range type of weapon. Things like the Boar prime require you to almost be in the enemies face to hit them with everything. And even then a guy with a Soma can do the same thing faster from a safe distance, some sort of system to reward getting in close with a shotgun needs to be in the game in order to make them feel special.

 

 

 

What I would like to see done:

 

1) Falloff needs to go on true shotguns (the Brakk kinda needs it as a balance factor). Damage falloff adds little to the game when the presence of Vicious Spread acts as a regulator for sniping with these weapons.

 

2) Shotguns need to hit harder. Whether this is through buffs to either the weapons or the mods, or as I would prefer, a system that grants increased damage for the more pellets you hit an enemy with (say +5% for each additional pellet). Having the hardest hitting weapon in a category at its best outclassed by another weapon with a fairly average loadout should not happen.

 

3) Status per pellet. Even if they retained the same overall status chance this would be an improvement. It would actually give shotguns a pretty interesting niche, as well as making status a tad more real on them.

 

Link to topic https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/261331-shotguns-need-love-too/

Your post is very well written and summarizes my feelings exactly. 

 

What bugs me most about shotguns currently is the damage falloff.  There are already enough drawbacks on shotguns (high recoil, generally small clips and long reloads, smaller ammo capacity, etc) that the falloff is unnecessary.  Getting up close should be encouraged by pellet spread, not by a damage falloff mechanic.  I should be able to, say, unload with my sobek at somebody's head at medium range and gamble that enough pellets will hit that I can take the target down; instead, a bunch of 4s and 5s pop up and I question why I ever brought this thing over, well, pretty much any other weapon.  And really, what's the point in having such tight pellet spreads on most of the shotguns if they can't do appreciable damage at medium/long range?  I would rather have a wider pellet spread so it's easier to spray and pray at close range since it's irrelevant if the pellets are on target if they're inflicting negligible damage at long range.

 

If we keep damage falloff, then shotguns should also get bonus damage at close range (like x1.5 or maybe even more), because as Sixty5's post demonstrates, the their current damage is inadequate.

Edited by ArbitUHM
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The only shotgun worth it's time for me was Strun Wraith. It still is powerful to this day and it's a pity that people can't get it.

 

It excel over Boar Prime and burst damage is pretty high up close. But with the damage drop off for only shotguns things ain't so fun with them anymore.

 

The balance would naturally be that less pellets hit the same enemy.

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Shotgun mods need a boost.

 

Multishot for shotguns needs to go up to 180% or higher.

 

Point Blank should be 120%, vicious spread should be 150%

 

This would justify their falloff. There are a lot of weapons that need buffing. All aboard the buff train!

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Shotgun mods need a boost.

 

Multishot for shotguns needs to go up to 180% or higher.

 

Point Blank should be 120%, vicious spread should be 150%

 

This would justify their falloff. There are a lot of weapons that need buffing. All aboard the buff train!

Yes exactly. Even if range increased slightly.

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Corrosive/status build boar prime says hello.

 

So does my Radiation/status one! The thing loves tearing through T3/4 towers, so I don't see the complaints really.

 

Shotguns aren't really meant to be crit cannons since you can't get reliable, long-range headshots with them, like you can with snipers and semi-auto rifles. So that argument is out the window.

They're also meant for burst damage, rather than sustained damage. Their clip won't last nearly as long as a Boltor/Soma's, just like their range isn't meant for it. If you want sustained damage, Latron/Boltor Prime and Soma are what you want.

 

I really don't see how people are saying we don't have enough Slash shotties. Discounting the base Strun because of it being far below the other two, and the Strun Wraith because it's no longer available, we only have 2 Impact shotguns: the Boar Prime and the Sobek. There are 2 Slash shotguns as well. Now I can see the need for an alternative to the Hek in the Puncture.

 

As a matter of fact, with the currently available shotguns, it seems like they fall into 2 tiers of guns, realistically:

Tier 1: Boar Prime (Impact), Hek (Puncture), Tigris (Slash), Phage (Other)

Tier 2: Strun (Impact), Sobek (Impact), Drakgoon (Slash, because charge up on a shotgun)

 

These ratings may not coincide with your own views, but as far as pure damage per shot/crit/status, that's how they fall to me. All that shows is that we need another Puncture shotty for newer players, as the Hek seems like a far off goal for a new player who likes getting in close with their damage.

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