Recommendations for "Bulldog"-Build?

[bortas]

I'm currently playing the campaign in nightmare mode and am getting along quite well with my Gunslinger/Hunter build. I'm quite disappointed with my AS-10 Bulldog Shotgun, though.

I totally love the look and feel of this gun and REALLY want to use it, but I just can't make it work. In tight spots the AR-47 is almost always better so I keep switching back to that.

The main issues are the AS-10's low ammo capacity, slow reload time and huge spread. To work around this, I'm using the extender mutator instead of momentum, the spread relic fragment instead of crit damage and the point focus ring instead of probability cord.

These adjustments mitigate the AS-10's shortcomings quite well but at the expense of so much raw damage output, that it can no longer compete with the AR-47 damage-wise.

Any suggestions, how to make this thing work better?

[adobo]

Use Challenger instead of Hunter as 2nd. You get that Challenger damage bonuses at basically the ideal range of a shotgun. Gunslinger should solve most of the issues with ammo and reload.

Take either Handling trait or point focus ring or both. It would greatly shrink the spread so that all the bullets would hit.

[Petrichor_J]

Originally posted by bortas:

I'm currently playing the campaign in nightmare mode and am getting along quite well with my Gunslinger/Hunter build. I'm quite disappointed with my AS-10 Bulldog Shotgun, though.

I totally love the look and feel of this gun and REALLY want to use it, but I just can't make it work. In tight spots the AR-47 is almost always better so I keep switching back to that.

The main issues are the AS-10's low ammo capacity, slow reload time and huge spread. To work around this, I'm using the extender mutator instead of momentum, the spread relic fragment instead of crit damage and the point focus ring instead of probability cord.

These adjustments mitigate the AS-10's shortcomings quite well but at the expense of so much raw damage output, that it can no longer compete with the AR-47 damage-wise.

Any suggestions, how to make this thing work better?

I recommend trying the bandit mutator over the extender, simply because bandit seems to synergize very well with any shotgun or pellet spread weapon. Don't know for sure if it counts each pellet as an individual 30% chance to not spend ammo, but sometimes it feels like it, and that's fantastic.

If you find your damage is somewhat lacking, I recommend you try running hotshot as that's what I used on my own shotgun. Specifically, hotshot for the main long gun as the shotguns already have pretty high base damage to get good benefit from that 15% increase with added fire, but also running Song of Eafir on the sidearm so that if you're ever in a pinch you can immediately stun and slow everything around you while reducing their outgoing damage and killing off most flying pests. These two mods work wonders for shotguns because of how effective they are at both controlling the flow of combat but also giving you an added boost when you need to burst an elite into the pavement.

Skewer is a good mod too if you're concerned about range, but Song of Eafir was always too effective for me to pass up given it allows you ample time to walk right into barrel stuffing range and suffer no falloff when you mag dump whatever's in your path.

My build for apocalypse and nightmare was fairly reliant on shields from stamina consumption, lifesteal, and the shielded heart. There's a ring that gives you a percentage of shield up to 50% of your health for expending 25 stamina, which is essentially proc'd by dodging, melee attacking, or even just running for a couple seconds. Very useful. Combining that with a ring that regenerates 3% of your health per second while shields are active and you'll have greatly improved survivability. And the amulet that gives 20% damage across the board with 1.5% lifesteal from active shields also greatly improved performance.

Overall the main points I can say are to try using lifesteal and capitalizing on the high damage values that shotguns have. Bandit will help to mitigate frequent reloading, and you'll still have space to run either a reload speed ring like wind hollow circlet, or go for even more damage with something like zania's malice. A few points into handling, like 3 specifically, will also help to reduce the spread in addition to the relic fragment and point focus ring.

Above all else, keep trying and you'll get it down eventually.

[adobo]

Honestly, the only way the AR would out-DPS the bulldog is if you're trying to snipe with it.

[Velmoria]

Bandit mutator activates based on how many instances of damage.
With Bulldog shotgun, if you hit a big weakpoint and deal one big damage, it stilll gonna be 30% chance to proc each shot.
But if you shoot at Dran or humanoid enemy and deal several numbers(let's say 5 of them) of 50~80 damages in single shot, then Bandit mutator will have chance proc multiple times (5 tries of 30% chance).

[onasha]

I used the bulldog through the whole game into Apoc, bandit mutator goes a long way to helping with your clip size along with gunslinger for better ammo reserves and for fun rampage on the Challenger was a pretty nice dps boost when you know your damage windows and proc it. Also the handling trait goes a long way to improving the weapon with out the ring slot investment.