Any way to make the Combat Shotgun good?

[Schimpanzini Bananini]

Not USABLE, actually GOOD.

In all my testing, all three marks of the combat shotty across all three humans always feels mediocre. In addition to being less versatile than the automatics, its damage output always feels really mid, especially when options like the double barrel and fanning revolver exist. Couple that with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ reload time and it's a struggle to get these things to feel good.

Is there a talent build / blessing pattern that makes these things Auric Damnation viable?

[J.P.]

I much prefer the double barrel to any of them - good luck!

the reloading and ammo economy on them suck bad - if you're zealot maybe check out Emperor's bullet down to Sainted Gunslinger and stack up some fast reloads

and depending on which shotgun, scattershot & manstopper

[Ravs]

They need to buff damage from normal shots because they're inconsistent, and allow slotting more than one special ammo at once, so you can load all 6 special rounds if you want. Helldivers recently added a new shotgun that has two separate clips for stun ammo and combat ammo, and you can switch between them without unloading the other one. I wish Darktide had something like that too for shotguns.

They also need to add reload blessings to combat shotguns, because for every class there're better talents in the skill trees to bother going for reload speed talents.

I use sniper shotgun on Thunder Hammer Zealot to kill Bulwarks consistently even when they face me with a shield. Special shot so they remove the shield -> switch to TH and kill them with a charged attack.

And I use Kantrael built into fire ammo spam on Zealot, though I agree it's underwhelming. It's like a much weaker Rumbler/Kickback situation or weaker Flamer. For me it's a gameplay variety weapon for the most part.

[sumdumbum]

I cant stand the double barrel. I think its the agripina that shoots a slug as its special fire. Combine that with the full bore blessing (+30% dmg if all pellets hit the same target). Thats prolly your best bet. However servicable, shotguns are not as good as some of the other choices. Fun though.

[Schimpanzini Bananini]

Originally posted by sumdumbum:

I cant stand the double barrel. I think its the agripina that shoots a slug as its special fire. Combine that with the full bore blessing (+30% dmg if all pellets hit the same target). Thats prolly your best bet. However servicable, shotguns are not as good as some of the other choices. Fun though.

>having to reload the special ammo every time to use it.

[xor511]

Whatever it is you think you want to do with the shotgun, you should either do it with the braced autogun or the bolt pistol.

[Urist Microcline]

No, they're just bad unfortunately. I think the shotguns would be a lot better if they removed normal ammo then made all shotguns always shoot their special ammo. Replace their special with like a high stagger bash or something.

[JuX]

Id say it's only usable when you are going for critical hits. So you want to be using it with zealot.

When you have man-stopper blessing your shots cleave on critical to hit additional targets and when you combine that with scattershot you get max 60% more crit chance on your next shot if you can hit 5 targets with that one shot.

And you get additional 25% critical from piety.

You could theoretically get more critical chance from bleeding enemies up to a 100%, thou those stacks last for 3 seconds and not sure if scattershot stacks remain when weapon swapping.

There is also the option of Shroudfield to do one massive damage shot every now and then.

[Mini]

I really don’t think so. The Double Barrel Shotgun is fine, but for some reason the old pump shotties are mega weak.

[Slurs! In the Discord]

I think having to reload the special ammo every shot kills it for me. Have it cost double ammo instead or something.

[PhellAsleep]

Originally posted by Mini:

I really don’t think so. The Double Barrel Shotgun is fine, but for some reason the old pump shotties are mega weak.

Did they do something to nerf them? I noticed after recently coming back that they do feel much weaker than before.

[unless specifically stated]

Originally posted by PhellAsleep:

Originally posted by Mini:

I really don’t think so. The Double Barrel Shotgun is fine, but for some reason the old pump shotties are mega weak.

Did they do something to nerf them? I noticed after recently coming back that they do feel much weaker than before.

They buffed some enemies (Ragers, etc) and increased amount of armoured enemies, which shotguns are weak against.

[Caldari Ghost]

Have you tried aiming?

[Fresh Yuuka]

I like the gun noises, but its a bit inconsistent the lower you go on the normal shotgun's marks. sometimes you take down something in one shot sometimes you take like five to kill the same guy

[Urinietszche]

I enjoyed this one

https://youtu.be/a6z9m38S7nw?si=qdiSbor0N3HEhYBR

[Arani]

Originally posted by PhellAsleep:

Originally posted by Mini:

I really don’t think so. The Double Barrel Shotgun is fine, but for some reason the old pump shotties are mega weak.

Did they do something to nerf them? I noticed after recently coming back that they do feel much weaker than before.

Pretty sure they did yes. They're still plenty strong with the right builds but not OP as before. Used to be a Kantael with Man-Stopper & Scattershot would just tear right through everything, now it still does a ton of dmg but no longer just up and deletes cones like before.

Originally posted by RETVRN TO PETORIA:

Not USABLE, actually GOOD.
...
Is there a talent build / blessing pattern that makes these things Auric Damnation viable?

It's not just talents & builds, it's about using them right too. But yes as someone said crits are typically the way to go.

Each shotty has a different finesse dmg bonus, best on Agri, worst on Kantrael (whatever their names are now). But they all do more finesse dmg in ADS. Then there's their specials too.

Either way shotties are prolly the most tricky guns to use right. Zellies can do a lot of big plays with the 2 autocrits they get from stealth, but other than that there's a lot of variable use to them. Like using specials to stack Scattershot, then put the crit somewhere it does the most dmg and re-stacks Scatter again. The Kantrael fire special is fantastic for both stacking Scatter and spreading that DoT but does almost no direct dmg, so you need to really know where to use it or it's just wasted. The Lawbringer special is otherwise weak, but has a perfectly horizontal pattern for cleaving headshots and comes with extra cleave too. Agri special is basically a mini-revolver without the armor piece of Hand-Cannon.

Because of all that and the way ADS shots have more finesse dmg but less spread, shotgun gameplay is extremely variable. So you're constantly changing between hip shots for speed & spread (and to stack Scatter), ADS for finesse, specials for whatever you wanna do with them, all while managing the reloads. They benefit a lot from +reload talents ofc, since that buffs the special speed too, and usually shine most in a crit build. Agri finesse dmg for example is so insanely high that if you get a Marksman's Focus vet and really push the finesse bonuses as high as you can get, those specials are going to do more dmg than plasma, except no delays or overheating and with way more ammo.

So all in all, they do have an extremely high skill-cap.