Striker = more shotgun ammo drop

[REhorror]

I notice someone say this in a Youtube comments and was able to confirm this in my playthrough.

The moment I get the Striker, boxes start dropping shotgun ammo like candies, some even drop 6 shells in one.

[ggAkatsukiP]

Yes apparently, the capacity of firearm has certain influence on rng drop. Only for handgun/shotgun/rifle. I also noticed the same thing on my first playthrough on release day where I go for Matilda, the game rng try to flood me with handgun ammo. Tons of defeated enemies keep dropping handgun ammo like no tomorrow. My Matilda the moment it has less than 20 shots, next few drops will fill it instantly over 60 shots.

Smg and magnum cannot exist in common rng drop pool, only ammo rng pool.

[Xengre]

Yes. The reason why someone found was that loaded ammo doesn't count against you and the Striker can hold up to a whooping 48 rounds. This means at max upgrade you would have to have more than 48 rounds to start getting boxes of ammo in your case for shotgun and only the ammo "boxes" count against you.

A similar effect will occur for SMG (up to 70 ammo for TMP, for instance), Matilda (up to 60 at max capacity), etc. Its also a good reason to prioritizing upgrading ammo capacity on a rifle after you max dmg as your next stat as you might get much more value out of it than merely shooting a bit faster (rarely excessive value) or out of reloading faster (often 2-3 points in reload is sufficient for most cases anyways, or with high enough capacity may not even be issue as you can just reload post combat).

[ggAkatsukiP]

First playthrough on new game Hardcore
Notice the Matilda
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2953916737

Second playthrough on new game Professional
Notice the Striker and CQBR
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2958007771

[Meowtistic]

its because the game only focuses on the 0 shells in your inventory and not the 48 loaded in your gun lol

[ggAkatsukiP]

Same reason why Skull Shaker is bad. It negatively impact the rng drop to never favor shotgun shells for you.

[REhorror]

LOL this makes the Striker the top freaking shotgun for people who love shooting shotguns.

[Dou B Jin]

Originally posted by Milo:

its because the game only focuses on the 0 shells in your inventory and not the 48 loaded in your gun lol

This was my take on it as well. The game seems to increase chance of ammo drop when you have less than one full stack of the ammo in question.

I was getting 8 rifle ammo from a single barrel with the starter rifle despite the gun itself has only 5 rounds in it.

Having more ammos in a gun just means less ammo is counted in your inventory. Other than that its still the same drop rate.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by REhorror:

LOL this makes the Striker the top freaking shotgun for people who love shooting shotguns.

Riot Shotgun is still more ideal. You have sufficient ammo if you play properly and it, itself, still has solid ammo capacity just not as exaggerated as Striker. Striker's dmg is too unfocused. Riot Gun is, in practice, going to do everything Striker mainly cares about better.

The exception is Striker could theoretically be used to speedrun faster by simply pelting and knocking back targets even if it does 0 dmg past a certain range as the knock back will often still occur. However, a counter argument is you only need to knock back targets actually near you... which the Riot Shotgun can do just fine. Thus, its hard to say the Striker is that good, especially with its highly questionable accuracy. That said, if you are competent with the BAR rifle, or even other rifles to an extent, you can treat the shotgun as merely a supplemental option so it doesn't have to be a perfect weapon and is just room for some flexibility / backup that is better than a basic pistol. Striker isn't bad though.

[REhorror]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Originally posted by REhorror:

LOL this makes the Striker the top freaking shotgun for people who love shooting shotguns.

Riot Shotgun is still more ideal. You have sufficient ammo if you play properly and it, itself, still has solid ammo capacity just not as exaggerated as Striker. Striker's dmg is too unfocused. Riot Gun is, in practice, going to do everything Striker mainly cares about better.

The exception is Striker could theoretically be used to speedrun faster by simply pelting and knocking back targets even if it does 0 dmg past a certain range as the knock back will often still occur. However, a counter argument is you only need to knock back targets actually near you... which the Riot Shotgun can do just fine. Thus, its hard to say the Striker is that good, especially with its highly questionable accuracy. That said, if you are competent with the BAR rifle, or even other rifles to an extent, you can treat the shotgun as merely a supplemental option so it doesn't have to be a perfect weapon and is just room for some flexibility / backup that is better than a basic pistol. Striker isn't bad though.

If you want point focus damage, use a rifle.

Riot shotgun has range but its crowd control ability sucks due to the tight spread. You also have to reload more when you can go town with the striker's ammo capacity.

[REhorror]

Don't understand why I got a Clown for that one, but thanks for the drop, Stranger, hehe.

[DecadeRX]

Originally posted by REhorror:

Don't understand why I got a Clown for that one, but thanks for the drop, Stranger, hehe.

It's because some people don't understand that videogame shotguns are melee weapons with some reach.

Or Burning Hands, if you're into pen and paper.

[Dou B Jin]

Originally posted by REhorror:

Originally posted by Xengre:

Riot Shotgun is still more ideal. You have sufficient ammo if you play properly and it, itself, still has solid ammo capacity just not as exaggerated as Striker. Striker's dmg is too unfocused. Riot Gun is, in practice, going to do everything Striker mainly cares about better.

The exception is Striker could theoretically be used to speedrun faster by simply pelting and knocking back targets even if it does 0 dmg past a certain range as the knock back will often still occur. However, a counter argument is you only need to knock back targets actually near you... which the Riot Shotgun can do just fine. Thus, its hard to say the Striker is that good, especially with its highly questionable accuracy. That said, if you are competent with the BAR rifle, or even other rifles to an extent, you can treat the shotgun as merely a supplemental option so it doesn't have to be a perfect weapon and is just room for some flexibility / backup that is better than a basic pistol. Striker isn't bad though.

If you want point focus damage, use a rifle.

Riot shotgun has range but its crowd control ability sucks due to the tight spread. You also have to reload more when you can go town with the striker's ammo capacity.

Have to slightly disagree with this as you rarely ever get into situation where you need a whopping 48 rounds in a single fight. Riot gun is pretty good at eliminating enemies in one shot even in mid-range and you rarely will be placed in a situation where you need to reload a full clip.

As for focus damage, Riotgun actually performs better in that you just have to point in the general direction of the enemy to kill them rather than having to aim at a weakspot. if a single round kills them either way it doesn't matter if its a rifle or shotgun.

As for crowd control well, each to their own. I don't think I ever got put in a situation where I need a strike to keep the enemy in place especially when you can parry and walk backward. Personally think Riotgun is better for general purpose.

[REhorror]

Originally posted by Jin:

Originally posted by REhorror:

If you want point focus damage, use a rifle.

Riot shotgun has range but its crowd control ability sucks due to the tight spread. You also have to reload more when you can go town with the striker's ammo capacity.

Have to slightly disagree with this as you rarely ever get into situation where you need a whopping 48 rounds in a single fight. Riot gun is pretty good at eliminating enemies in one shot even in mid-range and you rarely will be placed in a situation where you need to reload a full clip.

As for focus damage, Riotgun actually performs better in that you just have to point in the general direction of the enemy to kill them rather than having to aim at a weakspot. if a single round kills them either way it doesn't matter if its a rifle or shotgun.

As for crowd control well, each to their own. I don't think I ever got put in a situation where I need a strike to keep the enemy in place especially when you can parry and walk backward. Personally think Riotgun is better for general purpose.

Well:
1. 48 round with 0 in stock means more chance of shotgun shells drop as rng.
2. I do agree that riot gun has tighter spread and higher damage but again, it's not going to be more devastating than a shortburst of CQBR right in the weak spot.

[Dou B Jin]

Originally posted by REhorror:

Originally posted by Jin:

Have to slightly disagree with this as you rarely ever get into situation where you need a whopping 48 rounds in a single fight. Riot gun is pretty good at eliminating enemies in one shot even in mid-range and you rarely will be placed in a situation where you need to reload a full clip.

As for focus damage, Riotgun actually performs better in that you just have to point in the general direction of the enemy to kill them rather than having to aim at a weakspot. if a single round kills them either way it doesn't matter if its a rifle or shotgun.

As for crowd control well, each to their own. I don't think I ever got put in a situation where I need a strike to keep the enemy in place especially when you can parry and walk backward. Personally think Riotgun is better for general purpose.

Well:
1. 48 round with 0 in stock means more chance of shotgun shells drop as rng.
2. I do agree that riot gun has tighter spread and higher damage but again, it's not going to be more devastating than a shortburst of CQBR right in the weak spot.

I do think CQBR will do more damage but I also think sniper rifle are also very prone to missing especially if the enemy is running at you and having a pretty high recoil. You can just aim in the general direction and still deal consistent damage with a riot shotgun so I think its got the strength in that its easier to handle vs sniper which requires more precision aiming.

As for the RNG drop at least I think it's increased up to a certain limit as long as you meet below a certain ammo threshold. I noticed this when I was doing my HG only run on professional since I had 3 different upgraded handguns but the ammo drop stayed relatively consistent uptil the ammo in my inventory hit the 50 (one full stack) range.

But at the end of the day I don't think either weapon is bad. Its a difference in playstyle. I've always been a HG and shotgun person and I prefer to strafe back and down targets one by one.

Personally I think Striker got nerfed a bit in the remake. In the original version you geta full clip whenever you upgrade the weapon and shotgun drops in general were higher while having a laser sight also meant the got was pretty effective even farther away. You couldn't move and shoot so having a gun that stops everything in front of you including any throwing weapon was definitely more appealing in the original.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by REhorror:

Originally posted by Xengre:

Riot Shotgun is still more ideal. You have sufficient ammo if you play properly and it, itself, still has solid ammo capacity just not as exaggerated as Striker. Striker's dmg is too unfocused. Riot Gun is, in practice, going to do everything Striker mainly cares about better.

The exception is Striker could theoretically be used to speedrun faster by simply pelting and knocking back targets even if it does 0 dmg past a certain range as the knock back will often still occur. However, a counter argument is you only need to knock back targets actually near you... which the Riot Shotgun can do just fine. Thus, its hard to say the Striker is that good, especially with its highly questionable accuracy. That said, if you are competent with the BAR rifle, or even other rifles to an extent, you can treat the shotgun as merely a supplemental option so it doesn't have to be a perfect weapon and is just room for some flexibility / backup that is better than a basic pistol. Striker isn't bad though.

If you want point focus damage, use a rifle.

Riot shotgun has range but its crowd control ability sucks due to the tight spread. You also have to reload more when you can go town with the striker's ammo capacity.

So here is my reasoning:

The Bolt-Action Rifle is more appealing for ammo efficiency and single target dmg as well and has superb accuracy and close to long range capability.

However, if you are using a different gun (notably Stingray) then the Riot Gun can actually be stronger for pure dmg. Further, even if you are using BAR or Combat rifle if you are out of ammo and clutch need to shoot not reload, there are too many mobs in your immediate vicinity overly spread around you that you can't reasonably line up and penetrate with a rifle round, or you are simply low (or completely out, but it may not be ideal to just use your low ammo that you might need for a better moment later) on rifle ammo then a shotgun is a good alternative. You may want to fall back onto the Shotgun for damage and its certainly better than falling back onto the Pistol.

In the case of damage the Striker is simply bad. Its terrible single target dmg and even its AoE dmg isn't that good due to the atrocious accuracy. Its true you can spam with it more but its unreliable enough that the amount of rounds fired to obtain a kill aren't necessarily always ideal. You often don't have them spread in a way that the Striker is ideal over the Riot Gun anyways (some places, sure, but most not really actually which is one of the reasons the linear penetration of the rifle's are inherently stronger than one might realize in this particular game).

You actually overestimate the value of the ammo trick. While I did say it boosts your ammo rate, if you are competently using your weapons in an efficient manner you actually will not have any ammo issues with the Riot Gun, either. The ammo capacity is solid, too, though its obviously not as nice as the 48 Striker but 12 isn't horrible and is far better than the Skullshaker's abysmal 6.

Now, if you are less of a BAR person (esp if your aim isn't the best) and want to put more emphasis on shooting a shotgun and want more ammo the Striker, if you position right and are okay with feast and famine potential outcomes at times, can be ideal with the enhanced ammo RNG and its alternate playstyle.

However, the biggest advantage of the Striker is its ability to knock back and crowd control a large area, but this does lead into the issue of "if they're not close" do you really need to knock them back? Thus you end up with a situation of Striker's questionable merit over Riot Gun's strong all around performance. Of course, even though the dmg is unreliable lets not totally underestimate its use. Its a bit smaller, saves ammo (and space from ammo stacks by fact it has a large capacity), its strike back has a much larger range than its dmg reliably hits at (significantly so, same for Skullshaker), and it shoots quite fast. I'd be willing to bet there are optimal cases for the Striker specifically in speedrunning by using it to appropriately avoid full combat via knock back/down and running, but for the typical user the Riot Gun is honestly the better choice.

The best part about the Striker is while I argue the Riot Gun is clearly superior, quite unlike the pistols where its a hierarchy of "efficiency" the Striker vs Riot Gun is more about raw "playstyle" and the gun isn't necessarily bad or "worse than X". (ex the crowd control or speedrun applications, or shifting to shotgun as a more primary weapon). In fact, if you really want to run a shotgun you could even run double shotgun like Riot Gun + Striker holding up to 60 shells before they start stacking ammo in your case, and then use like a SMG as a back up or whatever. You would just have to be careful about case space depending on how many weapons (and what particular weapons) are used in a situation like that.