Engineer's main weapon: shotgun vs SMG

[livinghell]

Not a bait, real question. I tried to use shotgun and it just works for small waves or even till Haz4, if the team supports you. Survivng alone with it is not possible as the waves overrun you and ammo is gone before you say gone. With SMG I can destroy the waves, aim for weak points and feel like a "small" gunner. Also ammo/dmg/distance-precision is enough to protect yourself alone (spitting enemies in large caves are a problem with shotgun). So is there any objectively reason or tactic to use shotgun at all (except to charge shots of the turrets)? I feel like I miss a part of the class, but I cant find any scenario where shotgun is more useful than the SMG.

[Terrortoma]

Given the wild recoil of the 'SMG' (it's actually a machine-pistol) and the Engineer's refusal to use the front grip to help control said recoil, the shotgun is the one true path.

[Gottfried]

I run out of ammo with the SMG sooner than with the shotgun. Its great, you dont really need the range. And if you happen to find the overclock that makes the shotgun shoot slower, but increases accuracy (like I did) it becomes a ranged beast. Its better on range than the SMG imo, because the SMG has too much recoil.

[Gottfried]

Originally posted by Kunnin Planz:

Given the wild recoil of the 'SMG' (it's actually a machine-pistol) and the Engineer's refusal to use the front grip to help control said recoil, the shotgun is the one true path.

An SMG is a machine pistol. I think nobody uses the word machine pistol in english.

Also, with the mechanized skin for the SMG you can remove the front grip :P

[livinghell]

Originally posted by Gottfried:

I run out of ammo with the SMG sooner than with the shotgun. Its great, you dont really need the range. And if you happen to find the overclock that makes the shotgun shoot slower, but increases accuracy (like I did) it becomes a ranged beast. Its better on range than the SMG imo, because the SMG has too much recoil.

I HAVE this overclock . Still run out of ammo on shotgun in seconds. With SMG I sometimes dont even take a resupply, in order to not to waste it. I consider SMG more precise than shotgun (perhaps I have recoil control learned from other games??).

[1mbalanced]

SMG for support build. Shotgun for dps.

[Gottfried]

Originally posted by livinghell:

Originally posted by Gottfried:

I run out of ammo with the SMG sooner than with the shotgun. Its great, you dont really need the range. And if you happen to find the overclock that makes the shotgun shoot slower, but increases accuracy (like I did) it becomes a ranged beast. Its better on range than the SMG imo, because the SMG has too much recoil.

I HAVE this overclock . Still run out of ammo on shotgun in seconds. With SMG I sometimes dont even take a resupply, in order to not to waste it. I consider SMG more precise than shotgun (perhaps I have recoil control learned from other games??).

Seeing as you played lots of CS:GO, probably. The weird recoil in that game made me dislike it a lot.
But if you use the ammo mod for the shotgun it has like 140 shells. How can you run out of ammo fast? Do you have the full auto mod and just hold down the trigger or what?

[livinghell]

Originally posted by Gottfried:

Originally posted by livinghell:

I HAVE this overclock . Still run out of ammo on shotgun in seconds. With SMG I sometimes dont even take a resupply, in order to not to waste it. I consider SMG more precise than shotgun (perhaps I have recoil control learned from other games??).

Seeing as you played lots of CS:GO, probably. The weird recoil in that game made me dislike it a lot.
But if you use the ammo mod for the shotgun it has like 140 shells. How can you run out of ammo fast? Do you have the full auto mod and just hold down the trigger or what?

Sounds like I have overseen 140 shell config. I used "more pellets in each shell" instead. And yes full auto, but with trigger control.

[Gottfried]

Originally posted by livinghell:

Originally posted by Gottfried:

Seeing as you played lots of CS:GO, probably. The weird recoil in that game made me dislike it a lot.
But if you use the ammo mod for the shotgun it has like 140 shells. How can you run out of ammo fast? Do you have the full auto mod and just hold down the trigger or what?

Sounds like I have overseen 140 shell config. I used "more pellets in each shell" instead. And yes full auto, but with trigger control.

Well, I almost always build for a lot of ammo.

[Terrortoma]

Originally posted by Gottfried:

Also, with the mechanized skin for the SMG you can remove the front grip :P

Yep, turns it into a pseudo bolt pistol. Likewise the Trophy Hunter skin for the Burst Fire pistol turns it into a pseudo Gears of War Lancer, with the spikes representing the Lancer's chainsaw bayonet.

Also, with the Custom Engineered skin for the Warthog shotgun you can have two laser sights on the barrel assembly. Reminds of the early days of Ground Branch were 90% of players were running dual laser sights and 3 different optical sights on various rails and mounts on each of their rifles, because 'tacticool.'

[Missa La Hache]

I tested both, for Max difficulty (Haz5 and EDD) I tend to use engi with elec proc upgrade. I also have an OC which raise elec dmg. You can control and slow down everything coming your way, and let elec damage do the rest. With AOE it's even better. You run faster out of ammo with SMG but you can at least survive what's throwed at you.

[King Fossil]

Originally posted by Gottfried:

An SMG is a machine pistol. I think nobody uses the word machine pistol in english.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if a firearm is an SMG or a machine pistol, but machine pistol is definitely a valid term. I mean, what would you call a Glock 18 or other full auto/burst fire pistols like that? They're obviously not SMGs.

Originally posted by livinghell:

Sounds like I have overseen 140 shell config. I used "more pellets in each shell" instead. And yes full auto, but with trigger control.

More ammo is better than more pellets in the end. Your DPS is worse, but you can keep it up for so much longer. The only time you don't want it is if you got lucky and found the mini shells overclock and can use that instead. Mini shells is crazy good right now. It was already good and then they buffed it to be much better.

[ColdTooth]

Originally posted by 1mbalanced:

SMG for support build. Shotgun for dps.

Pretty much this.

I have ran the SMG solo a few times after update 25. The insane recoil really hurts the weapon, and it triggers me that we don't even use the damn attachable on the left for our other hand. It would so much, because the damage is fine, it's just controlling the damn thing.

I had some fun with it on critical weakness anomaly. But I use the shotgun much more, used to be a turret whip guy, liked the extra umph it gave when done right, but now I got an unstable overclock, mini shells, that only reduces my damage by -2 but increases ammo and magazine size by quite a lot (it got buffed in a hotfix I think). Honestly, with 1 damage mod it's still a beast to shove in the face of grunts, and it still 2-shots mactera swarms, and pretty fun to spam since I could have ~200 ammo total with it.

Why on earth do I need 200 ammo for a shotgun?

[Gottfried]

Originally posted by King Fossil:

Originally posted by Gottfried:

An SMG is a machine pistol. I think nobody uses the word machine pistol in english.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if a firearm is an SMG or a machine pistol, but machine pistol is definitely a valid term. I mean, what would you call a Glock 18 or other full auto/burst fire pistols like that? They're obviously not SMGs.

I'd just call them automatic pistols. Machine pistol sounds weird to me, but then again, English is not my mother tongue. Also, in my language, machine pistol means SMG.

[Paul.]

Originally posted by Gottfried:

Originally posted by King Fossil:

Sometimes it's hard to tell if a firearm is an SMG or a machine pistol, but machine pistol is definitely a valid term. I mean, what would you call a Glock 18 or other full auto/burst fire pistols like that? They're obviously not SMGs.

I'd just call them automatic pistols. Machine pistol sounds weird to me, but then again, English is not my mother tongue. Also, in my language, machine pistol means SMG.

SMG - A submachine gun is a magazine-fed, automatic carbine designed to shoot handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun. Pretty much a tiny version of Machine gun using rounds of a pistol.

[Syncourt]

I prefer the shotgun since the SMG nerf and shotgun buff, but I'll take either really. Generally I take ABCCA (yes, turret whip.) or ABCCB for eliminations and PE.

The SMG does well if you use T5 magazine capacity, straight damage and damage vs. weakspots, using the breach the cutter built for damage as your specials killer (or just for initial damage). It also does well if you take the T5 conductive bullets, straight damage and damave vs. weakspot mods and use the grenade launcher or breach cutter built for swarm clearing, this makes the SMG more powerful against tough targets.

What I don't get is the 'support' AoE build. Sure it makes a slowing AoE on an average of 1 out of every 12 shots, but it seriously nerfs the weapons damage output in the process. The engineer has so many high damage AoE options; GL, BC, Turret Whip, Plasma Burster, Proxy Mines not sure why you'd want to just slow them instead of blasting them all away.

It would be fair enough if electrocution damage was decent, but it isn't. It's 8-16 DPS depending if you take the mod or not. I posted up a discussion about that in the ideas and suggestions area.