So I am thinking of buying a shotty but I'm not 100% which one yet. I'm thinking of using it in CQC (duh). Thanks in advance.
Since engineer can resupply themselves there isn't any real drawback to the Pandora except for having 2 less shots in the magazine. If you want to get 8(12 extended mag) shots, get the nova otherwise you get 6(10 E-mag) with the pandora and a faster rate of fire.
I find the Nova to be the most versatile of the three. The larger ammo supply helps out when you are using it as a different class. Slightly better cone of fire for slug sniping (Forget certing the battle rifle). I haven't noticed a difference in pellet spread compared to the Thanatos. The auto shotguns RoF is slightly higher though.
Auto shotgun is nice, I trialed it, but the Nova wins out. 2 extra shots is one more potential corpse, as all the shotguns are 2 shot kills at their intended CQC range with buckshot. Would you rather get caught in a reload or be able to kill the guy with the 2 extra rounds? I thought so.
There is no best shotgun, it depends on what you prefer. The Thanatos faster on the reload, but has 2 shots less than the Nova and is not auto-fire like the Pandora. Its reload time is 1.9/3.5s. The Nova has 2 more shots, but has the longest reload of 2.6/4s, so if you need to reload in a firefight, you are usually screwed. The Nova also has the slowest projectile velocity. (255 vs 275 of Pandora and Thanatos) Slowest in the game besides the dumbfire rocket launchers and the lasher, actually. The Pandora has the highest ROF and the best theoretical TTK, and it is fully automatic which may or may not extend the life of your mouse, not to mention making it easy to use. However, I don't know if VS shotguns suffer from this but slugs seem to fire a hell of a lot slower from the Piston (NC auto shottie) than buckfire does. Furthermore it has a lengthy reload of 2.4/3.8s, and the rounds go fast due to the nature of the weapon, so you're likely to find yourself empty and spending a lot more time reloading than you would like. In all cases, you must absolutely never let your shotgun run empty, or you are going to be witness to a utterly painful reload sequence that will more than like get you killed, so you're going to want to treat all your shotguns as if they have one less round than they actually have. Keep in mind in all cases extended mag is pretty much mandatory to get the most out of your shotgun, as it adds 4 shots to them all, equivalent to 2 extra corpses in CQC. That puts you at 9 rounds for the Thanatos and Pandora, and 11 for the Nova (to avoid the reload of doom). So pick your strength and pick your poison.
Thanks, guys. I'll probably get the Pandora due to its RoF. 9 rounds with an extended mag isn't THAT bad.
The Nova has more spare ammo than the Thanatos. So the Nova is preferable over the Thanatos if you play Light Assault, since the best way to play that class is to come from unexpected places where usually there are no Engineers with ammo packs. Edit: just doublechecked, and the Nova has 40 spare shots, while the Thanatos has 30.
Sometimes I think I'm the only person who uses and likes the Thanatos. In fact, I almost have my 100 cert medal.
It's kind of the lonely middle ground, so it doesn't get much attention. I'm hoping for it to go on sale, because with Auraxium on the other two there's much less incentive to use them.
As a side benefit, the Pandora rips MAXes apart if you get a chance to unload on them before they get you. PS - as an Engy the Pandora's small ammo supply that you burn through fast is not really a problem. Other classes have serious problems with the Pandora relating to ammo.
Going from my experence with the piston, this is very true, a 10 round mage of the auto shoty does about 8.5k damage is just under 2 seconds, a max (sans kenetic armor) has an effective hp pool vs small arms of 10K. you can finish a the max off with about half your pistol mag afterword. As a note, NC and TR shotguns are identical, VS have slightly slower bullet velocity and no bullet drop (neither of which matters at ALL when you are in shotgun range).
