As the tittle states, which do you think is better? What's the advantage and disadvantage of the two (Yes, I know, hacksaw is automatic)?
I prefer the Scattercannons for the mix of mag size, pellet count, pellet damage and accuracy, but well, they are shotguns....
Personal preference, Scattercannons are better (stock) as all-rounder CQC weapon. It has tighter spread, and recoil is controllable for semi-auto. Scattercannons are better for players with good accuracy and well control shots. It the only weapon (x2) that is capable of killing MAX at 10-15m in 1 reload cycle. Scattercannons are not for crowdcontrol, but for locking down tight corridors. Hacksaws kills infantry faster (autoshotgun), you could instagib 2 infantry (controlled shots) in 1 reload cycle at 10m. Dont even bother to shot further than 15m, or upgrade them with slugs. Highly recommended to upgrade with extended mag, its hardly useful with default mag size. Some players recommend mattock, as it does more damage over range but i hardly notice any difference, since theres recoil for every shot. From my perspective, NC MAX are totally useless other than CQC combat (biolabs). With the range shorten, MAX will be soaking up more C4 than ever.
Don't forget the Mattocks guns. They're awesome. They reach a little further than the Scattercannons.
Mattock is AWESOME!! Currently I use both hacksaw and mattock on my max,with this loadout I can still do decent damage in CQC,but now I can laugh at those heavy assaults who think he is safe with range and kill them with 3~4 shot .
I took the info from the mined stats sheet, averaged both arms for the non-stock and just used the offhand for the Scat as the stock weapons -always- have bad stats due to the disproportional number of inexperienced users. Name / Score per hour / Difference between kills per hour and deaths per hour Grinder / 6144 / 14.18 Hacksaw / 5640 / 13.18 Scatter / 5027 / 13.35 Mattock / 4880 / 11.04 Looking at usage stats, I'd say Grinders are the way to go right now. 10%ish better score performance from Hacks and about the same survival as Scats so I wouldn't, personally, pay out the certs/smedbux. 2x Scat or 2x Grinder.
Grinders work best out of the box thanks to larger magazines, which is an expensive upgrade to extend. Scattercannon and Mattocks have the fastest reloads (like the Mauler and Jackhammer), but the proportion that it is faster compared with the other options is not the same as with the infantry shotguns (though you could argue that Extended Mags does much more for them and synergises better with faster reload time than the high capacity shotguns).
Grinder being the best makes sense due to the extra ammo in the clips. You can essentially get four extra shots in which is tremendous for a shotgun & CQC. Mattock actually does less damage per pellet. However performance wise the guns are virtually identical. Unless you must absolutely have auto-fire, (hacksaw) either stick with the scatter or get a grinder. In an Aegis world this may change, where you could drop your shield and quickly get some shots off with the Hacksaw.
I have both Hacksaws and Grinders w/ extended mags. For some reason or another, the Grinders just have yet to win me over, despite the empirical evidence suggesting otherwise. I keep going back to my hacksaws.
Probably the same reason why I prefer the Sweeper to the Piston. The Piston/Hacksaw has a larger spread to deal with, and will empty the magazine too quickly if you're not careful (less so on the Hacksaw post nerf though). The high capacity style shotguns actually do quite well with the player statistics apparently.
For me, neither - though they're both very capable weapons. Mattocks will still OHK infantry up close and mow them down from farther away. Slugs seems to be significantly more accurate compared to Scattercannons and Grinders so you at least have the option of slugs.
