pump shotgun seems oddly weak

I don't think movement or ADS affect pellet spread, with the exception of the Smart Choke on the Mag-scatter. So I don't think this is accurate.

I said "pellet coverage", not "pellet spread". Sorry if ambiguous. Shotguns are still subjected to cone of fire, which affects the total area where pellet spread can land.

Pellet coverage = pellet spread + cone of fire.

But how is COF relevant when we're talking about a OHK, in other words a single shot?

How could it be not? Starting CoF for standing moving is 2 degrees. Pellet spread is 3 degrees. Center of that pellet spread is a random point within cone of fire.

In other words, even if you aim perfectly on target, center of the pellet spread can still land wherever it wants.

Now CoF bloom - that is irrelevant. Because we're talking about only one shot, and because CoF has time to fully restore between shots.

Ah, you're talking about is worst-case scenarios here. I thought you were saying something else.

The problem is that for the PA, your CoF can't get smaller then 2 degrees, which means it's actually best case scenario. Worst case is hipfire moving, which Iridar has a visual demonstration above.

Right, Iridar is saying, "At X distance, there is a 100% chance of a OHK." I was saying, "There is a non-100% chance of a OHK out to Y distance."

Uhhhh... no?

CoF of 2 degrees is for standing moving hip firing - that is indeed worst case scenario.
Best case scenario - CoF of 0.1, while standing still hip firing.

Oh, I misread that. My mistake.

Still, that being said, putting your crosshair perfectly on center mass for every single shot is hard enough, then consider NW and the random nature of pellet spread, and suddenly you have a recipe for random RNG based mediocrity.

Both of you are wrong.

Standing hipfire COF for PAs are 1.5 still and 2 moving. ADS standing COF is .1 still and 1.5 moving.


Either way, a shotgun shoots where it wants and not where the player wants from having RNG on RNG. That's one reason I don't like them.

just a typo, i meant standing still adsing, not hip firing

I thought the exact same thing. Completely oblivious people.

Not to mention that the pellets also have RNG spread patterns, most of the time all pellets are flying to left in line that hits nothing.

Most of the games have semi RNG spreads where shotgun pellets usualy fly in star like manner so theres always a change of hit. Here the pellets fly in such odd fasion that they wont hit a thing.

Not exactly true, where it wants - sure, but only within certain confines. As long as aim is good, it should land all pellets on a target within 3m with hip fire moving, ~4.5m if the shooter ADSes and moves, and ~6m if he ADSes and stands still.

So these are ranges where it should reliably OHK a full nano target. The range goes up a bit if the enemy doesn't have full nano, but then we will enter the realm where CoF + Spread become larger than target, and then it's theoretically possible to land 0 pellets on the target

But you can't always ADS to make full use of the tighter COF. It is more of a thing with shotguns as a whole instead of PAs exactly.


With any other weapon you have a single form of RNG to account for. COF. You can see exactly how big this RNG is from your crosshairs and with a bit of skill you can reliably use them to make the best of your odds. Keep the target within your crosshairs and try to keep them smaller than the target and you will get hits. Simple. ADS helps massively with COF control.

But shotguns have pellet spread added to their COF. That makes it so your pellets will more often than not land OUTSIDE your COF. Your own gif shows this. There is no way to tell where the pellets will land. You can still see the COf, but never the pellet spread. Will the pellets be to the right of your COF? The left? Up, down, or even ALL directions at once!? It is impossible to know that and makes all the crosshair control skills learned with all other weapon types near worthless. RNG on RNG. Even to ADS doesn't help with this all that much. Can often make it worse till you memorize exactly what your pellet spreads are for each shotgun.


Shotguns wouldn't be so bad like in other games, but the maps was never made with such extreme CQC in mind. Gaps between cover often is no less than 10-15m, outside of shotgun range even within towers. So to get within shotgun ranges to make best use of their 1-3 shot kills you have to expose yourself, massively, or abuse jumpjets/high frame rate wall climbing for height but then also be even more exposed with the zero cover on roofs.

Shotguns have more limits than perks in my opinion. This is why Iv been fighting for NS MAX weapons since Beta and why I quit the game. To 100% FORCE shotguns on one faction is asinine and is the, THE, reason I see why NC is so bad on Live. But also why NC MAXes are the only MAX to be even used enough for noting for Server Smashes. Impossible to have any balance when you pull that kind of ****.

Why not? Shouldn't be that much of an issue with shotguns' 75% ADS. Especially when it can be the difference of killing the target in 2 shots or random amount of shots.

True.

Uhh yeah, there is. Center of the pellet spread still must be somewhere within the CoF. To guarantee a full pellet spread hit, all you need to do is to keep CoF + Spread within hitbox. Think of it as simply having larger CoF.


Don't get me wrong, I consider shotguns a crap weapon class, way more frustrating to use than to die to. I'm just pointing out their double dipping in random can still be compensated for by getting very close and/or ADSing.