For me i think, yes they are, especially on Fletcher with 3 Stickies and that low CD (Fragger for example used to have 3 Nades now he can only have 1 with 14 Seconds CD).
And for me personally: They Spray is way to low. I mean i got “sniped” from a Proxy like 100 Metres and had 78 HP left, as a Fragger. What the heck?
Where did the Devs shot a shotgun in RL? Probably nowhere and so they just wanted to make them better, because they maybe thought that Aura and Proxy deserved a “lil” buff. But tbh Rhino and Fletcher are using shotties too and they are nearly OP even without shotguns.
I think they should nerf the Shotguns to a point where its actually again skillrelevant to use.
Now i see Proxy’s and Aura’s just rush to certain points of the Map, where there are small doorways and paths, so they can jump around the corner, pump a shot and back behind the corner, oneshotting Fraggers and other “heavier” Mercs.
Let me know what you think about the shotguns.
I just needed to let that off my chest.
Are Shotguns Overpowered?
Funny thing if you consider that those are hardly used in competition due to their horrendous range : where a SMG will only suffer a bit of fallof, a shotgun stacks falloff with spread, so their effectiveness just decrease exponentially over distance. Add to this the fact that due to the spread, at some point shooting for the head will be much less rewarding than hitting the body, where a SMG will still be able to unload its whole clip on your face. In competition, where fights are mostly mid-long ranged, you just can’t afford to use a shotgun : the time you’ll take to close the distance between you and the guy at the other side of the corridor, you’ll be already dead after fifteen meters, with just a barely harmed merc in front of you (one of the worst scenarios ofc but it’s usually what happens the most if a shotgun user tries to rush a SMG user from afar).
Okay, a single hit hurts a lot, and can even one shot a 90 hp merc if you use the Remburg. However you need to hit all of your pellets. About higher hp value mercs : only an headshot can put down a merc with more than 100 hp to the ground in one hit, but you need to literally hug your opponent to do this due to the pellet spread, once again.
That’s just because stickies are OP though. Shotguns might be very annoying in some situations but they are pretty useless against good players.
100 meters? That’s roughly the size of a football field from goal to goal (actually it’s a little bit bigger than a football field). Might want to keep the hyperbole down a bit.
That’s just because stickies are OP though. Shotguns might be very annoying in some situations but they are pretty useless against good players.[/quote]
Stickies are fine, and are far from coming without counterplay.
Stickies have a travel time, travels in an arc, and has a rather short explosion radius. This makes sticky bombs short ranged, as they are much more dodgeable at mid range : as a Fletcher main most of my direct hits happen at close range, I can’t score close enough hits from mid range enemies as long as they are decent enough. Expect good players to be able to dodge projectiles. This makes Fletcher much, much more vulnerable at range where you can’t expect a sticky to direct hit reliably anymore, making long ranged mercs a nice Fletcher counter.
Fletchers spamming stickies are annoying but far from being the aboslute purge some people tend to makes you think about. Those guys usually can’t direct hit reliably. You just have to go back a bit and let him waste his stickies. Gamesense is also knowing when you have to go back.
Stickies can one shot a 80 hp merc without sticking on her, but seriously I don’t expect to one shot anything without a good direct hit but Aura since Sparks is made to stay afar. If I manage to blow up a Sparks, she was probably doing something wrong. Let’s add that fast mercs are the most competent to dodge a stickies, though most of lighties I see just move in a straight line.
Also stickies are far from being the easiest thing to use as well. Just try to direct hit anything that moves left and right, and shoots at you : it’s far from being that easy.
There’s a reason why Bushwhacker is still the most played engineer in competitive : the rather close range nature of stickies are one of those.
There is really not much point in comparing ballistic properties of shotguns IRL and in video games. Actual shotguns have very tight pellet spread with regular chokes at the ranges you’ll see them be effective at and don’t even have the stopping power to really punch through military grade ceramic plate. Primary military applications of them don’t go much farther than breaching in urban environments (shooting the hinges on a door for example). I suppose you can argue that they’ll go through a radical wearing nothing more than a shirt plus chest rig, but that is sort of like how M72s becoming popular due to being lighter than AT4s and about as good for blowing holes in walls and I’ve actually heard accounts of the latter.
For example if you are where the defenders spawn first on underground and the other guy is where the attackers spawn third on underground, where you usually hold the attackers for 1-2 mins at the excavators. At least 50 metres and getting hit with 1 Shotgun Shot from this distance and over 70 HP is gone is heavy. Even Vassili only makes 75 dmg on this range.
I think shotties are fine. Very niche.
I’ve not played as much Fletcher as Nox, but I like the levergun as a one tap option after tossing out all my stickies. Sticky-quick switch-shotgun-back to sticky. A little spread is fine when you’re only trying to do ~20ish damage after they eat a nade. It works for me better than the Blish, and I tend to play a really aggressive Fletcher.
@Eox No, they are OP because the time to detonate is ridiculously short and he is the only merc with explosives that can easily cause explosions mid-air. There is simply too little time to dodge when you see the sticky coming your way and it feels like fighting a rocket launcher. Nader needs direct hits, Fragger has to cook, Fletcher just clicks then taps E and causes a ton of splash damage with ease, he’s better at it than Nader and that is just wrong since all she does is blowing stuff up, yet you see good Naders using their SMGs much more than the Lactic while Fletchers rarely whip out their primary. I don’t mind having certain death if the Fletcher hits me with a direct sticky since that is a skillful play, but it should easier to escape from stickies that didn’t get directly on you (especially ones that explode mid-air). I think they should only be possible to activate once they get stuck onto something.
Consider this a way of “balancing”. Since Proxy already has lower hp than most Mercs, an added speed buff + CQC Supremacy can be a way of equalizing confrontations with Phantom, Aura (with Shotgun), and groups of players.
This is heavily counterbalanced by stickybombs having a much smaller detonation radius. Also you should not consider taking only into account the detonation time only : there’s also the time the sticky will take to reach you. That detonation is also clearly long enough in the heat of a fight. I can’t count the number of times I died before being able to detonate a sticky bomb : DB’s TTK is still fairly short, it’s really not impossible nor complicated to kill him before the have the time to detonate, unless you did not saw him coming, in that case Fletcher deserves to win. Raising the time to detonate further would just push him even more away from competition, or just downright kill the merc. I have to remind that Bushwhacker is still the most played engineer in competition, not Fletcher.
Fletcher is not better than Nader : they have two different roles. Nader is much more potent for clearing rooms and corners than Fletcher will be, thanks to the five grenades and the instant detonation on direct hit, while Fletcher have to carefully detonate his stickybombs and is much more objective oriented. Add to this that Nader have a much better range with her GL and weapons overall, and range is just the most important thing to have in DB. There’s not a single Fletcher weapon that can match the SMG-9, the Hochfir or the Crotzni, making Nader much more potent at killing : shotguns are just way too short ranged, and Blishlok is just not good enough. The only decent weapon a Fletcher have is his stickies : remove that from him and he’s worthless. Though a Fletcher that never use his Primary and Secondary is a bad one anyway, and you should make short work of him.
Now, coming back on shotguns :
I don’t get where the balancing since a shotgun Proxy will probably loose at any SMG she encounters unless she manage to get close enough by flanking, which becomes harder as the player’s skill and gamesense increase. Okay, you can pull off some insane damage if you manage to reach CQC, but a shotgun is much more hindering you if anything. Any merc with a SMG and a decent aim will just mow you down before you could reach an effective range. With a SMG, you would loose a bit of your ambush capabilities, but at least you can fight decently at longer ranges.
IMO shotguns need a rework. Not only something that could make them viable in competition, but also something that could make them less frustrating to new players : playing a shotgun merc, I can’t count the number of new players that screams “OMG SHOTGUN OP” everytime I manage to get rid of one of them. I think we can consider the following : reduce the damage per pellet, raise the damage of the center pellet to skill index shotguns at mid and long range (so hitting that mid bullet should be much more worth it than just getting the body). Reduce the overall damage, but give them more ammo and a bit more RPM. I think this should be a good fix : new players should not get the “undeserved one hit kill” they are so dreadful about anymore, and that mid pellet should allow you to do some nice “poke damage” from a distance, without matching the DPS of another weapon of course, but just enough to not make you totally defenseless and maybe make shotguns played a bit more in competition. Or at least in specific maps or areas.
For example if you are where the defenders spawn first on underground and the other guy is where the attackers spawn third on underground, where you usually hold the attackers for 1-2 mins at the excavators. At least 50 metres and getting hit with 1 Shotgun Shot from this distance and over 70 HP is gone is heavy. Even Vassili only makes 75 dmg on this range.[/quote]
the maximum damage it could do is 80, if EVERY shell hit your head at that range, which is impossible, so either you are a liar or you got shot by someone else at the same time, which one is it?
I would say shotguns are very powerful but because they are close range it’s not too bad!