Are shotguns too hard to counter attack? [Poll]

[SilentMountain]

People are forgetting xenos should work as a swarm for full effect. Just get good.

Just like marines.

The balance in this game is atrocious.

[Gut_TC]

Try luring them to fire out of your range and attack them when they ran out of shells.

[Rocco Ward]

Bruh I'm dead, do it.

Xenos can usually only win when the good marines swap over for a round anyway. Or if based RAT decides it's time to save them.

All it'd take is for a few xenos to do this and the game would be fucked. One xeno is worth 5 marines in terms of population. It'd snowball even worse after the lose ratio becomes even more lobsided as more and more players would quit out of frustration. Saw this playout firsthand in Urbandead (zombie MMO) when the sole developer kept buffing humans, but never gave zombies any updates. It resulted in a strike that caused the game to be without conflict for a while. (there was a 3:1 ratio of human to zombies)

The way shotties are now, marines are more LETHAL in CQC than xenos. That's a fact. No T1s or T2s can 1 or 2 hit KO marines. Not even an elder rav or queen can kill a marine that fast.

[Rocco Ward]

Try luring them to fire out of your range and attack them when they ran out of shells.

I actually proposed to the devs that they leave the damage output the way it is, but lower the ammo capacity. Right now a marine can have 20 shots before they have to reload, which is ridiculous.

[CABAL]

I actually proposed to the devs that they leave the damage output the way it is, but lower the ammo capacity. Right now a marine can have 20 shots before they have to reload, which is ridiculous.

20 shoots? You mean double Shotgun? It's useless outside PB and Screen Shake means you can safely attack marine once, or twice untill he will be able to click anything. No fairly competent buckshot marine will empty internal tube magazine in a fight. After shooting 10 shells, either what he was fighting is dead, or he is dead. You can always load more shells when it isn't empty and it takes like three seconds to pack 5 shells.

Also you want to nerf slugs and flechette too? What did they do to you? Because nerfing ammo capacity nerfs them also.

What about making new shotgun? Pump-action, but with threaded barrel, so it's perfect for slugs, but can't use buckshot, so then you can nerf old one.

[BurnedSweetPotato]

WTF SHOTGUNS WWWHAT THE FUCK op. please nerf them. I have instant frag abilities such as screech+carrier, queen neuro, warrior grab, lunge, instant warrior bone break punch, dancer tail crit from 2 tiles away, rav spinslash, rav lunge and delimb, boiler knockout glob so xenos can drag you away, and spitter acid spray that can go multiple times in 1 second giving you 100+ burn damage instantly. If you are competent, you can fuck over most marines, even the epic delta ungadungas. The only time a combat xeno should lose to a marine is lack of skill or incompetence, and if you cant consistently 1v1 a marine that is your own fault. A lurker can pounce, slash a few times, run back, pounce again, and kill a marine. If you are good at this, 90% of the time you will frag them before they can get a PB on you.

Good lurkers stick in packs. 2-3 are definitely enough to kill even the most competent marine. Dont be a retard and pounce a marine and have his buddy walk up to you and PB you. If you stick in packs you can pretty much negate that risk, and having a drone to weed or a warrior is great too. If too many marines come, that is a good thing because they are away from the frontlines and busy dealing with you.

[Rocco Ward]

I have instant frag abilities such as screech+carrier, queen neuro, dancer tail crit from 2 tiles away, rav spinslash, rav lunge and delimb, boiler knockout glob so xenos can drag you away

This is such a false analogy. You are comparing T3 and Queen abilities to your average marine unga. They are meant to counter and be equivalent to specialists, SLs, and CO/XO weapons and armor. Furthermore, most T1s and T2s do not have a 1 hit kill weapon. Shotguns can 1 hit KO most castes. (2 hits and it kills like 90% of castes)

It'd be like me saying that since RPG spec is soooo overpowered, that we need to give every T1 a mini screech AoE ability, lmao. That's the equivalent to what shotguns are now. You gave every T1 Unga a neuro gun that insta crits.

warrior grab, lunge, instant warrior bone break punch, spitter acid spray that can go multiple times in 1 second giving you 100+ burn damage instantly.

I don't ever play warrior, so I can't comment. I know that when they had them nestguarding marines it was ridiculously broken. Also a lot of warriors don't like pyros because we can fuck em up pretty good. I don't know if warriors counter shotguns well, but something like lurkers get rekt by them. Dancer prae was also super broken, but that got nerfed.

Also spitter acid spray is hilarious. Marines can outrun spitters. If a spitter gets that close, it's basically dead because it all it takes is 2 seconds before a marine is within PB range and GG. Their acid spray is a nerfed version of the boilers acid spray. It doesn't stun. It's range is short. (shorter than a flamethrower) It doesn't work past barricades. It can be easily dodged and avoided. To put it in perspective, a flamers gun fires a 5-6 tile flame that is INSTANT. A spitters acid spray fires a 3-4 tile acid that is NOT INSTANT. You can actually see it coming and dodge. I have seen stupid ungas running through a 4 tile acid spray, and without stun, they can walk through them and get damaged. It's like a xeno walking through 4 tiles of flames. It will destroy your health.

---

That said I want to put something in perspective:

Number of buckshot PB shots until xeno is KO

[Y = Young, M = Mature, E = Elder, A = Ancient]

1 hit KO

• larva
• drone
• runner
• sentinel
• lurker (Y-M)
• burrower (Y-M-E)
• spitter (Y-M-E)

2 hit KO

• lurker (E-A)
• burrower (A)
• defender (? maybe 2-3 ?)
• spitter (A)
• carrier (???)
• hivelords (???)
• boilers (???)

3-5 hits KO

• prae
• rav
• crusher

5-8 hits KO

• queen

Number of slashes until marine is KO

~5 slashes KO

• ravager
• queen

~10 slashes KO

• runner
• lurker
• prae
• warrior

~15 slashes KO

• burrower
• spitter
• crusher
• runner
• carrier
• hivelord
• defender

~20 slashes KO

• sentinel
• boiler
• drone

Seems pretty fair eh? All T1 unga dungas get a death weapon that is arguably more deadly than some specialist weapons. I've seen queens and ravagers take +7 slashes to kill off a single marine. THERE IS NO XENO CASTE THAT EXIST THAT CAN INSTAKILL MARINES IN 1-2 HITS. PERIOD. (nor should there realistically be) Also since this game is 80% marine players, I'm not surprised that most of the conversation is overwhelming negative in regards to xeno complaints.

The bottom line is this: Shotguns needs a weakness. Since xenos are melee oriented, they can't fight effectively with ranged attacks other than a few side castes that do laughable damage output or easilyy avoidable attacks. The way it is now, marine are more deadly in CQC with buckshot shotguns than xenos. That's a fact. What is the solution? Here are some realistic options:

Nerf ammo capacity (make extended ammo capacity an attachment)
Nerf shotgun damage output (but give BCs a big damage boost to restore to the same output)
Nerf pumping time (add an attacthment to decrease this)
Nerf AoE or stun (maybe more attacthments or BC that adds this capacity)

Personally I'd experiment with lowering the ammo capacity first. See the effects. Marines shouldn't be able to spray and pray shotgun buckshots like it's a SMG. If it still seems overpowered, I'd drop the damage quite a bit and let a BC boost the damage output to the same level it currently has.

Also something has to be done about one handed firing and pumping. You should only be allowed to pump with two hands.

[AcuteCircle]

snip.

ok but have you just tried "gitting gud" ? lol

thanks for putting this in perspective. xenos need major cooperation and even luck to beat a shotgun. they need to get all the slashes before a marine has a chance to 1 shot them, talking bout runners and lurkers etc. the only skill to PB a xeno is knowing how to click on their sprite, which is even easier if its slow one or one with a big hitbox, but xenos have to dance around shotguns, utilize their abilities to the max and all the other stuff

[reuben owen]

one is managable

its when you get multiple they become a problem, even as a group of xenos cuz all it takes is 1 of them to shoot any xeno that gets stunned once if alone/anyone in your group once and then they all rush and target you during the stun, and if thats a group of three+ w/ shotguns or sg and each once hits you once you're pretty fucked, and they can all shoot at you one time each with 0 cooldown/windup, im not saying there should be 1 im just pointing that out

like if you're a lone lurker and there are 2 marines with shotguns, you can't really risk touching them at all and gotta let them pass, you can't even really dance around them - the best you can do is hide + attempt to tackle one then pounce the other, but if that tackle fails you have to bail immediately - as a 2v2 that doesn't really change either: if one of the lurkers fails a pounce the other will get shot up, decent chance they'll die

and lately the saying of queens/xenos saying 'dont fight young' or 'only fight at full health' - its cause everyone keeps getting bopped by shotguns, not that being mature+ as a t1/2 helps in most of those cases and you usually go from 100 to 0 healthwise

also not rly relevant but in my statistics ~300 deaths as xeno and ~100 of those are from shotguns, more than anything else - just thought I'd share

[Gut_TC]

I actually proposed to the devs that they leave the damage output the way it is, but lower the ammo capacity. Right now a marine can have 20 shots before they have to reload, which is ridiculous.

Actually 10 max shells.
Unless you are talking about dual wielding shotguns. Those are extremely inaccurate even in its decent range. Only Pointblank would guarantee hit.

But that aside. Fire delay is also Shotgun's weakness. They usually need like two seconds-ish even if they already pump after firing. If you are able to patiently pounce or run in and slash as soon they fired and miss or spit at them at the time they'd soon be worn out by pain.