Two Reasons Not to Nerf Sawed-Offs

[Vikar]

1: They're already underwhelming in PvE. It's understandable that they're a PvP specialized weapon, there's nothing wrong with that, but their prohibitive reload speed makes them genuinely useless in PvE. This is not hyperbole. There is simply no niche of any kind the weapon fills in PvE, as all fights involve either multiple mobs (the reload speed more than cancels out the benefit of the extreme burst)or mobs with extreme amounts of health (same issue). They are quite possibly -the- worst weapon at sustained damage in the game, and this is a problem because the final tier of a major achievement requires a player to reach a proficiency rank of 10 in them.

To compare, I'm at 515 EGO and I exclusively use pump-action and combat shotguns. I swap out my weapons whenever they cap XP, so as to keep the skills gaining. I've been using shotguns as my weapon of choice ever since I looted my first one from the stratocarrier wreckage in the tutorial. The only other weapon I've killed with is a rocket launcher, and only to take out unreachable snipers/blasters. I resort to this so seldomly that my skill is still at level 1 with them, with barely a dent in the progress bar.

That said: I'm at a mere rank 6 with each weapon. Dozens of hours using each, neither one of them is at rank 10 or anywhere near it. And these are premiere weapon groups! The pump-action is brilliant for dispatching the common grunts of the various factions, and the combat shotgun does excellent sustained damage.

The amount of time a player is expected to spend skilling up such a subpar weapon as the sawed-off shotgun makes no sense. If you must nerf the weapon, please consider swapping it with the rank 5 pump-action requirement in the second tier of the "Boomstick" achievement.

2: The problem of PvP cheap shots comes not from the raw damage of sawed-off shotguns but their combination with Cloak. If you nerf sawed-off damage due to PvP concerns, the invisible ganking playstyle will simply shift focus to pump-actions. You'll have extended the life of their victims by maybe one more fraction of a second. And if you nerf those, combat shotguns will be next.

The biggest issue is the fact that Cloak completely negates all weaknesses inherent to the shotgun family while simultaneously augmenting their greatest strength (range requirements and burst damage, respectively). I know people are raging hard about this tactic right now, but the problem isn't with the shotguns themselves... it's with the abuse of Cloak.

[Scorpio989]

I am currently working on a complex chart showing each weapons damage output using all available values including reload speed and critical multipliers. As of late (Not even half way done) I find myself laughing at how unbalanced some of the weapons are... I will admit that they had done some good nerfs, but some of them just did not make sense. I plan to release my data after the big patch.

Just a fast note. It does seem that weapons are balanced for PvP, but some of them are just grossly more powerful than others. And I don't think the developers had taken into consideration the various ammo types and playstyles that most people would naturally use.

[squidney2k1]

Yes, if they end up nerfing Sawed-off shotties, it will be the end of that type of weapon, period.

They're already pretty lackluster with the atrocious reload time, but in PvP, many players feel that they are "cheap" because they get rushed or die at the hands of someone who's cloaked. But that is incredibly situational, and usually means you have to retreat a lot with hit-and-run tactics.

I find that they only way to get around the horrible reload speed is to use the perk Preparedness (reloads non-active weapon), so that once I use the shot, I have to switch back to my main weapon and wait 6-8 seconds until it reloads.....basically it's just a free high-damage shot used to finish enemies off, but not viable in combat.

[Alcohol Fueled Brewtality]

See the thread in my signature for an in-depth and long discussion on this topic.

I hope they come to their jekking senses and realize that a damage nerf would make them as useless as Magnums.

If they are intend on lowering the damage despite the public outcry then they better ramp up the reloading speed proportionally.

[ZTROOPER16]

I agree they take the fun at of these game because of this. I don't want to see this game to turn out like cod.
this is my opinion people complaint too much about how some one won. I get cheap shots make people mad.
But cheap shots are part of games. I'm just trying to say its wrong to change these guns because it is a MMO.

Thanks for reading