A question of slugs

War Barney · 2014-03-04, 03:30 PM

I've taken to enjoying the piston recently on my LA but I was wondering what peoples opinion on slugs is, people in my outfit seem to say not to use them but no slugs means anything outside a 5m range kills me easily as my shots are just to widespread at that range to do any damage.

Is it actually worth using slugs to be able to kill people at longer ranges or does it sacrifice way to much damage in the up close fights to make it worth it?

Chewy · 2014-03-04, 04:04 PM

On infantry shotguns slugs can be put to use. All non pump slugs do 500 damage at 8m and drop to 334 at 40M. Think of them as a 3 hit kill weapon and they can be good.

But you need the right weapon to use them on. Full-auto shotguns are not bad, fast enough for the 3 hits in CQC and still able to ADS. High mag shotguns are nice from more ammo, 3 hits needed is almost any case makes having more ammo GREAT. But the fast reload shotguns do suffer a bit compared to the rest thanks to no extra something to help slugs, faster reloads isn't going to help as much as the other perks.

Im no fan of slugs. Wanted to get them to work on my Mauler but after 300+ certs (slugs + scopes) not to find a niche, I couldn't find a good spot to put them to work.

mrmrmrj · 2014-03-04, 08:16 PM

I wish the devs would give us more info on all slug options. They are not cheap cert-wise.

Chewy · 2014-03-04, 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by mrmrmrj

I wish the devs would give us more info on all slug options. They are not cheap cert-wise.

There are 2 types of slugs. Pump action and normal. All shotguns, including MAX shotguns, use normal slugs but pump action shotguns.

Normal slugs-
500 damage at 8m.
334 damage at 40m.

Pump action slugs-
800 damage at 8m.
400 damage at 40m.

All in all, slugs will remove raw damage no matter the weapon for normalizing damage. Normal slugs will have a 2-3 hit kill even with head shots and Pump slugs have a change for a one hit head shot kill. Another up side is that the weapons pellet spread is ignored and slugs only use the the base COF, travel speed, and bloom. The base COF + being able to ADS makes slugs a half-assed sniper with slow speeds but that bloom often makes it impossible to do rapid fire and maintain accuracy like most other weapons. Plus the amount of drop slugs have tends to make it rather hard to take them at range anyway.

Slugs are cheaper than a new weapon but give that new weapon feel to the shotgun you put them on. They just are not that good compared to another weapon you can take if range is what you need.

War Barney · 2014-03-04, 09:27 PM

Well I tested them a bit tonight and I like the range they give (managed to snipe a guy from the balcony in a tech plant while he was on A shooting me with a lmg) BUT it is REALLY annoying how the huge cof means unless you ADS with every shot you're likely to miss a lot. It makes them good for very short and medium range fights but oddly enough the range at which they work best without slugs they are really quite bad.

Perhaps I just need to get use to it a bit more as its only been 1 night but so far im unconvinced its worth it.. perhaps laser sight will make it better but the inaccuracy unless you ADS is so bad I'm not sure its worth it without I'd say.

Ghoest9 · 2014-03-05, 06:04 AM

You can kill people with them - but they arent good at killing people.

At one time they were modestly effective and kind of fun - now there is no reason to bother except curiosity.

almalino · 2014-03-05, 06:35 AM

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

At one time they were modestly effective and kind of fun - now there is no reason to bother except curiosity.

And then people in other threads suggest to use slugs on NC max when we complain about shotguns range.

War Barney · 2014-03-05, 07:26 AM

Originally Posted by almalino

And then people in other threads suggest to use slugs on NC max when we complain about shotguns range.

Aye that is funny isn't it =p thanks to how slugs work they don't even make it that much better as its so easy to miss when you don't ADS but you CAN'T ADS as a MAX. What I've learnt from using our MAX is while you'll die non stop and have a range of 0m you may as well not use slugs and just go for rambo mode hoping the engis keep up somehow.

Wish they'd change slugs to make them useful.. hell even if it was a cool new type of slug for NC to emphasis our role as the shotgun faction. I know slugs aren't *useless* but so far my testing has shown they just aren't worth the extra effort, you're far better off just switching to a rifle when you're going to be fighting mainly outside then switch again for inside fighting, slugs just screw up the things which make a shotgun great and don't add much.

Emperor Newt · 2014-03-05, 11:46 AM

At least the VS slugs were worthwhile. But then people needed to complain that VS slugs have no drop and so instead of making all slugs useful they simply made the last remaining one shitty too. Balancing SOE style.

Binkley · 2014-03-05, 11:46 AM

Originally Posted by War Barney

Aye that is funny isn't it =p thanks to how slugs work they don't even make it that much better as its so easy to miss when you don't ADS but you CAN'T ADS as a MAX. What I've learnt from using our MAX is while you'll die non stop and have a range of 0m you may as well not use slugs and just go for rambo mode hoping the engis keep up somehow.

For ages I listened to posts like this one and didn't bother with slugs. Then I finally tried them in my hacksaws and found that I like them. They're not sniper rifles, but I can finally kill people on the far side of the room. YMMV, but they certainly have value for the NC max.

War Barney · 2014-03-05, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by Binkley

For ages I listened to posts like this one and didn't bother with slugs. Then I finally tried them in my hacksaws and found that I like them. They're not sniper rifles, but I can finally kill people on the far side of the room. YMMV, but they certainly have value for the NC max.

Not much really, the problem is with a slug its ONE projectile and it will fire randomly into that huge circle of a CoF you have, sure you have a longer range but it means that its likely to just miss, hell unless somebody COMPLETELY fills that circle you could stand right next to somebody and miss with both barrels, its unlikely but if theres even a little bit of the circle not filled by the enemy your shot could go there and not hit a thing, and when you've got such a small magazine size and slow reload thats a huge issue.

You're better off going for the mattocks without slugs for long range, hacksaws you want to be right up next to the enemy anyway so slugs sound like a horrible idea which would also ruin the whole point of them.

Binkley · 2014-03-05, 12:51 PM

Originally Posted by War Barney

Not much really, the problem is with a slug its ONE projectile and it will fire randomly into that huge circle of a CoF you have, sure you have a longer range but it means that its likely to just miss, hell unless somebody COMPLETELY fills that circle you could stand right next to somebody and miss with both barrels, its unlikely but if theres even a little bit of the circle not filled by the enemy your shot could go there and not hit a thing, and when you've got such a small magazine size and slow reload thats a huge issue.

You're better off going for the mattocks without slugs for long range, hacksaws you want to be right up next to the enemy anyway so slugs sound like a horrible idea which would also ruin the whole point of them.

I agree Mattocks are better for range, but if you already have Hacksaws and not Mattocks, watchagonnado? Slugs add versatility to my Hacksaws.

I don't have trouble hitting targets with my Hack-slugs. When they are standing next to me the targets do fill the whole circle and when further away, I only single-volley them, no full auto. Slugs make a huge difference in Hacksaws, which without slugs often cannot kill someone on the other side of a room even with a full mag-dump. In tower defenses, I can now stand at the top of the staircase to the garage and kill people at the bottom of the stairs. Unheard of without slugs. When I bought the Hacksaws, they had bigger magazines, faster fire rates, and maybe faster reloads, but they got whacked with the nerf bat. Not sure if I would buy them now.

War Barney · 2014-03-05, 01:00 PM

The sad thing is though you'll probably find that at the ranges your talking about you get more success using a heavy with a LMG, the accuracy just isn't there to kill people before they shove a rocket in you, and up close its such a HUGE hit to the killing ability. I guess its worth getting if you happen to be in a MAX and don't want to switch out for longer range fights but its definitely not something you want to keep as standard.

If you didn't have mattocks I'd be inclined to just not use a MAX till you get them, or my plan, don't use MAX till they finally give us a HMG so our MAX can have an effective range beyond 5m. OR make slugs actually useful... even if its just for our MAX, I'd like them to be worth using in a normal shotgun as well but I can accept shotguns being just short range options when I have a choice, when it comes to our MAX we have no choice though so its kinda stupid that slugs have such huge flaws when its the only way to have a hope of killing somebody on the other side of a room.

BlazingSun · 2014-03-05, 01:25 PM

The problem with slugs for semi-automatic shotguns are:
a) low bullet velocity - this is the biggest issue the way I see it.
b) too much COF increase with continued fire.

It should be a high risk / high reward kind of weapon setup, but instead it's pretty much one of the worst things in the game.

mrmrmrj · 2014-03-05, 04:15 PM

I am someone who used to love slugs in my Hacksaws and have recently changed my mind. Yes, slugs do give some extra versatility and the 5m killing power versus infantry is not really affected since it only takes 3 slugs to kill and you can shoot 3 very quickly. However, slugs are awful in MAX v MAX situations when the pellets do so much more damage and it is easier to put them all on a MAX. Plus, I really like killing 3 infantry almost instantly with hacksaws in close quarters.

So, I spent 1000 certs on dual slugging my Hacksaws and have now unequipped slugs for good. I have also ditched Aegis Shield for Charge so that I can charge into rooms and then just start laying about with 20 shots (extra ammo cert is almost God mode). Most of the enemy is usually dead before any of them can even pull out a rocket launcher.