Blackshot Shotgun Guide

Blackshot Shotgun Guide by raihiryu

I think this is really way overdue for me to write up on this magnificent weapon. Pay tribute to the one and only weapon that players shudder and walk before turning corners.

Death is almost always certain for those who fail to pay attention to their surroundings, especially in small areas. This is the only weapon who is truly the one-hit kill weapon regardless of armour levels and stacking of guardians, and is the bane of all those who likes to use medikit. What better weapon to kill someone with when they had finished replenishing their health? Shotgun, when used well, has the added effect of scaring the poop out of the opponent as well as elliciting curses that range from colourful to cliches.

And this is the only weapon whose pellets is more than its varieties in Blackshot! Welcome to the world of a Shotgunner!

First of all, let me introduce to you the various shotguns in Blackshot!

1. Silver Edition M3 Super90 (1.8k BP per hour)
2. Gold Edition M3 Super90 (Available after Expert 4th) (2.1k BP for 1 Day)
3. Holy Shotgun (Gachapon Box C)
4. SPAS (70GS)

Silver Edition M3 Super90

Pros

1. Lightweight and very suitable for hit-and-run, quick strikes and frontal assault.
2. Reloads fast without any additional reload gear.
3. Powerful damage that can one hit kill any armor level, guardian and character, if aimed proper.
4. Relatively cheap for its capabilities.
5. Range from super close to mid combat.
6. Does not lose out when compared against a SPAS, Gold M3 or even the HSG.
7. Similar usage as the Gold M3 and SPAS.

Cons

1. Not very beginner-friendly.
2. Recoil, rate-of-fire and different play style from other weapons.
3. Usage is way different from HSG.
4. Not suitable for crowd control.
5. Very vulnerable when in open spaces.

Gold Edition M3 Super90

1. Very light and on par with the MP5’s weight with Berserker.
2. Reloads faster than the M3.
3. Powerful damage that can one hit kill any armor level, guardian and character, if aimed proper.
4. One of the most cost-saving Gold weapons (2.1k per day)
5. Range from super close to mid combat.
6. Quick switching is smoother.

Cons

As per Silver M3.

Holy Shotgun

The Holy Shotgun is the latest addition from the Halloween patch and is a “semi-auto” shotgun, which is very userfriendly for beginners and people who cannot master the M3.

Pros
1. The rate of fire is scary.
2. The damage is on par with the M3.
3. Bullet grouping is very close, irregardless of standing or squatting.
4. It is as light as M3
5. It is VERY, VERY good for crowd control.
6. It is more capable than the M3 to kill faraway targets.
7. It has more ammo capacity than the M3.
8. Very user-friendly for beginners, and people who complain about M3’s “difficulty”.
9. Everyone, especially the opposite team, will try to loot. KILL THEM!
10. Riflers, SMGers and snipers have one more reason to be afraid.
11. Too pretty looking.
12. The only shotgun that scope is useful for.

Cons
1. Predicted heavy reliance on the HSG’s rate of fire.
2. Kills the form of M3 users. Believe me, it will, since the firing rate is way different.
3. Everyone will try to loot, be it your own or opposite team. Screw up team movement.
4. Bullet grouping-wise, the spread is way too limited compared to the M3.
5. Too pretty looking. Distracting. Killed a lot of people who looted the gun and stood there admiring.
6. The cursing goes on to a holier level. “Holy dog/mother/father etc…” AND I gotten questions like “Are you a christian?”, “You are so HellBoy”, “OMG CONSTANTINE”.

Bugs
1. Reloading animation regarding timing of clip being replenished
2. Pellets occasionally spread to sideways like the M3.
3. Playing as Vanessa and holding a HSG, the hand becomes a male one, instead of Vanessa’s gloved hands (Contributed by iSoul).

Thoughts about the HSG
It is fast, accurate and full of ammo. But like the M3, it is not exactly easy to use it. The only easy part is to spam at target. Be warned though, the ‘no recoil’ isn’t exactly no recoil.

IMO, the original M3 still kills better. The HSG makes players complacent.

SPAS

SPAS is the latest addition to the shotgun arsenal (finally) as a GS weapon, and noticeably a cross between the M3 and the Holy Shotgun. For those of you who is expecting this very same shotgun model from L4D2, you might be very disappointed. For new users, it is sufficiently easy to grasp the learning curve.

Pros

1. Has a narrower spread than the M3, which accounts for the ‘1 hit kill’ phenomenon.
2. Lower recoil rate than the M3 but not as comparable’s to HSG’s.
3. Rate-of-fire is better than the M3, though not very significantly, and only evident in a situation of M3s vs SPAS .
4. Damage is slightly less compared to the M3s, but the tighter grouping of pellets make up for it.
5. Quite a beginner-friendly weapon.
6. Allows for far range picking of opponents, something the M3s is not capable of.
7. Good for crowd control.
8. As a GS gun, it is a bp saver like the P90 Jungle.

Cons

1. The tighter pellet grouping has its flaws. If you aim an opponent’s side, you are likely to miss completely, as compared to M3s.
2. It is not as light as its description states.
3. The rate-of-fire, is different from the M3s and the HSG, which can be a form-killer if you are constantly switching between the shotguns.
4. As the pellet grouping is quite tight, it requires pinpoint accuracy, which means you have to be in close range or with good hand-eye coordination for aiming. Don’t expect a large spread area from this shotgun.

Thoughts about SPAS
This shotgun is a relatively stable weapon, which do not exactly holds an advantage over the M3s (save for rate-of-fire). As with all shotguns, the 1st hit is the most important. Buy this weapon if you want to save bp and train your shotgun mastery at the same time, or if your luck for Gachapon Box C is bad.

Facts about being a Shotgunner in Blackshot. (Dated as of September 2010)

1. You are a special breed that is discriminated in all areas. You don’t have a weapon category for your own and is sharing it with Rifles.

2. You only have one buyable choice at all times until you reached Expert 4th Mastery, which means you don’t have to compare it to another
shotgun. Unless you want to pay for the SPAS or try your luck with Gachapon Box.

3. When people write guides they seldom, or never include it. When the former do happens, it is usually a small section of generic guidelines.

4. Be expected to be booted, named as camper, waller, hacker, dog, mother/fatherless and all sorts of things when you camp-killed the same person over and over again.

5. You will become an expert at dodging grenades from normal ones to T1s at the end of 1 month (if playing shotgun all the time). You get to be the one who see a lot of fireworks too.

6. Either you scare the poop out of someone or you will be scared out of your poop by someone during a close quarter encounter.

7. You will definitely gain or lose a lot of kills/deaths.

8. Each of the seven pellets has its own independent accuracy tally. Meaning 1 pellet = 100 % of shot when hit. Total = 700%. 700% doesn’t happen becuz 2 pellets is usually enough to kill.

9. This is the only weapon you will see so far with two shotgunners jumping around like rabbits trying to get each other.

Pros

1. Unrivalled pointblank damage (7 pellets x 3.2 damage x (unspecified formula of proximity damage).
2. 1 hit kill ( if aimed proper) regardless of armor levels and guardians.
3. Contrary to popular belief, shotguns is not for newbies nor veterans. It is for people who are stubborn.
4. People will be really scared of you ingame. Really!
5. You gain knowledge of a map’s hiding spots easily.
6. Your playstyle will become more tactical over time.
7. Stats-wise, your accuracy % will go very high.
8. You will learn when is a good shot or bad shot.
9. You will use CTRL faster and more than you ever thought.
10. Every headshot by a shotgun is an Apex Shot.

Cons

1. Your range is short (very short for beginners). Contrary to belief, shotguns can kill from mid range.
2. You are easily marked by long range riflers and snipers.
3. You will very likely get frustrated. VERY.
4. This special pointblank shot happens 1/1000 chance. This special shot totally misses at pointblank.
5. You may hesitate whether to shoot or not.
6. You may develop the habit of holding CTRL with any weapon, as well as unintentionally locking Shift+Ctrl.
7. Your pinky and mouse-hand will cramp. Real badly. For first-timers and not so frequent users.

Peripherals

As do any fire-able weapon, shotgun gains its own silencer and scope! Wow! A fully fitted shotgun looks different and special. What’s even more special is that by fitting these extra peripherals your deaths in matches increases.

Silencer
I cannot stress enough to others who keep asking me if silencers are good. Yes it is good for taking away your red mark in the map when you fire, as well as catching people unawares and unable to pinpoint your location.

It is cool to hear the shotgun fire with a silencer and the kills. It is actually not advisable. With silencer it really nerfs the damage. It is negligible if you don’t use the weapon much. It is very affecting if you are a full-time shotgunner.

Another thing is the length of your shotgun. There are corners which you will have to wait for the opponents to walk past you, and your silencer is the message to them : “I’m here, come shoot/knife me”.

The greatest effect is the visual adjustment of your weapon’s firing. To those who seldom use silencers will know this: the added graphic of the silencer on the weapon distracts your eyes and make it hard for you to read your crosshair.

This peripheral may seem useful, which is actually not. If you are going to catch anyone unawares or kill them without them pinpointing you, you are better off training your sniper and getting its silencer.

Scope

It is cool to be looking at people from afar and even try shooting them. However, why the waste of time doing that when your main priority is to get close to them and kill them? It is not even worth using it to check for enemies even on small displays. Not to mention shooting it. The moment you scope your sensitivity increases and after firing one aimed shot, it is hard to even get the aim back if you miss. Then you die.

In short, save your bp for other usages.

Conclusion: both add-ons aren’t useful at all but only for novelty.

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Gears

Gears are essential in making a difference in surviving in Blackshot, especially being a shotgunner. There’s no specific builds for shotgunners.

For mine:

Heavy Load
Elbow Grease
Shock Absorbers
Armor 2

I chose Heavy Load because I tend to finish my ammo often, and stopping to reload sometimes is suicidal. Elbow Grease aids in my movement switching between knife and weapon and firing. I jump from high distances a lot and Shock Absorbers helps in decreasing -15 to health to -3. Armor 2 is meant for high speed movement as well as against knifers.

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Tactic Gears

There is only 2 usable tactic gears specially for shotgunners:

Berserker (You get this early)
Blitzkrieg (You get it at Lieutenant Colonel Red)

Berserker functions like Sweeper, however, not as equally effective. A Sweeper Mp5er is still faster than a Berserker Shotgunner, unless you are equipped with the gold shotgun.

Blitzkrieg is the terrifying and most effective tactic gear a shotgunner can ever ask for. Equipped, it fires out slightly slower than m24 quickscoped.

Other tactic gears that best complement a shotgunner:

Skirmisher – for movement to spots
Guardian 1 – for no movement penalty and good defense against most 1 hit kukri kills
Guardian 2 – for the Adam/Cathy character. Best if coupled with guardian 1

Tactic gear(s) that don’t work:

Commando – The description is misleading, and DO NOT work for shotguns.

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Playstyles

There are three ways to playing shotgun in Blackshot. The most common one is the camper, then the rusher, then the hybrid. Note that this may seem similar for all weapons, due to the range the gameplay is totally different.

The Camper (Area Holding)

This style is the most hated by all players from the opposing team. However, after experimenting it for more than 400 hours of gameplay, it should be best described as area holding, a very defensive maneuvre. Do not belittle this playing style, as this style is more for teamplay than for solo.

Take Sandstorm TFM for example. Most shotgunners will go to the top and camp there. In all, there are 3 directions by which the opposing team can advance from, the top area, mid area and the sniper lane.

Let’s take this shotgunner in Red for example, he holds the roof well enough to block the advance of the opposing team, and they are thus forced to direct their ******************s on the other two lanes. On his side, his teammates can either focus fully to fend off the opposing teams on the other two fronts, or to advance through the top that is secure. This will cause serious headaches to the Blue team as they cannot advance from the top and has to be forced to fend off ******************s from all three fronts.

Camping at choke points is viable, but once the other team gets used to your spots you will lose your advantage. This style of play sees the most fireworks from grenades. Therefore if you play this style well, more often than not your team should be winning games.

The Rusher (Bulldozer) (Thanks to Upcomer

This style is the *aggressive* play, with the shotgunner rushing like a bulldozer and mowing down players after players. This style requires your own optimal sensitivity adjustment as well as quick reflexes. You never stop moving in this style, since you cannot fire from afar like other weapons. To stop is to die, unless you are in close quarter range.

This style is most effective against snipers, smgers and riflers in tight corners. Very effective for raising morale of your team and lowering it for the other team.

The Hybrid

As the name suggests, it combines both area holding and bulldozing elements which requires quick judgement of the situation, teammates’ and enemies’ locations and mapreading. You move like a SMGer, while seeking to kill any player like a Melee-r.

Best used to confuse the opposing team and for backstabbing. This is the solo style for a shotgunner.

All three styles are equally effective in their own right, but the third playstyle is not for everyone. To be especially effective in shotgunning, map-reading, judging locations of both friend and foe and honed reflexes. The shotgun is played like a AWP, meaning there will be dragshots here and there.

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Misconceptions about Shotgun

1. It is easy to use.

2. It is for newbies.

3. It is not comparable to sniper rifles and rifles.

4. It is hard to believe that it can be fully utilised to own in games.

These are ALL wrong. Shotgun is never easy, and that to be fully accustomed to it takes a lot more time than most of other weapons. It is not for newbies. Newbies using shotgun have it hard in Blackshot. See them use it in Beginner channel and you will know.

It is in my opinion the strongest weapon in the game on par with the Barrett, and if used the right way, it is very destructive to the opponents.

A comment about the quick-changing of weapon for shotgun. Snipers quickscope to shoot quickly, and they mainly do it to kill opponents in close – mid range, or to snipe opponents in succession. In any case, they have the benefit of range cover.

For shotgunners, it is really impractical to do this. Your weapon’s recoil is one of the worst among all weapons, and without waiting for your crosshair to recover you quick-shoot again. Your opponent is not always going to wait for you nor is he going to stand there.

It is best to stay behind cover and corners after firing a shot, rather than taking risks to incur getting killed.

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Sensitivity

Like any other weapon, it is best to be comfortable with a sensitivity that you are well-adjusted to. However, shotgun is another issue if you want to rush with it. Like the awp, using the shotgun means that you will be doing a lot of dragshots if you are not camping.

The main difference between an awp dragshot and a shotgun dragshot is:

1. The awp has a limited drag area, while the shotgun has a much wider area.

Therefore, you have to be using a sensitivity that you can swing swiftly enough to shoot.

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Aiming/Crosshair

I am using the smallest crosshair dot for maximum pinpoint accuracy. It works for me, but if it doesn’t works for you, best to stick to your own.

Now, the aiming part. If you are camping, aiming is not much of an issue. But when it comes to moving fire and crowd control in a room, that’s the challenge.

Now, imagine when you were using the sniper rifle for the first time (your very first FPS game). You hesitated to shoot, or to move. Shotgun is similar. You cannot spam, and therefore every shot counts.

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The Shotgunner Mentality

1. Never be afraid to die.

2. Kill, kill and kill.

3. Camp shamelessly. It’s free!

4. Run when needed, gank when possible.

5. Love thy weapon.

6. Just shoot! The other guy will be worried to death whenever he sees you firing.

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Increasing the Shotgun Mastery

This is always what I am hearing from some people about being very difficult to increase shotgun’s mastery. The only reason why you are not increasing the mastery is because you are not KILLING much with shotgun. It boils down to how much effort you are putting in to adjust yourself to this weapon. It is not difficult to level shotgun once you get the hang of how to kill.

Equipping the Specialist tactic gear will help in boosting mastery exp points per kill. Note that penalties apply if you take more than one shot to kill. For example, with Specialist equipped, per 1 hit kill I get about 70+ points at my current mastery level. If I take more than 1 hit, I get about 50-60+. Apex Headshot gives the most exp at 100+. Note that figures are random, and are subjected to many factors and formulas the developers has devised in calculating the amount gained.

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The Satay-ability of the Shotgun

There is no definite way to satay people, but you can make it happen or pray for it to happen. To make it happen, make sure you are playing with newbies. Lure them (they usually almost bite the bait) by running into a long narrow corridor (especially Hunting, Core Project and Sandstorm TFM maps) and pray they come in together, at least IN A LINE OF SORTS. Shotgun has a spread shot range, which is not exactly very wide in Blackshot, but if they hit, they hurt, if not kill.

But then again, do not be too hinged on sataying people too much, even if it feels real good. A shotgunner is as good as dead if he misses or fails to kill on his first shot.

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Playing beside a Shotgunner

Playing with Him/Her/It

There are few options that you can consider about utilizing/exploiting the Shotgunner in games.

Firstly, he/she/it can be a Bait, an Alarm, Bulldozer or a Support. The Bait is one sad slob, especially when this Shotgunner you know happens to be new and can only camp in obvious spots over and over again. Players usually target him first, since he is a free kill. You might want to make sure that no one sees you when they are trying to kill him. You should not be stealing his kills, and should be a distance away from him, since whoever kills him will likely come to your area.

The Alarm is, well, an alarm to indicate that the area is breached, and that REINFORCEMENTS is required for that side. The Support Shotgunner, must, however, be someone who is well-versed in map-reading as well as a good team player. He/she/it must be able to support the team with the flow of game e.g. covering of flagger, defending chokepoints, backstabbing and flanking the opposite team.

The Bulldozer, like I mentioned in my above posts, is a player who CAN penetrate the opposite team’s defences. Players should utilize this type of Shotgunner to ****************** from the exposed side.

Playing as a Shotgunner beside another Shotgunner

If you are inexperienced and wishes to learn from the other “should-be obvious” more experienced Shotgunner, one way is NOT, to, SHADOW him like some chick following a mother duck. You’ll get yourselves killed in no time. Observe where he moves, how he plays, when he camps and his pattern of route. You should be fulfilling a Camper role if you are in this category.

If you are experienced, and has another chicklet following you like you are the duck, use him as a BAIT and ALARM. If you cannot save him/her/it, the best is to prevent the whole team from getting overwhelmed from his/her/it’s side. You should be providing the Camper/Rusher role in this category.

If both of you are experienced, this will be the ideal combination. Both has to provide support, cover and initiative in how you want to move and kill, or camp and defend. This is best done with Partners, or with someone who knows the play well. Two experienced Shotgunners, SHOULD NEVER, move together. Likewise, moving along with others in a group is equivalent to death in most cases, since there are more RIFLERS and SNIPERS who can satay you all together.

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Just realized I missed out something.

By the way, it’s SHOTGUN, not SHORTGUN. AND IT’S TRIAL, NOT TRAIL.

By your friendly neighbourhood shotgunner,
Pinky