The Shotgun is one of three shotguns in War Brokers; one of two that use pellets. It is one of the first weapons that came within the release period (v100 - v114) in late 2017 to mid-January 2018. It is a pump-action weapon that fires 9 pellets. It is the default weapon for weapon slot 2, pairing alongside the AR Rifle for the default weapon loadout when players first open the game.
The model from Synty resembles the Remington 870 MCS. Its design is very simple, sporting a mix of wood and steel that keeps the gun to a simple brown and grey appearance.
There is no attachment difference between Standard and Survival modes, nor is there any capacity for the Shotgun to use them. Each Shotgun comes loaded with 5 Shotgun Ammo 
. Each "ammo" is one shell that contains the 9 pellets.
Performance[]
Overview[]
Despite initial appearances, the Shotgun is actually one of the more advanced weapons in the game—quite some skill is needed to effectively use the weapon. This is generally held in good reception as shotguns tend to lean on the side of being an easy to pick up weapon that is broken/overpowered in many video games. It is often an overlooked weapon that has great strength within its limited close range. The Shotgun hits hard but has a measly fire rate of 0.952 RPS. It is not a good weapon for DPS and large crowds. Damage drop is a big drawback of the Shotgun. Damage begins to fall off at 30m and will drop by 80% by 100m distance. It is the best weapon—comparable only to fellow shotguns—for the immediate ranges within 30m. What keeps it balanced and limited to closer ranges mostly lies in the spread. While some may expect the spread to be quite random, the spread is much more consistent than it is credited to have. This lies in the spray pattern of the Shotgun which has been deliberately programmed to be consistent, at least since v133 (March 19, 2018):
"Fixed the spray pattern on shotgun to be more consistent instead of a random spray pattern."
v133 Changelog
How to Use — Shotgun Spread Explained[]
The game achieves a consistent yet balanced spread by handling the spread differently to other weapons. It does this by avoiding the shooting error value and letting a spray pattern create most of the randomness for spread. It then uses hipfire spread as normal, but applies the same spread to the entire spray pattern rather than to each individual pellet. This creates a consistent shot that is always the same general size rather than possibly tight and concentrated in one spot, or spread out to the extreme. Most weapons have this shooting error value set at less than 1° error; negligible in close and medium ranges, but can greatly impact far ranges. Accurate weapons like the Crossbow and Sniper Rifle have a value of 0.1° and the Revolver beats that out with 0.075° of error. The Shotgun—and consequently every shotgun since—has a value of exactly 0°. Shotguns are the only weapons that have no spread from this property.
Each of the 9 pellets still need to have some spread to form a unique spray of fire each time though, so how does War Brokers do it? The game defines projectiles by different types: in this case AmmoShotgun. Unlike other projectile types this projectile is counted as one singular shot that contains 9 sub-projectiles, and it's this singular shot with a conical shape that is affected by the 0° of error from the point of origin. The point of origin is where the pace at which the weapon is aimed at, and is a combination of where the player is actually aiming plus any interference from hipfire spread (discussed later on). Each pellet is given a conical area within the singular conical shot in which they may travel. This forms a spray pattern that is mostly octagonal, with 8 pellets spreading to each point of the octagon and the final pellet taking up the middle. Each shot may have different trajectories and landing locations for each pellet, but each pellet is always within a consistent field. This ensures a roughly circular shape of spread and that the shots are always central rather than possibly spread all to one diagonal.
Note that the above image is a rough representation and not to scale. Each circle would be tighter, with more overlap between the circles.
Unlike the other projectile types, the AmmoShotgun projectiles actually have a much shorter range limit of ~114.3m (375 ft). This limit is checked independently for each pellet, meaning that based on the angle of a shot and any obstacles along the way, some may make contact with something while the rest may be culled (removed by the game) at the 114m mark. Until that limit, the Shotgun fires the 9 pellets in a conical spray based on the design of the spray. Because of this conical shape, the pellets first start clumped together at the point of origin, making it easy to land all 9 pellets on a target. As the pellets travel from the point of origin, they each slightly deviate and spread out according to the spray. This cone that the pellets spread within is quite narrow, easily allowing multiple pellets to still hit a player 100m away. It is wide enough that hitting multiple head shots is unlikely, and a good half of the pellets should miss. The size of this cone—or overall spread of the 9 pellets—does not line up with the circular reticle display on player's screens. This is a misconception that some players have held which has introduced some frustration in trying to use this formidable weapon. What the reticle does display is the level of spread to the point of origin that is affected by hipfiring. While the circle expands, the spread is large. While the circle is small, the spread is minimal. Keeping the spread as low as possible is important when using the Shotgun.
The "spread factor" for hipfiring is based on how fast the player is moving and is different to the spray pattern and the shooting error value. For shotguns this means that the cone that contains the spray pattern may be fired slightly to the side to where the player was aiming for. Due to the spray of pellets, normally this means a player will still land a good number of hits; it would just make it harder to accurately and consistently land enough to kill every time. This provides a level of balance to both pellet-based shotguns (the Shotgun and Tactical Shotgun) and provides incentive to ADS (aim down sights) with them. If a player shoots while ADS, the random direction the spray will go is eliminated.
With a proper understanding of the shape and size of the consistent 9 pellet spray, players will be able to aim more efficiently at enemies. As it is consistent, even hipfiring with the deviated shot path can be used to great effect because of the reach that the spray has. To kill in one shot, the Shotgun would need to land at least 6 pellets to an enemy's head, or an equivalent of 5 pellets to the head and 2 to the body or 4 pellets to the head and 4 pellets to the body. With a maximum potential of 576 damage with all 9 pellets to the head, the Shotgun is the only weapon—other than the .50 Cal Sniper (at 600 damage to the head)—capable of killing any enemy that does not have a Heavy Helmet in just one shot: with a player left on 29.4 HP (shown in-game as a rounded 30 HP) from the Shotgun or 15 HP from the .50 Cal Sniper.
Comparisons and Practical Use[]
In general, the progression for ranged combat is considered to be: shotguns, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, Hunting Rifle, Sniper Rifle.
In terms of damage drop, the Shotgun has the same damage range as the SMG, though the SMG falls by a crippling 90% in damage. The damage drop aside, larger distances introduces difficulty in landing multiple pellets on enemies. The core purpose of the Shotgun is to land multiple relatively low-damaging pellets to stack up a massive amount of damage in one shot. The Shotgun falls short in crowd environments and long corridors. It's either of these two situations where any sub-machine gun would be preferable opposed to the Shotgun. If paired with one, a combination like the Shotgun and SMG is a very powerful loadout in CQC maps like Office.
Small outdoor maps like Tribute and Zen Garden can still enjoy the Shotgun in some cases; however players begin to fall short on potential when at that point they could be relying just on a sub-machine gun and swapping out the other slot for something with more range like the AK Rifle or in some cases the Sniper Rifle. This could be offset with the introduction of the VSS to a loadout: going Shotgun plus VSS to still hold an important DPS position in CQC but also address the larger number of medium ranges that the AK Rifle would be brought out for. As the maps open up more and become larger, all shotguns really begin to falter even with smart pairings like with the VSS.
When considering any shotgun, the Tactical Shotgun tends to find more popularity. Shotguns ideally kill in one blow, otherwise at least leaving room to quickly finish off the player. The risk of being slightly off in aim, especially when hipfiring, makes the Tactical Shotgun more enticing as an option due to its higher fire rate in comparison to the base Shotgun. If a player needs to land another shot then they can do so quickly with the Tactical Shotgun without being exposed as long or being pressured to swap to a sidearm. It also holds 12 shells in comparison to the 5 shells that the Shotgun carries. The Shotgun would appear to be a worse option if it were not for the damages between the two. While the damage drop is the same 80% reduction by 100m, the base damage of each pellet differs: 32 for Shotgun and 25 for Tactical Shotgun. With a difference of 14 damage per head shot with each individual pellet—stacking up to a total difference of 126 damage on a head shot—both the number of pellets needed and the effective ranges for the two shotguns is quite noticeable.
With lower damage comes harsher effects of damage drop, becoming ineffective at killing in one shot sooner. With each pellet dealing less, the Tactical Shotgun needs more pellets to land in order to kill. This needs further accuracy, which generally goes in hand with range since the further a player gets from their target the less pellets they will be able to effectively land. This leaves the Tactical Shotgun in the predicament of needing players to either get much closer or get used to the idea of killing in two shots—something not too out of the question for the fire rate of the Tactical Shotgun, but not ideal. The Shotgun with its higher damage can get away with hitting less pellets and can hold onto fatal damages for longer. This makes it a very powerful option to consider so long as a player is confident in their aim.
If a player is seeing all combat within ideal shotgun range is a very immediate range that the Tactical Shotgun could make use of, it would be wiser to carry that for the faster fire rate and higher shell capacity. With the flexibility of the fire rate, it also doubles as a good starting point for players wishing to get into the shotguns. The Shotgun is otherwise a higher power and flexible option for the experienced player and the preferred option.
Available Attachments[]
The Shotgun cannot use any attachments.
Trivia[]
- For some time players held the misconception that only 8 pellets were fired. This was likely perpetuated by developer JoJa15 when he mistakenly said 8 pellets were used when answering a question.
- Aiming down sights for unscoped weapons was not available until v234 (December 7, 2018). This means that the Shotgun, as well as the Pistol, Grenade Launcher, and Minigun all were used for only hipfire in early builds of the game.
- The Pistol was initially the default weapon for slot 2 until a new sidearm slot was implemented in v115 (January 18, 2018).
- The Shotgun wasn't initially included in Gun Game
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