The armor dmg reduction for shotguns now is calculated based on the total dmg of one click instead of each individual pellet.
Here’s my test result, one click against roadhog and orisa:
Junker Queen: 80 on hog, 73 on orisa
Doomfist: 55 on hog, 48 on orisa
Dva: 22 on hog, 15 on orisa
Reaper: 108 on hog, 101 on orisa
Torb right click: 125 on hog, 118 on orisa
The only outlier was Hazard, which is 75 on hog and 55-ish on orisa, I forgot to take the screenshot, but it was definitely not a direct 7 dmg reduction.
TL,DR: If you’re playing a character with armor (yellow HP), expect to receive more dmg from the shotguns, and it should be drastically more hurtful compared with last season.
To devs: if the armor change is intended, it would be nice to put them in the patch note unless I’m missing part of it; if it’s not intended, please fix this asap.
Armor reduces the damage received by 7, up to a maximum of 50% of the incoming damage. It should reduce pellet damage by 50% as long as it’s under 14 damage. That means Junker Queen should do like 40 damage on armor if I understand that correctly (or 8 → 4 damage x 10 pellets). Maybe we’re missing something or it is bugged.
I do hope this change isn’t a bug, as it does bring shotguns in line with the behaviour of armor against every other weapon archetype (damage being calculated per attack instead of being arbitrarily split up by a factor of the pellet count as if every pellet were being fired one after another), and most shotgun heroes could use a bit of a buff against armored targets in general (except Hazard and D.Va).