Shotguns are close-range weapons. Except with projectile shotguns AND a slow fire-rate, you can actually miss people even at ranges of 5m or less if they’re moving quickly. This defeats the whole purpose of a shotgun, which is to blast away people at short range.
WHY ARE THESE SHOTGUNS NOT HITSCAN? The spread patterns are already horrible and the heroes they’re attached to are already underpowered. THEY EVEN HAVE DAMAGE FALLOFF ALREADY.
(The current heroes with projectile shotguns are Torb, Doomfist, and Roadhog.)
you haven’t played Unreal Tournament 99?
No, but I believe they have something called a “flak cannon.” (I tried a bit of Unreal Tournament 4.) But I’ve never felt that that was an inconsistent as Overwatch shotguns in general. I think the lack of movement acceleration and the terrible spread patterns really ruins their effectiveness.
I absolutely hate Torb’s shotgun. Not enough pellets in it and the spread is just cruel. I’ve dumped 4 shots of into a Moira at close range (all with confirmed hits) and sometimes she’ll survive all 4 shots, other times i manage to 2 shot her, it’s super inconsistent. I used Moira as an example because of the hitbox/model, same thing happens against Mercy and Tracer, it’s just trash against anything that isn’t a giant slab of meat. I can understand at 5+ meters away being inconsistent on these slim heroes, but not at a literal in-your-face range.
At least with Doom, the rest of his kit has damage potential that he chain together. At least with Hog, you hook them in and if they survive your combo you can just tap them with a single pellet to finish usually. Torb’s shotgun is all he has for burst damage, the primary fire is way too slow and risky at close range and it’s really only useful for spamming chokes. His whole kit is just frustrating to use and if one word describes Torb it would be ‘inconsistent’. Even the turret is inconsistent with its targeting and it’s supposed to auto focus if you hit someone with your primary fire but it doesn’t always do that.
It actually helps them. Projectiles get hitboxes (instead of just lines) so each pellet is more likely to collide with something than if they were hitscan at close range.
Shotguns aren’t effective at anyone far enough for hitscan vs projectile to really matter anyways
Having to lead shots at distances of 5m or less is insanity. It makes the heroes in question incredibly difficult to use in many situations. Doomfist for example, has to first look around his target to “E” slam into them, then has to shoot AHEAD of his target to hit them, which means that if the target moves at all, you end up missing more than half the spread all the time. Having projectile shotguns makes aim almost more luck than actual skill, because of movement acceleration.
