Frag Shotgun

* Item

10 (Sniper)

15 (Sniper + Shellshock)

9 (Firestorm)

14 (Firestorm + Shellshock)

14 (Sniper)

4 (Firestorm)

2/2 - Very Low (Sniper)

## Class Perks

**Shellshock (Renegade)**50% more pellets per shot

**Fireangel (Demolitionist)**Halves ammo consumption

**Scavenger (Technician)**Convert weapon to a modpack

## In-game Description

*"Advanced pulverization technology converts bullets into shrapnels."*

*Rather than use the traditional 12-gauge shell, the Frag Shotgun breaks down bullets into pellets, firing four bullets worth with each pull of the trigger in a spread tighter than the standard Shotgun.*

 *In addition, it stores multiple loads before needing to be reloaded.*

## Tactical Analysis

the **Frag Shotgun** is a unique pump-action shotgun. It is only unique in a sense that it uses bullets rather than shells. other than that, the weapon itself is rather mundane.

The Frag shotgun can hold 16 bullets in its chamber. each trigger pull consumes 4 bullets that spreads into 14 pellets, doubled that of a standard **shotgun**. As such, the Frag Shotgun can fires up to 4 times before having to reload.

Another advantage over a normal pump-action shotgun is that The Frag Shotgun operates more like an automatic shotgun: able to continue firing without the lag time from the 'pumping' animation, instead it will only play the pump animation during the reloading process. However, it takes twice longer to reload compared to the normal shotgun.

The Frag Shotgun also has a marginally tighter spread than the standard shotgun but with increased number of pellets per shot, this allows the Frag Shotgun to snipe enemies beyond the normal effective range of the weapon of its type.

Under normal circumstance, the Frag Shotgun is only valued for it's economic effectiveness, where it can utilize a cheaper resource pool (bullets) to fulfill the role and match the damage output of the shotgun class weapon.

Only the **Renegade** and his **Shellshock** perk can utilize the weapon effectively. With his perk, The Frag Shotgun can now fires 21 pellets per shot, drastically enhancing the damage and sniping capability.

However, the **Demolitionist** can find some use for the Frag Shotgun as a niche weapon that's very ammo efficient, being able to shoot 8 times before reloading, twice the amount of times other classes can. (unless using the **Firestorm** modpack, which reduces the ammo consumption to 1. At which point the perk will no longer apply)

Note that the Frag Shotgun is incompatible with the Renegade's passive ability that allows him to store one free shot whenever **shells** have been picked up.

The Frag Shotgun is a **Unique** weapon and can only be upgraded once with 3 exotic modpacks. As of V.1.1.4, all basic modpacks are now accepted as well.

## Modpack Analysis

### Bulk

Increases the magazine size to 28, allowing the Frag Shotgun to fires exactly 7 times, 3 more shots than the unupgraded version.

### Power

Increases the minimum damage per pellet from 5 to 8.

### Firestorm

Turns the Frag Shotgun into a true automatic weapon with a sizable magazine to match but at the cost of damage. Each shot now use only 1 bullet but the pellet counts are reduced to 9 and damage reduced to 4. The firerate is also increased, comparable to that of the **Jackhammer**.

The **Renegade** with his **Shellshock** perk is still the only class that are somewhat exempted from the damage penalty due to the 50% pellet increase put his final pellet count at 14, the exact same amount of projectiles fired by an unupgraded Frag Shotgun and wielded by everyone else.

Interestingly, The **Marine's** passive specifically capable of interacting with the Firestorm Frag Shotgun, able to fire even faster when under the effect of any power ups even without any indication on the PDA.

### Nano

Increase the chance to not using ammo depending on the amount of health left. The chance is calculate in percent, at 90% health left, the chance to not using ammo will be 10%. At 10% health however, the free firing is guaranteed.

### Sniper

Increase damage from 5 to 14 per pellet but reduce the amount of pellets per shot from 14 to 10. Also tightened the horizontal spread from 5 to 2. This turns the Frag Shotgun into the ultimate sniping shotgun, easily outperforming the likes of **Focused Double Shotgun** and **Elephant Gun** by a wide margin.

As with the Firestorm upgrade, The **Renegade** and his **Shellshock** perk bounces the number of pellets per shot back to 15, capable of dealing around 360-410 damage on average with all pellets hit. This makes the Sniper-modded Frag Shotgun quite an attractive choice in terms of damage and special role.

For any other classes, it is a damage enhancer with some dubious tradeoff at best.

## Summary

Pros

* Efficient ammo pool, using generally low damage and readily available bullets to cause damage equal to shells.
* Tight pellet spread, can be used as an impromptu sniping weapon, or an actual one with an upgrade.
* No pump animation, faster damage per second than a regular Shotgun.
* Very good class synergy (Renegade).

Cons

* Very mundane for a unique weapon.
* Bad reload speed, not too long enough to be problematic but long enough to cause annoyance in intense situations.
* Considered a tiny bit better shotgun by any other class that isn't a Renegade.
* Quickly loses it's usefulness once the enemy density becomes higher.
* Its modpack upgrades are generally oriented towards survival or utility.

## Changelog

V.1.1.4

* In-game description changed

*Rather than use the traditional 12-gauge shell, the Frag Shotgun breaks down 10mm rounds into pellets, firing four bullets worth with each pull of the trigger in a spread tighter than the standard Shotgun. In addition, it stores multiple loads before needing to be reloaded. -* Old In-game description.

* Typo in Sniper mod PDA description reads: ***Increases** the amount of pellets and increases damage + accuracy*

Despite the fact that the actual effect still working as described by the previous version. As such, the effect in the infobox will remains the same as V1.1.2 until further notice.

## Trivia

* The 1st person sprite for the Frag Shotgun is that of the shotgun from **Doom64**