Simple as; the m37a2 pump shotgun has suffered from this delay since forever. You should be able to fire the shotgun as fast as you can pump the gun.
There are two types of ammo (slugs and flechettes) that are rendered useless due to the firing delay, forcing marines to just pack buckshot, leading to more nerfs because the abuse of it.
Lower the overall damage of the shotgun or slighty decrease slugs , flechette and buckshot damage (buckshot has been nerfed so hard you couldn’t notice the difference if it’s nerfed again anyways) to balance it out.
If the fire delay is the final solution to shotgun juggling then it’s a mediocre measure because shotgun juggling it’s still a thing; like when people complain about marines using the shotgun as the main gun instead of a rifle it is because the game made it that way not the marines… putting automatic fire back on rifles is a step in the good direction but there’s work to be done still.
Hell, we could even reach a common ground, flechettes already have no stun and are deadly at close quarters, slugs could be modify so the stun is applied when you fire it at long range (at least 7) and reduce the stun effect. And we could remove the buckshot stun in exchange for more AP; solutions and balacing tweaks can be easily made to make this possible.
If we managed to leave hugger combat (the TM of the old CM13) we can do anything.
Removing stun from buckshot would make it a crap flechette that is short range, flechette, AP, damage and good range is the trade off from having no stun
Buckshot has low AP, high damage and eh range with stun
Slugs has alright AP, mid to low damage, good range and stun with slow
They all have Plus and negs, making them all feel like flechette is a no no, it would just be better removing buckshot and slugs if your going to make them flechette like(Yes I know slugs won’t become anything like flechette)
I wouldn’t say buckshot has high dmg at this moment because the buckshot I remember could one shot t1s at PB range, right now you’re lucky if you can one shot a runner (if it’s the acid variant you won’t).
I still believe we could remove the delay from the shotgun if Devs really wanted to. Bigger changes, nerfs and buffs has been made around the years and the game still runs nice.
I do think devs could remove it but why… I see no point shotguns work pretty good as is, I do think they need a small buff I have seen marines slowly stop using them as much anymore(even I have started taking the m39 more)
It still has the problem of someone spam pumping and clicking on anything that comes close to them doing up to 230 damage for every PB(no doubt you will miss at less once)
This is why the MOU can’t load Buckshot as the stun and the damage would be to much for any alien, This is why MOU works with flechette it has no stun and it has 3 shots meaning you have to reload after shooting once or your miss out on 1/3 of your damage
Pump shotgun has 10 shells meaning every shot is 1/10 of your damage you have more room to miss in trade of a fire delay giving xenos a window to run or attack with a chance if getting PB
ANY double barrel shotgun will struggle to match a marine with a Hotkey or macro for pumping their shotgun
