I have a shotgun with an end buff and a xbow with an agil buff. I've been dumping my points into agil and have end buffs from equipment. The shotgun is grandma speed and has a short range. The xbow is fast and has a longer range. Trying to decide between the two and wondering what other peoples' feelings are about the different Ranger weapons...

general concensus i thought was that you dont use anything slower than fast for ranged weapons..

the real debate comes in when you have a popper that's got awesome stats, is freakin fast or ludicrous speed, high damage, but short range.

i dunno. guns are for a little fun, but id never actually use one myself..

i dunno, is there anyone out there who does use a gun and is happy with it?

Like...

"This is my rifle, this is my gun! One is for fighting, one is for fun!" (from Full Metal Jacket)

I tried, I really did, to use a shotgun, but it was just too slow and lame. I don't use anything under "fast"...well, I will use a "normal" if the stats blow me away, but that is rare.

I heard someone suggest that, to make shotguns more viable, give them a cone of damage...like a real shotgun. The main target would get the full blast, but anything within, say, 2-3 feet, would get a smaller amount of scatter damage.

he. sorry was like 1am when i posted. i had a purple freaking fast popper,i used it for a whole 2 minutes before i thought the range was too short.

I got a purple popper today while farming Abaddon. I almost dismissed it immediately, but actually found it pretty useful against Abby and his crew. Even at Ludicrous speed, the damage appeared to be less than my slotfhul xbow, but it was a lot of fun to see those numbers flying above Abby's head.

That being said, this really isn't a weapon with any long-term viability in my arsenal.

I've noticed that there are actual "range differences" with different ranged weapons.

Personally... I like to be able to "set up" outside of aggro range and then start firing a stream of arrows. Usually I could at least get 4-5 arrows off before the group of enemies begin to converge on me.

With a Shotgun... you can't do that. One great thing though is using gear that increases your ranged attack speed + Trigger Finger with a shotgun. I did this early on with a purple shotgun and had no problem with any group of mobs converging on me... 1-2 shots and they were down, next, repeat.

I also guess it'd depend on specific setups and builds that you use for your character. If you have a setup that requires everyone on top of you... shotties would be perfect. If your setup is based on ranged attacks... shottie isn't for you.

that being said, the new build is making it so all xbows have the same range i believe.. not sure if it's including all ranged weapons ie guns as well.

I'm holding on to my popper to see if that is the case...

heh, I am mainly a fighter and once I found a good shotty, at first I found it meh, but I added some dex since I needed some anyway... man it was quite the fun to have there, quite fun for some fights.

I use a shotgun and I'll never go back to a crossbow, sure they shoot slower but the damage just seems much greater and with th right armor set I can just stan in the middle of a group of badies and just blast away. The only boos I had any real problem with is Vergrim.

I also use a shoty, nothing has more style than a shotgun

It would be fantastic if there will be a second weapon slot in a future patch. So you could use both shotgun and xbow. But i think thats not possible.

i have 2 different shotguns and i wont go back to the xbow. i just like the power too much and besides if u get the skill trigger finger frenzy, that grandma speed is increased for a short period of time and really comes in handy for sticky situations. (Ie. if u have aggroed 3 or more groups). I can think of nothing more fun than a shotgun.

I just stated useing the gun and love it!

I wanted to kite and do lots of crits but the gun just has better graphics and sounds and i can see myself useing guns alot from now on. Im even changing my skill combo from fears and slows to ring of fire and damage! so i can 1 hit kill anything left standing. :P

Its all about the damage.

*Big Hugs*
Lestai

I currently use both switching them out as needed but keep a heavy hitting shotty as my prime weapon. I did some testing with various bows and shotguns of all speeds and bonuses while I was around lvl 27. With my play style, I learned that on average, the 2 are pretty close in enemy take down with a slight advantage going to the shotty.

Shotgun: Primary weapon of choice. Grandma speed with high damage/agility. Packs a puch and can clear up most common yard trash in one or 2 shots. Effective in taking out out low health enemies before a healer can cast.

XBow: Secondary weapon. Ludicrous speed with moderate damage/high agility. Used when I have enemies that like to run a lot. The additional range allows me to get more shots in before my character moves.

I think it's important to note that there are more pro-shotgun users after the build .49 ranger nerf. Xbow damage used to be significantly higher AND faster....