Shotguns and (sortof) knives

While these are no longer really scout weapons and aren't very powerful anymore, this is on the list because it's a specialist weapon. You'll find 2 types of shotgun users- those who rely on stealth (scouts) and those who rely on speed (assaults).
~Their strengths are high damage, speed, the ability to reload 1 shot at a time, and being difficult to hit in CQC, if they know how to strafe.
~Their weaknesses are very short range and (usually) low eHP
~To fight them is simple enough to watch out for them. Don't bunch up (if you don't you'll only lose 1 or 2 people if a scout takes you by surprise), and take corners as wide as you can.

I'm neither of the types that use a shotgun; Amarr Logi, armor heavy so I'm fairly slow.

A tactic I use a lot is luring someone to come toward me, usually posted up around the corner.

In a rough CQC engagement, I'll make to charge forward in order to cause them to backpeddle. I'll then retreat, strafing behind a structure in hopes to lure them or give me enough time to drop my compact nano for some quick heals and allow my armor rep to take effect.

Sometimes I try to hide myself in the blue droplink/nano indicators that are tightly packed together. Works with heavies, usually. Silly heavies.

Best solution?

facecheck them and kill them with melee, most of them switch to AR after that

Not letting it die though

We need to get a defibrillator out here.

I find that sometimes the best way to take on somebody with a mass driver is to get as closer as possible. With the people who have picked up the mass driver as a FOTM they don't have the experience and quite often they kill themselves. Of course this probably only works because I'm shield tank caldari.

Yeah I kinda love the idea of the Mass Driver...as a mid-range support weapon. But it never really functions like that when I come up against folks using them. Most use it as a CQB spam machine. Kinda foolish if you ask me. Especially when you factor all the smoke and distortion that the thing causes. How players don't blow the hell outta themselves is beyond me.

I think if you are going to "fix" the Mass Driver it need not have anything to do with damage...spash or direct. Instead incorporate two things:

1. Slower rate of fire and slower projectile speed. This will ensure the skill factor is present in the weapon handling. Careful shots should be key.

2. Incorporate a minimum number of "twists" or minimum distance the projectile has to travel before it is armed and will explode. This is a simple feature of most real world grenade launchers as a safety measure and will help ensure the weapon cannot be used as some kind of super-shotgun. It keeps the weapon locked into mid-range combat. You can still give the projectile some damage capability if you get a direct hit at close range...just not explosive damage.

Work in those physics and the Mass Driver makes a lot more sense IMO.

I think the MD should go back to where it was pre buff - it doesn't need the extra splash radius as the fix to hit detection made it much better.

I think the damage is good where it is.

I don't think it got a damage/splash buff. Just the hit detection was fixed.

I'm fairly certain this is how the recent MD nerf/buff timeline goes:

Chromosome: Larger blast radius than we have now

Uprising 1.0: Nerf to blast radius

Uprising 1.2: Buff to blast radius, but not all the way up to where it was in Chromosome.

And damage has stayed the same throughout.

Heavy with a shotgun. Seriously, every time i run into one I get stuck in a "how do I engage that," logic loop.