Which Season 2 Shotgun is Best?

With the introduction of MEGA comes a new HAVOC pump shotgun that will change the way players view their weapon loadouts.

Amongst a large number of changes this season, Fortnite has vaulted the Thunder Shotgun but retained the Combat Shotgun, Maven Auto Shotgun, Accelerant Shotgun and Breacher Shotgun. This makes for a pretty interesting and diverse set of shotguns to deploy in short range combat. Let’s take a closer look at their performance figures. To find out which ones should make it into your loadout.

Which Shotguns are best?

In order to level set our expectations, let's first compare all the weapons on Time to Kill (TtK). This takes all the quantifiable aspects of the weapons efficacy into account fire rate, damage per round, reload time (if applicable) etc. to give a sense for the overall capabilities of each of the guns. We do this by determining how long a weapon takes to deplete a full health competitor (250 hp), including reloads if necessary. 

As was likely expected for preliminary users of the shotgun, the Havoc Pump is considerably slower than alternative shotguns. Despite getting a nice performance boost at the mythic tier (+9% vs. the stand +4%). When it comes to effective shotguns, usually they fall in one of two camps. One - Hire Fire Rate/Low Damage Weapons or Two - Low Fire Rate/High Damage Weapons. It seems that the Havoc falls into the latter category and as a result, we need to understand its ability to "hit hard" given its slower TtK in this chart.

Before we move on, though, it is quite clear that the Accelerant and much more ubiquitous Maven Auto Shotgun (8% better than similarly tiered combat shotguns) reign supreme in the high fire rate category. Its closest competitor the Combat Shotgun, should only be taken if the Combat Shotgun exceeds the Maven by two tiers. There is some range advantage that the combat shotgun provides with ADS over other shotguns, but you are better off with a competent mid range weapon. 

Let's take a closer look at Damage per Round to understand which weapon hits hardest.  

There is no doubt that the Havoc Pump Shotgun hits hard. When combined with critical hit damage, a mythic tier Havoc pump can take over 200hp from an opponent in a single shot, over 12% harder hitting than the next best option. It is also clear, however, that the Accelerant, Breacher, and even the Maven can hit quite hard too. Given these stats, the Havoc Pump likely has a use case in peek-a-bo or high cover situations (like build mode) but it is a hard sell when the Accelerant hits hard (175 vs. 207) and has a 75% faster fire rate. It may even be worth opting for the Breacher over the Havoc Pump given its faster fire rate, building damage, and comparable damage per round.

In order to make sure we aren't missing anything before we draw conclusions, we also want to understand magazine damage and reload time. We can see that the Havoc Pump holds its place as a high damage weapon but the reality is that getting through the whole clip is going to take almost twice as long as the Accelerant. This combined with the advantage in reload time cements the accelerant as the best shotgun in season 2. 

Conclusions

There is little doubt that the best shotgun in Season 2 is the Accelerant Shotgun for its incredibly fast fire rate, reload time, and comparably hard hitting abilities. Read on for the full ranking and reasoning:

Rank	Weapon	Reasoning
1	Exotic Accelerant Shotgun	Fast but hard hitting, perfect for two gun loadouts.
2	Mythic Havoc Pump Shotgun	Hard hitting but quite slow in terms of fire rate, likely better for 3+ gun load outs or high cover environments and game play.
3	Exotic Breacher Shotgun	Hard hitting, structural damage, faster fire rate than the Havoc Pump.
4 (tie)	Maven Auto Shotgun	Fast fire rate and hits sufficiently hard, making it the best choice for a 2 gun loadout.
5	Non-Mythic Havoc Pump Shotguns	The non-mythic version doesn't have the performance bump associated with the mythic Havoc and falls accordingly.
6	Combat Shotgun	Not hard hitting enough to be useful as a shotgun.

 

If you are a competitor that loves hard hitting shotguns and can use them effectively alongside high fire rate short range or medium range weapons, you may consider a Mythic Havoc Pump Shotgun. It is the hardest hitting shotgun you can get by a meaningful margin (+10% over the Breacher) and likely a compelling end game option when competitors are depleted. However, don’t be surprised if missed shots or the slow fire rate result in missed opportunities. The Maven and its Exotic variant the Accelerant are truly formidable in this season and should make it into your load out more times than not. 

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