View source for Strategy:Frag Shotgun

One of only two Unique shotguns in the game, the  Frag Shotgun is very underwhelming. It's a shotgun with a clip, so you can fire off multiple shots before reloading (up to four), and it has a focused spread, but that's about where the good parts of it end. Damage-wise it is lackluster, being as strong as a Combat and Assault Shotgun, and its clip is smaller too (it can only fire 4 shots, while the Combat/Tactical have 5 and the Assault has 6, while the latter two can also be expanded with bulk mods). Its big drawback though comes with its atrocious 1.5 firing speed, making it a lot slower than the other clip shotguns at pumping out its load; even the Combat Shotgun with the pumps it has to do inbetween shots will fire out faster (1.2 seconds to shoot and pump compared to 1.5 seconds to fire of the Frag Shotgun). This will additionally make it a lot less effective at corner shooting, compounded by its low power and abysmal 2.5 second reload, and a 1.5 firing speed puts you at significant risk in general, leaving you vulnerable to getting attacked twice by enemies with greater than 100% speed while you're at a standstill. It's completely inferior to Combat, Tactical, and Assault Shotguns, and since it's a Unique unlike those Shotguns, it can't be modded.

Outside of its statistical abilities, its gimmick is that it uses 10mm ammo instead of shells. On the surface this would appear to give it the niche of giving Shotgun users another source of ammo they can utilise, when in Hell levels they may come across a drought of shells if the RNG isn't kind. Bullets are going to be the last kind of ammo Shotgunners will want to carry around though; Rocket Launchers synergise well with Shotguns and thus they will want to carry rockets around, while they may also want to carry around plasma for the BFG9000 and/or a Plasma Shotgun they found. Pistols and Chainguns are near-useless on a Shotgun build, so you would only be carrying around bullets for the Frag Shotgun, which itself is not a good weapon as established previously. So you're better off using the inventory space that would be taken up by the Frag Shotgun and its bullets by stockpiling other ammo, and if you are using a build that utilises both Shotguns and Pistols/Chainguns, you would be better off using those bullets on your Pistols/Chainguns than on this weapon, and carrying some shells for the better Shotguns.

If you're playing Angel of Shotgunnery, and thus can't use other weapons nor non-shell ammunition unless you're lucky enough to find a Plasma Shotgun, it might have a niche of lugging it around and a stack of bullets for an emergency, but proper stockpiling of shells should see you through any shell drought you might come across, and you can farm Sergeants near Archviles for shells anyway if you find yourself running low.

So in conclusion, this is an outclassed-at-best shotgun whose lone potential niche of using bullets for shell preservation usually isn't worthwhile under normal conditions and with proper planning otherwise. [[User:Omega Tyrant|Omega Tyrant]] ([[User talk:Omega Tyrant|talk]]) 08:25, 4 April 2017 (UTC)