Strategy:Jackhammer

One of the only two unique shotguns in the game, the Jackhammer is also the only rapid-fire shotgun in the game. On paper, the Jackhammer looks like an amazing weapon, being a shotgun that deals on average, 45.6 damage per fire at point blank without trait investment, can be fired multiple times before having to reload, and even fires a focused shotgun blast, limiting dropoff reduction. Don't ditch your other shotguns though for it, as the Jackhammer does carry some significant drawbacks. The biggest of which is that when it fires its three shells, each individual shell knocks enemies back before the next shell hits. This results in the Jackhammer doing significantly less damage than firing off three shotgun shells should do, and absolutely atrocious ammo efficiency. If you were to rely on the Jackhammer as your primary weapon, you'll find yourself short on shells very very quickly.

As such, in many situations, other shotguns are better. Combat, Tactical, Assault, and Plasma Shotguns are better for radar shooting. Focused Double and Super Shotguns are better for shooting at a large group of enemies. Pretty much every other shotgun is better for corner shooting, with the Elephant Shotgun and P-modded Super Shotguns carrying vastly greater ammo efficiency while dealing similar damage to the Jackhammer in a single fire. Additionally, since the Jackhammer is a unique, it can't be modded like these other shotguns, putting it even farther behind.

While in a lot of ways the Jackhammer is an impractical weapon, it does have one niche worth keeping it around for; pure DPS. If you get a dangerous enemy against a wall you need dead ASAP, or when against a boss immune to knockback, no other shotgun is better. Shottyhead builds in particular can utilise the Jackhammer very well with this, where they will be able to empty its entire clip into an enemy before they can react. All three shots of the Jackhammer at point blank come to an average damage of 136.8, and against enemies with an armor value of 2, it's 124.8. From four tiles away against an enemy with 2 armor, the Jackhammer's entire salvo comes out to an average of 79.2, which is still greater than the HP of an Arch-vile. As such, with the Jackhammer, Shottyheads can reliably kill any non-boss monster pinned up against the wall before they can react if they're reasonably close. This is the best DPS any shotgun in the game can achieve, outside of a ridiculous P-modded Nano-Shrapnel Super Shotgun against an enemy with a very high armor value.

Army of the Dead and Fireangel builds won't be able to utilise this aspect of the Jackhammer as well as Shottyheads, though the Jackhammmer's DPS is still better for them than any other shotguns', so the Jackhammer remains viable for them in this use.

Non-shotgun builds will have no use for the Jackhammer however. Its one caveat, pure DPS, pales to the DPS of their primary weapons, and as covered, other shotguns are a lot more efficient and effective at the various utilities shotguns are primarily used for.

So overall, the Jackhammer may be worth lugging for shotgun builds as an emergency point-blank fast killing weapon and as their boss killer, with Shottyheads especially utilising it well, while it's completely impractical for other builds to bother with. Omega Tyrant (talk) 08:31, 27 September 2014 (CEST)