Shotguns only Roland

[MeltintheSun (kills Craw with Knoxx's Gold)]

After finishing my very tedious playthrough with Repeaters-only Mordecai, I decided to do something that I thought would be more fun - Roland with shotguns only! I could stand to learn a bit more about shotgun parts, and I’ve never really used them heavily on any character. I did a Rifleman Roland a year or so ago and that was almost stupid easy; this seems a bit more challenging.

I was right, it is more fun. Whereas repeaters were crappy at both short and long range, at least shotguns are good up close! Whereas I spent much of the repeater playthrough hiding while DOT did its thing, this time I am running up in faces and wrecking them.

The beginning of the game was much harder than I thought it would be. Nothing but freaking slow shotguns with lousy accuracy, meaning lots of “out of ammo” and waiting for the 15-minute turret cooldown.

So…

1st chest has a shotgun…all the time, I think? Actually it could be a lot worse.

An inaccurate shotgun to go with my “accurate” barrel1 1st gun…2 shot is nice though!

Dropped from a Rakk. Never before have I exploited the fire -> melee -> fire trick before, but this thing finally forced it on me.

POS fire shotgun is better than no fire shotgun

And a couple decent ones. I have a feeling I’m going to use a lot of Hyperion this playthrough.

Is this an upgrade? I guess so.

There we go!

Never have I waited so long for something to reload…

I used nothing but this one for a while:

More fire…not bad.

Alrighty! Haven’t specced into Defense and Quick Charge yet though, so I may not ever use it.

A couple decent shock shotguns, not that I really need shock for anything:

Managed to get a body5 Blister…I think all the rest of the parts are fixed though. Not bad, and probably will be my Old Haven weapon if I had to guess.

Holy cow…thanks Marcus!

And, the only thing so far that I’ve found and really wanted to use but couldn’t! By this time on repeaters Mordy, I had found a ton of awesome stuff…

So, while the beginning was really rough, this is a lot easier than repeaters. Long range is going to be a no-go always, so gatling and rocket turrets are rough. Not sure if there’s anything I can do about that.

Finished with the Rakk Hive, this one’s going pretty quick!

[shure]

Range will improve. I had a Hunters Bulldog at Level 69 (which I know doesn’t help a lot now!) which wrecked pretty much everything with my Axton. I’d have to check but I think accuracy was around 75% and it had a pretty long reach, combined with a massive mag and high fire rate. I’d do Farmory runs using nothing but and it was pretty easy I have to say.

edit: accuracy was 72.9% - not far off!

[MeltintheSun (kills Craw with Knoxx's Gold)]

I’ve gotten some barrel5 shotguns, and even with 5/5 Scattershot they are only good out to 100 feet or so. I’m looking forward to finding a barrel5 Hyperion, and a Commando mod with +4 Scattershot…

[shure]

I can’t remember any examples, but I do know that I was really surprised at how far and how tight the spread was. I was killing lance with just a few shots at ranges I’d normally use a combat rifle for. And if you get a decent Maliwan Crux, you might not have to worry too much about turrets!

[Frightning (The quick and the dead)]

Commando mod IS the shotgun roland mod. Use it!
Also, barrel5 mat3 Hyperion shotguns can just about snipe w/ 9/5 Scattershot, seriously, an 82.3 acc shotgun with +45% accuracy is nuts.

[MeltintheSun (kills Craw with Knoxx's Gold)]

I will! Still running a purple Heavy Gunner I found pretty early on…the skill boosts just make sense, since I started with offensive skills rather than defensive.

[Frightning (The quick and the dead)]

I would rush Impact-Scattershot-Defense-Quick Charge (in that order) in your shoes.

[MeltintheSun (kills Craw with Knoxx's Gold)]

Got some time in over the weekend. I’m in PT2 now, after not bothering with the PT1 DLC…I’m a lazy slob so just gave myself the skill points and backpack space

This is way easier than repeaters…part of that is that I never have to worry much about ammo, since you can get a support gunner COM pretty much anywhere. That’s not the only difference, but it sure is a big one.

Even though shotguns are not great elemental weapons (few procs), elemental guns are still king in most situations. DOT rocks in this game.

Finally got an upgrade for this piece of junk:

I forget where I picked this up, but it’s the best shock shotgun I’ve found…Guardians are not easy!

I’ll take that!

Finally an upgrade for The Blister, which I used for all of PT1:

First time I’ve seen an accessory on this…in a LOT of playthroughs:

Not the best, but capacity is king with Quick Charge, so…

First mat3 Commando…meh.

Not great but not terrible. This one is replacing the ZPR barrel4 Tediore I got in New Haven in PT1. Not sure it’s better…

And, a few good things I couldn’t use:

[MeltintheSun (kills Craw with Knoxx's Gold)]

A little more progress.

Why not…a little more recharge rate

Almost better

Very nice! Shame it’s not a fire nova rather than fire resist…

Found this one in Sledge’s Safehouse. It actually stacks DOT pretty well, surprisingly. Certainly better than what I was using for a fire gun.

New flat-damage shotguns…still sucks. I haven’t been using them, really.

This one ain’t bad, but…I dunno. Didn’t end up using it either.

Now THIS is better! As I was driving past a brute, he dropped my car’s health down to near zero with one shot…naturally I had to go back and relieve him of whatever he used to do that!

Hmmm…I’ll give it a try! Bigger mag is nice, and the extra critical hit % will probably about even out the missing damage.

Only one nice non-shotgun this time:

And some weirdness…I respawned here, after dying over by the house with the weapon machine in the basement. Strange! A few minutes later, I got run over in the Dahl Headlands and respawned in the Arid Badlands, at Titan’s End. Wat?

[AMG_75 (I punch him!)]

Cool shotguns only playthrough so far. Wish I didn’t miss this thread.

RNG respawns! What will they think of next?

[MeltintheSun (kills Craw with Knoxx's Gold)]

Slightly better fire Carnage…I sure wouldn’t mind a normal fire shotgun, you know, the kind that shoots bullets

Mwahahahahahahah

Saw green and maliwan mat3, got excited…nope, it’s not to be:

And, just in time for Old Ha…never mind

Repeaters Mordy would have LOVED this!

[mino1 (mino)]

If you have DLCs:

On the higher levels shotguns get more accurate and powerful. I recommend bulldogs with a mat3 commando COM. Usually they add +3 scattershot which becomes very useful when maxed. There’s an awesome 660 commando COM which has 80 firerate +4 scattershot +3 defense +3 quick charge with a 42 dmg boost. If you have spare points for supply drop, that COM is sure handy.

For me, shotgun Roland is awesome. I also added points for rifle (assault) but Commando has insane DPS and makes shortwork of enemies. Cauterizing other players is very easy due to it’s nature (instant healing with x9 shotguns)

I don’t use carnage barrels when there are get 200+x7 or x9 shotguns already.

Personal picks:

DAHL Bulldog (might come with x1 elemental, normal DAHLs can get similar stats except the 20 round magazine)
Torgue Friendly Fire (it’s pattern needs close range fighting even with 68.2 acc)
Maliwan Crux (x4 corrosive is very handy for soldiers and devastators)
Atlas Pearl (76.4 accuracy with a good recoil reduction,might come with x1 elemental)
Vladof Blast Hammer (devastating at close range, hammer shaped spread needs some practice)
Jakobs Striker (adds %30 crit dmg, handy for Zombies)