Devs forgot about shotguns in S4

TLDR Double-Tap sucks, mozambique is still useless, I suggest we incorporate Titanfall 2's "fixed spread" characteristic in some capacity.

So in season 4, energy weapons (which is a category now only occupied by two weapons) got a complete overhaul, snipers got their own ammo type, most assault rifles got changes, r99 and Prowler were leveled out with one another. What about the shotguns? The only things I could find in the patch notes regarding shotguns were 1) Eva-8 double tap slight buff to fire rate, and 2) mozambique and mastiff iron sights adjustments -_-

I figured out halfway through season 3 that double tap is better to just not use. Compare the double tap Eva with the Peacekeeper. With Eva, you get 4 bursts, and with PK you get 6. In my experience, those bursts have generally the same damage potential and consistency as single shots from the PK. Not only that, but you have 50% less shots so you have to reload it more. So in conclusion, double tap doesn't enhance performance of the Eva by much. With the G7 Scout, I find that it stops the spammability of the weapon and forces you use it as a higher-damage close-range weapon. In my opinion, double tap makes both weapons awkward. Every time I try to burst an enemy with an Eva, I land one shot and miss the other, then I try again and miss both shots. Oh well, there goes half my magazine, as well as 15-20% of the enemy's health.

It's also worth note that shotguns got a general nerf towards the end of last season, which doesn't help the shotguns' cases.

But what bothers me the most about shotguns isn't the performance, but the interest. There are barely any attachments for shotguns and they haven't added any new ones since launch, with the exception of double tap (which I discussed is borderline useless) and hammerpoint (which is for the mozambique ._.). Nothing! The Havoc on the other hand has been on an attachment merry-go-round of sorts. I hope for a new shotgun soon, but more than that, I hope--and have been hoping since season 1--that we get a genuinely interesting change to the shotgun class. If we don't it really doesn't bother me that much. They've always been my least-used weapon class anyway. But if you asked me what should be changed about shotguns, my first suggestion would be to make them more like the TF2 Mozambique or Mastiff's spread. This could be a flat change, or it could be locked behind a hop-up or some other attachment. I personally suggest this because those shotguns were fun to use outside of close range as well as challenging because you have to lead your shots. It's a very smart system: +accuracy, -projectile speed, as simple as that. I don't think it will be broken in Apex Legends either, because people are generally further away, thus harder to lead shots on, and once someone finds out you're using that fixed spread attachment, they will be able to adjust their movement to avoid it (fake out the shooter by pretending to go one way and switching directions when they hear or see a gunshot. I also feel like it wouldn't be bad, either.

Canonically, the only weapons that had this unique trait were the mastiff and the mozambique. That's a problem because the Mastiff can't have any attachments, and the Mozambique already has a hop-up, and having the fixed spread and the hammerpoint would be somewhat broken, at least from the perspective of the devs, who have said that they want some guns in Apex to be weaker than others so that players feel good when they can finally drop their stinky Alternator for a shiny, lemon-scented R99. I'm not sure I totally agree with that philosophy of gun balance, but it's undeniably part of Apex Legends' identity.

This is all food for thought. There aren't any serious changes that need to be made any time soon, I just feel like shotguns aren't getting enough love <3