Lightweight Shotguns – Are They Good? And How Can I Get The Best Ones?

Lightweight Shotguns – Are they good? And how can I get the best ones?

The shotgun meta in PVP has long been dominated by the Aggressive Frame archetype. Everyone has heard of or been killed by a Mindbender’s Ambition, or more recently the Astral Horizon. But what makes these weapons special? Even in their own archetypes these weapons are standouts because of the combination of their high damage and being able to roll with a perk called Quickdraw. Quickdraw is a perk that maximizes the handling stat of a weapon, meaning that the time to switch to the weapon is almost instant. This is crucial in PvP as the combat is fast-paced and half a second is the difference between winning your 1v1 and losing the match. As such, the current meta with shotguns has been to aim for maximum range and handling.

Aggressive Frame shotguns do the most damage out of all shotgun archetypes, and in their own archetypes Mindbender’s Ambition and Astral Horizon are the only two shotguns that are both aggressive frame and can roll with Quickdraw. Pair this with optimal barrel and magazine perks such as Rifled Barrel/Full Choke and Accurized Rounds/Assault Mag you get a weapon that can consistently kill any guardian pushing you from a range that no other shotgun can. While Mindbender’s Ambition will be sunsetted in season 12, the addition of Felwinter’s Lie alongside Astral Horizon ensures that the best Aggressive Frame shotguns will be easier than ever to obtain and will be around for a long time. This being said, recent changes and nerfs to shotgun range and consistency have brought these weapons more in line with other archetypes, bringing forward new contenders looking for the title of King of the Crucible.

With the recent changes and adjustments to shotguns, Lightweight Shotguns have joined the conversation top tier competitors to Aggressive Frame shotguns. Although they don’t quite have the damage, and by extension the range of Aggressive Frame shotguns, Lightweight Shotguns bring a whole lot of new advantages and perks to the table. Lightweight frame weapons have the innate archetype perks of high handling as well as making your guardian move and jump faster while they are equipped. Lightweight shotguns also shoot around 40% faster meaning that for every shot that doesn’t kill the follow up shot can come a lot quicker.

Although they have innately high handling because of their lightweight frame, it is still optimal to run Quickdraw. However this does mean that perks like snapshot are less needed because the ADS time is already heavily boosted. Currently there are two lightweight frame shotguns that can roll with Quickdraw. These are the seasonal shotgun from Season of the Worthy, Seventh Seraph CQC-17 and the Emperor’s Courtesy from the Crown of Sorrow raid.

Of these two, the Seventh Seraph CQC-17 is much easier to farm. Any activity you do; strikes, gambit, crucible, so long as your season pass is leveled you have a chance to have one of these drop at the end of the activity. Quickdraw + Vorpal Weapon or Quickdraw + Snapshot are the rolls that you want to be looking for with this. These perk combinations are very powerful and will do very well with the right barrel, magazine and masterwork combinations.

While a seventh seraph shotgun with these rolls will do very well in the crucible, there is a roll of the Emperor’s Courtesy that will be far more consistent at securing longer range kills. This by itself is very important as consistency is valued far more over niche utility which perks like snapshot and vorpal weapon provide. The combination of perks that makes Emperor’s Courtesy stronger is Quickdraw + Opening Shot or Quickdraw + Slideshot. This combined with the fact that the gun model for Emperor’s Courtesy has a much longer barrel means that the one-shot and two-shot kill distances of this weapon will be consistently longer than the Seventh Seraph CQC-17.

So what are you waiting for! Get into activities and get farming, or try your luck at the Crown of Sorrow Raid. If you don’t feel like grinding these activities or finding a team for CoS is too hard check out our products today, we’ll be more than happy to help out no matter what you’re trying to farm for.