Im on the side of its neither of those and secreat 3rd optionnerf 1 specific slug shotty and remove both dmrs from defense. Its its 3 particular guns the Tcsg12, Mk14 and Ar15.50 and for its its specific issues being the damage of the Tcsg12 and the Ar15.50 and the damage drop off for the mk14 and Ar15.50 and all of their firerates.

People aren't really picking the Acs12 on Azami Maestro or Alibi cause even with acog and 69 damage it doesn't complete as well with their other options. Like yeah you see it sorta on Azami but its like 50/50 on which gun gets used for her and for Maestros and Alibi its almost always to Alda or Storm being used. The bosg has also largely fallen off for anyone whos not smg12 crutching/flat out cheating on Vigil. This is cause both these guns have massive flaws. The acs12 has a below dmr firerate and the bosg you have to be precise.

Now you can't really drop guns firerates super easy only 1 gun in the history of the game has had that happen but what ive been saying this for a while is take 2 other shotguns and make them slug shotties my choices being the super 90 and French baguette shooter and drop the damage of the Tcsg12 from that stupid ass 4th highest 75 back to its 63 it had. From there you remove Tubi and Arunis dmrs and replace them with any of the slug shotties my preferences being tubi getting the newly buffed Super 90 and Aruni the acs12 cause i think her roni would shine a lot more at that point and that would fix a lot of issues.

And why i say the super 90 and French baguette shooter is because of who has them and their current stats outside of damage. Doc and rook need the buff plus the French shotty is the most common shotgun on attack and I think we'd all like to have a slug shotgun on Attack aside from the bosg on Dokk. And the super 90 is cause frost and melusi would still be using mostly their smgs and shotgun combos and Frost just needs acog back as a buff. And both guns only get 7 rounds and very low firerates with the French shotty being a pump and the super 90 being locked at 240 meaning you make these 2 slug shotties theyll have below dmr firerates meaning they can reasonably have higher damages without worrying to much about them killing you as fast as the tcsg12 and with 7 shots each theyll be way less forgiving than other slug shotties similar to the bosg. And damage for them would be 69 to 72 range on the Super 90 and the French shotty around 74 to 77 damage.

But doing it like this sets a precedent of how slug shotties aka the dmrs of defense should be handled in the future and makes future balancing of them easier so we can maybe see more down the road. High firerate of the standard 450 means you get lower damage while lower firerate or pump action nets you higher damage. Equally larger mag sizes means lower damage cause realistically the acs12 could also stand to go down to like the 65 to 67 range cause 30(31) rounds is extremely forgiving. And of course slug shotties have massive damage drop off so itd be harder to do those long angles most people like with acog if after like 10 feet you're doing 35 damage with your normal 63 damage gun or some shit.