Free Fire Guide: How To Use Shotguns Effectively In Combat

In battle royales like Free Fire or PUBG, the shotgun is always considered a nearly useless weapon class, due to the nature of the fights being mostly in medium to long range. When fired, a shotgun shoots out a number of pellets, each deal a small amount of damage. Those pellets spread too far after a certain distance - and because of that, barely anyone ever use shotguns.

However, there are certain ways to make the shotgun works, as you can carry 2 main weapons and there are quite a few character support skills related to this gun in-game. In this guide, we would list out the best way to build a shotgun user in Free Fire.

1 - Pick the right characters

First, you would need Jota's skill. At max level, Sustained Raid would increase your HP by a whopping 40 after each kill, which is pretty vital in sustaining your continued assault without having to waste time on heal items. This works best when you are going against a squad or camping with a shotgun inside a hot zone building.

The second skill worth picking is Caroline's Agility. While it is nearly useless normally, when you are carrying a shotgun, it is even better than Kelly's passive. You can even stack this on top of Kelly's passive for a whopping 14% increase in movement speed.

The other two slots can be equipped with whatever you need - with Hayato and Alok being pretty decent choices.

2 - Get the right gun

There are 3 weapons of this class in Free Fire - in general, the M1014 is the best due to it being an Auto Shotgun, which increases your margin of errors. You can miss one shot and still be able to drop your enemy dead. The two-shot M1887 is not as good because using it, you can only take down one enemy max - if another one appears, you are dead. The SPAS 12 is the worst because it is pump-action: you would have to reload every time you shoot.

3 - General gameplay

Due to shotguns being super useless outside, it is best that you use it to camp inside any buildings. The top of the stairs and the corner of the room are the best - it would be harder for your enemy to get a glance at your position this way. Hiding at the corners of buildings or cover to wait for enemies to walk past is great as well.

It can also be used when rushing into positions as well - if your aim is good, you would be able to out damage most guns. Bodyshots are ok, but you should try to aim at the chest so that some of the pellets would hit the head for more damage.

Carry another normal gun so that you can switch out when needed.

Interested in more of our posts related to Garena Free Fire? Please check out this article for the top 5 worst weapons in the game.