The blunderbuss is one of the most powerful close ranged weapons in the game, being able to shred rats up close on any difficulty with ease and is still effective on specials at 5m or less. It fires 12 pellets which does 6 damage to normal, 0.75 damage to armoured, and 2.5 damage to resistant (at 10m or less) per pellet and penetrates 3 targets. It has an absurdly large spread which is both an advantage and a disadvantage as it allows it to be extremely effective in the 4-8m range where the pellet spreads out sufficiently that it can wipe half a horde in a single shot (if you are in the perfect position and get lucky) on NM but drops its damage to single targets (SV/packmasters/ratling gunners) greatly at ranges of > 1m.

Surprisingly, even though the blunderbuss is bad at killing SV, it performs well against them, allowing you to clear the rats around the SV for your melee weapon to have space to kill the SV, and is one of the best weapons for taking on a patrol. Each pellet is able to stagger a SV on the move (not in attack animation) and with its high penetration and 12 pellets, it is possible to constantly stagger most of a patrol while running away from it while doing up to 27 damage per shot (divided among the patrol, 45 dmg with rupture), allowing you to kite the patrol if they do not split up and kill them all after 6+++ shots. Drinking a str potion ups the single shot damage to a potential total of 216 damage per shot and allows you to wipe a cata patrol with just several shots. In addition, the bash it spams is fast enough to perma-stun an SV.

For such a large hand cannon, mobility is surprisingly good, with a dodge distance of 2 (average), a dodge speed of 1x (average), and an efficient dodge count of 3 (very good), making it a surprisingly mobile weapon (more mobile than the grudge raker) that can be used for dodge dancing a horde.

If you favour a playstyle based on sheer loud (aggros all the idle nearby rats immediately with a shot) and obnoxious in your face aggression and only are concerned with rats up close, the blunderbuss would be an effective weapon for you. If you favour superior positioning in combat, the blunderbuss really shines as it will allow you to massacre a lot of rats in each shot. When used properly, it allows the player to consistently come in at one of the top two in slave/clan rat (ranged) kills.

The weakness of the blunderbuss is that it is a lot less effective when the rats are spread out over a wide area (being flanked out in the open) and is unable to do much against distant (> 15m) specials or the ogre. However, aside from the globadier and ratling gunner, the other rats are not dangerous at a distance, and the player should be focused instead on clearing rats off their teammates killing the ogre.

The blunderbuss also has very little FF, doing only 0.5 damage per pellet to allies, so shooting through allies at rats lined/grouped up nicely at the ideal range works very well, until someone shares a str potion suddenly and you wipe your entire team in a single shot (18 dmg! per pellet). Be very careful when shooting under str potions!

Ammo: 25
Pellets per shot: 12
Damage per pellet [Normal/Armoured/Resistant/Friendly Fire]: 6/0.75/2.5/0.5 --> 2/0/2/0.5
Damage dropoff range: 10 - 30 m
Headshots: +1/+1 -> +0.5 (damage dropoff from range)/x1.5
Max targets hit per pellet: 3
Fire/Bash interval: 2s/0.75s

Special note: Strength potions
The blunderbuss armoured damage skyrockets when under strength potions, going from 0.75 per pellet (9 damage per shot) to 6 damage per pellet (72 damage per shot). This makes the blunderbuss probably one of the top weapons for wiping a patrol with a strength potion and it is highly recommended that the blunderbuss user holds on to a strength potion just for this in the event of a face patrol (patrol spawning close enough to immediately aggro on the team). However, its friendly fire damage spikes even more than its armoured damage on strength, going from 0.5 damage per pellet (6 damage total) to 18 damage per pellet (216 damage total), so be very careful when under str potion as it is also a very good way to wipe your team in a single shot.

Master Crafted
MC decreases your reload speed by 0.375s (according to Hedge) and active reload shaves off another -0.25s (roughly). Dropping around 0.6s off the blunderbuss' reload (~1.6s/shot) allows it to be semi-rapid fired in a horde, wiping away rats almost as fast as they can rush you (retreat backwards between shots and they should not reach you).

Scavenger
The blunderbuss is an excellent horde killer so you'd want to be shooting it as much as possible. Scavenger feeds on the horde killing bit by providing tons of ammo when shredding through hordes so you rarely run out of ammo if used wisely. Simply put, getting an average of 3 kills per shot extends your ammo capacity by roughly 2.5x, an average 5 kills per shot means you will never run out of ammo, and killing 5+ rats with a single shot is fairly common in thick hordes.

Rupture
Rupture is the top trait for mass slaughter due to how shotguns work. Pellets hitting the same rat at the same time causes overkill (excess) pellets to be 'absorbed' by the dead body which is an issue when shooting at very close ranges (0-2 m) where you'll only kill 3-4 rats in a shot. With rupture it can increase that to 6-10 rats easily (when firing into dense hordes at 2 m) since the pellets continue on spreading while going through the bodies. It is only really useful in thick hordes, but it is really worth it when it is crunch time. It can also greatly increase your ammo proc rate when used with scavenger.

Hail of Doom
The blunderbuss shoots twice in different frames so the pellets from the second shot do penetrate dead rat bodies, allowing you to kill more rats similar to rupture. However, it only has a 15% proc chance, making it less reliable than rupture, but is still very viable. It also allows you to 1 shot SV when it procs at < 1m ranges with the SV dead centre on NM.

Bloodlust
Since the blunderbuss is a horde killer and kills a lot, the blunderbuss provides a ton of heals throughout the game and keeps your health nicely topped up if you rarely get hit, allowing you to let other people take the heals when pubbing. 300 kills per match (easily gotten) is equal to roughly 240 hp healed, so it is highly recommended for people who are just starting to learn how to blunderbuss.

Regrowth
While regrowth is inferior to bloodlust since you kill almost everything with 1 shot at close range (which you should be shooting at), regrowth is able to proc on ALL targets that are being pushed back by the bash. 0.75s per bash in a horde with a 12% proc rate translates into a lot of heals being procc'ed. Take this over bloodlust if your playstyle involves a lot of melee bashing. While it may seem like a broken (in a good way) trait, you shouldn't be bashing that much or be in melee range if possible, so I would not recommend it that much (it is a laugh on fun runs though).

Ammo Holder
Outclassed greatly by scavenger, but in combination with scavenger you should never run out of ammo unless on last stand (and even then quite rarely). Would not recommend as scavenger is usually more than enough.

Targeteer
A number of people swear by it as it makes the spread more reliable at hitting targets at greater distances, but it greatly reduces the killing power of the blunderbuss in hordes as the excess pellets hitting the same rat is wasted. It also pushes your optimal range for horde killing out from 4-8 m to 8-16+ m where it experiences the damage dropoff which can be pretty significant. It is great for when you are shooting at specials at a distance or for killing SV and ratling gunners and is especially useful when you are using the blunderbuss to kill Krench.

Knockback
Knockback has limited viability on the blunderbuss as while it can potentially be useful when firing into a patrol to knock some of the SV down, the blunderbuss already staggers SV on hit and there are much better traits to take as compared to this.

Distraction
Not worth mentioning unless you like to shoot with str pots through your team into hordes on NM+ or if your team has a habit of facetanking from the floor.

The top two traits for the blunderbuss are generally regarded to be MC and scavenger. For your last trait, if you want:

• AOE DPS - Rupture > HoD
  
• Healing - Regrowth > Bloodlust
  
• Sustainability - Ammo Holder
  
• Accuracy - Targeteer

Rupture Buss - Master Crafted/Scavenger/Rupture
The top trait set for mass slaughter of rats, firing this into a horde of rats at optimal range usually results in the removal of 50-80% of the rats inside your crosshairs. It is also the best trait set for taking on patrols with or without a strength potion.

Heal Cannon - Master Crafted/Scavenger/Bloodlust (or Regrowth)
This trait set is good for learning how to blunderbuss or for pub crawling. You are mostly self-sufficient in terms of ammo and health (and you should rarely need the raw firepower of the Rupture gun anyway), so you can afford to let the other pubbies eat up all the health and ammo.

Anti-Special Gun - Master Crafted/Targeteer/Rupture
While not able to be spammed freely, this is excellent for taking out specials especially if you have bad aim the specials are located deep inside a horde. Its killing power against hordes is still pretty decent, so pair it with a melee scavenger or you'll be the one eating through all the ammo pickups.

Krench Gun - Master Crafted/Targeteer/Hail of Doom
This trait set is built specifically to kill Krench as fast as possible while under a strength potion. Targeteer allows you to land most of your pellets on Krench and if HoD procs you would be doing double damage (up to 144 damage) in a single shot. It is also excellent vs SV as you now have the accuracy to actually land enough pellets on a SV's head for significant damage and you potentially can 1 shot a cata SV at close range if HoD procs (needs some headshots).

There are several important points to note about the blunderbuss before we go into detail.

1. Wide spread means you can potentially miss single rats at ranges of ~1m. Always be ready to bash if the rat in front of you doesn't die.

2. Optimum range for hordes and optimum range for killing individual rats are different. Optimum range for horde killing is the range where the pellets spread out sufficiently so that there is little overkill (roughly 5 to 10 m on nightmare, 4 to 8 m on cata) while optimum range for killing rats (2-4m for gutter runners, 3-6m for gas rats, 0-1m for packmasters and ratling gunners) varies based on how likely you are to kill or deal maximum damage to the rat in one shot.

3. The blunderbuss pellets staggers SV that are not doing overhead attacks, so you can continuously shoot into a SV patrol and retreat back in relative safety. Any blunderbuss can easily kill a cata patrol given sufficient ammo and space.

4. While the spread of the blunderbuss is wide, you can't kill things outside of your crosshair so you have to take advantage of terrain as much as possible to funnel the rats into a narrow(er) field of fire. The blunderbuss kills a lot on its own but with proper positioning you can kill a lot more with less shots.

5. Jumping before firing (aim slightly downwards) or positioning youself slightly higher on terrain allows you to kill more when shooting into a thick horde, as your vertical spread comes into play as well, allowing you a wider spread which would result in less overkill wasted on the rats.

6. Active reload involves pressing reload immediately after firing. This skips part of the recoil animation after firing, allowing you to shoot faster with it. This works slightly better with master crafted, dropping the reload time by a tiny bit more (~0.04s).

7. Bashing with the right click is as fast as the axe and shield bash and has similar stats and effects (0.5 less damage to normal, no damage to armoured, etc) which allows you to survive at times in hordes when your melee runs out of stamina to block and push.

8. While the blunderbuss is extremely strong at close ranges, it needs to reload after every shot, so run/dodge backwards while reloading if possible. Also do not be afraid to swap to melee if the rats are too close as it is preferable to do so rather than getting hit. Bashing is also a viable option if dealing with only 1-2 rats.

9. You can proc scavenger off bash kills. You also can proc regrowth off bash hit and push bubble (all rats affected).

10. The bash's push bubble is shorter than the reach of a rat, so it is possible to get stabbed by rats just outside of the push bubble's range. Also bash seems to lag behind a bit (might be ping related) compared to your movement, so sometimes you can bash rats further away than you think or cannot bash rats closer than you think.

The key to using the blunderbuss is to be able to create space between you and the rats. You are always safe if the rats are not able to come within 3m of you, and that is more easily done by making sure that you never get surrounded by rats or have the rats come at you from a wider than 20-30 degree angle front. However, this would be in an ideal scenario, so you would need to improvise and act accordingly to keep the front narrow. Using the blunderbuss well relies heavily on being able to create space between you and the rats with minimal melee use.

There are two main ways to play the blunderbuss; defending a chokepoint, or run and gun. Defending a chokepoint allows the rats to build up for optimal kills per shot, but if you are on your own it can be challenging to not be overwhelmed by the rats. On the other hand, a more risky, flexible and potentially more rewarding (and fun) playstyle would be running around and shooting on the move. Which playstyle to use is ultimately the player's call based on experience and skill.


Defending a chokepoint with the blunderbuss may seem fairly simple and straightforwards, especially with the rupture buss which excels at this role. However, getting overwhelmed in between reloads is common especially if the horde is a constant stream and your shots are unable to kill all rats coming through the chokepoint. If you are on your own, there are two options available:

Push and shoot
Simply put, you hold the line at the chokepoint by swapping to melee and physically shoving the rats back. You would need either a shield or a 2 handed weapon (with dev blow) to ensure that SV mixed in the horde doesn't make it through. Shove them back through the chokepoint while advancing forwards before dodging back and blasting them to kill a sizeable portion of them. Reload before they make it through to you, or if you cannot, swap to melee and shove them back again before dodging backwards and reloading. Repeat as much as needed till the rats are dead.

Bait and shoot
Similar to push and shoot, you physically prevent the rats from rushing through the chokepoint, but instead of pushing them, you bait them into stopping to hit you by moving into the rats, then just before they hit, dodge backwards to evade their strikes and shoot then reload. This is feasible on thinner hordes and if there are single rat(s) in front of the others, you can bash them back into the rest of the pack to buy you a bit more time to let the rat density build up a bit more before shooting. Since you are moving into the rats, the rats would not do running attacks and instead stop before trying to strike, and the rats that would be in range to do the running attacks when you dodge/move backwards would be killed by your shot.

Special case: Knock knock
One trick when defending a doorway with an intact door is to start with the door closed, and when rats are about to attack the door, open the door and blast them before immediately closing the door. This forces them to swap from attacking you to attacking the door, which buys you enough time to reload before opening the door again to blast whatever rats are left. Do note that extremely dense hordes are able to push through the doorway when you open and a few can make it through your shot while the door is open, forcing you to kill them and buying time for the rest of the horde to destroy the door. See jsat abusing this trick here[clips.twitch.tv].



Run and gun is a fun and useful playstyle to learn that allows you to push forwards quickly or escape a horde or a triggered stormvermin patrol. This often requires a very innate knowledge of the map or a talent for spotting potential chokepoints on the run as well as fast reflexes. A speed trinket is a must have and headphones are greatly recommended.

Bum-Rush
The blunderbuss is extremely good at deleting rats within a few meters of it, so when pushing hard and rushing forwards, all you need to do is to put any rat in the way in the middle of your crosshairs, get to within 4 m of it, then shoot and it is gone, all without slowing down and you can reload on the move. However, there may be multiple rats and/or you may not be able to reload in time and you'll burn through ammo quickly as you are often not getting multiple kills per shot.

In order to rectify this, try to align as many rats into the middle of your crosshair as possible before shooting by moving to the side while advancing. You can bash and dodge backwards to either reload or to knock rats back into a bunch before shooting at just under optimal range for larger groups of rats. Hyper alertness and good reflexes helps a lot as your only way of defending yourself is to bash and dodge back or kill the rat before it attacks.

Yakety Sax
Bum rushing through the map with the blunderbuss often draws the attention of ambient rats just because of how loud it is and this often results in a train of rats chasing you. You also would get a train of rats if you failed to properly defend the chokepoint or if you need to escape a horde. If you get stuck or slowed down it would most probably be an instant death as multiple rats do running attacks and stab you in the back.

To survive, you must keep moving and shooting, where any slowdown or getting stuck on terrain is deadly. Good knowledge of the map is extremely helpful, and if possible, constantly change elevation to slow the rats down while you reload. Just keep spinning back as soon as you have reloaded to shoot the rats chasing you before facing the front again to ensure that you do not get stuck on terrain while reloading. It is fairly easy to make the mistake of just focusing on the back as you run and get stuck so pay more attention to the terrain as the blunderbuss would naturally kill off most of the closest rats to you when you blindly fire into the chasing mass. Running through chokepoints allows you to concentrate the rat train so that you can kill more rats per shot, and any rat that is not behind you should get bashed and skipped over instead of swapping to melee to block and push since bashing does not slow you down. As long as you do not run out of ammo you should be mostly fine, so just focus on staying alive rather than killing.

The blunderbuss is an excellent weapon for team play thanks to two main points: Needing a small distance to be most effective and having low Friendly Fire damage.

(Incomplete for now, work in progress)