Birdshot is the heavy shotgun: one wide barrel that throws twelve pellets in a 30 degree spray. Point blank it hits very hard. Past about 165 px it does nothing at all.
| Tier | 4 |
| Unlock level | 45 |
| Upgrades from | Buckshot |
| Barrels | 1 wide shotgun barrel |
| Pellets per shot | 12, spread over a 30° cone |
| Reload (0 points) | 1.20 s per shot (0.83 shots/s) |
| Pellet damage | 4.0 each (the class's 9.6 bullet damage × 0.4167), 48 per shot when all land |
| Pellet speed | 312 px/s, each pellet randomly 18% faster or slower |
| Pellet range | pellets live 0.45 s (half a normal bullet), about 140 px (115 to 165 px) |
| Penetration | 3 per pellet (base 2 plus 1) |
| Pellet size | radius 4.5 |
| Recoil | 5× a Recruit's kick per shot |
| Health / movement | ×0.98 / ×1 |
| Body damage | 20 (×1) |
Every number here is at 0 stat points, before the per-level health bonus and the per-level speed penalty that every tank gets. The automatic balancer can nudge a class's damage and health over time, so treat these as the roster's base values.
Every trigger pull, Birdshot throws twelve pellets across a 30° cone. Each pellet does 4 damage at 0 points, so a shot where everything lands is 48 damage, and at one shot every 1.2 seconds that works out to about 40 damage per second. The pellets are spread evenly through the cone with a small random wobble, and each flies at its own speed, up to 18% faster or slower than 312 px/s, so the spray stretches out into a ragged cloud as it travels instead of arriving as a flat wall.
The catch is reach. A pellet lives half as long as a normal bullet, so the cloud dies between about 115 and 165 px from your muzzle. Inside roughly 90 px, a normal-sized tank is inside the whole cone and takes all twelve. Near the end of the range the cone has opened wider than the target, and only the middle seven or eight pellets connect. Beyond 165 px there is nothing: no centre bullet, no chip damage, just an empty trigger pull and a 1.2 second wait.
Each shot kicks you back with five times a Recruit's recoil, one of the biggest single kicks outside the Sledge family. That makes Birdshot play in pulses: close in, fire, get shoved back, close in again. The kick is also your escape: firing at something chasing you knocks you clear of it.
Birdshot wins anything that has to touch you. Caltrop, Ambush and Aegis run straight into 48 damage shots, and every shot's kick shoves you away from them. Drone swarms that dive you lose several drones per shot, because each pellet does double damage to a drone. Every pellet carries the full penetration of 3, so a spray also swats light bullets out of the air in front of you. In team modes, where fights happen at bases and chokepoints, it's frightening.
It loses to anything that stays past 165 px, and that is most of the game. Snipers and missile classes never come close. Trebler and Twinbore both reach further and will happily trade from just outside your spray. A miss leaves you empty-handed for over a second, which is a long time against a fast gun, and the heavy recoil means you can't hold fire while chasing without losing ground.
A 33-point build: Bullet Damage 7, Reload 7, Movement Speed 7, Max Health 5, Health Regen 4, Bullet Penetration 3.
Buckshot is a single-barrel shotgun with six pellets, and it leads to Birdshot and Twinbore. They take the shotgun in opposite directions.
Birdshot doubles the spray: twelve pellets in a wider cone, about 40 damage per second when all of it lands, but only inside about 140 px. Twinbore splits its fire into two barrels that alternate, five tighter pellets per barrel, about 24 damage per second that keeps landing out to around 200 px and never leaves you empty for more than half a reload.
Take Birdshot if you fight in tight spaces, like team modes and bases, or if rammers and drones are what kill you. Take Twinbore if your targets keep sitting just out of reach.