Overview
Elphelt is a very good shotgun with an interesting but situational Skill. Her HP is on the higher end for an SG, and her Armor is nearly the highest out of her class, only beat out by KSG. This makes her have nearly -- if not the best -- durability out of all shotguns before Skills, which makes her a compelling choice for this reason alone.
Elphelt’s Skill is certainly powerful, but its 10 second Initial Cooldown makes it extremely situational. It has two windups, one for the shot to a single target that does a good chunk of damage, then the other for a missile she launches that does a very large amount of damage to all enemies in a small radius. These two delays combined means that Elphelt’s Skill will almost never come into play in most normal battles, limiting her utility compared to SGs like Ithaca M37.
Elphelt’s tile buffs however make up for her Skill that won’t normally come into play, providing a decent buff to MG’s Damage and a decent buff to their Accuracy. Overall and despite her deficiencies, she’s one of the best options, especially given her accessibility.
Pros
Good Durability
Good Buff Tiles
Cons
High Initial Cooldown
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Elphelt’s Skill, while doing a very large amount of damage, has a long initial cooldown of 10 seconds. This doesn’t even include both of the windups within it, and as such it will likely not see use except in very, very long battles.
Full analysis
Elphelt has probably the best stats out of any shotgun. Featuring a massive 1375 HP stat which is only beat out by SAT 8, her 23 Armor is similarly only surpassed by KSG. Combining these stats makes Elphelt quite possibly the most durable SG, and considering SG’s primary function is to tank, these stats alone arguably make her one of the best options in her class.
With her Skill, first dealing 8x her Damage to one target, then 12x her Damage to enemies in a 1.5 unit radius, Elphelt can see her damage skyrocket -- if it can proc in the first place. Unfortunately, this Skill will almost never come into play due to its Initial Cooldown of 10 seconds combined with not one, but two windups. While this does mean that Elphelt does have some considerable utility in certain boss battles, outside of these situations she’s not as impactful as some other SGs such as SAT8 and USAS-12.
Elphelt makes up for her very situational Skill by her buff tiles being some of the best for 2MG Echelons. Granting a 15% boost to MG’s Damage and Accuracy, the positioning of these tiles allow Elphelt to be used in 1SG formations. Although the Accuracy buff isn’t the most useful and the buff potency is slightly worse than most 4 star SGs, this is still a small price to pay for Elphelt’s overall utility.
Overall, Elphelt is one of the best options for durable shotguns. While her Skill is incredibly situational, she makes up for it by having fairly good buff tiles that lend her to being the sole shotgun in a formation. With how limited Shotguns are in the first place, this makes her an easy pick to use.