Review: Sobek (U25.8.1)

The Sobek is an MR7 shotgun with high capacity, and access to two decent Augment mods. With somewhat lackluster stats, requiring very restrictive builds or Rivens for optimal performance, it is a fun, though largely unexceptional Shotgun.

Acquisition

The Sobek's blueprint is available directly from the Market.

Stats

The Sobek's stats are fairly underwhelming. 27% Status Chance is not enough to reach the target 100% Status Chance with only four mods, and 11%/2x Crit is poor as Shotgun Crit mods are fairly weak. Its base damage is not notably high, and majority Impact is mediocre at best.

A Mag Capacity of 20 is very high for a Shotgun, which coupled with its relatively low RoF and not-terrible Reload Time, give it an above-average Reload Ratio of 2.96.

Notably, the Sobek fires very few pellets for a Shotgun, only 5 pellets at base. This combined with its majority Impact base damage make a 100% Status build less effective without Riven help. Additionally, as a Shotgun, it suffers from damage fall-off beyond close range, dropping to 50% damage at 30 metres.

Augments

The Sobek is one of very few (perhaps the only) weapons to have two exclusive mods.

Acid Shells is an Augment that is dropped by Kela de Thaym. Upon killing an enemy with the Sobek, they will explode. This explosion deals an amount of Corrosive damage directly scaling with the dead enemy's full health (but not shields or armour), in a very wide area. Unfortunately, the explosion cannot proc Corrosive.

Acid Shells makes the Sobek exceptionally effective at clearing out weak enemies. Its explosion radius is massive, and its damage scales directly with enemy health. Killing a heavy enemy will deal massive damage to anything nearby. Additionally, enemies killed by Acid Shells explosions will also explode, which can lead to a massive chain reaction. It is least effective against Corpus, whose shields are not calculated into the explosion damage, so explode for much less damage, and whose Proto Shields also resist Corrosive.

Acid Shells explosions are boosted by direct damage buffs like Rhino's Roar, and Faction damage mods. Saryn's Toxic Lash also enhances it, adding pure Toxin damage as well as guaranteed Toxin procs, which makes it ridiculously effective when used by Saryn.

Shattering Justice is a Steel Meridian Augment. It adds 20% Status Chance, after all other mods. It also gives the Sobek the Justice Syndicate effect, which restores health, temporarily increases armour, and deals Blast damage with guaranteed proc to nearby enemies.

The Justice Syndicate proc is solid. Health restoration is always useful, and the radial Blast can be useful for knocking down dangerous enemies, though it also makes it harder to land headshots on them. More importantly, because the mod increases Status Chance additively, it allows the Sobek to reach 100% Status Chance, alongside the four 60/60 mods. As I've discussed previously, for Shotguns, Status Chance is all-or-nothing - 100% or else don't bother. The Sobek isn't a great Status shotgun due to its majority Impact and low pellet count, but it's better than nothing, and Shattering Justice opens up some very interesting possibilities alongside Riven mods.

Builds

Status 0-Forma:

With no innate polarities, the Sobek can be troublesome to fit a full build into without Forma. Though its base Status Chance is too low to reach 100% with just the four 60/60 mods, adding Shattering Justice will push it to the golden number, for guaranteed Status procs. Unfortunately, even with Forma, this leaves only one spare mod slot alongside the standard Damage/Multishot mods.

AoE 0-Forma:

This alternate setup focuses on making use of Acid Shells for crowd-clearing. The direct damage in this build ends up exactly the same as above, but with a faster Reload, and of course Acid Shells for very good AoE. Notably, it has a lot more mod slots available to tweak the build as desired. Chilling Reload is a nice low-drain mod that adds a little damage, but notably significantly reduces Reload Time.

These two Augments pretty much define the Sobek's two niches. Shattering Justice allows it to be a (pretty mediocre) Status Shotgun, while Acid Shells gives it decent AoE ability. Due to the Sobek's requirement for 5 Status Chance mods to be a Status Shotgun, fitting both Shattering justice and Acid Shells leaves no spare mod slots for any customisation.

Against heavily armoured enemies, naturally a Corrosive + Blast Status build will fare the best, reliably (though slowly) stripping enemy armour. Against Infested, who have no armour or shields, a Corrosive + Acid Shells build is most effective. For unarmoured Corpus, both builds have their merits. A Gas + Magnetic build will inflict a lot of AoE Toxin procs, though is lacking in direct damage once shields are depleted. A Viral or Toxin Acid Shells build can do better direct damage, but Acid Shells is very weak against Corpus.

Recommended Setups:
Status - Corrosive + Blast vs Grineer, Corrupted, armoured Corpus, Infested, Gas + Magnetic vs unarmoured Corpus
Acid Shells - Corrosive or Viral or Radiation vs Grineer, Corrupted, Corrosive vs Infested, Viral or Toxin vs unarmoured Corpus, Radiation vs armoured Corpus

Status 2-Forma:

Two added V polarities allows you to make use of the eighth mod slot in a Status build. I've slotted in Vigilante Armaments here, because the added Multishot really helps with inflicting additional desirable procs. Vicious Spread is another option that increases damage, but is pretty much strictly worse than Vigilante Armaments. Seeking Fury adds some very valuable Punch Through and slightly improved Reload Time, though will require another Forma to fit. A 90% Elemental (or even Primed Charged Shell) can also be used, again requiring another Forma, for more damage and more elemental bias. Acid Shells could be fit in as well for improved anti-crowd abilities.

Recommended Setups: see above.

AoE 4-Forma:

Another V and an added - polarities allows you to fit quite a lot of bonus damage into an Acid Shells build, making it much easier to get the initial kills to trigger Acid Shells. Such a build deals much more direct damage than a Status build. A Crit build is not awful, so long as you have Primed Ravage, but is only noticeably better with reliable headshots, and even then is not great. As mentioned just above, there are several good mods you could consider slotting in to the spare slots, all depending on your preferences and available mods.

My Builds

My Riven allows me to reach 100% Status Chance with just 2 60/60s and Shattering Justice, leaving space for both Seeking Fury and Acid Shells. My default build is a Corrosive build for armour stripping.

This Gas build is extremely effective against unarmoured Corpus, especially when used with Saryn's Toxic Lash active.

Combat Use and Summary

With Acid Shells, the Sobek is exceptionally effective against groups. Killing a couple of weaker enemies can lead to a series of explosions that can decimate an entire platoon. This of course does progressively drop off at high levels when even light enemies get tough, but even at Sortie-ish levels, it remains fairly effective. The Sobek's large Mag Capacity helps here as well.

With a Status build, the Sobek isn't terrible against armoured enemies. It can reliably inflict Corrosive procs to strip armour, though not at an especially high rate. It's not great by any means, but this is the best it can do given the Sobek's fairly low DPS. Speaking of, the Sobek fares poorly against high health enemies. It has quite low DPS, especially by Shotgun standards.

As you might expect from a Shotgun, the Sobek is quite poor beyond close range. Low pellet count, coupled with spread and damage fall-off, result in it being quite inconsistent at longer range, sometimes hitting with several pellets, and sometimes just one (or even none).

Overall, the Sobek is a novel, if not especially effective, Shotgun. It is a lot of fun against weaker enemies thanks to its Acid Shells Augment, but struggles against heavy enemies. If you're looking for a fun Shotgun, or a weapon that can be significantly improved by a decent Riven, then the Sobek can be worth investment. If you're after an all-round strong Shotgun, look elsewhere.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 4.5/5 - A high capacity, combined with Acid Shells, gives the Sobek quite solid anti-crowd abilities. It performs especially well when killing heavy enemies, as the explosion often instantly kills weaker enemies. However, this only triggers on kill, rather than being a consistent AoE. Nonetheless, it remains distinctly above-average by Shotgun standards against crowds.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 2/5 - The Sobek is the weakest Shotgun I've reviewed so far in terms of Burst DPS, and does not fare very well against high health enemies.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Hunter Munitions: 3/5 - A 100% Status Corrosive/Blast Sobek can strip armour with reasonable reliability, though it is quite slow at this and does not deal a lot of damage.
Vs Armoured Heavies with Hunter Munitions: NA/5 - The Sobek doesn't have a high enough Crit Chance to make good use of Hunter Munitions.

Vs Variants

None, sadly.

Competitors

There are several other Status Shotguns that easily outclass the Sobek. The Boar Prime, Strun Wraith, Phantasma (primary fire) and Phage are all far more capable and powerful Status weapons. Additionally, there are several other highly capable AoE Shotguns, such as the Astilla, Arca Plasmor, Corinth (secondary fire) and Phantasma (secondary fire).

However, no other Shotgun has the scaling factor or AoE range (15 metres!) that the Sobek has with Acid Shells - it scales directly with enemy health, so retains its effectiveness at higher levels. This of course requires the Sobek being able to actually kill enemies however, which is the main issue.

Rivens

The Sobek has a high 5/5 (1.33) Riven Disposition. Considering that it is overall a mediocre Shotgun at best, this seems quite reasonable.

Besides the usual +Damage/Multishot, +Status Chance is fantastic for the Sobek. With Shattering Justice and two 60/60 mods, you only need an additional +76.3% Status Chance to reach 100% Status - this is guaranteed on any +Status Chance roll thanks to the Sobek's high Disposition. In fact, it is possible to require only Shattering Justice and one 60/60 mod, though this requires +136.3% Status Chance, which is only possible with two positive stats and one negative stat.

I've seen some players use +Crit Chance/Damage on Rivens to boost their Sobek's direct damage output. Thanks to its very high Disposition, this does make the Sobek Crit-viable, though only just, and it still falls well behind many other Shotguns. +Elemental Damage for desirable elements is always helpful, especially for biasing towards desired Status procs. +Fire Rate can help the Sobek handle better, as it is very slow firing for a Full-Auto weapon. +Projectile Speed increases the damage fall-off range, which isn't useless. +Reload Speed helps to reduce a slower-than-average Reload Time. +Punch Through is quite useful for consistency as well as further improved crowd killing.

-Impact/Puncture/Slash are all great. -Puncture/Slash have minimal effect, while -Impact drastically reduces the Sobek's Physical damage. Though this does reduce direct damage, it has the benefit of drastically increasing the number of elemental Status procs inflicted - perfect for a Status build. -Crit Chance/Damage aren't terrible if you're not doing a Crit build. -Status Chance is fine for a non-Status build. -Faction Damage to a weaker faction is solid. -Mag Capacity or -Reload Speed aren't terrible in a smaller amount, since the Sobek has a solid Reload Ratio. -Ammo Max is quite good as it has quite a high spare ammo count. +Recoil is solid as the Sobek doesn't kick much.