Another one of those funny two-mode dolls. She's actually not an awful damage dealer, but her damage is still less than other dolls that are pure damage dealers. Also, despite having a rifle mode, she can't equip AP rounds so you're stuck with only the AP stats you get from her skill.

She might have use in some formations (mostly shenanigans), but most people probably won't use her.

After literally years, M4 demonstrates WHY SHE IS THE HEROINE and becomes METAL GEAR.

She keeps all her old benefits but has 5 star multipliers and better stats now. This gets even better when Mod3 when she gets a unique that ups her firepower and ALSO gives her armour, so she can kinda tank in a pinch. Her buff tiles are ALSO slightly improved. Her mod 2 skill also tags enemies and enhances the mod skills of other Anti-Rain units.

The big thing however is the desperation mode. At mod2 onward, when 3 or fewer allied dolls are in battle (you can retreat 2 units to force this, or simply deploy her with a partial strength echelon), she pulls out the portable cannon and proceeds to deal hilarious damage that makes grenadiers wet their pants, as huge AoE blasts firing from every dummy. The blasts are kinda 100% accurate (the main hit can never miss, even at night, but the splash damage can. Its weird), and can partly crit (its complicated), and is meant to be a last ditch thing to save a fight under dire circumstances (of course, we instead abuse it). This is however, a doubled edged sword, as her RoF also goes down, so its possible for some enemies to slip by if you havent taken this into account.

Basically, Mod her first. She's pretty much priority #1 for modding.

With LTLX7000 being out, the main question asked of most shotguns is "are they as good as LTLX?" As for M26-MASS, she does her damn best trying to be. While LTLX has her SUPER dumb damage mitigation in her active skill, M26 has it baked in as a passive. If any damage she takes is 5 or lower, it’s completely ignored, as if she had very good flash rounds. This is applied AFTER armor mitigation AND flash rounds. With flash rounds, she’s essentially immune to anything 8 damage or lower, which is very strong. However, if the enemy does too much damage, this passive does nothing. However, in current day, LS26 exists. This fixes damage taken to 5 which, spoiler, is negated by MASS's skill. Can be very strong to force MASS to tank some insane things. How often will that be used? Eh. It's neat at least.

The one thing she does have going for her with her passive is that she can actually mitigate damage that bypasses armor. You can entirely mitigate stuff like grenades through it. You could sit in gundam range for a bit and not fussed about it. You could even sit in Typhon lasers and be fine. (Depending on firepower of Typhon, please do not attempt without consulting a local doctor)

Overall, she does fall short of LTLX just due to the sheer power of doubling your armor along with 20% DR. The utility of her active also is less relevant compared to LTLX. Removing HP shields and buffs (which get far more common) is stronger than a Molotov and DR to backline. To add to that, the 6 second initial cooldown hampers the effectiveness of the backline portion of the skill. This is because most things that do target the backline would already be skullfucking you at that point. Other cases this is bad include maps M26 shouldn’t be brought to for one reason or another, like when shotguns are bad for it in general or you can’t use machine guns.

The Chicago typewriter, the classic mobster gun (ignoring the fact mobsters actually used M1918 BARs most of the time for actual hits), and TaneRisa-chan proving that even as a gun, she protects us. Highest HP among SMGs but conversely has abysmal evade. Has a very good invul skill though, and is a solid tank overall, though she'll need a lot of repairs after every mission.

Expensive AND still doesn't do anything useful? Say it ain't so.

Shame, since I like the shotgun, but she sucks harder than the vacuum cleaner she should be using instead of her broom.

Note from Kyazuki: Xecty doesn't like DPS shotguns, but she's alright if you want her for that. Probably not worth the cost for most.

Babushka says not one step backward. Every seventh shot, she gives a damage bonus! Also, the thing starts active, making her one of very few buffers with a start-of-battle skill activation. Her first skill is still defensive in nature, and the percentages got bigger. She's actually useful in a number of situations, either for reducing enemy firepower in specific fights (usually Gundam or tank related) or just the straight DPS boost from the get-go. You only really need her up to Mod 2, but the Mod 3 art is cute.

Her pre mod form is here

Very good buffs, not good in her own stats though. Skill is blah-ish but serviceable at night. When she gets to MOD3, however. Becomes COMMISSAR NAGANT. May or may not land you in jail (or gulag as the case may be). She does say it herself afterall, about your odd taste...

Her mod form is here

Honestly the part you care about is the damage reduction and taunt, which can be useful depending on the type of enemy you're fighting. She wants very much to be the off-tank, in a classic ARSMG formation, and actually has decent tiles for it.

She is NOT for normal use due to her awful DPS, but the taunt can be useful vs certain enemies in the distance to keep them from interfering with the fight (for example, the new model Army tanks). The taunt can also affect random-target type enemy attacks.

21 Armour and her HP isnt high enough to make up for it at a mere 231 per dummy link (compare 275 for SPAS-12!). Her skill doesn't help her tank, and while her skill kinda helps a little for mass knockback, her ammo count is awful, so you can't rely on it.

She's better than nothing, but you already get SPAS-12 for free.

OBEY. Made from a less-lethal shotgun meant to give police forces more options to put down people without killing them. In G&K's case, however, she certainly helps with takedowns.

Incredibly good stats for a shotgun, good formation buffs, and her skill has the unique ability to cancel enemy buffs. These buffs include ENEMY SHIELDS (including Patroller shields) and stat buffs (including bullshit enemy evasion buffs). Her mechanics are unique, so she actually ignores normal knockback immunity. Oh, and her armor buff stacks are multiplicative. Unfortunately, the Minotaur's damage reduction is a weird thing that can't be removed, but regardless, you get so much utility from her. Even if you don't need her skill, her stats are just that good.

If you don't have her, get her from a True Core Mask or something. She's just too useful in things like later Theater events.

Decent overall damage buffer with bonus evade for the tank. If you have her exclusive equipment, her buff is a bit more valuable. Nothing super standout though.

She has extremely high firepower that gets reduced by her skill, with the lowest accuracy of any 5 star MG, and a mere 9 round base capacity. What you get in exchange for this is an amazing two-part skill that provides piercing without any stupid strings or conditions to start. Yes, her AP values drop, yes her FP is reduced by the skill, but this won't matter in most contexts where you'd actually want her. You start the fight with piercing and have the option to go into a single target mode that ups her acc and firepower.

Now, her stats in single target mode don't seem exceptional, but they're more than enough for general work to get her to the battles where she would be good (assuming there are any for that map, this is still on you to get her to those), and also she has the benefit of it working from the get-go without any timing issues.

Like anything with piercing you need to position her properly, or else you waste everything. This is super important because piercing is basically the entire reason you use her to begin with, so make sure you look at what formations the enemy actually has first and position her based on that. Seriously. if you're tryhard enough to use her but not tryhard enough to figure out your enemy? You're probably retarded. Don't be that guy.

Basically you want her shooting through or across enemies, such that you get as many hitbox contacts as possible.

If you want to stack armor, she's one of the best for it, with one of the highest base armor among shotguns. That combined with her skill, she can easily hit some insane armor thresholds, making her take 1 damage (zero with flash rounds) where other shotguns can struggle. This does come at a price of having her HP be on the lower end of shotguns.

However, there are now plenty of other options at this point in the game that can produce similar, but better results. That doesn't make her trash, but yeah. Still usable.

AN94's counterpart, she sits in the 1 position and has in theory, similar DPS. In practice, she's actually slightly worse off due to lacking a passive, but in longer fights this isn't an issue and her excellent uptime lets her outperform most other selfbuffing ARs.

Her skill doesnt seem great, but the sheer number of things it buffs is actually fairly significant and far more powerful than you might think. She can cap RoF with minor buffs, and she can get close to critcap even without external buffs. The rest is just yet more gravy. Hell, you can buff her enough she can take down hydras (not recommended, but its possible) and there's not too many ARs who are meant to take the 1 position. The main reason she's used less often is because AR-15Mod exists and generally takes her spot since AN94 takes the other one (making her yet ANOTHER Kalashnikov product cockblocked by the MIGHT OF EUGENE STONER.)

AKA, SHARK-CHAN. Shitty aura shape, workable buff. Has surprisingly high HP for a 3 star shotty, and surprisingly ok damage, otherwise average tanking ability. With the release of better SGs, you'll want better if you can, but all shotguns are at least usable if you lack anything better.

Her unique makes her slightly better offensively, but still far away from being actually good at it, and 90% of the time you want your shotguns to tank.