Talk:Hek/@comment-86.66.211.211-20130728165908/@comment-13117751-20130729130133

You are very right that they're incredibly different, and that's what makes that decision difficult.

If anything, to make it a bit easier, you could always instead ask the question "which is the best shotgun in the game for [insert situation]?"

In my opinion from handling both, I'd say they each have their own good standing points.

The hek is a superior selective engagement shotgun for small-medium size mobs. It fares better against individual targets by far, and if you only see them in pockets, can outperform the sobek at taking down higher leveled enemies. It really specializes in picking your targets and putting a very decisive shot (or maybe two shots) to dispatch them quickly. This is especially useful against corpus and/or grineer where you tend not to see them in packs of more than ~6 enemies at a time. It can be useful against infested too, of course, especially when the group isn't particularly large and/or threatening.

The sobek is a superior crowd control / suppression shotgun. It outperforms the hek at very large groups of mobs and usually only wins out against single targets if they are bosses with regenerating shields (since essentially you can output less damage per shot for an effectively longer time with the sobek, it is useful if you can't outright kill your target with one hek magazine). It really shines when 4 (or 6) shots simply is not enough to fight all the targets in the area. This tends to find more use against mass mobs of infested when you encounter packs of 10+ at a time...usually rushing you in a small area where you can't afford to simply back up and reload. It occasionally sees more use than the hek against grineer/corpus as well when their numbers exceed the usual amount of enemies present.

This is going to be true REGARDLESS of what mods you put on either shotgun. Some people will say "oh well what you said about the hek isn't true because I can just put on ammo stock and tactical pump and there problem solved". You can do that, sure, but the point is that you don't have to do it on the sobek, and can slot another damage mod instead. Thus, you start ceding the best advantage the hek has over the sobek--higher damage per shot. Another thing to mention is that the sobek gains nearly twice the returns from tactical pump and five times the benefits from ammo stock, so equipping the very same mods on the sobek accomplish "more". Of course, the hek's damage margin is not something to be looked down on, and it can easily put down a target in one shot when it would take the sobek two (or sometimes even three due to its low pellet count if one of the pellets misses due to the user 'spraying' everywhere).

A quick summary comparison:

Hek > Sobek in burst DPS

Hek = Sobek in effective range

Sobek > Hek in sustained (continuous) DPS

[opinions are opinions, do tell me if you think I'm wrong on a point, I'll gladly talk about it]