The pellets will ricochet off the environments only once. If well handled, these pellets can clear a tight, empty room as every pellet has a second opportunity to hit a target if they missed the first time.
Firing an uncharged shot at a low angle into the ground will cause the ricocheted projectiles to form into a horizontal line with significantly lower spread. This is useful for quickly taking out groups of charging infested at medium range without having to charge.
Increasing slash damage is always more effective, even against enemies resistant against slash damage.
Equipping Tainted Shell makes this weapon an extremely accurate long-distance weapon when fully charged.
Fatal Acceleration is extremely useful for increasing the Drakgoon's effectiveness at long range; at maximum rank, the Drakgoon's shrapnel will have a speed slightly faster than the shots of a Dera.
Bugs
The Drakgoon's charging animation is not affected by mods. This is purely visual, however.
When it was first showcased, the Drakgoon was envisioned as a Corpus-built weapon. In the game proper, it appears to be Grineer-built instead.
This weapon was introduced on January 8, 2014.
"Drakgoon" may be a combination of Flak and Dragoon.
Flak is derived from the German Flugzeugabwehrkanone (literally "air defense cannon"). This is any cannon used primarily for anti aircraft fire, but the term is often used to refer to an anti aircraft cannon that fires a shell that bursts in the air, sending a spray of shrapnel towards the target: the idea being that a spread of shrapnel will have a greater chance of hitting a moving target by covering a large area, as opposed to a single shell, which can only cover its impact point.
Dragoon refers to mounted infantry trained to deliver tremendous damage against a squad of unmounted infantry, thus relating the weapon's capability of spreading massive damage against a crowd of enemies.
There is Grineer text on both sides of the Drakgoon with the first line saying "FLAK". The second line reads "1.8".
This is the first shotgun to gain a Charge feature.
Prior to Hotfix 11.6.1, the Drakgoon used Rifle Ammunition instead of Shotgun Ammunition.
This is the third shotgun to have a non-static model, following the Boar Prime and the Sobek.
The colored cap on the top of the mid portion of the Drakgoon is what appears to be the magazine. This magazine is awkwardly small if it contains ammunition but the Drakgoon appears to instead use energy projectiles, suggesting this is a battery or energy capsule.
Black energy on Drakgoon will make projectiles nearly invisible and remove the lights inside the funnels, allowing the weapon to look and feel a bit more like a shotgun.
The Grineer possess a cannon version of this weapon, usually used to fire any Tenno ship detected according to the Liset's radio.