No decent effective range... a L32 Guardian shooting a maxed out SwordBreaker at a level 8 Dreg at anything other than point black will not be able to kill it. I know, Ive tried it. And even at point blank its useless against L30 enemies and it shouldnt be. SwordBreaker (a void shotgun) against a L30 Preatorian in the VoG loses everytime unless your teammates are backing you up. So: no range and not enough dmg --> USELESS. And I have a maxed out swordbreaker, the veridict, invective, universal remote and a few others. I love blasting critters with a shotgun.. too bad it doesnt work in destiny.