Except for when you play during times where there are maybe 2 non-bot players on the enemy team and neither knows how to cook grenades
Yes.
Itās made of paper armor, but itās strongest point is itās quick acceleration, forwards and backwards.
You can finally dodge explosion packs (and the infantry hunting you with it).
It certainly requires a special mindset. Youāre neither an apex predator, nor a flight animal - but something in between. Jump your targets, retreat and reposition. If thereās an enemy infantry charge, you can break it up with a counter charge and good usage of your HE-shellsā¦ they eat clumped up squads whole.
Especially on point 3 (the barn) in the Invasion mode Iāve had quiet a lot of success with it, since you can retreat and hide in different clumps of undergrowth and forest, but I usually play with a group of friends that can warn me ofā¦ or even spot enemy tanks for me.
Iāve certainly warmed up to it.
After the lastest update I returned to do some testing & I was surprised at how the PPD handles now, strangely those hit not registering got to do with animation since itās the only thing mentioned about the PPD. Furthermore I was astonished by the accuracy I could get with the weapon at little further than short range ( I wonāt call it mid since it only shows white hits even with several short bursts).
Strange it was the animation that was playing with or itās just that the developers have done something without mentioning them in the patchnotes. What is missing now is to revert the weapon state change that happened & see how it goes (mind you I didnāt get to try a German SMG at mid range to judge it).
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Itās actually usable now, so the shotgun is back to being a niche weapon instead of being the only assaulter weapon capable of killing anything.
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It always was usable. I pick up PPDs very often, before this patch as well, to help me clear rooms as it was and always will be a CQC weapon and it outperforms basically everything in that
we germans would still like to have our shotgun back instead of you guys having a renamed luftwalle drilling 
I found it more effective before to sprint around shanking people than to empty half of my mag into each one with a PPD.
I just headshot
the firerate of the PPD virtually guarantees I hit a head within my first 3 shots by just aiming at head height
just had 3 headshots point blank on a dismounted tank driver with a PPD and they still killed me first.
Then those were not headshots, as that would have killed anyone. At point blank 1, maaybe 2 headshots is enough due to the 3x or higher headshot multiplier (i dont recall how much it exactly is but it is big)