Does dhewm3 change weapon balance?

I'm playing D3 for the first time, with dhewm3 to get widescreen and such, and I know from reviews that the Shotgun is infamously terrible. But for the short while I've used it, it's been powerful and consistent. Is this a consequence of using a source port?

For reference I'm playing on normal

I don’t think the dhewm3 port has any balance/gameplay changes in that regard.

The shotgun gets a lot of flak for it’s spread when using it at a longer range. You’ll see a lot of clips online that love to point this out.

Using the D3 shotgun in close range? Right in their face with headshot damage modifiers? That thing can hurt. It even has a one-up on the original Doom shotgun with how more reliably it can kill imps in one shot.

dhewm3 doesn't change anything regarding gameplay, and yes the shotgun is an absolute murder stick, if you take stick literally. A full eight rounds will kill the Hell Knight, one of the strongest monsters in the game, and it will reliably one to two shot the majority of the low to mid tier class, and four for the tougher monsters like Arch-viles.

13 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

and it will reliably one to two shot the majority of the low to mid tier class, and four for the tougher monsters like Arch-viles.

Only if you are absolutely on their noses, lmao. 

thats the thing about the doom 3 shotgun. It's basically a melee weapon with ammo and the additional nuance of being technically usable at mid-long range. If a prospective player doesn't think that's good or proper for a doom shotgun, they might try to change it. But the problem is, Doom 3's gameplay is tuned around this fact; its one of the major incentives to actually run around and be mobile in Doom 3 (which is an incredibly important thing in a doom game)

Learn how to actually use the shotgun. 

Many of the enemies get in your face in this game. No need to hesitate to get in their face and use it for close quarters combat. Once you figure out how to properly use it like that, the shotgun isn't that bad.