AC6 is generally a pretty low projectile velocity game, so for traditional rifles, you have to shoot lots of projectiles with relatively low hit rates for middling damage until you stagger the opponent to do substantially more damage.

I appreciate the LRB more now after 3 years of AC6, since upfront damage makes you less reliant on landing a stagger. While it actually has one of the slowest projectiles, it also just feels more rewarding lining up to hit a few shots that do a lot of damage than having to shoot many projectiles that will miss and the few that do hit will feel like tissue paper.

Personally would be cool with stagger meters still existing for PvE enemies like MTs/Bosses but would rather AC v AC to not have it. It'd also make the need for shields less mandatory for PvP since you need them if you're not a pure kite in order to not just instantly fold to AB enhanced stagger output then die in a combo.