Apparently you've never heard of the grasp, nerwins mercy, hopscotch pilgrim or the Waltz. There are counters for it but you have to be mobile. People are too stationery. If your sitting in one area and you start getting shot at by something with High Caliber Rounds you have to find cover before you can try shooting again.

While I agree with you that you must modify your playstyle based on the weapon you use, the clever dragon archetype is the jack of all trades. It doesn't require you to play more passively like the other pulse rifles, which puts all of them at a large disadvantage in all combat scenarios. One archetype of pulse rifles should not be able to do what the other archetypes can, while at the same time having the lowest ttk.