I like how the OP didn't mention the biggest problem with the ranged LB; It doesn't work on slopes or any changes in elevation. Even if you have a bottleneck node like the southeastern uphill one, it won't hit anyone if they are on a different elevation on you.
Other than that, it's effective range is an utter joke to justify it doing less than a caster LB; The width isn't any wider than bodies standing next to each other. And personally, I can't tell if I'm shooting where I'm facing or at who I'm targeting because I don't see my projected AoE.
The only time I can reliably use it is to overlap with a caster who is setting up their caster LB to garunteed a kill. Me using it by myself hits for 4k-4.5k at the most and probably won't hit anyone by itself unless they're holmgang'd or stunned.
The choke points located in the center-ish area of the maps aren't narrow enough to make full advantage of it. As for the nodes that have bottle neck entrances, they're on different elevations so it doesn't hit either (specifically, the uphill node close to center and the uphill one on the SE side of the map)
