It's just very frequently used, knockback can be a problem if you get hit. Also for the case of Polaris, shock can really ruin your performance since you randomly get interrupted.

Because it is effective.

Same goes with AT.

People from the 'collosseum' part of this Forum can tell you more about this question.

Pulsar lines basically have a few negatives to them when fighting against someone:

Knockback makes fighting harder, the way it's commonly used is a pretty low skill ceiling (ie, "let's make walls!"), and, well... Just in general it's an annoyance that if you're already at a disadvantage in one way or another, it's hard to overcome.

For example, if I'm going up against a pulsar gun, my ping is not on my side. The thing doesn't lag me, but the bullets come in contact with me serverside while not client side, meaning I'll go cascading across the map when I was outrunning a bullet. This is more a lag thing than a pulsar thing, but it's still a valid complaint.

Next up, players who have an advantage already (good connection, good UVs, etc) can literally just switchshoot these guns and it takes someone of equal advantage to stop them. This becomes a problem when the "advantage" person is sitting on max damage, max defense/status UVs, +12 health, and max ASI. If you're a trinketless player and there's like 4 bullets flying out of this player every second, each one knocking you back or flinching you, and having a chance to inflict status... Yeah, that becomes a problem. This problem is similar with alchemers however alchemers don't have the huge expanded bullet and knockback, making them a more "oh they got me" reaction rather than a "omg stop spamming" reaction.

Adding to this, the gun uses a fair amount of visual effects, making disadvantaged players lag when going up against these guns. If everything is stacked against you, you're going up against someone you literally can't touch because they lag you, kill you in 3 bullets, and knock you back every time you try to engage. Even if you're not disadvantaged, a common counter tactic to pulsars is, sadly, more pulsars. Now you have more of these guns making the game unfun, laggy, etc. These people then go to your spawn and fire bullets at it so you have to push forwards through their walls to even play the game. A mist bomber can do the same, however they are vulnerable.

Bottom line, the gun makes the lockdown unfun when used incorrectly. It has a similar effect in the clockworks to be honest, but that's a different wave of complaints about the gun. It's a wonderful utility, but people use it as a weapon more than a utility, which makes it incredibly annoying.

It's not so much your computer having problems so much as it is java optimization on top of that. We have java leaks that requires players to relog after long play sessions, meanwhile other java based games do not have this problem. On my old computer I was able to run Payday 2 with pretty high settings with little to no lag, but a biohazard explosion caused several seconds of lag and stutters. This isn't the case with my current computer, but I remember the pain of that time so I can vouch for how it works.

But yeah, pulsars are a bit too effective in all scenarios, as they counter almost all playstyles equally. Bomber? Pulsar. Sword striker? Pulsar. Gunning recon? Pulsar. It's the end-all that just isn't fun to play against in a competitive environment.

When going up against someone who can use a pulsar well without simply creating walls, yeah, that's actually a legitimately fun battle. Because of that whenever I do have a pulsar on me I attempt to use it in such a way that is fun. Creating walls isn't fun, but learning a striker's playstyle and then firing one bullet off to the side to have them run right into it is more than satisfying.

I remember you, the guy who got the whole lobby spamming pulsars (including me). The same people who were crying about it just started doing it too.
Whatever floats your boat man.

edit: Also I like how you use switching instead of triple clicking, at least it shows you are better at spamming it than 90% of the people who use it.

@Tornarus

Decent loadout, but could be better. I'd buy a BK Hood and Cloak (3* - not too expensive), get Pentas, get some ASI on those pulsars (med or high), and only then would I waste my life bothering other people in an online game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_EREMF0H-8