"We can't assume anything to be or not to be a bug."

You're right about that. It's risky to craft weapons based on exploits people have discovered with them, doubly so to put effort and resources into rolling UVs on them. Once upon a time there used to be a bomb that people found a lot of handy tricks with and it got removed. You may have heard about it.

"Knockback is a neutral force; it neither helps nor hurts your party if you are able to use it."

So if shieldbumping had the radius of a Nitronome nothing would be overpowered about it?

And the shock does nothing to hurt Polaris. Either the enemy gets blown backwards or they're stunned by shock, unable to attack, about to take a load of shots in the face and die.

The advent of the Pulsar and Catalyzer series were essentially answers to the community's desires. Handguns were seriously considerably bad, their only real ability being always ranged damage, but that was in nigh disregard due to being so weak, unmodifiable (the only solid boosts were ASI), and having the most limited extent of utility overall.
Eventually we received the update that brought us some decent changes to Handguns, as well as two new types of guns that had the capability for knockback and crowd/control usage, for Handguns. We were given actual strong guns, with some neat new mechanics, ones that had better aptitude to where they could keep pace with the other, powerful weapons; we even got a Poison-inflicting Handgun, which was similarly requested.

Personally, it's been ironic that we were actually given the things that we wanted, and even within a year later, the then-different community were already rejecting it, likely oblivious to why we received them in the first place. This isn't to void today's issues so to speak, but to shed light on why they exist - they were found to be necessity.

"The Polaris was able to perform a very specific role that no other weapon could fulfill- safe, long range turret takedowns- and thus was a welcome addition."

Unless you count Iron Slug, which entire purpose is safe, long-range takedowns. (Snipe with the charge or just interrupt with the regular shots.) Alchemers probably have the power to interrupt turrets, I'll let you know when I see one that needs more than one shot to destroy them. Old RSS could safely take out several turrets at once from a distance if we're talking weapons in general and not just bombs. You're also safe by default at a distance from any turret but rocket turrets so Valiance serves that purpose as well.

Polaris is not filling any role that no other weapon can, it's filling multiple roles previously belonging to various other weapons and also doing it better than all of them while being easier to use. "Keep x distance away from what you're attacking" is infinitely easier for people to grasp and condone than "wait x time between your attacks to keep the target perpetually interrupted". Wait between your attacks? Heresy! Your dps will become lower and that is the worst fate of all of them.

This is what people mean when they talk about "spam". Polaris is spammy because it does not require you to do anything in particular:
-Magnus gives interruption, status, and long-range sniping. It requires timing or room to keep distance as well as judgement of where off-screen enemies are.
-Alchemers give status and damage, as well as crowd damage. It requires technique for exploiting gun-switching, aiming for exploiting internal ricochets and calculation for intended use of ricochets.
-Blaster requires constant aim directly at the enemy to stack its modest knockback on the single target at which you're aiming. You will also need to dodge the target's ranged attacks since Valiance doesn't interrupt anything.
-Antigua is similar to valiance, but instead of single-target knockback you get single-target damage.
-Autoguns requires positioning and dodging while you charge the attack up. Careful kiting must be done for the charge to be safely unleashed. The reward is either high damage, damage and a status or damage and knockback. They all also have interruption.
-Catalyzer requires team coordination, which is why you never see Catalyzer anywhere. It also requires careful timing for the knockback to be productive. The reward is crowd knockback and crowd damage.
-Polaris gives interruption, status, medium-range sniping, crowd damage, crowd knockback. It requires you to put a dancing hamster on top of your mouse button in case you're falling asleep from boredom and can't continously press it on your own. No timing or aiming is required. It requires positioning in the sense that it's only adequate within melee range (still more damaging than Iron Slug), but once you're outside of that you don't really need to be in a specific position relative to the enemy because you can simply choose where you want all the enemies in any given battle to be. No technique or calculation is involved, as the knockback is always straight ahead rather than the orbital knockback of bombs or Catalyzer. I've moved entire danger room waves with this thing, what little remained of them by the time I got them to the corner where I wanted them, at least.

people see it as OP:

>because it makes the game "too easy" (lol.)

>because it is a stumbling block to Strikers (let's talk about how heart trink strikers are underpowered and why you dont have a wood bracelet on/dps nullifying gear on if you are a recon)

For the people saying it should not do damage at all or that the shock status should be removed entirely (or even that it should not be allowed to knockback) I'd like to see your well defined reasons that do not boil down to 'wah, clockworks are too easy' or 'wah, I can't dash/cloak even though people use it all the time in LD' and I refuse to wear a wood bracelet-)

It should be noted that a grapple can be done with Blaster line guns, too. I first saw it with Valiance.

What's your point? Mine is that Polaris' mechanics are useful enough on their own without needing damage, not unlike Stagger Storm. Polaris is kind of like if Stagger Storm also set enemies on fire.

Yes, haze bombs do a bit of damage when you use their charge attack. I don't think the damage on the charge attack needs to be removed, only for the more permanent haze of knockback you can spew out with it.

At the very least bring the damage down on the level of Valiance. Somewhat slower bullets does not balance it having five times the knockback and bullet size, and 30% more damage.