In my experience, I can usually down a Chaos Warrior with Waystalker’s ult on Legend and Cata. A lot of players drop the health regen for cooldown talents, combining that with Asrai Focus for another 20%; that’s roughly 50% cooldown reduction just from talents. Personally, I run both of those and use a trinket with 10% cooldown instead of stamina regen, though not everyone can afford to give that up.
Some of this comes down to perception. Players often lean toward careers that look more robust set of weapons and thematically interesting ability. Still, standard ol’ Bounty Hunter with Crossbow is far more common than Huntsman with Longbow. BH offers fast, reliable ranged burst that doesn’t depend on consistently landing headshots. Waystalker’s popularity, especially with newer players stems from the same idea. Her ult doesn’t require precision or setup, you just press it and get damage. I often see players missing entirely, just from aiming vaguely in the direction of enemies around the team to try to steal a few free kills.
Ranger Veteran likely sees more play than Huntsman for a similar reason. He provides team utility: ammo drops, bombs, stealth. Huntsman, by comparison, doesn’t really offer utility outside of some raw damage if you can land your headshots. That’s not always enough to justify the pick especially for newer or mid-tier players.
Giving Huntsman 125 base HP would probably make him more approachable for Champion and Legend players, and might reduce complaints about survivability. For Ranger Vet, the same HP buff would put him closer to Engineer in terms of durability, especially considering he has access to stronger damage reduction talents.
Another thing is simply the limitation for Ranged options on a Ranged career. Bounty Hunter and Ranger Vet have a much more robust set of weapons.
I’ve put some ideas here if you’re interested in weighing in.