And like I said, comparing a Circle 1 skill to a Circle 3 skill will almost always picture a disadvantage towards the C1 skill.
At Rank 6-8 SR will get Steady Aim, Critical Shot, Blindside crit debuff and Limacon. Stop comparing 2 classes to 1.
420% * 2 hits = 840% damage output.
Considering more than one class, that’s +15% from Steady Aim to both hits, +50% critical damage increased and +25% critical attack increase on hit with Blindside.
That’s far over Lv.9 Running Shot + DGS. All this under the same skill: Limacon.
If we consider Rank 9 with BM1 there’s also Silver Bullet for +50% against Dark Property monsters (which many bosses have).
If you consider someone “playing” the class staying in place auto-attacking and doing nothing else, the investment will surely be higher than it should.