Why is the charge rifle allowed to be this bad?

It does 90 damage at pretty much any range and it's pretty much impossible to miss the shots as it's a hitscan weapon.

In general, I'd say snipers are pretty weak this season, but if I ever use one, it's definitely only CR. Not having a mastif is tough, but there's usually boxes to switch the CR to it for mid-late game, so it's still possible to use it.

P.S. I've actually ran CR+mastif loadouts on octane and it worked pretty well, at least in lower ranks (gold-plat). Wouldn't do it on any other legend though, as you would just die before you can even get to mastif range.