Kineticist Ascention Mode - Garbo?

The Kineticist's Passives include Ascention Mode, which accumulates charges from kills to power up an alternate casting state.  By default, 6 charges are required.  This can be specced down to 5, or even 4.  During Ascention Mode, all Powers have no Cooldowns, but consume Shields to cast them.  Ascention Mode ends if Shields are depleted.

So far this seems to be garbage.  Here are half a dozen reasons why:

1- Lance 6b already does this, so it's redundant.

2- The only powers which benefit from Ascention Mode are Pull and Throw.  Pull, of course, does not work on Shielded or Armored enemies, so first you will have to spend some time shooting your gun (and not spamming Powers).  Throw is a relatively fast Detonator, but first you need something to Detonate.  So in the meantime, you will be shooting Disruptor Ammo with your gun (and not spamming Powers).

3- As Pull only works on undefended targets, you'll no doubt want to be using Disruptor Ammo.  This primes for a Tech Burst, even while the target still has Shields remaining.  Once the Shields are down, and you hold Pull to Grapple them, they become a Tech Burst Bomb, detonating a Combo on whoever you Throw them at.  While doing this, you tend to be exposed, so having both of these consume Shields to use is probably not the greatest idea.

4- Unlike Phase Disruptor Vanguards in ME3MP, the Kineticist does not have Biotic Charge to instantly refill her Shields and keep this going.  What you end up doing is using Lance 2 or 3 times, then hiding while your Shields fill up.  So in the meantime, you are either doing nothing, or shooting your gun (and not spamming Powers).

5- She does have Barrier 5a for 20% Shields restored on Melee, so I suppose you could try a Melee > Lance > Melee > Lance build, but the problem with that is if you are doing a Melee build, there are plenty of other kits who do this more efficiently (looking at you, Vanguards).  With no other form of Shield regeneration, and that she spends what little Shields she receives on Lance, and must be in Melee Range, this just isn't going to be a very good idea if you are playing anything above Bronze level difficulty.

6- She also has Saving Barrier, but it only restores your Shields once every 10 seconds, and conditionally that your health is below 25%.  So I guess you would first have to deliberately try to almost but not entirely die, and do this every single Wave, but even then, with Shields only being restored once every 10 seconds, this means you will do Lance 2 or 3 times, and then have to wait, either hiding or shooting your gun (and not spamming Powers).

It just seems to me that Bioware thought this was a great idea, and then playtested it on Bronze with God Mode enabled.  Probably with a Controller, too, since holding a Power button on Mouse+Keyboard is rather awkward.  This kit is a lot of fun, but most Waves I either forget to use Ascention Mode, or decide it's not even worth the bother.  At least it has a cool visual effect to draw attention away from her face.