(Rambling warning, be advised.)
tldr; main problem as always is yeah to get your full damage numbers you need atleast 12 orbs on board and unlike hero leads you don't just stack them.
Effectively, I'd say Krishna's actual damage potential is a lot lower than NepDras due to that. You'll usually average one row and even blowing two is heavy active consumption, which.... does matter. I know you're used to stalling endlessly but you'll have lower breathing room with 2.25x (x2) and also well, eight turns per active avg on those. Yeah. I think your only haste is antares too.
Krishna's greed and general weird board layouts is a fairly major factor to me because you can't flood and get a success which has always been red's strong point. Relatedly, yeah, all your changes are solos/heart combos to keep you alive and you'll likely need to use a few (Or red, leaving you open to binds) to get across. I know you're discounting it but as a whole it really effects how good he is overall as a lead, especially across player skill levels.
You'd also possibly get better effect over making a TPA team instead of rows because you can make better use of mostly the same orb numbers, have a good reason to slot in urd, and overall have more flexibility for probably solid as hell numbers. But at that point i'd use shiva because he can get all that too honestly and also >mfw red prong
He's an effective and strong lead. I'll never argue that one. He's probably NA's best red depending on who you ask (Revo shiva will prolly remain my pick honestly, the HP loss aside he's much more efficient and manageable lead to play and can clear a lot of floors krishna can with 2/3ds the orb count. If he had a better active, no one would argue otherwise) and certainly a small hope for red.
But... he's... kinda all we have, and I'm not sure he effectively and powerfully uses the entire color.
He's not Raoh or Kenshin or some garbage like that, sure. But he's a small pity and honestly if you were to ask him to stack up to most heartcross leads you'd likely get a better overall play opinion across skill levels for them and such.
He's a great lead and probably red's best yet, if you ask the right people, but yeah.
He's not really top-tier or saving red, but he's atleast a small blip in our favor that is... well, like you've done, used to justify there is nothing wrong with the color as a whole which would be a pretty solid lie.
If you were to ask me about how i feel about the sudden upswing of good red cards (shiva, minerva buffs) i'd still be somewhat sus. I feel like red's just mostly ignored at this point and running on backburned cards.
Give me something like ultra+deluxe omega shiva instead gungho plz
also because kinnikuman was mentioned:
he's overrated and apparently red's best card plz remove red from game gungho ;;
