You trade ammo for massive damage
Damage is high, not sure what you're on about lol.
Don't have to wear light armour on the account that you have 18 STR for a reason, and you can easily have even more if you want.
Don't need a shield, 2h doesn't have a shield, neither does polearms, sometimes even 1h don't use polearms, not necessary in the slightest.
You seem heavily bias to the side that says "These guys are so weak it's stupid", have you ever played as them before? I can tell you they're way beyond strong lol.
Hit someone in the head with one of those things and they die so quick it's stupid, even if they do survive they've lost about 85% of their health bar.
I did play quite a bit of lance throwing, i was probably the first one to pick them up when they went 3 for 2 slots, and ive played with them quite a bit since every nerf theyve gotten. The damage is in no way massive, when i used them i was happy if someone in medium armor would die by 2 of them, hell even peasants would at times survive 1. With current lance damage the way to top perform is through finishing enemies off with lances, never killing them purely from throwing, then you will be wasting all your ammo on 2 kills. Heavy armored targets are just a no-go, unless wounded previously. You can switch to melee after hitting someone to finish them off, but thats a risk considering you are using light armor and a short weapon.
Yes you use light armor, heavy armor not only ruins your accuracy, but also removes your key strength, mobility. You have no hp to make efficient use of the armor either so at most you will tank 1 more hit, if even that.
Headshots are great but you cant rely on headshotting people, lances are accurate sure but its still tricky.
I dont have any bias, i am being realistic while lots of people QQ for the sake of devs fixing a problem they could easily adapt to. Positioning and awareness is key to surviving ranged (allthough ranged is almost not even a factor anymore, so many nerfs). Im not saying they are stupidly weak, im saying that they are fine. Very unreliable, at times they will be destroying, other times they will be doing jack shit. Best way to play lance thrower (that benefits your team the most) is killing cav, you get a bunch of score, not really any kills, and you can win your team rounds like this. Thing is, cav can play around it if they chose to.
Played earlier on my ultra glasscannon agihero main, died multiple times to infantry by 1 hit, never died to lances 1 hit (out of the two times i got hit). On my str 2h hero ill barely care if i get hit by a lance, at best they will do 1/3 and thats not very impressive. Hp is a resource, if im full on hp i will take way more risks in order for my team to gain an advantage, if im low i will play much more defensive, which might benefit my team less. Headshot instagibs happen, but not nearly often enough for me to be bothered with them.