yes freeze and firing rate play a big part in how much damage a gun can inflict for sure. The problem with era is the high firing rates and low freeze is so out of proportion now making dodging bullets nearly impossible and massively closing the skill gap between "Pros" and "noobs".

Talking in terms of sparring. If you have a high damage gun that shoots slow and you aren't good enough to time shots or shoot accurately making your bullets hard to dodge, your high damage is worthless. If you have guns with low freeze and high firing rate as era has become known for, all you have to do is take a bottom position and box spam the opponent as long as you have a decent understanding of how to counter move. to me (and this is why i quit era) this takes out all the fun and skill of combat.

where i think era went wrong, and is unfortunately too far down the road to really fix, is the gap between different types of weapons to accommodate different play styles and skill sets. guns that have low freeze an fast firing rates should be held way back in the damage category making spamming work but you wont kill people super quickly with it. guns that have slow firing rates and lots of freeze will have significantly higher damage making it a more skill rewarding weapon.

now era does have difference but not nearly enough. 2 damage difference between a machine gun and a sniper is not nearly enough to give the sniper any kind of chance at being a competitive weapon.