Not gonna lie, after having spent a shit ton of gold experimenting with different builds i kinda got it to a point where my shots dont feel like im slapping my enemies with a wet noodle, and i really enjoy playing with the musket now because it feels like im not just dragging my team down so i can shoot people.
Kind of a no brainer that took me a while to realize, but get the OPR buff food when you can for more damage, and use a honing stone.
Picking your targets is really important, even though i can eventually down a heavy if i dont whiff my shots (crosshairs are still my biggest obstacle), i find it alot more interesting to pick off their bow users, mages, and other musket users that are trying to do the same as me. Or simply force people back because they just lost 2/3 of their health before they even got into melee range and now need to reconsider their options.
Still, heavy healers is kind of a lost cause at this point. Heck, even light healers are relatively hard to kill unless you manage to get the stars to align for that big damage.
Went 12-0 in my last game, and thats just not last tap kills, i would say 10 of them were me taking a dude from 100 to 0. While its not world breaking, its a big improvement from being bottom bitch on the ranking board.
But its situational and dependent on what your team is doing, if you are with a bad composition or just a weak team, you are gonna be even weaker than most other builds.
But if you are with a strong team that has enough melee to keep them occupied, then you just need to sit back, pick a squishy target, watch out for counter sniping and not miss your shots.
I still dont feel like a musket/melee setup can contribute as much as many of other weapon combinations, but thats why i run a firestaff as my secondary option. This makes me weak in close quarters since i have no stun or knockdown, but gives me two good aoe nukes to help the team, and a bail out option that has saved my bacon quite a few times. Its not amazing, but since i am very tired of playing heavy melee, its a fun build to play.
And like Jack said above me, the musket is not that big numbers one shot weapon some people might have been hoping for, its more about stacking buffs and hitting your follow up shots.