But that where I think you're mistake Blackshade the Ganger just isn't actually very serious threat, the examples we are discussing are very, very far from maxed stats and armor. I selected 20 soak b/c it's easily achievable and it's specifically isn't pushing the envelope, getting 32 armor would take some work but is certainly possible, it just that doing so would be pushing envelop, and so I don't recommend doing so. We can absolutely get your armor above 18 without resorting to riot armor and a shield. Gelpacks, ppt, kata-slides, I'm just saying there are options to explore. Armor jacket aren't very black trench coat, so go get run and gun and find a nice armored suit and matching over coat, and then you will be very black trench coat, and acceptably subtle.
So your character is int 6 and rea 5, so your base no action defense pool is 11, so you're at a solid advantage vs prof 1 ganger. Odds are prof 1 ganger won't manage land a shot, on your character, further you should be solid about all the way about prof 4.
Not ever character has a pool that high some folks choose low rea or low int. But that's fine, nature of the game.
As to the taser that's really fairly whatever, non-condutive is far and away the most common elemental addon just for that reason. Sure 13S is a lot of stun, but odds are you soak down 7 levels. Which now makes that a 6S which while serious is hardly character death. Even going uncsouse is hardly character death. We have team for a reason.
I vote against any change the extends heal time. We will taking increased damage you really don't want to add increased heal time on top of that. Even if you replaced increase damage with increased heal time, you will find that to be much more annoying problem then having the enemy hit harder. NPC don't care about heal time, there never a shortage of opposition. Where as PC down time is not very fun. So long as damage is kept to stun, your never more then a some stim patches, or a decent nap away from being back in action .
The dangers are not taser or gangers with pistols. The real threats are serious professionals packing Assault rifles, and that's just fine. That should be the serious threat.
This isn't perfect world question or anything it's simply a question of the most common scenarios. The stated reality of the game is that, this game will be very lethal. +4 damage makes the game lethal. Not outrageously lethal, but more lethal then standard shadowrun, which is also fairly lethal. So that's just working as intended. Losing a character just means getting to make a new one, and to me that's great fun.