At NYC, herders were very important, with 395 and 348 taking the lead for much of the competition.
There weren't many reliable shooters there (there were some), and in autonomous, having herders dominated-- since shooters had to shoot 4 in the center goal in order to beat out a successful dumper (12 to 10), which I didn't see often. Also, the dumpers weren't easy to block as the shooters were, shooters sat there, so a quick ram did it-- but the herders were easily able to drive over to the corner goal to unload before anyone opposite them could get to 'em.
Also, the shooters were easily blockable from shooting in (unless you're 25 of course
), while unless you had the goals jammed up the entire round, the dumpers usually were able to push through and do their thing because of pin rules (I remember seeing some robot pinning 395 2Train as they had just loaded up from the human players and the referee was just counting pin time with his fingers, and the pushing bot had to constantly back away. Slowly the count required the duel to go beyond the corner goal/ramp area and 2Train began to be double teamed before it managed to get away and rush to the side goal to relieve itself of the 10 or 15 balls it was carrying.)