To ramp, or not to ramp?

[phrontist]

When I first saw the game this year, I was sure we would have to design around getting up the ramp to be competitive. After all, getting three robots up would get you 25 points (9 high-goal shots!). But the more I think about it, it's really doesn't work out this way strategically.

During the final round, if you are good shooter, you'll want to be firing on your goal (right behind the enemy ramp) right up until the buzzer. It seems as though not going for the ramp would give you considerably more time to score, and it seems as though it wouldn't be too hard to position yourself as to block one of the opposing robots from getting on the ramp while scoring.

The more I think about it, the ramp, much like the lower goals, are rather easy to block, and were probably included in the game to provide rookie scoring options.