Throwing knifes is also ranged combat. I know its only ideas

but when the devs starting taking them onboard you'll have people start coming up with ludicrous ideas like lets make tanks ressurect people or monks should carry rocket launchers.
Instead of Rifle AOE how about introducing Explosives to the game which would require INT & TC the runner takes the beating while deploying the explosive and once deployed after x amount of time depending on skill they have a detonator which they can use to ignite the the explosive but it would require a safe distance otherwise runner would take damage from explosion.
INT 50 TC - 75 Basic
INT 80 TC - 100 Mid
INT 100 TC - 125 High
INT 105 TC - 150 Extreme