Anyone wanna explain to me why Raktoraks are considered such a bad unit? I have only played 1 match with morats low tier and he proved to be quite an asset with vulkan shotgun (should have picked HFT). They have good weapon load outs and are default specialists. Is the cost too high?
I'd say the main problem is linkability: you can link Kornak with Haris of 2 Suryats / 2 Sogarats, or with a Core of Suryats where you can place Raktorak aswell. Raktorak, meanwhile, can go Core with Suryats with or without Kornak, and Suyats haris. So, his place in Morat seems to be filling a spot in a Suryat Fireteam (haris or core) in order to lower the cost by 16 points of the third/fifth member (while providing a vulkan shotgun, so the suryat with vulkan shotgun can upgrade to having a flamethrower+combi). So unless you want to play a cheaped Suryat Core... Yeah, you could place him in a Haris, but there you will place Kornak most likely, even if he's as expensive as a Suryat.
IMHO it is because they were bad in previous edition. After HS N3 they are IMHO in a good spot (only thing many players would love is to have more fireteam options on them instead of only possibility to link them with Suryats). As solo option I like to use Raktorak with Red Fury, because only Raktorak and Kurgats are specialists with long range weapon available to MAF (in general long range weapon units, that are also specialist, are rare). Other options are better in Suryats fireteam, because MAF has some interesting options that cost similar points like Zerat FO, Kurgat with Mk.12.
You can make haris with Kornak, Suryat and Raktorak. It was confirmed change to linkability of Raktorak (you can find it on the wiki. Only problem is that Army wasn't updated with this new info. See this: Haris*2 - Kornak or 1 Raktorak + up to 2 Suryats, OR Kornak + 1 Raktorak + 1 Suryat http://infinitythewiki.com/en/List_of_Fireteams
Definitely the "adding a specialist" is a bonus, yeah. And knowing he can be in a Haris with Kornak gives it a lot of life (specially for me, since I have the HMG Suryat for Onyx, and was planning to get Kornak to proxy as a second in the unlikely case I field the Duo... and thinking about expanding to Morat).
After they received the Specialist bump the Raktorak changed radically in usefulness. The Combi/HFT is the goto Suryat link filler, but I have had good fun using the Red Fury as a solo hunter and flank control.