Try it! Your ideas are sound and playing for a gimmick can be fun!
I’m about to start using a Fighter whose whole thing is shield bashing to shove enemies around and I expect it to be bad in most encounters.
I played a Ranger with Booming Blade and most of the time I didn’t use it, but when I did it was very satisfying.
I always check builds on overframe.gg, often with a filter for recent-ish game versions because some major features changed builds over time. If you blast through enemies easily it’s easier to keep their numbers down and survive, so focus on damage first. Having the Operator with Magus Lockdown can get you out of most dangers. Crowd control can make some low survivability builds work.
I think shield gating and AoE weapons aren’t as strong anymore. Some primary and secondary incarnons are really strong but it’s harder against enemies you can’t reliably headshot. Armor stripping is strongly recommended.
I recommend (Prime/ Kuva / Tenet versions of possible):