fear ranged? buy a fucking shield.
I went 15-0 as an archer, but only once and I was lvl 33. The fact is that I can shoot 30 arrows, hit 20 people, and go 0-5, and also shoot 30 people, hit 20 people and go 15-0. Damn KS'ing melee! We want assist points!
(Without assist points and/or damage output, we can never ever adequately balance the archer class)
This. I used to loose shafts, for 10 gens I was archer: Some maps I top scoreboard, 20:1 kdr, very next map, 1:5. Shoot same number of arrows, make approx. same number of hits. If it IS possible to create a way to track DMG, not just kills, balance might be possible, but fact remains:
2 melee players close, they fight, 95% of the time one or other of the fighters dies. With ranged players, you engage and spend time/ammo on a large number of enemies who a/ you dont kill, b/ dont kill you: These engagements dont get recorded at all, so the actual, factual, effect of archers is very hard to judge since a lot of their effect is unrecorded.