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At level 23, my archer is at PD5 and 125 wpf, which is enough to be decently accurate and get kills. I've even topped the scoreboard for multiple consecutive rounds on a couple occassions, mainly with arrow kills.
I'm also PS5 with 74 wpf in one-hand. With a mere warhammer and no shield, I was far from helpless in a fair fight. I could get kills before ever getting close to an enemy, soften people up before they can reach me, take out cav easier than I did with my polearm/shield/thrower.
FFS my very first round at level 1 with this character I went 2-0 just by standing on a rooftop and spamming with a hunting bow and bodkin arrows. Yes, it was lucky, but that's the point. No other class can stay completely away from the fight and get a positive score on pure fucking luck.
I also made tons and tons of money compared to my other character, because I only needed a couple expensive pieces of equipment.
Archery is so easy and offers way too much reward for how easy it is. So little effort and risk involved compared to every other class. It just doesn't make any sense to play any other type of character.
Ok, I will say one thing in the interest of fairness, at risk of sounding like I'm stroking my own ego. I've been playing snipers in FPS games since the Future vs Fantasy mod for Quake 1 back in 1996. You wouldn't think being forced to lead your aim is so horrible if you ever played on a 28.8 modem before the invention of client-side prediction. Archery in this game is nothing to me, so perhaps I'm not the best judge.
And being a "pure" archer is a challenge you intentionally impose on yourself. You can't complain about the outcome. You're choosing to invest massive amounts of points for a very very small increase in archery ability. You could take some of those points to make yourself capable in melee, and probably not even notice the hit to your archery. What are you doing with your extra skill points, anyway? Are you only spending one skill point on an actual skill per 3 levels, and boosting your stats with the other two? I maxed out power strike, weapon master, power draw, and athletics for my level, and still had points left over for stat boosts. I don't understand why you can't. I also don't understand why you can't leave off 5 wpf in archery for 50 wpf in melee.