This is a very good example of where you can say something like it's a fact when it couldn't be further from the truth, on both accounts.
Oh, and @Smoothrich, I think you're partially right. Non-heirloom bows and arrows definitely ARE underpowered, but heirloomed bows and arrows really aren't all that overpowered. Then again, it costs 6 heirloom points to reach maximum damage effectiveness, twice as much as any other weapon (barring arguments of horse-speed-as-weapon-bonus).
Okay maybe I formulated badly.
What I want to say is that the "standard cRPG archer" is wearing rags and investing all the wpf he has into archery because it's the best thing to do if you are an archer, and it really should not.
The advantage 1 wpf more in archery gives over 10 or so in a melee prof is substantially greater precisely because you can evade melee combat. And evading melee also makes your archery better by wearing cloth instead of armor.
It's just a matter of what the optimum between a dedicated and a hybrid archer is. Right now archer hybrids are really crap because of the importance of archery wpf, which forces a decent archery build to be made solely for it, instead of being balanced between it's ranged and melee capabilities like xbows and throwing. This causes kiting.
Secondly, when I say kiting is bad, it's my opinion. Your opinion can be anything. If you think putting litter out of the trash cans in public places is a good thing, it's none of my business. Although as a general rule I tend to prefer games where fights are not completely one sided and not fun at all for one of the players.
Poll