The thing with archery is that it take a long time to draw your arrow, so if you actually want to shoot once in a while there will be 3-4 second were you will be in tunnel vision mode no matter how good your awareness is. Even if you spot a horse after that you have to draw your weapon out before you can block down that also take time. Add people with 7-11 riding skill and champion sarranid/desert/courser horse and it's really a nightmare being an archer. I guess that's why some people are asking for being able to block with bow, it would help a lot.
I've recently started an archer alt and really it's the hardest class i have tried yet. Even with 8PD i will often land 5-6 arrow for 0 kill an get backstabed by a horsie that i saw coming but too late.
It seems a lot of folks* in here are noting how hard archery is, as above. While I'm not going to disagree, I would certainly encourage everyone who wants to give it a shot to give it a
fair shot. You won't get kills until you get at
least PD 5. You won't live through maps until you get at
least Ath 4. You won't hit fuck all until you get at
least WPF 120. Archery is challenging as hell, but that challenge also yields great satisfaction when you become successful. So to be even a half-decent archer and to get any kills at all requires level 20 or so.
As my fellow Fallens know, I like to compare cRPG melee to Super Mario and cRPG archery to Galaxian. Both are video games, and that's where the similarities end. In one you stomp on heads and avoid getting stomped on, in the other you pew pew pew because, frankly, that's all you can do and dodge EVERYTHING because EVERYTHING will kill you.
Unfortunately, because of how powerful hybrids (Xbows in particular) can be, we're seeing some cRPG Super Marios throwing out pew pew pew as well. I hope, and I trust, that the upcoming patch will deal with that appropriately without likewise being too restrictive as to make hybrids impossible. Diversity is the spice of life.
*Shameless plug: Fallen has been producing some stellar archers and developing awesome techniques, especially under Loki's NA team. Shoot me a PM if you want to practice or play sometime.
