Ranged counters ranged? I would be a hypocrite if I took advantage of xbows with my build. They should have requirements or there should be more incentive to put all wpf into melee
That's pretty much the main problem of cRPG balance.
Infantry is countered by cav, ranged, and infantry.
Cav is countered by ranged, cav, infantry.
Ranged is countered by Other Ranged Only.
Ranged is more powerful in almost every scenario 1 vs 1 against all other classes. Only possible counter is a shielder that never looks away for a split second but that is unrealistic. They 2 shot horses, ignore armor rating, insta kill on headshots, with no nerfs to spin shooting like other "support" classes (pikes, mauls.)
Their damage scales from WPF, PD/PT, bow looms, and ammo looms. All these sources of extra damage and accuracy makes ranged curve up in power way more dramatically then melee classes at the high-end of looms and levels.
My Solution: Reduce the effectiveness of pierce ranged damage against armor. Heavy cav, balanced/agi builds in heavy armor should be good, logical counters to ranged. However your armor rating is realistically meaningless against the way every archer is massive stacked pierce, and all throwing axes hit like throwing spears.