If archers are a bit overpowered at the moment i dont really care if they are nerfed or not. I had thought that archers had been in a place where the devs saw fit to "nerf" them, they did this by making arrows slow you down alot weight wise but increased damage/headshot damage or something to compensate. People complained about the weight nerf and it was reverted, leaving just the damage buff. So archers where thought to be needing a nerf, and where in the end buffed. Archers that are geared like Kesh practically 1 shot me, i wear basic unloomed chain armor. Archers with average gear can still kill me in 2-3 hits. The way i see it is there needs to be some sort of trade off here. An archer, who is in no danger and has to take no risk to attack thier opponent, should nto be able to do more damage than a player who has to take a large risk by getting into melle combat with the player where he could certainly be killed to inflict damage that is half of what an archer can infilict from a safe distance. People in the past when archery was maybe more balanced complained about the damage being low, well the damage is low because there is no risk involved in dealing the damage to an enemy player. High risk -> high damage, low risk -> low damage. And look at cavalry, is it unbalanced, yes it is. But even there is a trade off, they do alot of damage and can one shot alot of people, but if they get hit by a melle player they are trying to kill while traveling at those speeds they will almost certanly die, cavalry is a glass cannon, so its a proper trade off.
Not to mention in balance there are many other things to take into account, like for example that the archer has no true counter. Some people will say sheilders, but any archer is going to be shooting from behind his infantry who will protect them from any melle including sheilders. And even if a sheilder gets passed the infantry you can just run away, its not like he can catch you or anything. Cavalry is the only thing that can really reach out and get archers, but archers are supposed to be a counter to cavalry, and they are. And then there is the melle abilities, archers are by no means inept in melle combat, especially with the recent weapon buffs/changes. They may not be able to spare many points into a sidearm WPF, but it doesnt matter given how fast the weapons that are available to them now are. Ya they dont have powerstrike, but they can use a weapon they can swing as fast or faster than an enemy melle player, and they are faster on foot than a melle player which is a huge advantage in melle, their only disadvantage is they dont hit so hard, but having to hit a player 2-3 more times at most to kill them isnt that big a disadvantage and you probabbly have seen many archers who are good in melee easily destroy even decent melee players. Ya they dont have armor but they are more of an agi build melle play style which is perfectlyt viable. They certainly could be more inept in melle combat. If there is an influx of archers or any class, its probabbly becasue the class is currently powerful. Again i dont care if they are nerfed, just pointing this out.