I suggest limiting the amount that choose to play the class, not necessarily by nerfing them but by making the class more player skill orientated. If you made melee harder to play by for eg making blocking harder I wouldn't say thats a nerf to melee, I would say its a buff to player skill based combat. I would welcome it
The skill floor for ranged is much lower than melee vs melee. Increase the skill floor. Ranged is like you're testing your own FPS skills, rather than player vs player fighting you get in melee. I would make every shot count so you can't spam and miss and still get some randy shots (increasing ammo is counter to this). Making shots land faster means you don't have to judge player's movements as much. Large stagger means you can stop a guy in his tracks and kite, especially with the new low PD bows. You get rooted in place even when jumping. Ranged got buffs in melee over and over, why do you need to stagger and kiting ability we have now?
The cost of playing ranged and the risk vs reward can be used to limit ranged without necessarily over nerfing them. You just make it so good ranged stay good, and the mediocre guys get better or enter into melee combat more often
Here's some bonus stuff that should have been changed already with xbows from a skill perspective:
Holding shot forever with tight accuracy
Running while shooting is too accurate up close. Looks like some FPS game
Point & click, shot lands extremely quickly
Shots going straight through shields and doing damage
