No matter what you do, dodging projectiles is still always about luck. You could make the most Matrix dodge moves ever and still get hit if you're against someone who a) predicted it or b) was going to miss you before you dodged.
What makes ranged so gay in this mod is the randomness. Nobody would play a FPS where you had single-shot guns that had massive crosshairs and it was random if you hit or not. But for some reason people want to play these luck-archers in a game with the best melee.
At very high missile speeds and very short distances, luck is involved to a certain degree of course. When a missile takes less time to reach you than human reaction time actually allows you to act, it depends on how well you predicted the enemy shot. Understanding what goes on inside the mind of the shooter helps to lower the chance of being hit tremendously though, especially at long and medium distances. As an archer I have to do it all the time and it works fine, even with 5 metric tons of arrows on my body.
The thing is, when it comes to ranged, most melees dont have that experience and thereby cant tell within wich limitations a ranged player has to predict his shots, which in turn does not allow them to counter those predictions properly. The average melee doesnt have that sort of experience because knowing how to write "omg stooped my old friendcher nerf" in chat and mashing mouse1 and mouse2 on EU3 is all they need to consider themselves pro players which are god at the game and everything that kills them is bullshit.
I am not even trying to be cynical or offensive but from my experience this is simply the case. People cant be arsed to "learn" anything new after they learned how to block, feint and use footwork. When somebody would come in here and claimed that blocking in this game is bullshit because its way to hard and is mostly luck, hell, he would get minusbombed to the moon, through the sun and then back to earth again. However, when somebody sais that dodging is a skill on its own that can be mastered to a certain degree, people go "ullululululu can I haz magic dodge machine ? ululllululu". I know exactly what Adamar is talking about in his post.
Regarding the randomness, since the last patch at least bows offer more consistent accuracy now. A nomad bow is pretty much as accurate as it can get but pays with a hefty damage penalty. At 6 PD even archers can survive headshots. Cant speak for Xbows.
