I know it's going to be a long post, but I couldn't shorten it better.
Let's say I get behind cover or just "avoid this scenario". Now what ? This is the usual "It's not my problem" solution, which is not an actual solution. If nobody is ready to take some risks to go kill the enemy ranged, then nobody will do it. Of course, that's what actually happens.
Archers are better left to the end of the round, with mostly inf+cav or archer+inf combination. That's how I see it works. An archer being chased with an infantry can't do much but to kite. One of the duties of cav is to prevent archers from kiting. A friendly archer also works well although cavalry is better for this job than archers.
Also, if you add other people that are commited to helping me (which is not realistic, just saying), then you have to add as many enemy archers. A cav guy sure as hell won't charge multiple ranged unless they are so close to each other it's possible to surprise and bump them all. A shielder will not actually do anything to protect me even if he wants to given current shield sizes. The only valuable asset would be ranged on my side. But then I might as well be ranged myself. I wonder how many people made the same reasoning, lets look at EU_1 herpaderp
I strongly disagree. No one should be committed to help you only,
all the team should be committed to helping each other. You protect your teammates, he helps you, another guy helping you both. That is called teamwork and the reason why I like battle over other gamemodes, is the availability of teamwork. If I want to chop some heads without much thought, I go to siege, duel, DTV. If I want to enjoy some teamwork, I go to battle. It's not even like I am forced to choose any of them. I can simply leave one, and join another whenever I want.
The thing is, as a melee player/cav you should not try to chase down enemy archers at the beginning of the round. That is just strategically wrong in many ways. Because it 1) it puts you at the greatest risk. 2)It is not worth it, eliminating opposite melee before they do serious damage is much more important. Believe it or not, melee has the potential to do more damage in a much shorter time; thus they must be focused early on. Even if I was an archer, I would be focusing on melee first, because they are the biggest threat in the short term, lest they come close to me! Archers has the tendency to do more damage when they have been given more time compared to infantry. Though as a side note, they also tend to be useless when an infantry chases them.
As I already explained, as an infantry that's why I don't want to put myself at risk by chasing archers. The main thing I do is to protect my archers and kill foolish infantry players that comes close. Protecting my archers makes them to do better in performance, and eliminating the biggest threat to my team in short term (enemy inf) is also great for helping my team. That leaves my team with archers+inf versus some archers. At this point, my team even outnumbers the enemy team most of the time. Even if not, we still win.
If I am a cavalry (I do that with a STF sometimes, also including horse archers). I try to do something similar, not putting myself as a target for archers and helping my teammates wherever I can. Of course, I focus on helping my infantry rather than trying to approach enemy archers. Again, for the risk/reward reasons. Later on, this leaves my team with inf+cav versus archers mostly (because, protecting archers are harder to do as cavalry). When my teammate infantry gets up close to the remaining archers, archers try to kite them. That's where I'm coming in. The enemy archer, being at great stress due to being chased down does not have the time to both shoot me back or my teammate. I simply bump him. It is an easy kill for the friendly inf. Even if there are some infantry protecting him, my teammate inf begins clashing swords with him. I simply walk over the enemy archer, attack/shoot him. If things are even:
2 archers and 2 inf
vs.
2 inf and 2 cav
infantry players fight with each other, 2 cavalry handles 2 archers with ease. Even if archers can shoot back, horses don't die in 2-3 shots that easily.
Without any teamwork, you can not hope to win in battle. I try to measure the odds and the elements (class distribution), and try my best to overcome this situation for my team. Some people like to flank as AGI infantry and backstab enemy melee players. Some, try something different. Every method is good as long as it works. Every element (in this case every class) has it's purpose, and none is stronger than another mostly. Believe it or not, 1 inf and 1 archer as a small squad in battle is much more effective than 2 archers. Because 2 archers can not do shit when an inf comes close, the other can. If I was an archer, I'd like to stick with an infantry.
I did not even discuss inf/thrower. That class has even more chances to adapt to different situations.
My main? It's 2hander. I had nearly 0 problems with ranged so far with such tactics. Mostly, using scene objects as a cover did give me survivability. It's not like archers do me much damage at all even if I'm hit. Horse archers are doing like 1/8 damage to chest.
If I start to fail playing that way, I simply try a different approach. If I find sucha playstyle boring, then I simply change my class and take something that suits my interests. For example, I do many mistakes. Therefore I choose wear heavy armor, it is hard to dodge with it but it protects you better when you get shot or get hit. I can choose to wear lighter armor to get more mobility and dodging potential. etc.
Edit:
Protecting archers make it even easier to fight against the remaining HA at the end of the round.
