To have a good start when new in game, go native battle and siege servers first. After that you're fine with any ranged spam because you enjoyed archers in native already. And actually you will also notice that archers are fine in native and got nerfed a lot in crpg and you won't cry about them at all.
Anyway, dtv is a good way to get xp in the beginning, and if you hate dying, it's also not the worst way to do it. Otherwise you won't learn much, battle or siege is much better there. First you got to reach some nice level anyway, which is 20-25 so anything makes sense after all.
Do some retirements if you plan to play this mod for a longer time. Extra xp is always nice and Loompoints, if not for looming, you will still get some good amount of gold for them so you will never mind repair costs again (unless you play plate only and use a horse
).