On paper that might be true, but I would say which build profits the most purely depends on the player.
For some levelling an archer past 30 has the most advantages, but for somebody else the benefits of levelling eg a 1h past 30 has way more advantages.
I was mostly referring to horse archers, but ground archers would fall into second place anyway, so making the distinction wasn't really important. In the case of a Horse archer, you have lower damage, higher penalties and greater requirements(to be effective, not use an item) than any other class as well. I don't mean to say that they're "underpowered", just that when you think about the damage they do after armor, in some cases they simply can't do damage to plate unless they have the right bow or build, it's clear that there are significant barriers to be broken through by achieving higher levels. Move to a level 35 character and unless the HA is still only at 4 PD, he's now capable of damaging anyone with any bow at just about any distance or he can now double as a fully functional ground archer (now able to get athletics).
PD provides 14% damage with each point, unlike PS which is only 8%. Just think about that for a minute. Every point of PD is nearly twice as effective as one PS and weapon damage values aren't necessarily lower for bows than melee weapons (the longbow has that of an awlpike). Normally we don't think about it like this when creating an archer build for level 30/31, but as stated in a previous post, that's because we're making a different comparison entirely. The question is no longer "whats the most damage I can do while having the accuracy I need" and is now simply "What will provide my current build with the most benefits", which assumes a certain degree of effectiveness has already been reached. Meaning that most people agree that 6-9 WM is sufficient for an archer, but whatever your preference, you're able to achieve that with ~30% more damage than were you level 30.
It's not just some dumb theory crafting bullshit.
And your point is?
Kind of depends on what your point was, but basically that you've missed the entire point of this argument to begin with. While some archers may be able to top the scoreboard still, it cannot be argued that they would be able to do the same at equal efficiency, and certainly not every single round. Perhaps it's easier to imagine in terms of average score per round?
Bagge with his current archer may be able to
average 25 score per round now, but with a level 30 build, it might be closer to (and this is just a random number, because obviously we haven't had bagge test this) say, 20. Topping the scoreboard would still be well within his capabilities at that point. He'd get valour about 1/2 as often as he does now though. If we went one step further, we'd say that he saw a 20% decrease in his effectiveness with only a 5 point reduction in his average score per round, something so small that most people probably wouldn't actively notice.
tldr; There is a difference, stop kidding yourselves. A skilled player can make do without looms or levels, but he'll be better off with them. Furthermore, skilled players are the least of our worries, and are NOT the focus of this topic.
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