So you build the perfect melee build that is awesome for 1v1'ing other melee, and then you cry when ranged dominates you when they have favorable conditions? I'm not using realism as an argument at all. I'm suggesting that people in real also complained "WAH THEY CAN HURT ME BEFORE I CAN HURT THEM". And they adapted. A person who trained with a 2hand sword their whole life didn't necessarily need to go and learn how to shoot a bow overnight, or learn how to use a shield. They could have just not fought the archers on the favorable terrain for archers. They could have stood behind their buddies who had shields until they got close enough to slaughter the archers.
My point is that there is no problem, except for peoples' inability to adapt to the battlefield conditions. Congrats on min-maxing to best devastate melee infantry, you're now weak to ranged classes. Deal with it.
Grumbs hasn't min-maxed for maximum infantry killing power actually.
The problem is, there's very few terrains that AREN'T favorable for archers over infantry in some way. And there's always somewhere for them to hide around a tree so they don't get cav fucked.
No one wants ranged removed, a lot of people just want it toned down. The damage you can out put INDISCRIMINATELY is the problem. Yes, melee can (presumably) hit harder than ranged. But ranged can do so with 0% risk of the player they're targeting getting them back.
Also, to address the "Chase is good at X so we should nerf it too" argument, again Chase isn't dealing indiscriminate damage. I myself have killed Chase like one or two times before. Phase, Atze - any of the EU melee demi-gods I've likely felled them at some point. You know how many times I've killed Shosho, or Bagge, or Steve once they're aware of me? Zero. The only time I've killed them is through a surprise attack simply because they are impossible to engage from the front unlike Chase etc etc.
Again, archers can stay. Let's just tone done their damage output/missile speed/accuracy. Making archery harder to get kills or even land shots with will REDUCE THE VOLUME OF ARCHERS and those who are good at archery WILL REMAIN SO LIKE THEY HAVE THROUGH ALL THE OTHER ARCHERY CHANGES.
Christ, it's as though people somehow never get on servers when it's majority ranged XD