Re: Archer/hybrid
If you are set on trying a archer/2h or polearm, be aware that you will be making hard decisions every map for your equipment. I suggest you go 1hander, but here's some builds:
When building my hybrid archers, I distribute my skill points to Power Strike, Power Draw, Athletics, and Weapon Mastery. Briefly, on those items so that you understand why certain builds are gimp:
Power Strike - The lowest I would go with this skill is a 5. Even then, it can be frustrating as melee to have to hit someone as many times as you do to bring them down. My latest opinion is that 7 is the best compromise in damage, while retaining points for other skills.
Power Draw - This is the pre-requisite for your bows. As a result, if you want to be able to use any bow, you must get a minimum of 6 PD. However, a build that goes for the Strong Bow as its best bow is viable. Just remember that PD affects how much damage you do. While you will be faster shooting, it will take 1-3 or 4 more arrows per target.
Athletics - I used to think that the higher the athletics the better. Helps to "run and gun" with the bow, and helps you dance with melee. With the recent patches, however, it doesn't give you the pronounced advantage that it once did. Now I believe that 3 athletics is adequate, while 6 is probably where the cost/benefit peaks.
Weapon Mastery - Its difficult to say where you should be on WM. You could go as low as 4 WM, but that would leave you with around 135-140 wpf in archery and 1 wpf in melee, but that wouldnt really make you a hybrid, just an archer who takes up space where arrows could be with a large weapon. More on wpf needs in a bit, but I recommend you go at least 6 in WM.
Archery WPF - How much you need depends upon the bow. Lower tier bows need less for accuracy, but as a general rule, my opinion is that you should have a minimum of 125 wpf for any bow. You will have minimal accuracy, meaning that it will take several arrows and some luck to hit reliably at the bows max range -10%. I would only go that low if you are needing the wpf for your weapon due to low Weapon Mastery. Bear in mind that pure archers and even archery slanted hybrids will own you. 135 wpf gets better, but I recommend 145-150 wpf even if a hybrid. Make up for melee wpf with WM.
Melee WPF - Unless you plan to gimp yourself as an archer, you won't be getting above around 85-100 wpf in melee. The good news is, that is adequate except vs a pure melee build and vs those guys you should already have put a few arrows into them to even the playing field. Minimum is 50 wpf to qualify as a hybrid (and notice a difference in your ability to melee). Because of this, you will be slower than most. To compensate, I suggest going with the faster weapons, rather than slower higher damage ones. You can only damage someone if you hit them, and with some weapons you will be slow that a decent blocking melee will just block your feeble attempts at an attack and then spam you down.
Okay, so with those baselines, we can begin to see how our build options begin to play out. Briefly on Attributes:
Strength - You need 3 strength per skill point in Power Draw and Power Strike. It also adds hitpoints, which increases your survivability.
Agility - You need 3 agility per skill point in Athletics and Weapon Mastery
As you can see from above, you will want your build to be in increments of 3. Following my guidelines above, you will see that you should have a minimum of 15 strength and a minimum of 12 agility. So for the extreme builds, you can go with a 15 str/24 agi build, or the opposite 27 str/12 agi. (You'll notice that you can only get these numbers by converting skill point into attributes, don't forget and spend them somewhere else!) This results in a 5PD 5PS 8 Ath 8 WM build, or a 9PD 9PS 4Ath 4WM.
My suggestion to you is to start with the 18/21 or 21/18 builds. In addition, with your choice of 2h/polearm, balanced also makes more sense. Slots is the reason why the extreme builds will likely cause you grief.
So on to your weapons and armor. Armor is easy. Wear as light as you can. Sarranid Leather Armor and Sarranid Leather boots is a good baseline. The worse your archery wpf, the lighter you will want to go. If you get 150 wpf, you can wear something as heavy as Sarranid Guard armor, but you will fell like you are down to 120-125 wpf accuracy. Not a bad tradeoff on short maps where you know you will have to melee. You won't wear plate.
Weapons are more complicated due to the restricted number of slots.
If you are going 2 hander, you will be using 2 slots. Yes the spiked mace takes 1 slot, but if you are going use that, you may as well just go 1 hander for better weapons and choices.
Polearms give you more options. Based on that alone, if you are sold on going other than 1 hander, I would choose polearms.
As you only have 4 slots, here are the extremes that you can have:
Strongbow or below
Stack of arrows x3
Warbow/Longbow
Stack of arrow x2
0 slot 1 hander
Strong bow or below
Stack of arrows x2
1 slot polearm
Warbow/Longbow
Stack of arrows x1
1 slot polearm (weak melee)
Strongbow or below
Stack of arrows x1
2 slot polearm
As you can see, only the bottom 3 loadouts make sense as a hybrid player. Notice that you can't use the strongest bows with a 2 slot polearm. This is an issue if you decide (for instance) to masterwork a warbow and a bec de corbin. You will never be able to use them together. In fact, the Archer/Polearm build means that you will either sacrifice certain loadouts for heirloom choice, or only use your heirlooms on a situational basis. To be fair, the Archer/1h hybrid has a similiar issue, but can at least use an heirloomed warbow/longbow at the same time as their heirloomed 1 hander.
Anyhow, hope this has given you enough information to choose a build and be happy with it. Lots of choices, and these recommendations are based upon my own experience with both extremes as well as the middle roads as far as attributes go.
