Yeah, AoE is always good, but as Falconer 3 it’s not as much required,
especially if you’re going to advance into an AoE Class at Rank 9 anyway.
Post-buff Cannoneer e.g. looks promising for covering the AoE-problems of Archer/Hunter, same goes for Mergen.
If I’m going to run for that build anyway, I think I’ll advance towards Cannoneer instead of Mergen, because Mergen has too much CD time on his skills to make them really appealing, + he’s missing the attack range required to pull of amazing combos/attacks and requires a twohanded bow for his skills.
Archer skills can be used with Crossbow&Shield and Crossbow&Cannon, making it easy to switch subweapons inbetween if required to survive.
Meanwhile, Cannoneer has range, high base AoE (the better skills have +10 to +15 AoE attack ratio) and low CD time skills like e.g. Siege Burst & Cannon Blast, which can be amplified in damage by up to 100% when going into the Bazooka Stance and another 50% by Smoke Grenade.