I’ve mained an acher since day 1 and I don’t think the class is weak per se, it’s just that they made clerics too strong. And blocking man, blocking is ridiculous in this game. No single tree should have damage AND heal AND retardedly high HP AND buffs AND debuffs AND block AND immunity AND rez. Like, you go to TBL and you have to fight those full CON clerics, and you have to deal 100k+ damage while bypassing block and immunities AND you have to do this before he heals himself and before he kills you, except you can’t avoid any of his attacks while he can just stand there and nullify yours, and you don’t have heal and you also can’t go full CON so your HP isn’t nearly as high as his. This is what needs fixing IMO.
The first thing I’d change is the way blocking works. Maybe limmit the number of classes that can equip shields, or put a 20% hard cap on block rate for anyone who ins’t a pelasta/rodelero/murmillo. Or better yet change the effect of block from nullification to just damage reduction. And for the love of God CON (or any stat for that matter) should NEVER increase HP and block rate at the same time, this is beyond stupid.
Next I’d change the way immunities work. Like, I understand why things like this exist, otherwise archers would just murder everybody from half the screen away in pvp. But at the same time no one should be able to just use one buff/immunity and say “■■■■ you, roll out of archer”. I don’t even know how I’d fix this but the very least I’d add a visual cue so you don’t waste your cooldowns when they have shields up. I’d also lower the duration and increase the cooldowns of all immunity type buffs.
Also, make Leather great again. Leather used to give you some survivability because of evasion, but it’s just plain useless now after the rework. You get the worst def stats out of Plate and Cloth with nothing show for it. Either give us back the crazy high evasion or give us a high enough crit rate buff that makes up for the low def, so at least you are a glass cannon.
There are a few more things that bother me in this game but just these changes would make archers much more viable IMO.