I am new here and to pvp in SotA, what I am writing is purely based on theory after checking out the skill trees. There is a good chance I am completely wrong. But is it not easy for Archers to just kite melee to death in PVP? I see that there are some gap closers like in the Air tree, but is it enough to close the gap and do some damage before the archer is gone again and you slowed? Any input on this thought would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Body slam or shield charge are good gap closers. Most other gap closers can be countered by just blinking away when the melee guy approaches as he has a global cooldown when using his skill. Overall run speed can still reach insane levels and might be capped or reduced in the future. But overall you can very well kite as archer if you pick up a little water magic as well. Ive field stacks with the arrow to the knee
I play as a melee and archers aren't even a threat. I ignore them in PVP as their damage is so minuscule you couldn't possibly hope to kill a fortified melee with a shield. The last good one I fought couldn't do enough damage to over come healing from just food. His critical strikes from auto attack were 2 damage. All the melee has to do is go around a corner or inside a house or behind a tree and you're forced to follow and put yourself in engage or night step range to be able to continue your damage as you have zero damage over time and the melee can just LOS until you're in range for stun or knock down and just drop a rend and poison on you and go back to hiding while you try and run away continuing to take damage. There is literally nothing worse than Archery in PVP right now especially facing a skilled player that's anything other than an archer. None of the top tier PVP'ers in the game are Archers and haven't been since they Decapitated Archery damage and Death Shield became popular. Even with the change to Death Shield it's still really powerful vs Archery.
There is such a thing as "cover" in this game. As a melee, if you arent using this to your advantage, you arent taking pvp seriously.