since 7 years, everyone about ranger: "it is ranged, so it must be unprotected. it's good in large so it cant be good in small"
in meantime, ALL other classes ask about perma protection and to be valid both at range at melee, in small, in large and all different game modes/caps.
that's not how it works. archers are topfragging in wars, you're on the same page as succ rangers, absolute bottom tier trash in AoS, and it won't change. such behaviour is reserved for the current FOTM / newest class only.
You're right on one thing, the attention is reserved for FOTM classes. But you cannot compare Ranger and Archer on the grounds of both have range with bows.
Ranger has her awakening to fall back on, with much faster animations coupled with potent damage even on succession. Given that even if her ranged arsenal got nerfed, she is particularly powerful in awakening with the option of switching constantly between melee AND range. Archers are full range, and completely rely on it to make any sort of mark while still just as fragile which means the moment even one somewhat competent player, or a class that is just top tier comes near Archer, 90% of the time, it's over.
Archers aren't asking for perma protections, often times, we end up dying even while in SA or FG simply because his defense is utterly poor without the ability to evade as well as ranger. There's those who discuss the two and often find her better with evading even in succession, making her, quote on quote "Above Archer in terms of fun" simply because they are less likely blasted into oblivion.
As to Archer's top-fragging in Nodewars, sure, some extremely dedicated players have mastered him to the degree of being able to frag, but exceptions do not make the rule, and the fact that his skill ceiling as well as gear, especially AP requirement is so high, that many players, new players feel it's not worth sinking time into.
Who can blame them? I've heard many, many people calling Archers 'abandoned' or 'crap' class. 4 years and we are just about at the bottom rung. AoS is where people get to really see where a class stands with equalized gear and very very few make it above 1500-1600 score. That's even worse than Shai, don't get us started on ranger, there's even a couple up there in the top 100 in rank, if those results aren't telling then I don't know what else is. Don't misunderstand, this isn't about being the best, it's about having at least, a bit of a better chance.