First off if you choose your race as bosmer (wood elf), you get a passive that increases your progress with the bow skill line. With the changes to bosmer passives in the 1.6 update forthcoming, it's worth a look.

Beyond that any class can use any weapon. Nightblades are typically thought of as the stealth class but the reality is any class can use stealth if they want. Nightblades have abilities that seem more in sync with stealth play, but you don't have to play that way if you don't want.

Sorcerors have pets that they can summon and have fight for them in battle - they're the only class that can do that. Otherwise there are plenty of cosmetic pets that can follow you around but not actually do anything.

If you like fighting in close combat and being steadier, then sword and shield is the typical choice for a lot of players, but there are other options as well. Most classes (not nightblades) have a class based shield ability to help protect them. There's also armor based abilities that help protect you, and the Healing Ward ability in the Restoration staff skill line is an all around great spell for protection & healing. Dragonknights are up close fighting class for most.

It's difficult to be great at everything. Bow is good for ranged DPS and you can switch to sword and shield when enemies get up close for survivability. But look around at different builds here and at places like Tamriel Foundry. Maybe you can find one that does what you want.

Based on your description, I'm going to suggest a Bow Sorc to you. Summoning line grants access to pets which are getting buffed and have nice usability. They perform their role well. Sorcs have great mobility moving around the battlefield and in an out of harms way. DKs though, it'd say probably have superior tools for staying alive. 1v1, they are near impossible to beat range vs range. They can reflect basically all your projectiles back at you. They are considered by many, the current fotm OP class.

DKs can do pretty much anything well, pve or pvp. Their class skills aren't really good at range but the bow would compensate for that.

Depending on who you talk to and what kind of build they're using, everyone is getting buffed or nerfed in the next patch, so I wouldn't let that affect your decision too much. But sorcs appear to be getting a decent buff from the patch in some good ways, and the pet build in particular which would appeal to you.

Thank you very much. I'll try the Sorcerer.

The only thing I will add (As a sorc) is that we have no synergy with bows now at all... no passives that will help.

SO my suggestion is to just think which part of what you have said is the most important to you... if the pet is most important then go Sorc... but keep in mind to make the pet effective you are going to have to go magicka & that will make your bow damage very weak.

If the bow part is important then go nightblade... they have far better synergy with bows.

Keep in mind that whichever you go for will mean the other is weaker... bows are stamina based, pets are magicka.... Hybrid builds are VERY VERY weak in 1.6

Relating to archers... Nightblades get passives that increase your stamina regen as well as your weapon crit... both very good for archers. Also both very good for other stamina based weapons such as dual wield & two hander.

Dank_Rafft wrote: »

Thanks for your response, davewildebeast.
I created a Khajiit Nightblade and found that I don't enjoy the sneeky/stealthy gameplay. I'd rather rush into battle even if I use a bow and be able to take some hits.
Now I'm looking for a class which can fight aggressively (face-to-face, non-sneeky/stealthy) and make the most of bow, dual-wield and two-handed equally good, so I'll be able to start the fight with a bow and switch to melee once enemies approach.

MY DK used to run DW and Bow and it was great (probably gonna put him back to this setup with 1.6)

The draconic power line will keep you going with skills like Green Dragon Blood (health + stamina recovery) and reflective scales to be unhittable when at range. There are other damage shields too like obsidian shield that can buff you, too.

Idk if its bugged, but Molten Weapons on 1.6 is only supposed to buff Heavy Attack dmg, yet it is still buffin weapon damage as a whole. If that's intended, you've got a nice weapon damage buff from the earthen heart line.

In addition, every time you activate an earthen heart skill (obsidian shield, ash cloud, molten weapons), you restore a bit of stamina.

Battle roar makes it so every ultimate activate restores all your resource pools.

For DW you'll get a 15% damage bonus if you use talons on a group, because DW does more damage against immobilized enemies. Steel tornado + talons is fantastic. Throw in standard for even better damage too.

DK is extremely survivable and works well with stamina builds, despite Magika being so popular.

In PVP I used to pop immovable, corrosive armor ultimate, reflective scales + having tri-pots and GDB and would use Bombard (arrow spray moprh which is a ranged root) and pepper enemy groups with arrows. It was a lot of fun, I highly recommend stam DK with Bow/DW if that's your playstyle.

Dank_Rafft wrote: »

Thanks for your response, davewildebeast.
I created a Khajiit Nightblade and found that I don't enjoy the sneeky/stealthy gameplay. I'd rather rush into battle even if I use a bow and be able to take some hits.
Now I'm looking for a class which can fight aggressively (face-to-face, non-sneeky/stealthy) and make the most of bow, dual-wield and two-handed equally good, so I'll be able to start the fight with a bow and switch to melee once enemies approach.

You are describing either a dragonknight or a Templar in general although all the classes can fill a kind of tanky role if worked right with damage shields. You said you don't like to buff before every fight so damage shields would seem to be a nuisance for your playstyle. I recommend a DK or TP.

Bow, DW, 2H skills almost all scale off of stamina so you'll want to have a race that works well to increase that or stam regen. The other hand you could go with straight damage racial bonuses or health. Also medium armor.

Some racial options are:
Imperial
Bosmer
Khajiit
Redguard
Orc
Dunmer

What your describing though is a hybrid build and not a "pure archer" build as your OP suggests you were looking for. A "pure archer" would be a bosmer/khajiit/dunmer nightblade wearing medium armor.

I know you said the sneaky thing isn't for you but let me chime in.

My Archer is a Bosmer Nightblade, with dual-wield off-hand. She's deep into the Siphon tree and wicked tough. With knock-backs, roots, poisons and leech heals, very little gets near me and even all but the toughest world bosses fall before me.

Personally, I love the sneaky stuff. My first and favorite toon in Skyrim is, you guess it, a Bosmer Archer. Every game, if there's a archer type class, I'm all over it.

Can't speak to Sorc or DK but don't discount NB so quickly.

Stamina sorc is your choise bosmer or khajit, may be WW.
Khajit will be great for crit build.
You will have best weapon dmg buff - critical surge (and self heal)
Good CC - encase morphs (and crit buff via dark magic passive)
Good armor buffs - bound armor morphs or thundering presence morphs
Good mobility - bolt escape morphs or boundless storm
Pets - clanfear for tanking or restoring twilight for healing.