I have no tamer, for the record. I think almost any skill combination can be useful (and rewarding) so long as you're not trying to play all of the content solo. You can participate in any content, as any character, if you are grouped up. That's kind of the point of MMOs, isn't it? Make friends and take on adventures together.
That kind of talk almost always ends with @Jupiter trying to melee a balron and @Athena having to use her nightmare to get his grey hat back.
We took down a balron a couple weeks ago without any nightmares! It was rather painful, though. http://uorforum.com/threads/merchants-mages-balrons-and-betrayel.15831/
Assuming how people "should" play the game because it's how you like to play it? Maybe someone wants to play "against" other people rather than "with"? This game is one of the few where you can do what you want, how you want, and find fun a lot of different ways.
Having the ability to do whatever you want in a game doesn't mean that every choice you make in terms of character skills should be effective. If you want to play against people, you might not want to be a straight up archer, though you are certainly welcome to try. You'll just lose a lot. Regardless, we've had successful PVPers and PKs who have used archery as a support skill to their benefit. It's baffling to me that people think that just because they have choices in a game, that every choice deserves to be equally effective.
But I should note that when I said "make friends and take on adventures" I didn't mean that in a strictly PvM sense. Again, if you want to play against people as a pure archer, you would probably find it more rewarding if you were in a group and the "adventure" was hunting other players. However, it's just not viable to assume that every skill combination should be effective if you're going to play solo.
It's all rewarding and 90% of this shard is do-able as a solo character, but you have to have realistic expectations. At the right place and time, a pack of hell hounds is very effective, maybe even moreso than dragons and a nightmare. A treasure hunter can pick dungeon chests and earn millions without being seen by anything more threatening than an ettin or gazer. Thieves can walk in on the most ridiculous in-game conversation, get a good laugh, and maybe a nice weapon out of it. But the key to enjoying the game solo with many characters is knowing when to use each and knowing that a powergaming group out there has a setup that probably earns more gold per hour than you or can do the Valentine's event by themselves while you can't. Those instances are few and far between though.
