Quote Originally Posted by Marisa View Post

But come to think of it, my character is more combat style oriented. So maybe I shouldn't bother with AA at all? If I can get all the class offers just buying a magic weapon later?.. I was under impression that AAs are capable of more. Was I mistaken?
The best feature is at level 2, Imbue Arrow, which lets you place any Area spell into an arrow and use your bow's range instead of the spell's normal range- even if the original spell was Personal or Touch only. The problem with that is if you did a minimum-casting entry.. you don't have any spells worth using it with. Things like Grease, Color Spray, and Sleep just don't cut it at level 9+ when you can get the ability.

So, if you want to use that, you need more casting levels. Which means you probably have enough magic to make good use of Greater Magic Weapon. Which makes your free magic arrows pointless, as you can now achieve the same effect by GMWing your bow and end up only about a + behind what you would get from sinking those levels into Arcane Archer.

Seeker Arrow and Phase Arrow are legitimately cool and useful, but that 1/day restriction kills them. There is basically no chance that you are going to want to use those abilities and only want to fire one arrow at your target. Hail of Arrows is.. well, you might find use for it, I don't see the point. You will generally contribute more by focus-firing a single target with a full attack than by pinging every enemy with a single arrow. Arrow of Death has a weaksauce save DC for a level 17+ ability.

The upside? You get full BAB and the entry requirements are mostly things you would take anyway as an archer. That's pretty much it.. otherwise, you either have to take a lot of casting class levels to make it useful (in which case you're better off with a more normal Gish build that happens to use a bow) or you completely waste a level to get into it for relatively little payoff.