Best archer/hunter/reclass options?

[Arrout]

So, I'm doing a FE 11 run, looks like all the playable archers in this game are plain awful, but I want to have someone with a bow in my team, it's allways useful. So are there any archers or any units that I can reclass to archer/hunter that are avarage/good units?
I'm doing a FE 12 run after this, so any suggestions for that game help too.

[Rewjeo]

What difficulty are you doing? Guys like Gordin and Castor are perfectly usable in Normal, but not so hot in H5, for instance.

Regardless of difficulty, do consider toting around people reclassed to Sniper, though. Archer is just a bad class, while Sniper is solid, and comes with an automatic C in Bows.

[Peppy]

i usually reclass cord to a hunter to make him proficient in bows and then make him a warrior. He was a solid bow user for my H5 run.

[Arrout]

I'm doing a normal mode run. Gordin and Castor look awful even in normal mode they don't seem to deal consistent damage.
But thank you for the sniper tip anyways, guess I'll use Wolf until I have a sniper (I'm reclassing Sedgar to General, since I'm not using Draug)

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

The growthrates in FE11 are worse than in FE12 in general, archers aren't excluded. They really have poor strength base and growth. My favourite archer is Norne, you can only recruit in the prologue if you sacrifice another unit. She has also strength issues, but very good speed. I don't like reclassing in FE11, so I prefer to forge iron bows to equal the strength issue. I would recommend to reclass a fighter (Barst, Cord was already mentioned) to a hunter, because of their good strength. They can use heavier bows without speed penality.

In FE12 the archers and hunters are better, so don't worry about that. And the weapon might doesn't influence your attacking speed anymore. I like to use Ryan or Norne as archer and Warren as hunter, but all bowusers are good.

Edited May 20, 2014 by TalesOf Hysteria

[PKL]

FE11: Use Gordin and Castor for when you need chip early on in the game if its a higher difficulty. Roger as a Hunter is decent. Jeorge comes with a nice bow rank that might come in handy too. None of them except maybe Roger are longterm though.

FE12: Luke, Ryan, Rody or Draug make great hunters. Especially the first 2. Some of the other higher tier units can also be reclassed to sniper here and there if you need them to, like Caeda Sirius Catria and Palla. Bows are incredibly valuable in this game, so having Snipers and/or a Horseman is a must for higher difficulties.

[WIRE Shut]

I like using Ogma as a hunter for a while just so he gets a better rank as I normaly make him my horseman(don't judge my I also use mage caeda), navarre, radd, caeser, any knight or catria(I use her and she normaly caps things very early) are all good

[Ϲharlie]

Cain and Abel reclass into solid Snipers. Also, note how I say snipers, and not archers. Archer really isn't a good class because of its low bases and movement, but snipers are excellent. Barst and Cord are also not bad as hunters since you can reclass them to warrior on promotion and keep their bow and axe ranks.