atmasabr: Just a question. I don't get Archers. What role are they supposed to play? Are they really supposed to be good at archery, or is making them archers just a way to balance out them being fighter/mage hybrids?
I'd say in MM2 the archer is truly a ranged fighter with casting abilities. The ranged asepct is critical because in each fight only the first x characters can engage with the first x enemies. So if you have your archer in 4th position she/he can attack every round, even if only your first 2 characters are able to engage the enemy directly. My archer was easily one of my more powerful characters. In fact, towards the end of the game she was putting out more damage per hit than any other character by far.
With MM3 any character can engage in each round of combat so the ranged aspect at close quarters is moot. As a caster I generally relegated my archer to inexpensive utility spells due to lack of substantial spell points. In fact, my archer is only really useful as an additional caster that can do Lloyd's beacon. Other than that I would have been far better off with another fighter type like a barbarian, or perhaps another sorcerer. I found that I actually don't do range fighting very much because there are enough enemies that shoot or cast ranged that it is generally more efficient for me to close the distance as quickly as possible and take them down quickly in hand to hand.
I can't say for 4-6, but I'm curious to know what feedback others will have.