The intent for the articles I might post is to keep them informal, fairly short and focused on a fairly narrow topic. Such as:
Mystic Archer tactical challenges and how to deal with them *****Some preliminary stuff, so we are talking the same language:
Mystic Archer. By this I mean an archer who uses magic instead of a melee weapon to augment or back up their bow. I believe the distinction between a Mystic Archer and a mage who uses a bow is a matter of degree and can be clarified a bit based upon how one kills. If one were to categorize kills, the type character I am referring to would have kill stats something like this: 85% Bow; 10% Illusion; 4% Destruction; 1% Conjuration.
Spell Effectiveness and armor. This type of character may or may not wear armor, but here are some armor considerations. Any armor at all will cap spell efficiency at 95%. 'Mind control' type spells require maximum magnitude and 100% spell effectiveness to work on enemies approaching or above level 25. There are several ways to ensure those effects will still work at higher levels:
1. PC users can simply employ a mod that eliminates the armor penalty.
2. Given the power of sigil stones, other enchantments and even potions at higher levels, transitioning to no armor well before level 25 and maintaining a nice armor rating is very doable. Heck, at higher levels you can simply pop a couple homemade shield potions and instantly boost your armor rating to 85 for longer than any fight will last.
3. All the mind control effects except calm can be enchanted on bows. {I don't consider paralyze a mind control effect, but it cannot be enchanted on bows either} A maximum magnitude frenzy or demoralize bow for example does not care a bit what your spell effectiveness is - it will work at maximum magnitude regardless of what you wear.
Blocking with a bow. Quoting UESPwiki: "You block 75% of a hit when using a shield, at Master level skill, 50% if blocking with a weapon." 50% is pretty good for a character that, if well played, does not get hit much.
Bows. Of course, bows are crititcal to an archer (duh

). So much so, that I will address them in seperate article(s).
Support capabilities. Like any archer, the Mystic Archer should be comfortable with detect life, stealth and poison making.
*****Ok. Now to the meat of this article:
Tactical challenges. The bread and butter of this type of character of course is the long range (often poisoned) sneak attack. Unfortunately, there are situations where this just doesn't work out. My purpose in this article is to highlight the type of situations that can be dangerous to this type of character and suggest methods of dealing with those threats.
1. Very low level characters getting charged: Rely upon armor, bow blocking and spamming that trusty flare spell to smite those rats and goblins. The rest of the situations I will address assume the Mystic Archer has really begun to develop their 'Mystic'.
2. Character is confronted by surprise up close 1 vs 1: Block with bow, cast touch spell to disable foe (like paralize, demoralize, turn undead, command....), open fire while moving backwards. Note here, the Serpent Stone power Cobra's Dance is a wonderful once a day disabler (paralyze + damage) available to level 1 characters.
3. Character sees crowd that has not alerted to their presence: WooHoo! Open up a can of frenzy or command humanoid/creature and let them kill each other off. Pop some corn. Toss a summon in if you like. Disappear if you have to. Snipe off survivors.
4. Character jumped by a crowd: Panic button (disappear). Walk away till the music stops. Reapproach on your own terms.
5. Underwater combat: Block with bow while blasting touch destruction.