I'm usually a sneak archer, killing things before they see me.

But, I wanted to do a all out acrher, without sneak. My idea was heavy armor and a crossbow.

But, once I started to play around with a crossbow I found I really dont like it. It's more like shooting a gun. There's something I like about drawing a bow back verse shooting a crossbow.

Does it still make since to do a heavy armor open combat archer with a bow? Or is that kind of not making sense? Bow always equal sneak and light armor in my mind. I'm just seeing if a heavy armor archer can still make sense.

yup just bring your smithing and enchantment skills so you don't take seven-to-ten arrows to kill everything. ( i think marksman was designed to weaken enemies or be used with stealth) Actually you get better dps with some of the lower tier bows because of how fast they shoot compared to the crossbow

I played a non stealth archer before and it is a very powerful build.

I did use the crossbows most of the time but bows are just as good.

I used restoration for healing and alchemy for fortify archery and destruction potions along with poisons.

The destruction I used was only for laying down a fire rune trap before battle in case somebody got close to me, by end game I didn't need it.

I have been thinking about doing another build similar to that one but this time using a shield for when things get close but I have to finish my current character first.

I did run into problems during the teen levels and had to run a lot but once I got through that period a non sneak archer can do massive damage and is a lot of fun to play.

The powershot,quick draw and ranger perks all make archery more than possible without sneak.

By end game very few things got close enough to do any damage to me.

There is a reason why enemy archers are such dangerous enemies,archery is just very powerfull.

Have fun with your character.

I actually find my archer, who rarely ever uses stealth, is an extremely powerful character. I didn't abuse any crafting, really, and I mostly fight toe-to-toe with my bow. It starts off kinda shoddy because it takes a while to draw and doesn't do severe damage, but as you get more perks it becomes devastating. You can easily handle several Draugr Deathlords are once, even on higher difficulties, since you can lock people into paralysis if you fire fast enough.

Just make use of bashing, sprinting, and terrain to keep away from people, and remember that some bows draw faster, some do more damage, etc. It can be extremely effective to use a bow without stealth later in the game, though it may be harder at the start.

Yes, it's completely viable. The beauty of TES is that if you can think of it, it can be viable =P

As some have stated, be on the lookout for the differences of the draw speed of different bows. Zephyr and Auriel's bow are two of the fastest firing bows of the game. Daecric bows are slowers, but pack more punch per shot fired. After you've decided what you want the most, get your Alchemy up. Paralyse poisons are really easy to make, and more reliable than counting on the master Archery perk (although wont work on undead), and damage health are always good too, even if you don't deliver a sneak attack.

Also, as it was stated before, always be aware of the terrain around you. A large rock, a fireplace, maybe a drop between you and the target, anything you know NPC's won't be able to reach you, since they can't jump. Pelt them with those arrows until they die! xD