Archers are some of the best pve classes imo. You have plenty of tools for all types of pve. Deadeye & Float for dps assistance on bosses, ranged advantage to kite physical mobs reducing the need of health-generating consumables, and an obsidian shortspear gives you plenty of heal-power for self-sustain and lets you tank bosses just fine, too. I enjoy archery a lot in pve. AOE farming is doable with a few tricks and know-how, single target farming is probably one of the fastest. You can kill mobs while running at them, by the time you reached them, they are dead and you can loot them and start shooting and making your way at the next mob.
Archery itself is weak. You rely heavily on your raid to do their job right. But if they do, archers can have some great impact on large fights. It's definitely no solo class, lacks too much CC/breaks for that, even when combining it with shadowplay or auramancy. Your main worry should be your positioning. One mistake and you're dead, as it's a really unforgiving class.
Regardless of all, it's a unique class and can be very fun or frustrating to play.
Ping imo has the most noticeable impact in very small scale such as 3v3 and below. In large rvr, I don't think a ping of 100 is as terrible. But that's just my view on it.