I had a lot of fun playing archer/bard, but I pretty much only soloed with maybe 1-2 parties I partook in (spamming Fire of all things -.-) as I leveled up. I've never done any serious content with it since my demand to be a tank and lack of good gear prohibit me from seriously playing it.

Once you get Shadowbind, things become a lot easier in terms of doing combos. Once I unlocked bard, I never went back to archer since I used ballad to keep my MP up for heals/stoneskin, then later swapped to minuet for increased accuracy. Perhaps the main drawback to archer is ammunition costs, but I think cobalt arrows are like 40k a stack on my server so if you have a reliable way of making money it shouldn't be an issue.