Your thread is misleading. Jack of all trades build, but then go about number crunching to compare archery and EB for a style of play, as you say, based on ranged attacks from darkness.
Maybe, just maybe, you are missing the point that it’s a cheesy way of playing, everybody has learned it from youtube and maybe even tried it. I know I did. But it’s not so interesting and definitely not the kind of gameplay expected for a JoaT build.
And there is no ‘consensus’, majority of people just play in ways guaranteed to succeed and then brags about their ‘solo’ runs.
That said, can’t indeed answer on archery because never focused on it myself, I went the EB route with a warlock and also wasn’t playing solo.That is a safe route to beat the game in whatever fashion you like I feel, as you also may have experienced. Without abusing it, using darkness is actually fun and stilish, many items support it after all. EB probably stronger than archery, but it’s just a feeling.
