Ballistas in siege are a plight on everyone, though mainly attackers. I'll often play as attackers and the majority of my deaths are from ballistas. It's not like there's any way to counter them since they'll destroy any shield and kill you in one hit through it. Archers can counter them sometimes but due to the extreme range it's hard to hit them and the covering means using anything but a crossbow won't work against them. I've often seen people be at the top of the leader board on either side because they sat at a ballista the entire game. Ballistas are a massive anti-fun mechanic as no one likes getting shot from across the map with one. The same arguments can't really be applied to archers. Firstly from a purely leaderboard perspective archers rarely get to the top in public sieges, so it's unlikely that they are OP. Secondly the difference in stats. An arrow or bolt will do no where near as much damage and has no where near as much range as well as not shooting through shields. Thirdly high tier archers are expensive so the player usually needs to get kills before using them while ballista users can be anyone and are most often free tier infantry.
tl dr, no one likes getting one hit from across the map.
tl dr, no one likes getting one hit from across the map.
