My own observations of Trick Arrow/Archery, added to the pile.
Solo, facing 3 +0 level minions. Trick Arrow/Archery defender.
If I use my Trick Arrows (Flash, Glue, Poison Arrow, Ice) and archery attacks I finish my fight with 0 endurance and 20% health.
If I ignore my Trick Arrows and just use my attacks (Snap Shot, Aimed Shot, Blazing Shot and the Fistfull of Arrows thing), I finish the same fight with 25% endurance and about 60% health.
The difference is that my Archery attacks drop targets quickly, reducing my incoming damage by significant amounts. They also cost me less endurance overall, I guess. I've repeated this test quite a few times, with pretty much the same results.
To my mind, there's a problem when a Defender is more effective not using the primaries at all.
In groups, I find I use my Trick Arrows more often, but after my initial volley I rarely get to use them again. Instead, I become a subpar blaster. It's so bad that sometimes in groups no one even bothers to wait for me to debuff the enemies, and they just charge in.
This experience is counter to my previous experience with Rad, Dark and Empathy defenders. In those builds, I found I focused mostly on effective use of my primary powersets and that people waited for my buffs or debuffs to recycle before proceeding.
I can only conclude from my experience that Trick Arrows currently have minimal impact on the outcome of encounters and are, for the most part, less effective that other Defender sets.
On the other hand ... I really enjoy playing the Archer. I don't find myself stuck feeling like a Blaster or Defender or Tanker or any "archetype". Before 7/28 especially, I felt like I had broken out of the MMORPG archetype morass of Tank, Blaster, Healer and was instead fulfilling the role of a Green Arrow or Hawkeye. There's still some vestige of that left post-7/28, but not much.
Just my opinion and observation.
