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I'm planning to start playing Skyrim again with a new character. This time I have a non-sneaking warrior in mind, who also uses smithing, enchanting and conjuration, 'cause I want to try something else than my usual sneaky trickster/alchemist/archer/illusionist. The only drawback is, that my last attempt at such a character was pretty horrible. That was because he didn't have any ranged offensive. It was pretty bearable until the dragons appeared, but then things went south fast. With Deadly Dragons mod the buggers can kill heavily armored characters with one bite or even a wing-slap. Also, they land so rarely that they get free strafing attacks all the time without fear of counterfire. So, is archery really mandatory? Or are there ways to overcome these difficulties with a pure melee fighter?

Honestly, not really, other than maybe seeking a confrontation ground that forces them to land. That or getting Dragonrend, but that requires you to kill a dragon or two at that point.

It's honestly pretty stark battle strategy on the part of the dragons; if your opponent cannot strike you at all, then you have the absolute high ground. You should invest in at least a little bit of archery in order to at least be able to damage them at a distance until they can touch ground; adapting to the situation is part of fighting.

Get companions who are good with bows.

Well, that is one possibility. But I hate being forced to rely on followers, and prefer to be self-sufficient. Of course, I could always set the Deadly Dragon mod so that the dragons would land more, but feels a bit cheaty. Besides, with my current mod load theri breath attacks are so devastating I absolutely need a way to hit them hard even in air. So, it looks like there's no way out of having a ranged attack or having an archer/mage follower in tow at all times.

In fact, I already made the character I talked about in the first post. And sure enough, archery was a mandatory skill. I could bypass putting perks on that, however, by making strong fortify archery jewelry to use while shooting. So, he's a specialised one-handed warrior but can fight tolerably with a bow, too. Alchemy, of course, could have done the same thing. (BTW, this is what I love about TES games: The endless combinations, compensations and bypasses make for a very interesting character planning and tactical play.)

Utilizing some sort of ranged attack is intrinsic to being a dragon slayer, let alone the Dragonborn.

See, Skyrim actually did something quite right by making Archery a combat skill this time around. Realistically speaking, archery is a very masculine martial art, and a lot of films, books, and video games fail to acknowledge that. Bows, especially the long bows depicted in Skyrim, take a tremendous amount of strength to use properly. The popular mindset that archery should be delegated to the sneaky, small-framed archetype is fundamentally wrong.

Of course, if none of that matters to you and you just really want to play a character who doesn't use it, then you're gonna have to play differently to match it, at least until you get some shouts.