Vanilla heavy armor wearers really don't like archers, huh?

[MidbossVyers]

I was looking through the vanilla character classes in all the Elder Scrolls games, and I noticed that, save for only some versions of Warrior, no heavy armor classes ever use bows (marksman or archery depending on your version). What's up with that?

[Br3admax]

Because Archery is a stealth skill in the earlier games. Warriors do not specialize in stealth. That is the only logical answer as to why they would not.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

Yeah, I can't think of any actual lore discussion to be had here. It's just an RPG game mechanic that's held over from previous entries in the series. I guess it makes some military sense, though. In an actual war situation, the guys in plate mail are usually on the front lines or horseback. The archers ideally don't get involved in melee unless things are going very badly, so they go very lightly armored.

[Mekorosi]

Mobility, mostly. Man with a bow needs to stay light on his feet to keep out of the reach of the guy with the warhammer. Heavy armor would just slow him down.

And as Pilaf said, this doesn't have much to do with lore. Think this fits better in ES general?

[Kerr]

People use default classes outside of Arena and Daggerfall?

I guess it is because marksman is a stealth skill.

[The SheoDovah]

Heavy Armoured Warriors tend to focus on their strength and tend to charge at the enemy so having to stop and fire an arrow would get them killed as someone in heavy armour is a target for the enemy as they are the biggest threat to them as oppossed to Archers who would stay away from the front lines and give the charging warriors covering fire as well as taking out the enemy who are also charging. However, if it's an entire army of mages, both warriors and archers stand no chance as magic is pretty powerful. Or if it's just one very angry Dovahkiin and you are in the Dominon army. We all know who would win.

[Arterion]

Well in history we have several archer units who used quite heavy armor and even a tower shield for their defense. The line archer usually favored heavy armor while the skirmish archer went usually light armored. In TES is up to the player to decide which armor class they prefer. In game mechanics the first levels usually require the player to sneak attack to be an effective archer while in the late levels a heavy armor protection is perfect when you have to stay in place and shoot the poor dragon or bandit with a hundred arrows to be effective. With the perks that allow us to sneak in heavy armor I would say to go with the heavier armor class from level one.

If we take lore in consideration the classic fantasy archer is a version of Robin Hood who runs around in boiled leather and tights while he shoots his longbow so it is of no surprise that the majority of archers in TES games are a variant of a light skirmisher or a sneak character who favors the light armor class.

Keep in mind that the crossbowmen on the other side were some of the most heavily armored units on a medieval battlefield since they occupied strong and defensible positions in the main battle line and they were the most widespread garrison troops. Their role was simple, stand your ground and shoot while you use your heavy armor or tower shield to protect yourself from the enemy missile troops or infantry. This also was a practical solution to the long reload times for a crossbow which forced a soldier to stay in a place for a minute or even two.

[CBR JGWRR]

Indeed a pope tried to have the crossbow banned...

[Dark Spark]

The bowstring may have a tendency to snag on the besagew.

[Unionhack]

What Arterion says is true. (I am really impressed by your knowledge of military tactics and similar stuff!)
So it's really up to you. Just make a custom class and build yourself up to the heavy archer standard. That or work your way up from a light leather character to a heavy archer.