Sad Fighter Archetypes

[Witch's Knight]

I've been poking around lately, and there seems to be a feeling around fighters that fighter archetypes aren't very good. So what fighter archetypes do you feel are the worst, and how would you go about fixing them?

One of the comparisons that I've noted myself is the Archer versus the Crossbowman. The Archer gains Safe Shot four levels before the Crossbowman, the Archer gains the Trick Shot ability 14 levels before the Crossbowman gains the (much less versatile) Meteor Shot ability, the Crossbowman's Deadshot ability works only with readied actions (and Dex bonus to damage simply doesn't make up for losing full-attacks), and the Crossbowman's replacement for Armor Mastery is strictly worse than a feat, while the Archer gains a feat AND damage reduction.

A few ideas to balance these might be:
a) Match up the Safe Shot and Trick Shot abilities, so their gained at similar levels;

b) Make Deadshot either more powerful (increase threat range, double weapon damage, something like that) or more versatile (works with all attacks, not just readied actions);

c) Penetrating Shot functions as a ranged version of cleave.

Penetrating Shot:

As a standard action, make a single attack at your full base attack bonus against a foe within the first range increment of your crossbow. If you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using your full base attack bonus) against a foe that is behind the first and also within reach. You must be able to trace a line starting at your space and passing through both targets to make this additional attack. You can only make one additional attack per round with this feat. When you use this ability, you take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class until your next turn.)

And possibly also grants damage reduction against ranged attacks.

So, what are the worst Fighter archetypes, and how would you fix them?

Go!

[Lincoln Hills]

My main objection to the fighter archetypes isn't that they're mechanically weak, but that they ask you to give up very basic (and mechanically advantageous) abilities in favor of showing off.

"This ability replaces armor training" is lamentably common, and if there's one thing that made me stand up and take notice about the PF fighter (as opposed to the 3.5 fighter), it was that this fighter could, in time, laugh at the movement and skill-check penalties that so brutally limit all other armor-dependent characters. Then there are the nice untyped bonuses that weapon-training provides, the bonus against fear effects, etc. These are reliable and frequently-applied modifiers and having to surrender them hurts.

If I'd been designing the archetypes, I'd probably have taken a page from the rogue/oracle book and replaced fighter bonus feats with 'archetype talents' instead. Just for the bonus feats at levels 1/2/4/6/8, since most of the really fancy fighter-only feats start appearing after that. That way the fighter - despite more specialized training than the norm - would still be the armor- and weapon-master.

[Pupsocket]

Problem is, archetypes need to be balanced. That means you need to pay for your abilities. And Fighters have nothing to pay with.

[Witch's Knight]

As a broad fighter fix, I actually have considered re-skinning the fighter archetype abilities as fighter talents. Many of them do cool things that you can't do with feats, and I'd like to see more of that for the fighter. But, for the purposes of this discussion, I just want to see fighter archetypes balanced against each other/against the core fighter.

[RJGrady]

The big problem with fighter archetypes is that it's difficult to come up with something that is better as an archetype than, "here are some feats you can use to do X."