User blog comment:ChishioKunrin/How much work would go into a RWBY MMO?/@comment-10380701-20150915073956/@comment-25555436-20150919152323

Depends. Arrows, just damage. Possibly have skills that apply secondary effects, such as an arrow to the knee decreasing movement speed, an arrow to the arm decreasing attack speed, an arrow to the head being automatic critical, and so on.

In-game the arrows would appear sticked to the character for a short while and then disappear, but other than the effects caused the character would not have to remove it personally, because if that was the case they would have to stop constantly (assuming the archer is firing them constantly) to do it (because removing an arrow while running like Sonic will give you a hard time), which would be as good as a stun, only more annoying.

If you want, make Dust arrows cause more direct side-effects, such as an explosion, or potentially freezing the target if not just slow them down (even more). A lightning bolt or arrow could be the one that stuns.

To balance all that, bows require the user to charge the arrow to deal any good damage, and said arrows are not as fast or strong as bullets. Basically, make bows be slower, but also can apply many secondary effects that gives them both debuffing and versatility.