Best build for an archer

Hi I wanted to ask about making an archer. I heard a lot that ranger isn't really good so what class would be better and could you suggest a build to follow I would like to do dps but i also like to have a bit of survivability. Thank you in advance.

If you're aiming for dps with bows, ranger is the best class to go with because it's in the best position to find bow skills. Not sure why people would say it's not that good of a class, my 2 rangers have both done fine so far. It's also hard to really point out one particular build for you to focus on, as there's a variety of ways to pull it off. There's strictly physical damage (rain of arrows/split arrow for groups, frenzy/puncture for single target), Lightning Arrow, Poison Arrow, Ice Arrow + GMP (that was a fun one to watch, dps is lower, but everything in the room is either frozen, or moving very slowly, which ups survivability a lot), and plenty more where that came from. I don't know which specific build would have the highest dps though, you'd have to do some research to see which one that is.

If you are looking for an alternative to ranger, you might want to consider duelist. It's in a great position to boost evasion and armor, as well as being close to the Iron Reflexes passive, which turns all your evasion into armor. It's also close to the giant life node cluster to the lower left of the Scion starting point, which makes it a lot easier to get high health.

There's a lot of arguments as to whether evasion is viable, on both sides, or if one should focus only on armor. Properly done (acrobatics, phase acrobatics, lots and lots of life, plenty of evasion passives), evasion can find you almost impossible to hit by physical attacks, and taking less spell damage than most thanks to phase acrobatics, than others.

On the flip side, when you do get hit by physical, it takes a huge chunk of life, so you'll need a lot of life nodes. What's more, the Undying Evangelists in the Sceptre use physical damage spells. Evasion doesn't work against those, and it's hard to build a resistance to the attacks. W/o armor, you take the full damage of the spells, getting hit by 2 or 3 of those can end you, even with high health. As an archer (as opposed to melee) this downside is mitigated some what by your being able to see the attack coming, run to a new position outside the range of the spell, firing off a shot or two, then running to another position before the next spell strikes. You should be able to dodge that skill since you don't need to be up close and personal to do damage.

That said, Armor means that while you'll always get hit by attacks, you won't take nearly as much damage. Dodging the high damage of the physical spell becomes less important, and you won't need as much health to survive the hits that will now land.

Crit split arrow build that uses IR to gain armor.
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIBAF4B0QR-BS0FtQX5CC4M8g5IEZYS4RXwGY4Z_hrbGwEbyCP2JDwk_SaVJ6kppS9vMHw2PTnUOlg-z0MxSVFKfU4qUEJRR1VLVvpaGlpIWm1br14TYEthIWKsY0NnoG_ycFJwu3DVdO131Hrvf8aE74bOhxmHdohrjDaNfY2_m42do52qoJ-hIqGkoi6iQKXLpzSnXKfUqn-quK_rsTC2QbvjvebAUcSi037VANad2RPcFd0N4dvjhOdU7YPuDu_w8-r0-PlW-WP8q_zF_rr-yA==

Wow thats a lot of info thank you all

first think you need to keep in your mind as archer you need high movement speed, attack speed, and critical damage, for me these are the main thinks that i want from the archer (so far)
so what i'm doing right now is this:
-get high evasion (forgot what the passive called xD)
-high Crit. damage.
-Split arrow+rain of arrows+Wraith passive(a good weapon makes HUGE difference)
-as for single targets poison arrows is my choice because they destroy do damage over time which disable the enemy's shield regen for a while.
-what you do from her is all up to you, you should think it through and see what you'd like for me when i complete this class and make it what i want i'd want it to have this:
-Evasion+movement speed
-huge DPS(currently 312)
-Life+Mana leech on normal attacks
-This might be a little weird but some kind of summoning skill to use as a wall between me and the enemy(right now i have undead with 230HP)
this build is really good however it requires good equipment as for the Wraith if you have high armor than you can replace it with determination(increases your Armor) if you want to be tanky but for the Ideal archer is the one that can't be caught up to or touched.