You don't need Vital Strike to open fights with ranged attacks. If your Initiative is good, you'll fire 1 shot, the combat will start and you'll fire the rest of your volley.
Getting Order of the Sword for an archer sounds super-wierd.
With high Cha I'd rather pick Lion or something.
If the pet will fight alone, dog/wolf morphed into a dragon is best, as I understand.
Dude Order of the Sword gives you a mega-smite at level 15
- Knight's Challenge: At 15th level, the Cavalier can make a knight's challenge once per day. This functions like a normal Challenge, but the Cavalier adds his Charisma bonus on all attack rolls and damage rolls made against the target of his challenge. In addition, he receives a +4 circumstance bonus on attack rolls made to confirm critical hits against the target of his Knight's Challenge.
Lion gives fuck all, I already have Competence bonuses to everything
Additionally, the Challenge bonus from Sword:
- Challenge (Order of the Sword): Whenever an Order of the Sword Cavalier issues a challenge, he receives a +1 a morale bonus on attack rolls against the target of his challenge so long as he is astride his mount. The bonus increases by +1 for every four levels the cavalier possesses.
Stacks with Heroism. Lion gives a dodge bonus, fucking useless.
Ahhh holy shit a morphed dragon! I never thought about that. I guess its better than Velociraptor? I forget how it works now, the pet gets the 6 APR from DKIII but gets trip on every attack or something?