What are the advantages of Sylvan archers compared to Master Archers?

Unfortunately, not all upgrades turned out to be balanced, and this is one of many such cases where Forest Archers are almost always better. Higher damage, initiative, shooting without penalty (even if only once), plus knockback and ignoring half of the armor. Thanks to ignoring armor, they can penetrate high-level creatures with a single shot better than Archmages with two shots, even with a direct shot. So, even with a bow, it's not always worth choosing Archmages, as they will only be better at penetrating low-level creatures with little defense, and without a bow, the choice is even more obvious. And if you add that instead of a bow (with which Archmages can at least compete with Forest Archers), you can equip the same Staff of the Underworld and reduce the enemy's initiative, then again, the choice is quite obvious. Among such unbalanced upgrades, you can also include Demons for Inferno. The rest, even if they are unbalanced, are not to such an extent.