<<Someone mentioned that when wearing small shields, there is no penalty for WMs, but as I'm using a targe and getting the following messaging, I believe this is not the case.

You didn't read their statement correctly. Armor tert guilds cannot negate the penalty to arm-worn shields. Only armor secondary and armor primary guilds can do so, and only if they arm-wear a smaller shield than their maximum size possible. I.e. Barbs, Rangers, and Traders must use a small shield, and Paladins must use a medium or small shield.

Here's the statement you misread again, so that you don't have to go searching.

<<WM's are also the only weapon secondary guild that can buff every single weapon class and TM on top of it. You are also Armor tert and only Armor secondary and primary guilds can negate the shield penalty with bows, and only if they wear a smaller shield than the maximum size they can wear.
<<Both things that you are asking for are completely outside of WM's wheelhouse, but they still have more than most other guilds in the same position.

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> I wonder if we could get the SOI updated to have it benefit another ranged weapon that does not suffer from a shield penalty, if what I'm suggesting is so outlandish.

It really sounds to me like you are confusing SOI with something. All it determines is how well can you buff this skill. If inside your SOI that means 20%, if not then 15%.

Skillset placement is what would keep your want from flying, not SOI. It does not matter if you can buff both shield and bow to 20% your skillset placement is still tert for armor. That would be the limiting factor to have to overcome.

Personally, I would like to see the way armworn penalties toward bows are handled reevaluated. It is old thinking IMO to not be able to train this off. Make it scale so that each skillset has it's own reqs for this and most everyone, including Elec, will be happy.

This way you can accomplish, with ranks, what it is you are wanting. It really boils down to this is a one second load penalty as well as aim/fire penalty. I have no idea how the aim/fire penalty works, it could be one or both.

At least it was a suggestion for an otherwise practically useless spell.

Hell, even if it was a carbon copy of Ease it would be better than it is at present, though I'm sure we'd have a cadre of sourpuss players coming in to tell us how it is game-shattering and overpowered.

<<It is a fair point, though, that for an armor tert guild, Bow seems to be a really random choice for one of our SoI weapons. One would think that any of the other ranged weapons that don't take a hit for an arm-worn shield might be a better choice.

I think 2.0 tailwind only worked to buff bows and thrown weapons? At least that's what the 2.0 description said. I'm not sure how specific or poetic that statement actually is. If accurate, then the bow SoI is likely an historic one and was chosen over thrown weapons because it can be aimed to align with your TM aiming proficiency. Just speculation here.

https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Tailwind_(2.0)

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That's a bit how I felt. Bows got thrown into the SoI, great. My thought was, if Bows are in our SoI, why don't we have maximum benefit to use them? If it's something in our SoI, "Spheres of Influence are the areas in which a guild is considered to have special affinity, and thus higher caps when they are enhanced through abilities and spells."

I read that as IE we're supposed to be better at it than those guilds that don't have it in their SOI. So if the WM couldn't train the penalty away, why not a spell that does it instead? If that makes sense.

Otherwise I'd prefer to have a ranged weapon in the SoI that doesn't take a penalty.

As for YS, I'd like that spell to be useful for armor again. Negating the penalty would be one way to do this but again the spell still needs work regardless of if that ability is added or not.

Xionara Swiftstrike

*scratches head*

I don't really think you understand where I'm coming from regarding my comments.

Maybe I can be clearer by saying this:

I would rather not have the only ranged weapon in my Warrior Mage SoI being affected by a penalty.

My suggestion comes from wanting to be able to take full advantage of the bow without being hindered by the shield, since it is the only ranged weapon in the SoI.

I understand what SoI does, how it functions.

I do not understand why Bow was given to WM as the only ranged weapon in our SoI when it takes a shield penalty. I'm interested to know why it was designed this way.

Are you against Warmies having a ranged weapon in the SoI that they can fully benefit from?

It's not like I'm saying let's give warms dual load with bow and such.

My impression from reading about SoI was that we are better with those weapons as a guild, we have an affinity for them, that's WHY they are IN the SoI and our buffs do more for them. With that logic it doesn't make sense to me that we're suffering from a shield penalty. Either the bow should be changed for LT or HT (maybe HT makes more sense because we already have pole arms in the SOI, so learning to throw one isn't farfetched, and our weapon affinities lean toward the heavy side anyway with LE/2HE and LB/2HB), or I should think that some spell we have would allow us to fire the bow without a penalty.


Xionara Swiftstrike

Bards have TM and LT and HT are in their SOI.

Xionara Swiftstrike

Bards are not Magic Prime with TM as their defining guild Thing though.

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"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

I will say that I would find HT and LT to be the more obvious SOI for a ranged weapon. Just because WM were capable of making them via Frost Scythe and Fist of Stone before. I would also say that crossbow makes more sense because WM have mostly always worn a little heavier armor than the more dexterous guilds like rangers and barbarians. Of course this is just the mere image and the fact that YS actually used to be useful to wear heavy armors.

> I do not understand why Bow was given to WM as the only ranged weapon in our SoI when it takes a shield penalty. I'm interested to know why it was designed this way.

As far as the timeline goes my memory is a bit fuzzy. As a WM there was a time when the shield reqs for leveling was 10. I want to say that SOI was devised before 3.0 stuff and cirle reqs got updated. Perhaps this is partially responsible for bows landing within WM SOI.

> Are you against Warmies having a ranged weapon in the SoI that they can fully benefit from?

I am not entirely sure I want to say this.
There is a way to avoid the penalty from shields. It is not popular and does not come recommended from me but not using a shield avoids the penalty. This also reduces hindrances at the expense of giving up 2 defenses (Which IMO is too heavy a cost in 3.x).

Of all the toons I play my WM is a main and his views toward bows leans toward a heavy dislike of them. He has the title Weapon Master and has trained 298 ranks in bows. It is one of his least favorite weapons. Even if the penalty magically went away bows would remain his least favorite weapon class.

As a player I would like to see a way for every guild to reduce/negate this penalty with ranks. Crossbow already does this but it more binary in nature (below 50 ranks you get a penalty, after 50 ranks no penalty). I would prefer to see some scaling going on if something like this ever happens for bows. Skillset placement should offer bonuses and or penalties toward reducing bow usage penalties from shields.