Prerequesites

This is a question about the item's prerequesites:
I found this bow

Now my Marksmanship is only 3. I can use this bow but I do not fully understand how the prerequisites work. Do I get go use a percentage of the bow's full potential? Do I get only the minimal damage? Will increasing my marksmanship to, say, 4 do much?

Thank you.

Yes, you can use items even if you do not meet the requisite attributes, but you won't get the full potential of the item. For example, a warrior can use a shield requiring 10 tactics even if they only have 7 points in it, but they won't get as much of an armor bonus as they would otherwise.

I don't think there's any difference as to how close you are to the required level either. I think if you don't meet the required level, you get stuck with a set penalty on the item. I hope I'm wrong or they changed that, seemed like there should be a changing penalty based on how close you are to the required level.

According to Charles Ensign's Treatise on mechanics (can't remember the exact name) the reqs don't really mean alot. You won't get the full potential out of the bow unless you have 12 in marksmanship even if the req is 3. I hope I'm wrong here, correct me if I am Charles.

Well, marksmanship has a passive effect on bows in general, it's not necessarily true of other items and other attributes, but would be true in this case given that it's a bow. That has little to do with getting the listed benefits from the item though.

When you do not have the requirements of an item then you get half of the items potential, rounded up.

When you don't meet an item's pre-reqs, it will behave as if it were the lowest lvl item of its type. So in this example, the bow will act as a starter's bow, and will have damage of about 3-5 I think.

Regardless of if you meet the pre-reqs or not, an items internal modifiers will still function as listed. Again in this case, you will recieve the bonus to enchantment duration and both %damage modifiers (of course, they won't do much, as they're only modifying 3-5 damage).

As far as the sliding effects of the linked attribute go, give Charles' treatise on combat math a read. Basically, your Marksmanship level will apply a modifier to the base damage of your bow. This modifier will apply regardless of if you meet the pre-reqs or not, it'll just be modifying a different base damage if you don't.

Hope that clears things up.

That does clear things up and thank you everyone!

*Writes a note in his notebook* one mystery of the world less...

Things get weird if you don't meet the item's prereqs. The base damage / armor / energy bonus drops down to newbie item levels, but all of the other mods remain.

The only weird part is that a lot of the better items you'll find have inherent +damage modifiers. That 10-15 Short Bow is probably an 8-13 bow with a +2 damage modifier, or something along those lines - there's no way to tell unless you don't meet the requirement. But if it was a 8-13 +2 bow, then if you don't meet the req it's a 3-5 +2 bow or a 5-7.

The only easy place to see this is on a focus - some are +3 when you don't meet the req, some are +4, and some +5. The internal modifier is the difference.

Peace,
-CxE

Thanks to the forgiving and flexible attribute system of Guild Wars, I tried to increase my maksmanship to 6. As an average, I did 20 damage with the bow whereas before it was 6. Hence, I did 3.333_ more damage meeting the prerequisites.

i was using a shield which required tactics +7, my tactics was only 5 then but i was able to equip the shield.

the question is, was i getting the defense from the shield and where can i see the defense and damage stats to find out?

The prerequisite doesn't matter for equiping an item only for using that item. You can equip any item at any time regardless of whether or not you meet the requirements. However, you won't get the full benefit of that item if you don't measure up.

So, yes, you were getting some defense from the shield. But, no there's no way short of some really annoying math and experimentation to find out exactly what the actual bonus was. It was lower than the AL you'd get with Tactics 7 and, as stated above, something like the base or starter shields you'd find plus any internal bonuses or penalties (I don't think these exist any more but at one point I was sure that just as items might have an invisible +1 there was an invisible -1 or more possible, too).

thank you REX that link helps alot, now i understand how damage and defense works. i apreciate the help.

I was searching all over for the answer to the shield question, then it dawned on me. Duhhhh! got to guru, go to guru, and viola the answer was here. Thanks for the answer. Charles is my numbers hero

EDIT: Ok, so there is no real penalty equasion for not having the requirements then. The AL 15 wooden buckler shield that I use that requires 7 tactics is then reduced to the basic wooden buckler if the +7 is not met? Ouch that hurts.