Whats the best way to bypass a person with a shield? Shield seems to be unstoppable as a defense. What is it's weakness? How do I take somebody down that has a ton of shield and is wearing a tower shield?

If I'm not mistaken a successful snipe will put your weapon skill against their evasion skill - ignoring any parry or shield.

<<Stab them:)
Since you can't stab in pole range, your opponent can just keep retreating from you and prevent any stab attempts.

<<Khri shadowstep allows you to start engagement at pole range while hidden.

Yes, shadowstep certainly gives you an edge, so that you might get a stab off before your target realizes what's happening.

Although that was not the point i was trying to make. If you hide in pole you still need to take that time advancing towards your target to get into melee range. Meanwhile your target can already instantly retreat back to missile even while you're stuck in your hiding roundtime. I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong, since this is pretty much based on something that happened about 10 years ago.

I know it's probably not the best idea to post these anti-thief countermeasures on the boards for people who didn't know but i just hate to see some of those poor idiots taking combat advice from traders on gweth and get their hopes up, only to realize later on that all of their training was a wasted effort.

<<you've already critically failed at stealth.

Hehe, true that.

I suppose i was just focusing on some of the most common conflict situations where you can't just say - hey, wait a minute, i don't really want to fight now but I'll be back later when you're not expecting me at all. But you're right, the full frontal attack is not our way and it's difficult to survive an attack from an equal opponent while you have your pants down .. stabbing or no stabbing.

And to clarify this of course only applies in situations like spars, tournaments, getting caught stealing and you're trying to fight back, etc.