Don't forget that any amount of range from the shooter decreases the damage.
I have 13 gens shielder. I have never had an arbalest penetrate a shield that requires 4 shield skill or above.
gen 26 lvl 36 shielder,5000hours+ crpg, 95% on eu servers, before latest respec i had 11 shieldskill now 10. While this information you and me just exchanged, doesnt matter at all in this discussion, perhaps your thought patterns need these informations to accept opinions or if people tell you that it can happen, that you would believe it as again the information we just shared weren't about facts concerning penetration happening or not.
more sitenotes:
Since about 2 years i play mostly siege as the increasing numbers of ranged got on my nervs too much and on siege at least they are on fairly fixed positions. I still miss eu1, but not so much to play there regularly and get shot to peaces all the time. If i play then about 4 to 10 hours a day, some weeks every day 10 hours straight, i get about every 2nd day in average a shot through my shield sometimes more often sometimes not in a whole week, doesnt matter the distance "at all". One thing i am good at, is at spoting ranged, so i barely get surprised by them, i can normaly time running and taking shield up in time with up to 3 ranged guys targeting me, so that i can close in fast onto them. As i can spot archers more often before they spot me, i know when they target me, know when to take up my shield, know when it didnt help having a shield because it was penetrated. Sometimes it may have been a ping issue, mostly i am very certain when i got shot through the shield. It does happen more often on closer range, i but doubt it has perse to do with the range, but as the Xbow player can tell you, there is a certain spot on the shield, if they hit that the chances seem to be higher that it goes through, that spot i was told with elitcav shield is slightly above the center, then again this can be a urban legend as i have never seen this being mentioned to be true by devs.
It maybe playstyle too
, some people play rather defensivly, not me after i spotted a ranged player though, then that dude no matter who it is, he then has a homeing beacon attached and i normaly gun for him till he is down and i then would be able to concentrate on infantry players. Because of that attitude i also got a lot of miles on my feet, therefor pre respec 11 now 10 ath to hunt down the kiters. Therefor the chances to be confronted with ranged players seem to be rather regular in my case and quite a number of them seem to hate me with a passion
My build
was made to survive on flanks, to go against fast melee fighters, ranged and cav, not speciallising against anyone in particular but being able to handle more or less all of them. The only once you cant handle by pure skill are ranged though, ranged nests of 3+ you cant do anything if you are alone on the flanc. If you find 1+ ranged +Inf , you often still ahve to take on Inf first depending on their awarness. If more join me in a flanking attempt, often that becomes then a massiv gank and more players die through teamdamage then enemies are taken out till you meet the main group, which was one of the reasons why i decided a long time ago to be on the flancs and try to survive aslong as possible ... to not be in a ganking clusterfuck of 'i dont give a shit' players. Within Wolves , my former clan, i trained people to flank together with me, and people get used to my playstyle, i never but commanded anyone of them to go with me on the flanks, that was always free and will always be a free choice, go with me on flanking and propably die sooner or stay with the main clusterfuck group.
what does matter is,
that i use +3 huscarl, +3 elite cav, + 3 steel buckler and +3 steel shield. With any of these shields i got penetrated by ranged, but as my playstyle has certain needs, like keep low weight to be able to hunt the kiters, and to use warspear on eu1 and to be able to block in time, and also to survive the fucking Great Long Axe spam, Steel Shield, Steel Buckler are mostly useless, Huscarl i still used 8 months ago on siege, but as there are more and more high agi players around i needed to close the gap ^^ so elite cav it is. Knightly heater is not that good, as i dont like the different hight/width ratio, especially on eu1 that is bad when you try not to get shot by 2+ ranged and on eu2 it is good to get less hits in the back every inch helps when turning fast. Elit cav shield with +3 has 25 ressitance/armor value, and yes i get penetrated as with all other shields i have too. I havent done comparisons by how often as again Steel Shield, Huscarl and Steel Buckler all suck balls for several reasons so why bother aslong as i know it can happen with them too, it is no sell argument.
Perhaps additionaly to the increase of HP per shieldskill, also increase the Ressistance/armor value by 1-3 for shields per shieldskill. In my case i would then have with 3 per skill lvl, 55 resistance on my elite cav shield(25 through MW + 10*3 from shieldskill). In my case it doesnt really make a big difference anymore for durability of the shield, it just neglects then penetration (
if this is really is the case that ressistance negelcts penetration).