Armor Analysis and it's impact on Damage Reduction

[GoodSyntax]

So, I'm not sure why it is, but I got curious about Damage Reduction after reading a thread that referenced the following statement by one of the Devs: Armor Value * (Armor Modifier by level of attack mob) = Damage Reduction
See post here: http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...l=1#post902866

Armed with this knowledge and the obvious unknown of what the modifier value is, I figured I could back-calculate what this value is for an Elite Tindirin mob. I chose the first, unmasked spearman in Elite Jagged Trail for my testing purposes. All testing was done without a pet, and I didn't attack the mob after initial aggro to avoid any possibility of buffs or debuffs.

I tested at various armor levels, to determine if damage reduction is indeed linear as the Developer's post implies.

I recorded 30 non-critical hits by the mob, and below is the summary of the data recorded (I personally favor Geomean as opposed to straight average):


Chart of Damage Received vs Armor Values:

What is interesting to note in this chart is that we see a clear plateau of damage received between 1k armor and 1198 armor (about 200 armor difference). We see the same plateau between 1444 armor and 1600 armor (again, about 150 armor difference). This seems to imply that the incremental addition of nearly 200 and 150 armor, respectively, yield very little in terms of a reduction of damage.

Chart of Damage Reduction Percent vs. Armor Values:

Once again, we see the same plateaus between 1k and 1198 armor, and again at 1444 and 1.6k armor. Based on these results, there are some obvious peaks and valleys, and the reduction is clearly not linear as the formula above says it should be.

Conclusion:
It is difficult to see exactly where these plateaus of efficiency come from, but if I had to guess, it seems that the damage reduction formula is either banded (based on the data I have, it seems banded at 400 armor intervals), or is spline based. This implies that incremental armor within the same band yields only a marginal improvement in damage reduction; therefore, if the difference in builds can put you into the next damage reduction band, go for it otherwise, it would seem better to focus in other areas (such as DMG or HP).

Now, being that it is difficult for Rogues to get much beyond 1.9k armor at this point, I can only assume that we will encounter another plateau beyond this 1.9k armor level. I may try testing with Iron Bite's AA to get to 2k, but that will have to wait for another day.

In the meantime, if a Dev could point out what the actual damage reduction formula is, I would greatly appreciate it, because from my testing, the mob modifier is not a fixed value, and seems to be based on the armor stat.