Game Mechanics: AC/Level Mitigation & Backstabs

[Hasbinbad]

The following text is excerpted from the patch notes thread. I thought it was on topic there, but that it should be posted here as well. First though, I would like to thank you guys for working on getting things right. It really seems like AC makes a difference these days, and that some real work has been done on mitigation. This post is not a gripe, I will work with anything that is put in front of me, and be fucking happy to have it. Also this is specific to backstabs. I feel that normal hits are tuned almost spot on at this point, maybe even still a bit too high across the board, but WAY better than it was. So:

---
I think the problem with backstab is that it is being mitigated by AC and/or level too much. I don't have any parse evidence for this yet, but after spending 2-3 hours killing shit and getting maybe 3 or 4 >340 backstabs total during that time, I found myself in WC, and backstabbed a Kodiak.. Double backstab for 280/360.

This leads me to believe that backstab damage range is working properly but that it is being mitigated as per normal hits, which my experience in live leads me to believe is wrong. On live during kunark, you could pretty much guarantee a given range (just for the sake of argument, we'll call it 1/2-3/4 of your max backstab when fighting blues/whites/yellows/reds) on a given strength of mobs, except once in a while you would get a minimum backstab, giving you a sadface, and once in a while you would get a max hit, giving you a happy face.

If your min backstab was 80 and your max was 450, it would look something like this on live during kunark:
You backstab Innoruuk for 260 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 310 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 275 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 365 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 290 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 350 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 450 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 280 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 260 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 400 points of damage!

Right now, if your min/max were the same, you would see something more like this:
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 320 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 210 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!
You backstab Innoruuk for 80 points of damage!

Of course I have absolutely no evidence for this, no old parses, no screenshots.. But this is pretty much how it was based on empirical observation.

So it is my hypothesis that backstab should not mitigated as per normal hits by level and/or AC. It either ignores AC altogether and is based on your hit rolls, or has some form of an armor-piercing type function.. Dunno what you guys can do with that.
---

So yeah. I don't have any kind of evidence for this, but I'm hoping to drum up some empirical support for these numbers.. They are all completely made up, but I was trying to capture the "feel" of how the flow of a fight would go with backstabs, relative to your min/max backstab.