Looking at showmo's test and speculation again, I decided to look through some of the test data I had lying around. I did these test back at lvl 90 but never analyzed the data closely enough to figure block rate vs skill.
I'm only posting results atm, not raw parse data. If there are doubts about any of this, I can dig the parses out. But I pulled this from the spreadsheet I recorded the results to. Besides, that'd be a hell of a lot of parse data. 16k~ hits worth. It'd make things messy.
Code:
LVL 90 shield tests
Even Match Monitors, Abyssea Grauberg
Koenig(size 3)
Skill 369(+00) 379(+10) 389(+20) 399(+30) 417(+48) 420(+51)
Block% 45.0% 46.5% 50.5% 52.4% 57.1% 57.6%
gain 00.0% 01.5% 05.1% 07.4% 12.0 12.6
hits 2860 2126 3086 3034 2049 3295
Tower Shield
Skill 369(+00) 420(+51)
Block% 29.4% 43.9%
gain 00.0% 14.5%
hits 3093 3137
The size 3 data fits pretty nicely with the 4 skill=1% idea. 'Cept the +10 sample, but we could explain that as variance or lower sample size.
But the rest of the data points match pretty well. Skill+ / 4 = Block rate gain.
Now we need to know how mob lvl fits into that so we can predict block rate.
I still want more data. And more testing on various mob lvls to see if things change at different skill/mob levels. But this looks fairly good.
Now the Size 4 test doesn't quite match. It doesn't really have enough data points. And while 2% isn't a big difference, it's enough to make me wonder if skill works differently for different shield sizes. Although, since Showmo's test was with Aegis(size 5) and mine are size 3 there may be some evidence against that idea. Unless Aegis has the same skill mechanic a size 3, but with a higher base block rate.. ugh.. Too many possibilities.
Still, this is getting pretty interesting. Might do some more tests later. Getting more data on the lvl 95 skill range could be useful.