kind of a noobish question about damage absorbtion

OK, I am most familiar with the elem profession, so pretend I asked this question yesterday, before the update. Let's say a warrior has -4 damage absorbtion. If I hit him with a level 16 fireball, 119 damage (I think)...does the damage reduction reduce that damage to:

level 16, 115 damage
or
level 12, 91 damage

I know this question is irrelevant with fireball but still pertains to physical damage. Thanks!

It's 4 points of damage, not attribute levels. In that example, 115, but as you said, from last night's update, absorption no longer affects elemental damage.

There's more to the equation than what's above, but to answer your question, I didn't get into the effect of differing armor levels on the 119 of damage.

The original 119 damage is based on hitting an enemy of the same level with armor 60. The warrior with armor 80 is already getting reduced damage, more if using a shield, more if a +5 armor update is in use, more if Dolyak signet is up...get the picture?

Once that number was calculated then the absorption would kick in, reducing it some more. Now only the raw armor is used, something like armor 96 (80 from armor + 16 from shield).

Your spells like obsidian, crystal wave, vampiric gaze, bane signet, empathy, etc ignore armor and levels and do the stated amount of damage.

But previously direct, armour ignoring damage was affected by the received damage bonuses on shields, but not absorption and knights boots.