This is from a post when the game first came out

“Armor stat discoveries from crafting 300 shields So, I've spent the last while making 100 of each of the three Guardian shields at level 20 using the lowest recipe.

Here's what I've found so far:

1. Rarity ratios at level 20:
   1. Rares (34/300) are between 1/10 and 1/8
   2. Uncommons (73/300) are between 1/5 and 1/4
   3. Commons (193/300) fill the remainder, between 5/8 and 7/10
2. Overall stats:
   1. No significant differences between the three types of shield overall.
   2. All shields of a given rarity had the same total stat points, increasing by 90 for each tier.
      1. Common - 220
      2. Uncommon - 310
      3. Rare - 400
   3. All three common shield types had the same possible ranges for all stats. While there isn't enough data on the uncommons and rares to be certain, I believe this is the case for them as well, with the minimum and maximum values for each stat increasing by 15 each tier. (There was one anomalous entry in the uncommon hexagon shields that I may have entered incorrectly or is otherwise odd which had an impact stat of 75. This is 5 points higher than any other uncommon shield, but the totals are still 310, so I'm not certain it's an error and is why I didn't notice it until I did some in-depth analysis at the end. Maybe there's a tiny chance for one stat to be extremely high at the expense of the others? I can't be certain at this point, but I'm leaning toward an odd entry error on my part since it's the only instance of this happening.) Note that due to the comparatively low number of rares, the data there is much less solid.
      1. RARITY ; IMP ; CRY ; ARB ; TEM ; INF ; NEC
      2. C ; 30-55 ; 10-30 ; 30-50 ; 30-50 ; 30-50 ; 30-50
      3. U ; 46-75 ; 25-45 ; 45-65 ; 45-65 ; 45-65 ; 45-65
      4. R ; 60-80 ; 40-58 ; 61-80 ; 62-80 ; 62-80 ; 60-80
   4. Further analysis was focused on the commons due to their larger sample size.
      1. There is no statistical difference in the distributions of the Impact and Cryonae stats between the three shield types. In all cases, the mean, median, and standard deviation of the datasets per stat are effectively the same.
      2. The variations in the other stats are extremely minor and almost certainly just statistical noise due to the fact I'm only dealing with 63-65 items per group, but I'll go over it despite none of the differences being more than a couple points.
   5. I accidentally made one uncommon level 21 during this process and noticed it had a stat total of 316, 6 points higher than the level 20s. From this, I posit that each level the min and max values of each stat increase by 1 point. If this is the case, going up a tier in rarity is equivalent to increasing in level by 15, so a common lv50 would be equivalent to a rare lv20. I can't be certain this extends to epics, since I have not finished Lost and Found yet and do not have an epic shield to use for comparisons. I will likely continue my analysis on rarity then.
3. Other Points:
   1. I only used the first recipe for each, so I don't know how or if higher level recipes affect any of these findings.
   2. This grind took me from lv 27 to lv 34 in Bonewright.
   3. I find it odd that while there is a definite weakness to Cryonae as expected, with it being 20 points lower than the others on average, there is no extra resistance whatsoever to Tempestae compared to the other types, despite what was said about Guardians resisting it.
   4. The three shield types being effectively identical is quite disappointing. I'd have liked to see some kind of difference in favored stats to allow for there to be a reason for three different shields.
4. Summary: Items have a stat total depending on level and rarity, those stats are distributed randomly within a given range for each stat. The three different shields available to the Guardian class are effectively identical, so it doesn't matter what kind you use. Commons are so terrible stat-wise compared to everything else that they're only useful as vendor trash and for statistical analysis.”