If I remember correctly, having too high of an AC will result in the critters in encounters just running away.
I decided to just go for it and try the build out, test things for myself.
What you say is true though, and it is EXTREMELY annoying. Even more annoying is they end up wasting 30seconds for each turn shouting out random taunts....and doing nothing. Does anyone know anything about this? It didn't start until I got to 100AC.
EDIT: Oh yeah and even with 100AC, tough golden geckos at least seem to hit me regularly, i'm wondering if it is ever going to be useful for farming...well anything. I'll keep going and get to 140 at least and explore around for further testing.
EDIT AGAIN: Regular molerats consistently hit me while I'm at 100AC...WTF? They're suppose to be at -5% chance to hit if I'm reading "to hit chance" correctly on the wiki, and even if I'm grossly way off, when I'm at 100AC, just 40short of the maximum, fucking molerats are hitting me nearly always. AC builds are looking to be a complete and utter waste of time except to scare way intelligent NPCs, which is even more annoying since you then ahve to wait 30seconds per NPC to take their turn.
Still science must continue on, I must know for sure...
EDIT Again: new confirmation, it isn't just intelligent NPCs, even mantis seem to know to only run and not even bother attacking, and they suffer from the bug of "lets sit there for the 30 seconds and do nothing"
Concluding statements: AC is absolutely useless in pve, and actually makes things harder because enemies will run away from you, and bugs will take up more time. Pretty much confirmed molerats hit 9 out of 9 times while you have 100 AC, something seems EXTREMELY wrong with that.
The only other build I can possibly imagine that makes use of AC is one that is purely to run away in real time combats and hope that ranged attackers don't hit. If others have any ideas or input, I'll gladly listen and further test them out, I just feel like I need to stop leveling this character now, and may return to him later.
Oh and something must be missing, or way off for the wiki's information on chance to hit for melee, or it is way off on the stats on various critters, and that the humble molerat actually would seem to have 195+ or so unarmed.
EDIT: Damn my curiosity and hope. I'm going to keep testing this, i'll just farm up materials for my next character along the way so it isn't a total loss if I don't discover something.
I did find that ants don't fear 100ac though....so weird. Although on a whim I'm wondering if level has something to do with this, as I've been level 3...