Archive: Numbercrunching Innovation

Already a long time ago, I posted this on the Innovation web site, because there was a little mystery why we didn't hade enough raiders. It consist of two parts, the first being the original post. And then a second part, after we had some discussion on forum/guildchat about who was coming. There was a large gap between people being invited iirc, and people actually still playing. Because the forum is being replaced, I save it here (it was the original purpose of the blog).

This is no longer the case, Innovation actually has a bench these days

Although I might just do this again on the current raiders in september, just to see the difference.

This was published on the innovation forums, 23 november 2011

Hello Innovation,

My expertise on numbercrunging has been called upon. with the recent cancelled raids and forced 10-mans, there seems to be a problem in the guild considering availabilty of people. Note, I say availabilty to raid, not actually raiding. When I applied for Innovation, I read that Innovation raided 3 days, and you where expected to turn up at least two. That's something I will take as a basic for the next couple of paragraphs. Every raider in Innovation should be available to raid 2 days/week.

Before I continue, I know real life happens, but normally speaking, there are also people who are available almost all the time, so a little lee-way is already here.

As mentioned in another post, basic mathematics:

3 raids of 25 man equals 75 raidspots/week. If everyone is available 2 days that week, we end up with 75/2=37.5 raiders to make sure we actually have 25 men each night. This same reasoning can be applied to all 4 classes. And because this is Innovation, I will be rounding up a bit. In the end this will lead to 40 active raiders. I will also use the base of 2 tanks/6 healers/16 dps for every raid. 

Tanks

3 raids times 2 tanks is 6 tankspots/week, 6/2=3, so Innovation needs 3 tanks to function properly. But... 3 is low. It actually means that if 2 tanks can't make it (a real possibility), we can't raid. Adding an extra tank would probably solve this (at this moment preferably a Tankadin, because we don't have it), but it is not really needed, we luckily have some plate-dps able to tank very well.

Healers

3 raids times 6 healers gives 18 healingspots/week, 18/2=9, so 9 healers needed. At the moment we have 10, which I actually consider a little bit better then 9, because of the same reason as with tanks. A little extra buffer is not bad. And if needed, some can go dps for a night.

DPS

37 raiders- (9+2)=25 dps left to fill up the roster... we have 24, so one short. But with dual-spec this could be handled.

So, actually... there should not be a problem...And yes, there is a little difference with rounding, but I'll take care of that later. This current number actually has a logical conclusion: If we have to cancel so many raids (or downtune), Innovation-raiders are NOT available 2 days/week.

So, with this information, I changed the numbers a bit. I tried to figure out the best raid-member-configuration. And I made a graph.

I went with the following premises:

• 2 of each healer
• 2 of each dps
• 1 of each tank
• add 1 druid and 1 priest-healer
• add 1 from each 'pure' dps-class (total 4)
• add 1 shaman and 1 druid-dps, because of different roles

With these simple rules, we should need 40 people, giving the chance for fifteen people not to be online. Seems an high enough buffer.

Now don't go all oh-noes-I-am-not-needed. The graph is ideal, If I make a graph considering roles it looks a lot more nicely for everyone:

Now the numbers of melee and ranged can be mixed a little bit considering availabilty. And the question is, do we need another tank? But looking at both graphs, I can make a (and againa simple one) conclusion. We could use 1 more tank (preferable a tankadin), one more ranged (preferable an elemental shaman) and one more melee (deathknight or enhancement shaman), although the latter could also be a ranged (shadowpriest or warlock) considering the unfriendly-ness of current raids towards melee.

If any raider should quit, a replacement should be looked for in the lowest column. E.g. if a mage quits, don't get another mage, but try to get a warlock.

So, a list of people to look for is probably:

• Paladin - Protection
• Death Knight - DPS
• Shaman - Elemental
• Priest - Shadow
• Warlock
• Shaman - Enhancement

For the record, I also looked at long afks's, and a number of 40 should be enough to accomedate for those. Unles more then 7 people are going AWOL, then the officers have something to decide  :p

TL;DR

So with all these numbers an end-conclusion is reached, and an actual plee to my co-raiders. Innovation has the numbers to field 3 25-men raids/week. A little extra buffer couldn't hurt. See the possible recruitlist above, although getting any extra DPS at the moment would also not hurt the number of not-cancelled 25's. But..

I hereby ask all my co-raiders a question, do you want to raid guild-wise, or do you just want to raid sometimes. We are in a guild (or for some in the community :p), and we all want to play. But, and this is my opinion, not the officers, you should also consider your fellow raiders. If you know from yourself that you can only raid once per two weeks, why are you actually a raider in Innovation? Cancelled Raids don't help anyone. And I do ask to at least try to be there twice a week, or thrice per 2 weeks. There are some people who are more available, but that goes only so far. It's not fun to see only 19 signups on the roster. Take a look at yourself, and ask yourself: What do I actaully want, What can I actually DO? We are in a Guild, and, how corny it may sound;

It's not what Innovation can do for you, It's what you can do for Innovation.

Oh, and one other question, all 37 raiders got an invite to next week (not the alts). How long does it take to actually hit accept/decline (or tentative if you are not sure). 

Disclaimer: The long text above is largely mathematical, and there will be different opinions by others, at least I hope so  :p, I ain't the almighty numbercruncher. All opinions are my own, and only my own. I am not an officer, just a fellow raider who wants to raid 25.

Mardah

No officers where harmed making this essay......

This was posted on the Innovation-forums on 24 november 2011

So, after some recent info, I went back to the crunching.

I now looked especially at who accepted an invitation last 2 weeks (7 raids), and went home with that.

Two things. First, to Kris, I now what you typed, but I looked at who accepted, which means even with erratic availabilty I have 8 healers. Secondly, because I looked at actual invites, I lowered the favorable numbers of Healing, Tanks and Melee with 1.

I also took out recent leavers, and added one Retri-paladin (namely Sponchebob, and welcome by the way :p), this way I removed 10 names from the list I use, and added 1.

And now the graph;

Well...  that is a complete different viewpoint... although an extra Melee and Healer wouldn't hurt.. the problem lies with Ranged. Last two weeks only 7 ranged actually accepted an invitation. Which is half of what we actually need. Looking at the graph, we probably need to find 10 more players, luckily, most of them are DPS.

Looking at it from another point; Over the last two weeks we had an average of 19 people signing in. That's 6 raidspots low, which are 18 spots/week, which again with an average attendance of aroun 67% would mean 9 more people are needed. 

Because I also know there are some people coming back shortly (due to RL getting less hectic, or other reasons), I would say, get 9 more people...1 healer, 8 dps.

And looking at what we have now, another possible recruitmentlist:

Healers:

• Holy Paladin OR Priest (no idea which spec)

Melee-dps:

• Enhancement Shaman OR Deathknight

Ranged:

• 2 Warlocks
• 1 Mage
• 1 Shadowpriest
• 2 Elemental Shamans

Actually, another Druid-Dps would also be a posibility... if we weren't swarmed with druids at the moment.

Mardah

REMINDER: This is archive-material, so no longer the case, any numbers above ar out of date..
especially considering we have Monks now.

Turns lights on

I think I have written about this before, the fact that I only write when something comes up in my mind, and while enough came up in my mind the last few months during Innovation's Journey through the Throne of Thunder, I choose to keep them for my own... mostly.

There are different factors for that, both Real Life as WoW-life, but I think the most important is that I have no idea how to write about tries as only a simple soldier.

Two years ago... or is that four...  it was easier. Being officer/raid leader, I could just write the truth and be done with it, but the truth will hurt people most of the time. But back then I was in a progression-focused Guild, and if you did not try your best, well, you would be 'asked' to be better or leave. That was how that guild functioned. Innovation functions different.

In the past I could just use a name when someone did something wrong (or right), because well, if you did it wrong, it was your problem, not mine. But now that I am a simple soldier, I can not put some name down, because he may get offended by it. As a non-officer I feel that it is not my position to open question fellow raiders...well....  at least not on an open blog, privately though :p

So, a lot of times I wanted to write about stuff, but did not do it because I didn't want to offend someone. I have to find a way around that I suppose.

It also had an effect on non-guild wow-things. Just because I had to much possible blogs running around in my head, that I could not actually focus on a subject.

Well, because I hardly blogged during 5.4, I can at least do a nice 5.4 look back series I guess. So, let's see if I can finish the posts called like 'Why Thunderforged is bad', 'Innovation vs Throne of Thunder, a Boomkins view'. (Yes, rough working titles)

End of the 14th Tier

So... after some very long nights wiping in Terrace, Innovation finally took down the last boss of...wait..  what.. long nights of wiping?

After completely goofing up elite protectors last week, and still taking it down. And that same night we saved Tsulong... you know..with me doing more healing on the boss then damage and saving his plant, we went back tonight for the next boss Lei Shi.

As normal, no problem with the first three bosses and then...wait..oh yeah... I think the strategy talk lasted longer then the actual one-shot-first-kill. I am not even sure we lost people there.

So, on to Sha.. probably harder...  well...not. It took us two tries to figure out how the platforms worked...  and then everybody stayed alive..tadaa, job done.  Maybe do it once or twice more, but actually, most LFR-T15 stuff is better then what drops here, so I guess we will be focusing on the big dino more now....

LFR wiping and learning, Durumu

Eyes shut...finally. It took about 7 tries.

It's not that hard a fight in theory. run around with beams, drop purple stuff on outside, kill some adds...  but then the disintegration beam goes of, and the dark floor is covered with a darkish purply stuff which paths in it that are safe...a maze...

Now if the maze would have been clear...like green on grey with paths in it, no problem, but the current color-combination makes it really hard to see where to go. So instead of doing a relaxing LFR, you get a frustrating experience where you stare so hard at the screen that your eyes go sore....  and of course, one mis-step is certain doom.

No, I am not looking forward to doing this boss  to many times....

On the bright side...  elite Protectors went down without a glitch..well..not counting the 22 dead people, and we saved Tsulong...where I did more healing on the boss then damage....tonight Horridon is again on the menu...or we hope, because until now, we were on his menu.

To epic gem, or not to epic gem...

So, with the 5.3 PTR starting...tri-specs..really? I demand quatro-specs for druids. And Innovation downing empress at last, and now progressing through Terrace (Tsulong 2%....) and Throne,I was ;forced' to look at weapons, and mostly what the epic gem does to sha-touched stuff.

You see, at our empress-kill, two sha-touched spellpowerdaggers dropped. And I didn't even bid, because I thought it would be a small upgrade over my twice-upgraded Tsulong-staff, and with LFR-wings opening up I thought the 502-weapons probably would be better, and there are a lot around.

So, let's look at the gem...500 Intellect, which means 584 spellpower and 0,23% crit (raidbuffed ofc). I am not sure why we still have Intellect, it seems nothing more then spellpower with some crit attached to it.. why not just call it spellpower and be done with it?

Ok, 0,23% crit, at first I didn't take this with me while making spreadsheets..but I calculated the extra crit from intellect on my current weapon..which was more than 400... (1667 intellect-->461 critrating)

Also..while making this spreadsheet, I found out what I already secretly knew...  Staves are not good. As good as every one-hand/off-hand combination I looked at, was about 165 intellect better than a staff...what a surprise....

I looked at the sha-dagger and all the LFR's one-handers, taking into consideration the different offhands. And not to my surprise... the best current option is from Lei Shi, both the 1H and the OH, the mace actually has more intellect then standard 502-stuff.

But, because Lei Shi will note be available for  more weeks, and I also wanted to look at normal (522) weapons, I choose a more logical combi.

From Durumu (opening tomorrow) a dagger drops with crit and spirit. This one seems to be the best before last bosses, and my suggestion is always use a bonusroll on Durumu. Besides the weapon, he also drop a haste/crit back, spirit/crit shoes, and a spirit/crit ring... all with gem-slots!!

Ok, numbers:

496-Kritak has a massive 8204 spellpower, and 360 spirit and 615 crit, for a total of 975 statpoints.
502-Durumu has 8219 spellpower, and 356 spirit and 476 crit, for a total of 832 statpoints.
and for fun:
522-Durumu has 9871 spellpower, and 438 spirit and 574 crit, for a total of 1013 statpoints.

So, normal Kritak beats LFR-Durumu for around 140 statpoints. Now the question is, do I want to pay 10k for a new epic gem, is that 10k worth 140 orso statpoints?

Too soon?

Release date patch 5.2 is 28th of februar? So in two weeks? Is this too soon?

The guild I am in, Innovation, is now being crushed by Garalon, the 3rd boss of Heart of Fear. So how did we get here?

19-september-2012  Heroic Madness
One week before Mists, Innovation kills Madness HC, just in time.

19-october-2012  Stone Guards
On the second night in MSV, we take down Stone Guards

7-november-2012 Feng
12-novenber-2012 Spiritbinder
19-november-2012 Spirit Kings
Randomness has always been a problem for Innovation, So we needed two weeks for Feng, but after that, a new kill every week.

3-december 2012 Zor'yok 
Oh, HoF, well..Elegon was buggy somewhere, so we went to HoF and killed this one the first night we where in there iirc.

Christmas-vacation, which means two weeks of non-raiding.

9-januar 2013 Elegon
Finally, in the first raidweek we did in 2013, Elegon dies.

15-januar-2013 Will of the Emperor
MSV cleared

21-januar Ta'yak
Tornado boss down in HoF


Now looking at the big picture, except for Elegon, Garalon and Feng, Innovation only needs one week to master a new fight, what is more remarkable is that Innovation almost never wipes on a boss after the first kill. Since our first Will of the emperor-kill, MSV had been cleared in one night... yeah, we are strange.

Feng took us two weeks, there was some trouble with the last phase, but that was mostly due to lag, so people where a little slow, and the fact that almost everyone needed to blow up the raid at least once.

Elegon was a very different problem. Elegon was a DPS-race for us, and then missing 1-2 dps every week, well... we did kill it with 24 the first time though.

Garalon at this moment looks the same as Elegon, we just need a little more DPS. And then not actually the DPS/player, but another dps-player  :)

If I count quickly, 5 months, around 22 weeks, for 16 bosses...  with a christmas vacation included and a levelling-time. Yes, a new tier is too soon for Innovation now. There is almost no way we could have concluded the tier before that.

Innovation is a normal raiding guild, which means we certainly don't force our members to cap VP every week. The goal for everyone is to have fun, and not to stand to many times in the fire. And with that I think we maybe one of median-guilds. A guild that should get enough time to clear the content at a reasonable pace.

In Cataclysm, Innovation cleared every normal content before the next tier, and in the last tier, which always last longer then others, we even got a Heroic clear. There is not much difference between last-year raiders of Innovation, and the current ones. 80% is still the same. So we should be much further. or we should have been given more time.

The problem here is the number of bosses. The first Tier of MoP has 6 bosses more then the first Tier of Cataclysm. Look where we are, at the 9th boss.  And we are maybe able to take down the first one or two from Terrace, but we haven't been there yet.

So, recapping, or TL;DR-version;
Yes, the new Tier is coming too soon for Innovation, considering the numbers of bosses that are available in the current tier. And remember, around 5 weeks of the last 22 where lost due to levelling and vacation. A few weeks more would have been more lenient to take down, and maybe a late march-release would have been more logical.

But alas, in two weeks, the Thunder King needs to be killed...  once more unto the breach it is then.

[RED:... 3 hours after this post, Innovation killed Garalon and are now battling the enrage timer of meljarak).]

Too busy to write??

Almost 5 months, oh my, time does sometimes goes fast. So, well, my last post was on the 18th of september. Innovation just killed Deathwing Heroic, that seems ages ago...

It's not that I haven't been playing, but between work, being in love and lots of stuff to do IN WoW, I actually did the latter. It's either playing or writing about WoW, although I am currently between LFR's with Verulani...  who?

Oh yeah, that's the first time that name comes around. Verulani is my Shaman, formerly known as Mariandel, and she is doing LFR's as my prime-alt. Yus, still raiding as boomer with Innovation, but my altism isn't gone.

And that's one of the things post aren't that forthcoming now, there is so much to do in-game. Raiding, levelling, dailies, LFR, more dailies, pet-battles.....well...more dailies.

Since the the start of Pandaria, I levelled 6 characters to 90. First was my hunter-gatherer, followed by my paladin and then Verulani. Around the last two I already had some of the inccrease-reputation-thingies, so that helped for Verulani.

After those 4 alliance, I gradually levelled ye ole Gowron, to look at the Horde-side, including the invasion-dailies....  and let me spoil something, if Garrosh is not going, the current Horde will break apart..so..  yes, methinks Garrosh will be history soon enough.

After Gowron, I noticed the huge amount of lockboxes I had accumulated on the alliance-side, and now my rogue is also level 90. Currently being levelled is my priest as disco through dungeons...not that fast though...and I also have a monk-mistweaver somewhere.

Monks...  I don't know, I tried low-level tanking, and healing, but didn't like it that much. SO my dorf-monk is now doing nothing...  my dorf-mage has a future again...with a bit of luck, Class Act will happen again...although Innovation already has Class-Act, a journey back to kill the minions of the Lich King seems in order now.

So...  enough to write about after 5 months. Pet battles, raiding, oh and 5.2..and much more, just some quick thoughts.

You don't have to do dailies, I figured out very quick that doing all available dailies will make you mad, and to be honest, I don't think I have been VP-capped in ages... well, by accident maybe.

Pet battles are very addictive, it reminds me of civilization's 'one-more-turn-syndrome', being 'one-more-pet' now. And I do have a lot now, even that achievement-plant-thingie.

Transmog...  yes I transmog, and although the new rules considering weapons are nice, it also is a shame. Just yesterday I went with Verulani into a BG to get some honorpoints because I had a new LFR-mace but no fitting mace to transmog to. In 5.2 I will just transmog it into an Axe....

Innovation and raiding; Innovation is not a hardcore-guild, so we have been happily progressing through the normals. Elegon held us up for about a month methinks, and that honour now seems to lie with Garalon, who is crushing us to death (although we already had a 7% wipe).

Is this slow, probably yes, but Innovation is a 25-man guild, and that can be a problem...the amount of times we had raids with less then 25 the last 4 months is huge, I think about 70% at least, and that is holding us back the most methinks. And what is most strange is that there aren't that many 25-man guilds on Argent Dawn (europe). So there should be more people wanting to raid 25's then the just maybe 100 currently in those few guilds...

Well... next reset MSV will be taken of the roster by Innovation, and we will be starting to look at the Terrace...which I very much like. The Terrace that is, not that gloomy as the other raids, just some open skies, and some sunlight...