Thunderforge and ilvl difference: A simple model

[syrant]

Hopefully this post is informative since Thunderforge is such a heavily discussed topic on these boards. I'll try to keep to the stats.

I wanted to answer how much TF items affect ilvl differences between 10/25m raids.

How I modeled/Assumptions:
Item lvl calculation as average of 14 equipment slots
Starting item level of 500 (all raid members have 14 500 ilvl items)
Each 10m boss drops 2 items, 25m drops 6 items
Respectively 10% and 25% TF drop rate (using wowprogress.com research)
No wasted drops, completely efficient (each 522 replaces a 500, each TF replaces a 522 if there are no 500)

Unaccounted: tier drops, valor items, bonus rolls, drop distribution efficiency

You can find the google doc spreadsheet for this here:
edit: Don't have privilege

Results:
Comparing a 10m guild vs a 25m guild with the same number of boss kills:
Every 12 boss kills will result in a ~0.96 item level gain for the 25m to the maxima of ~4.4 ilvl at 55 boss kills
At that point, the ilvl difference will rapidly shrink with more kills to minima of ~1.2 item level
From then on, every 12 kills will result in a ~0.2 item level gain for the 25m to a maxima of ~4.0 ilvl at 230 boss kills
After that, the ilvl difference will slowly dwindle to 0

This can probably be understood in phases:
phase 1: 25m gears up much faster than 10m at the start mainly because of higher item drop rate, maxes when everyone in 25m is 522+ geared vs some 500 items in 10m
phase 2: 10m decreases gap when it replaces out remaining 500 items
phase 3: 25m higher TF rate allows it to more quickly get everyone to 528 ilvl, increases gap
phase 4: 25m is all at 528, 10m decreases gap with each TF drop

Conclusions (from model):
25m will be 1-4 ilvl higher than 10m throughout the tier
Item lvl advantage is picked up largely from higher drop rate (6/25 vs 2/10, which is a 20% more)
TF items represent a long-term source of item level difference between raid sizes, but much less than drop rate

I would like to hear if there's anything major that I forgot to include within model. There are some mitigating and aggravating factors to the ilvl difference that is unmodeled (listed above) and that I judged wouldn't greatly change the end numbers.

tl;dr: 25m and 10m ilvl gap at the start of the tier is roughly the same (max of 4-5 ilvl). Before, 10m would then close gap to 0. Now, gap will remain and slowly increase over the course of the tier (from 1 to 4 ilvl).

[happyzod]

Hopefully this post is informative since Thunderforge is such a heavily discussed topic on these boards. I'll try to keep to the stats.

I wanted to answer how much TF items affect ilvl differences between 10/25m raids.

How I modeled/Assumptions:
Item lvl calculation as average of 14 equipment slots
Starting item level of 500 (all raid members have 14 500 ilvl items)
Each 10m boss drops 2 items, 25m drops 6 items
Respectively 10% and 25% TF drop rate (using wowprogress.com research)
No wasted drops, completely efficient (each 522 replaces a 500, each TF replaces a 522 if there are no 500)

Unaccounted: tier drops, valor items, bonus rolls, drop distribution efficiency

You can find the google doc spreadsheet for this here:
edit: Don't have privilege

Results:
Comparing a 10m guild vs a 25m guild with the same number of boss kills:
Every 12 boss kills will result in a ~0.96 item level gain for the 25m to the maxima of ~4.4 ilvl at 55 boss kills
At that point, the ilvl difference will rapidly shrink with more kills to minima of ~1.2 item level
From then on, every 12 kills will result in a ~0.2 item level gain for the 25m to a maxima of ~4.0 ilvl at 230 boss kills
After that, the ilvl difference will slowly dwindle to 0

This can probably be understood in phases:
phase 1: 25m gears up much faster than 10m at the start mainly because of higher item drop rate, maxes when everyone in 25m is 522+ geared vs some 500 items in 10m
phase 2: 10m decreases gap when it replaces out remaining 500 items
phase 3: 25m higher TF rate allows it to more quickly get everyone to 528 ilvl, increases gap
phase 4: 25m is all at 528, 10m decreases gap with each TF drop

Conclusions (from model):
25m will be 1-4 ilvl higher than 10m throughout the tier
Item lvl advantage is picked up largely from higher drop rate (6/25 vs 2/10, which is a 20% more)
TF items represent a long-term source of item level difference between raid sizes, but much less than drop rate

I would like to hear if there's anything major that I forgot to include within model. There are some mitigating and aggravating factors to the ilvl difference that is unmodeled (listed above) and that I judged wouldn't greatly change the end numbers.

tl;dr: 25m and 10m ilvl gap at the start of the tier is roughly the same (max of 4-5 ilvl). Before, 10m would then close gap to 0. Now, gap will remain and slowly increase over the course of the tier (from 1 to 4 ilvl).

So basically 25 mans are the easy version of raids now and 10 mans are the difficult version.

[Sesshou]

So basically 25 mans are the easy version of raids now and 10 mans are the difficult version.

Depends entirely on tuning. Were 25m the easy versions of raids back in WotLK? Cause they had higher ilvl then.

[Rinoa]

Depends entirely on tuning. Were 25m the easy versions of raids back in WotLK? Cause they had higher ilvl then.

You have to keep in mind that back then the 10-man raids were tuned to be easier than 25-man. Now they are not.

[Deleted]

In the pure RNG loot aspect 10-man got spit in the face from blizzard this tier round.
We have 11 classes, we still have items that only 1 class (or heck SPEC! - fucking int plate) can use, 10-man is getting a lot of disenchants even at the very beginning of the tier.
Then we have bloated loot tables, idiotic 1 token + 1 item model for tier set bosses, and on top of that... thunderforged shit. Double the fun disenchanting TForged int plate boots from first-reset kill in our Hpala-less raid...and not getting even a fucking haunting spirit.

We either need loot system overhaul or perhaps some smart in-combat spec detection that will prevent shard loot from dropping (ie. intellect plate in a raid where there is no paladin, or no paladins have holy as either of their specs)

Class stacking problems you say? Screw that, the only people that are doing it is the world first crowd with 99999 alt raids going on, they are achieving gear level they want on their classes anyway. No normal/heroic raiding guild isn't going to suddenly stack 50% of its raid with one best class just because loot systems got unified and no longer punish people for not having X or Y.

Token upgrade system from ICC + firestone heroic reagent from Firelands were extremely good systems, easeing a bit on the stiff RNG aspect that can screw you over very easily throwing you same disenchant loot every week over and over and over again.

[Sesshou]

You have to keep in mind that back then the 10-man raids were tuned to be easier than 25-man. Now they are not.

No, YOU have to keep in mind the first 4 words of the post you quoted.

[phyx]

So basically 25 mans are the easy version of raids now and 10 mans are the difficult version.

You can interpret it that way or the other - 25man are harder thus giving them higher ilevel is a reward for extra effort.

[shokter]

You can interpret it that way or the other - 25man are harder thus giving them higher ilevel is a reward for extra effort.

Blizzard's statements on the rationale haven't been black and white, but my understanding is the discrepancy is intended to reward the increased complexity of maintaining a roster/raid schedule and not for any increased challenge inherent to the 25m encounter per se.

[phyx]

Blizzard's statements on the rationale haven't been black and white, but my understanding is the discrepancy is intended to reward the increased complexity of maintaining a roster/raid schedule and not for any increased challenge inherent to the 25m encounter per se.

That is correct, but in the end, no matter how much they try they won't create equal encounters for both sizes. They are just refraining from describing one size harder than the other as that would cause massive qqs everywhere.

[Deleted]

You can interpret it that way or the other - 25man are harder thus giving them higher ilevel is a reward for extra effort.

25man is easier. Babbymode but still they want "incentives" to continue doing it when they already have the easier version.

[cFortyfive]

25man is easier. Babbymode but still they want "incentives" to continue doing it when they already have the easier version.

As usual - if that keeps you warm and fuzzy all night keep on believing that.

Anyways interesting looking at it from that angle even if it isn't really significant.

[Brakthir]

25man is easier. Babbymode but still they want "incentives" to continue doing it when they already have the easier version.

Hush. You have no idea what you're talking about.

[fangless]

So basically 25 mans are the easy version of raids now and 10 mans are the difficult version.

Do you have all Thunderforge when you're doing progression? Not really.