This file might be of some use to other multi-shaman teams, particularly folks doing arenas... It's very hastily thrown together and is still missing some key considerations, but still useful nonetheless.
Please give me feedback/suggestions!
http://overload.clintandcindi.com/Boylston's 4xShaman Theorycrafter.xls
you may want to take a crack at coming up with "typical" damage range, considering crit rate and such.
like if your crit rate is 30% vs resilienced targets, there's gonna be a
(0.7^4) = 24% chance for 0 crits
(0.3) * (0.7^3)*4 = 42% chance for 1 crit
(0.3^2) * (0.7^2) *6 =26% chance for 2 crits
(0.3^3)* (0.7) *4 = 7% chance for 3 crits
(0.3^4) = 0.8% chance for 4 crits
then you could multiply out by the base damage
typical 0 crit damage = base damage * 4 (24% chance)
typical 1 crit damage = base damage * 5 (42% chance)
typical 2 crit damage = base damage * 6 (26% chance)
typical 3 crit damage = base damage * 7 (7% chance)
that way you kinda know what to expect. Lets say the tool gives you 1.1k for base LB damage, you know that you will get at least 4.4k damage in 1 volley. You can hope for a double crit giving you 6.6k damage in a volley. If your target has over 6.6k health left you can be sure he will survive (since triple crit has such a low probability).
I think that would be pretty neat info.
If you want i can cook up a formula for the probabilities i listed above. (probability for 0, 1, 2, or 3 crits)
all-in-all a nice spreadsheet though!
I've done some work with Bernoulli Trials and binomial probability distributions in the past, so I'm familiar with how to calculate these probability tables. Of particular interest are situations where you crit at least once or where you crit at least <enough_to_kill_target>.
For example, you might say that your regular LBs do 1200 damage and crits (with Pcrit=0.30) do 2400 (0 resilience here, obviously). In two volleys (8 LB casts), you would kill a target of 13,000 health if you crit 3 times or more (3xcrit=7200 + 5xnormal=6000 for a total of 13,200). It's very interesting to use Bernoulli Trials to calculate the probability of getting 3 or more crits (~44%) as opposed to just calculating the probability for getting exactly three crits (which is only 25.4%).
There's a great Bernoulli Trials tool at http://people.hofstra.edu/stefan_wan...bernoulli.html that I've used for quick and easy calculations. Definitely agree that looking at these events in this fashion can be useful.