Nice to see you all enjoying end game crafting and theory crafting with so much energy. Per what Sethira and KinGurie did a great job of highlighting: Stacks achieved with basic touch will grant more quality than Hasty + Innovation roughly at 7 and less stacks. At 8 stacks the two methods appear to break even. And at 9 and more stacks Innovation + Hasty will grant slightly more quality. This is what my math last showed when I tested it.

In general what this means is that if you start with less starting quality (or have lower control) and are shooting for 9 or more stacks then Innovate+Hasty will be somewhat superior. While if you have lots of starting quality and only need 8 stacks then a basic touch method without Byregots wrapped in Innovation will be somewhat superior.

---

Personally speaking from my early crafting of 2 star items, I would generally start the final product with 1500-2000 starting quality and push to get 8+ stacks, use innovation and hit 100% quality. I could get more starting quality, but it usually came at a cost or extra hassle.

With my current crafting stats my use of innovation is essentially irreverent. Regardless if I choose to use an extra basic or innovation I hit an excess of 100% quality. Technically speaking IF i have some really terrible RNG an reach the final step short a stack (say 6 stacks and 18 excess CP left). Then it would be optimal for my load out to allow a hast + innovation as stastically it would grant me the highest chance of HQ. But this scenario hasn't occurred more than once in the last three months on an endgood.

---

So practically speaking the two techniques are incredibly close. To the point where keeping innovation loaded is somewhat hard to justify and not required. With this said I do use innovation more than reclaim, which would be the alternative in its slot (given my current loadout). Though I keep waste not I loaded for 40 durability one star macros (on my weaver) (instead of Innovation or Reclaim).