Entry 10 - Who imba? U imba!

Alright, I've been a little strapped for WoW time lately, but I have managed to make some progress here and there. For one, I finally got my epic flier! Let me tell you what, the 280% increased travel speed is STUPID. I've never managed to do anything so freaking quick in my gaming life, it's changed the way I think about any task in the game. The bombing run missions are trivial, and I'm usually forced to float around waiting for the bomb cool-down to wrap up. The Ogri'la quest took me just about two minutes, maybe a little over if you count accepting and turning in the quest. TWO MINUTES.

But enough ranting on the super mount (that I shall leave for a later post!), I'm here to talk about a quick little search that can yield some cool results. Just how imba is your character? Be ready to find out.

First, head over to be.imba.hu; if you're on a US server, be aware that the site has had problems accessing the US armory, but those issues seem to have been resolved. Enter your realm and your toon's name, and hit that search key. What you end up with is something like this:

Feren, who is just-sort-of-imba.

What happens is that your character is assessed based on their gear and major stats as to where in the end game PVE you might best fit in. It even ranks you based on your efficiency in regard to grinding, PVP, PVE. Keep in mind, it is just assessing your current armory profile, so if you happen to log out wearing a pretty purple dress, no matter how OP your warrior/priest/rogue/brewmaster is, it will still think you're geared primarily in a frilly dress.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's what gets your rage flowing.

Just sayin'.

Anyway, take my assessment for instance. I happened to be logged out in my grinding gear, or what I take as my grinding gear. All my spell-hit gear is sitting happily in my bags. So when they check my stats, they are seeing a relative deficiency in spell hit, and a focus on my spell damage; perfect grinding setup.

Even then, it's telling me I'm more or less geared to start Zul'aman. That's refreshing, and I'd be excited to try it...if they're right.

You have to take all this with a grain of salt. This in no way checks for the talents of the PLAYER. Skill cannot be tracked, except perhaps by gear, assuming that you earned all of it and didn't just ride on the coat-tails of an established guild. Ultimately the deciding factor will be the skills of yourself and your group.

I say group because I think this would be an interesting way to gauge potential raid members. Most guilds, if not all guilds, check armory profiles as part of the recruitment process. This kind of does some of that work for you, albeit in a very superficial manner. Good GMs and raid leaders should still take the time to parse this info out for themselves, as they are the real experts on what their particular group needs and how certain players might fit.

Still, it's kind of an ego boost (or humbling experience!) to see how you fit into the end-game. So, readers, just how imba are you?