Learn how to get imba with Be Imba!
by Mike Schramm 
Feb 28th 2008 at 9:01AM
As I said, US players aren't really working at this point, and the site blames the Armory's instability (one more reason for Blizzard to start breaking out the stats). But I looked up an EU player I know (as you can see above), and the app is pretty cool -- it'll tell you where you're missing sockets, where your gear could be better, what your talents are "meant for," and where to run instances so you can get better gear. Pretty neat.
Now, a disclaimer: you should always spec and gear how you like, not how some online application tells you to. But everyone should be interested in making their character better, and a setup like this could be very helpful in figuring out how to get where you want to be going. Hopefully the site's creator (early apologies for sending traffic to the site, but it'll die down after a while) will figure out how to work with the Armory, or Blizzard will get it into their heads that opening up Armory info in XML or other open formats will make this easier for everyone.
[Via AA in its slick new location]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Balasan Feb 28th 2008 9:11AM
Very nice!
My gear is excellent, though I find it silly that even though I have 3 items from MH (gloves, shield, belt), I'm being told my gear is still t5 level... *sigh*.
Maybe I *am* dragging my raid down ><
But otherwise, this rocks lots.
Ted Feb 28th 2008 9:12AM
It's been around for a little while and was working fine. We even added it to our guild app page as a link the applicant has to provide. My guess is that every time something cool and armory based comes out it stresses out the underpowered US armory servers.
Problem is the US armory blows. It's slow and frequently doesn't even provide results when it does work. be.imba requires a working armory to provide data.
Same with wowjutsu... which unfortunately has been suffering while the armory is struggling.
Remnever Feb 28th 2008 9:18AM
Just tried it, I'm on US Ursin and it worked fine (armory must be working). It seems to be off as to what level instance I should be in. From what I have heard in the forums I am about +400 Healing below what is needed for Kara. Oh well, still cool.
Patyn Feb 28th 2008 12:16PM
Yeah, it's working ok for US - Scarlet Crusade too. Actually, BRK introduced us to this in his personal blog just a little while ago and our guild has loved it. Sure, there's a little personal preference to factor in...but it's got some helpful ideas too.
Tetelestia Feb 28th 2008 9:22AM
Very cool. I guess I have a few improvements to make after all
John Feb 28th 2008 9:31AM
What a mature and inoffensive Guild name, what stunning examples of humanity you and your friend must be. What a clever double entendre! Grow up!
ben Feb 28th 2008 9:51AM
I quite agree. Honestly, of all the millions of characters that could be used to illustrate this post, you choose one with a guild name like that? I'm not one for insulting strangers, but at best you're an idiot. And as for your friend's 'funny' guild name, well that's not even close to qualifying for idiot-level.
Regis Feb 28th 2008 9:57AM
Huh? That's the great Turpster that you whine about!
And the wording of the guild name probably refer to the Naga. The race in WoW. Remember it?
ben Feb 28th 2008 10:00AM
@regis: Please, don't be naive. Naga has only one 'g', and there's no well-known phrase 'Naga Please'. It's a cheap reference to a word that's synonymous with racism, and there's no call for it.
Chuddy Feb 28th 2008 10:07AM
John you must be hopelessly offended to the point of suicide by nearly every player in the game. There is hardly a guild, character name, or any number of people in the capital cities that yell something completely offensive. How can you not know who turpster is though? Seriously. He's mentioned here a lot and is on almost all the podcasts. It's just a joke. Chill winston.
Mixx Feb 28th 2008 11:16AM
@ben - yes there is a common phrase "nagga please" made popular by South Park.
Which I'm pretty sure someone of your moral fiber would not watch :p
Yes, it is a cheap veiled reference to racism, however it is still a pretty common phrase - don't be naive.
ben Feb 28th 2008 12:19PM
Well, there's the thing, right? In South Park, yes it's a thinly-veiled reference to racism - that's what South Park does; social commentary by fouled mouthed little kids that can be very funny.
If you take this out of the context of South Park, and for anyone not 'in the know' it just looks like cheap racism, i.e. not a reference to racism, but actual racism. Even if that's not the intention. Some words you can't really afford to bandy around in a casual manner, and the N word is one of them.
I guess one other point is that it would be easy to illustrate Imba without even bringing this whole topic up. So why shouldn't the author not just take a bit more care?
grab Feb 28th 2008 3:04PM
Is a comment which references a particular race, was created by, and most commonly used by that same race, actually racism? I suppose one can be racist against their own race, which still doesn't make it right. Judging all of any race by what the mainstream of society's eye sees in movies, TV or any other forms of entertainment is certainly naiveté. But face the facts: It is funny. People who think otherwise are either idealists who probably don't even know anyone of that race or sitting at their panther party every week to show their "true colors." I have friends and associates who are of the race referenced by this pun and if I were to say that phrase, they would assuredly laugh at me because I’m "white." There, I said it. I am a color, and the only way it defines me is by my visual description.
wyrd Feb 28th 2008 5:40PM
How about you guys just find something better to do with your time then find things that you can be offended by?
wyrd Feb 28th 2008 5:48PM
Also, @ grab
you know naggas? OMG awesome!
Arabelli Feb 28th 2008 9:32AM
What I found weird is that it said I was under hit cap at 13%. It definately looked at my spec, and had to see I have Elementa Precision. I wonder why it didn't factor it in?
Regardless, with a little tuning, this definately could be neato!
Narlic Feb 28th 2008 9:33AM
The armory information *is* in XML. There's an XSLT applied in your browser. If you connect with an unknown user agent, the stylesheet may get applied server side, but if for instance you were to use wget with a user agent of Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; bla bla bla) you can fetch the XML for characters (queried by realm and toon name) and items (queried by item ID).
I was working for a little while on a "quickarmory" site for my own use which would keep a local cache of sheets I'd requested, and would transform the data sheet into something a little less "ooh I'm a gamer I can't pay attention to anything without t3h grafix".
Unfortunately, they don't do something sane like report the actual last updated time for the data in the HTTP headers, so the caching part isn't really viable (unless you want to sacrifice correctness, which I don't, so nyah)
mensrea Feb 28th 2008 9:36AM
"Hopefully . . . Blizzard will get it into their heads that opening up Armory info in XML or other open formats will make this easier for everyone."
You do realize that the armory data is ALREADY in XML format, don't you?
Bearskunk Feb 28th 2008 10:05AM
wouldn't mind a PvE/PvP option :)
Silverslide Feb 28th 2008 9:39AM
>Blizzard will get it into their heads that opening up Armory info in XML or other open formats will make this easier for everyone.
>>
The Armoury already is xml based; see that character you linked to? "Character-Sheet.xml"; notice the file extension? The page you see is simply being transformed by a stylesheet (view source to see) it's still Xml.
You might ask for a more stable and more thorough service but I think it's a reasonable one at the moment.