This morning, I did a little checking around on GankBang and found a few interesting tidbits of information. First, that a friend of mine isn’t Survival anymore (which is too bad, he had great gear for it). Second, that I’m way more awesome than I thought. And third, that this tool has flown under the radar for long enough.

By now, you should all be familiar with the ways that CharDev, WoWHead and Be Imba! can help you. (If not, you should be checking the sidebar like… now.) But what about GankBang?

Your ePeen is Bigger Than Mine

The first thing GankBang will tell you, in essence, is how big your ePeen is (or, in some cases, isn’t). The premise behind the site is that you can compare your stats to the stats of other players based on search criteria that you define on the index page.

For example, the search I just did was:
Class: Hunter, Talent Build: Survival, Stat: Agility, Level: 70, Battlegroup: Ruin, Realm: Medivh, Guilds: All, Faction: Alliance
I made sure it was set to “US Realms”, and I chose not to hide inactive characters.

Here’s the result:

What this tells me is that, of all the Alliance Survival hunters on Medivh, I have the 9th highest Agility score (Awesome!) out of 75. What I can infer from that is that if raiding guilds were recruiting Survival hunters, based on gear alone, my chances of finding a spot would be pretty good, as the competition would be relatively slim. However, it also tells me that I’ve got a ways to go to be “the best” on my server (at least in terms of having the highest Agility score–which is a chief stat for SV hunters).

ePeen Enlargement

Knowing how awesome you are is nice, but not really that helpful. So why then am I suggesting that this site should become some great tool in your arsenal? Because it shows you people that are doing the things you want to do, and doing them better.

The very first thing I did after taking a quick glance through the GB results was to view armory pages for my “rivals”. I ignored armory pages for those that had less Agility than I do–they’re insignificant peons not worthy of my time–and went straight for the armory pages of those hunters that had managed to stack more Agility than I have.

Here’s the information I’m looking for:

1. Is their gear predominantly from places I don’t currently have access to?
2. How much of their gear is identical to mine?
3. What did they do differently?

I want to know if they’re wearing T6 or not. If they’ve got half of their Gronnstalker’s set, then I know that their current Agility score may very well be out of my reach. What I’m trying to do here is look at those that are “better” than me, and see if I can use their current gear as a template of reasonably achievable goals for myself. If I’m looking at someone in Gronnstalker stuff, chances are that I’m not going to be able to catch up.

However, if they’re wearing a lot of the same gear I am, then chances are they’re probably at about the same progression level I am, and what pieces differ between us, I can probably get.

The snag, however, is when I find someone who’s wearing a lot of crafted gear that I can’t get, like BoP leatherworking stuff, for example. That’s why I want to take a look and see what things they did differently, if it does appear that we’re at about the same level of content progression. Perhaps they made a few “mistakes” here and there that I managed to do better with, but they found creative ways to compensate, and actually ended up better off for it. I want to try to pick their brain just by looking at their itemization choices, and hopefully glean some insight that I may have missed.

Trend Setters

The other things I pay special attention to are the gem and enchant choices of my “rivals”, especially if they’re wearing a lot of the same things I am.

Did this other hunter choose to gem two Delicate Crimson Spinels into a yellow and blue slot and forgo the +4 Agility socket bonus? How did this other hunter compensate for the two blue gem requirement of his/her Relentless Earthstorm Diamond? How much crit does this other hunter have, and do they appear to be putting more emphasis on that than on their Agi?

These are all things I’m thinking about as I look at the armory pages of these Agility Juggernauts. I’m trying to see patterns and trends, and thus infer lines of reasoning that may provide some new insight for me.

While GankBang may not provide plain-english (read: glaringly, hit-you-over-the-head obvious) benefits, through a little leg work and deductive reasoning, there’s a lot to be learned from the site. And who doesn’t enjoy seeing their name at the top of the Awesome List?