Patch 3.3

[Dren]

THAT'S what you mean by 3D burn?  Yeah, pass your drugs this way.  That isn't in any way using a sploit.  You dps high enough to kill the boss quicker.  In all other sploit cases, the tricks were used on things that were obviously not intended by the designers.  Eventually having groups be uber enough to burn through a boss's hp before the event kicked in?  That's happened to every bit of content up to now.

[Soulflame]

Yeah, this comparison is absolutely stupid.

3D burn - kill the boss really fast.  No game mechanics are exploited, it's just that DPS is silly high.  Blizzard could fix it by having the drakes land at 45s per (which they currently do) or at each 25% of Sarth's health.  They decided to not toss in a fix, because the fight was pretty much trivialized by Ulduar gear, and there were still two more tiers to go.

Saronite bombs rebuild the platform, preventing mobs from dragging players to their deaths, which means DPS doesn't have to target switch to mobs to save raid members, which puts more DPS time on the boss - clear, blatant, incontestable exploit of mechanics that is very obviously not intended.

[Nebu]

Saronite bombs rebuild the platform, preventing mobs from dragging players to their deaths, which means DPS doesn't have to target switch to mobs to save raid members, which puts more DPS time on the boss.

Seems to me to be pretty good play by people that understand game mechanics well. 

[Rasix]

Uhh no.  You're completely misunderstanding.  It's a completely unintended consequence of using a certain ability.

It's like discovering that Kick bugs out a boss preventing it from executing an ability that has no reason to be affected by Kick.

[Soulflame]

Except the intent of that phase is Arthas summons valkyrs to drag players over parts of the platform that have fallen down.  The raid is supposed to switch targets to the valkyrs (there's one in 10s, three in 25s) and burn them before they drag the players off of the platform.  The saronite bombs were rebuilding the platform, which meant the valkyrs were dragging the players to drop onto a platform, so they were entirely ignorable.

This is clearly an exploit.  I'm not even sure how it is possible to argue otherwise.

[Nebu]

Uhh no.  You're completely misunderstanding.  It's a completely unintended consequence of using a certain ability.

You're right.  I did misunderstand.  I need to stop posting in these threads until I have more experience.

[kildorn]

Except the intent of that phase is Arthas summons valkyrs to drag players over parts of the platform that have fallen down.  The raid is supposed to switch targets to the valkyrs (there's one in 10s, three in 25s) and burn them before they drag the players off of the platform.  The saronite bombs were rebuilding the platform, which meant the valkyrs were dragging the players to drop onto a platform, so they were entirely ignorable.

This is clearly an exploit.  I'm not even sure how it is possible to argue otherwise.

It's an exploit to do it on purpose. I think the question is did the rogue know it was the saronite bombs doing it, because they're apparently completely normal in his rotation on all bosses.

If it was something he was doing differently than any other boss, I'd immediately go "ban the fucker, go nuts", but since he's doing the exact same thing as always, it seems harsh to immediately drop the banhammer without further explanation as to why this needed more than rolling back the achievement/loot.

I'd personally be confused if Scourge Strike happened to cause a mechanic to not happen in a fight, but I wouldn't immediately go "hey, scourge strike is bugged!" because I'd lack enough data to confirm that it was that ability out of everything that was doing it. However, if I DO confirm that SS causes the fight to be easier due to a bug, and I plan the fight around doing so, ban my ass.

[WindupAtheist]

Well the forum noise is that the logs on their website mysteriously show no bombs hitting the LK during the bugged phase, the implication being that they were throwing them at the platforms instead. In any event, Blizzard was no doubt watching the whole thing and reading the chat logs. Unless these guys want to cough up a video showing them doing nothing wrong, fuck them. There's no reason to believe Blizzard just spastically banned them out of the blue.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Except the intent of that phase is Arthas summons valkyrs to drag players over parts of the platform that have fallen down.  The raid is supposed to switch targets to the valkyrs (there's one in 10s, three in 25s) and burn them before they drag the players off of the platform.  The saronite bombs were rebuilding the platform, which meant the valkyrs were dragging the players to drop onto a platform, so they were entirely ignorable.

This is clearly an exploit.  I'm not even sure how it is possible to argue otherwise.

It's an exploit to do it on purpose. I think the question is did the rogue know it was the saronite bombs doing it, because they're apparently completely normal in his rotation on all bosses.

If it was something he was doing differently than any other boss, I'd immediately go "ban the fucker, go nuts", but since he's doing the exact same thing as always, it seems harsh to immediately drop the banhammer without further explanation as to why this needed more than rolling back the achievement/loot.

I'd personally be confused if Scourge Strike happened to cause a mechanic to not happen in a fight, but I wouldn't immediately go "hey, scourge strike is bugged!" because I'd lack enough data to confirm that it was that ability out of everything that was doing it. However, if I DO confirm that SS causes the fight to be easier due to a bug, and I plan the fight around doing so, ban my ass.

Whether they knew what was causing it or not is besides the point.  They had done the fight before, beaten it in ten man.  The mechanics of the fight were clearly being broken by something, whether it was a saronite bomb, blizzards bad programming or baby jesus raising the platform up it was a bug.  They knew it was a bugged encounter and went ahead with the kill anyways, knowing they were doing it ezmode.  Even in the best case scenario they probably just thought they were lucky as hell but still went ahead with the encounter.  

There was a bug in the game.  They exploited this bug for the kill.  Game developers don't like you doing this. They should have known better.

[Draegan]

Anyone here playing on Mal'Ganis by any chance?  Looking for a guild.

I forgot about the "What server are you playing on." thread.

[Ingmar]

They finally nerfed prot pally HP a little, and brought DKs up a bit also, both were needed I think. Hopefully threat is up next on the plate.

[Rasix]

Hopefully threat is up next on the plate.

 

[Soulflame]

Bears frown upon your shenanigans, sir.

[Rasix]

They don't count.

[Soulflame]

Bears are peeeeeepuuul tooooooo.   

[Dren]

What's the issue with threat?  I assume you're speaking from a warrior point of view on multi-mob pulls?  I have to admit they need a boost.

From a prot pally perspective, ours is just right.  When I pull correctly and spread threat out, things go well.  However, it isn't OP enough to say there is no way to fail.  It can and does.  I've been in too many groups to count where the prot pally still screws things up and can't hold agro.  It is especially bad these days with dps classes doing 5k+ dps in standard heroic instances now.  Hell, I get DK's cracking 5k basically doing everything they can to pull agro from me at every corner.

Bears don't seem to have a problem, but I haven't tanked with mine yet.  I've rarely had the issues with bear tanks in groups I've healed compared to prot pally's.

DK's seem to do fine if they know what they are doing and keep diseases going correctly.  I think if DK's are willing to tank these days, they have enough confidence in their ability to trust they know what they are doing.  DPS DK's?  That's is completely hit or miss.

[Ingmar]

Protection paladin threat is much too high in multitarget situations and somewhat high on single targets. After this last patch, warrior single target threat is over the top. Conversely, DK threat is low in general. Bears are in a decent place.

Ideally I'd expect them to nerf paladin AE threat (probably the hammercleave), minorly nerf their threat in general via tweaking down the RF multiplier, back out some of the warrior shield slam threat change, and up DK threat slightly. Warrior AE threat doesn't need a change other than adjustments to the people they're tanking with.

EDIT: I'm not really talking about heroics here, but raid situations.

[Fordel]

Seal of Cleave is making paladin AE threat even more hilarious.

[Ingmar]

Oh right that was the other thing, it wouldn't terribly surprise me to see Seal of Command get a 'only with 2 handed weapons' type clause.

[Sjofn]

Ingmar's warrior threat versus my DK threat since the patch is ... really depressing. When we tank swap, he has to just auto attack a lot of the time.  I can keep threat off of my DPSers and stuff fine (or at least none of them seem to fuss about my threat ever), but the difference between me and the other tanks threat-wise is getting really obvious now.

[caladein]

Oh right that was the other thing, it wouldn't terribly surprise me to see Seal of Command get a 'only with 2 handed weapons' type clause.

That would make me cry, but it wouldn't change anything in raids.

Command is really only better AOE threat if packs last less than 25-30s.  Past that, and I usually am as an off-tank in ICC, I'm better off using Seal of Corruption and doing a bit of tab targeting before hitting HotR to make sure everyone's getting the Corruption DoT applied.

[Lightstalker]

I think the Sarth +3 example is really quite apt - the outrage over it only reenforces its appropriateness.  The example needed only to show that it is common in WoW raiding for players to discover the gimmick or trick to trivializing portions of boss fights.  It does this, in spades.

Sarth +3 is so named for the three additional dragons you have to fight while dealing with Sartharion.  By application of standard game mechanics players can not only negate portions of the encounter, they can avoid fighting the three additional dragons for which the encounter is named.  The belief here is that Sarth +3 is so clearly acceptable the comparison is comical, but I'm just pointing out that both are manifestations of the same general principle.

All the so called exploiters did was negate a phase of the fight using the tools available to any player in the game.  There was no code modification or injection here, this was just a bug in the marquee raiding event of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.  Blizzard responded to this bug not with an apology to the playerbase, but by blaming some customers for using the product incorrectly. 



Not having been banned previously I cannot really comment on still taking the money bit (and probably should have skipped that rhetoric), but this was a 72 hour suspension.  Presumably they expect the subscription to continue after the 72 hours have expired. 

[Rasix]

Nutbag.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Could you take this one wua?

[Musashi]

lol

Ignorant.

[LK]

Developers spend many man hours scripting / coding the pinnacle of an expansion.

Players break the complicated encounter in a way game designers / QA did not foresee due to they only have about 100 set of eyes and the internet having about eight hojillion.

Developers get extremely butt hurt over their perfect little thing being broken, even though it was likely to happen given the extreme complexity of programs and the likelihood that something was missed.

Ex-WoW player has a small chuckle at the drama between the hardcore and the hardcore (Devs / Top-Tier Players) and gets on with trying to figure out life outside the digital.

[Paelos]

Once the developers took out resist checks, they opened the door to anything they do being skullfucked in 24 hours after release. Not that I liked them, but when you make take gear down to the simplest forms, you can't stop the top end.

Or in another version, how many fights in Icecrown and beyond use the "Oh shit, stuff that's bad is stacking on the tank so you HAVE to swap." Expect that shit to continue on every boss along with enrage timers.

[Sheepherder]

Sarth +3 is so named for the three additional dragons you have to fight while dealing with Sartharion.

That's a rather tall assumption considering each add is a timed event.  On the other hand, assuming that bombs rebuilding exploded platforms is a bug is not a tall assumption.

Or: stop being a retard.

[Rendakor]

Paelos, as a tank I rather like the swapping due to debuff. It gives both tanks (or all 3 tanks) an equal amount of "work", rather than one MT and an OT on adds or some shit.

[WindupAtheist]

All the so called exploiters did was negate a phase of the fight using the tools available to any player in the game.  There was no code modification or injection here, this was just a bug in the marquee raiding event of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.  Blizzard responded to this bug not with an apology to the playerbase, but by blaming some customers for using the product incorrectly.

Seriously, is this 1998? Are you trying to explain how using a bug to break into someone's UO house should totally be allowed? They knew perfectly god damn well that throwing bombs at the platform to make it magically reappear was a bug, and they went ahead and did it anyway. (If they weren't throwing the bombs at the platforms deliberately, then where's the video? Normal DPS rotation my ass.) Then they got banned. Welcome to something we call How Shit Has Always Worked For As Long As This Genre Has Existed.

I mean I love this bullshit alternate universe you must live in. The one where the poopsocks didn't realize they were doing anything wrong, but the Blizzard guys were all "A bug? IN OUR CODE?! CHRIST I'M SO ANGRY, LET'S BAN THE TOP RAID GUILD FOR NO REASON!" Like bugs in brand new encounters are something unprecedented that they just weren't prepared to see without getting butthurt and going berzerk on the poor innocent raiders.

Your whole "But they didn't refund them for the time they were banned!" spew isn't even worth quoting.

Quit faggoting up the board with this garbage. It's old, old, older than shit and no one in history has EVER EVER EVER bought it.

[Paelos]

Paelos, as a tank I rather like the swapping due to debuff. It gives both tanks (or all 3 tanks) an equal amount of "work", rather than one MT and an OT on adds or some shit.

Yes, it does. However, it's an overused and clumsy force. It's the same way an enrage timer is used as a force on the dps. They are both reactionary elements to keep groups from stacking massive amounts of bad to average dps. That, or just having awesome heals. Blizzard hates good healers.

It's either a stacking debuff or a cleave, and it's always stupid. It's a force to keep the raid from taking one tank, when in reality when you are tanking on one thing, you should only need one tank.

In a world of dual spec, that's not too much too worry about anymore.

[Rendakor]

If raids only need 1 tank, instead of 3, less players are dedicated tanks. Which in turn leads to less tanks for heroics. Making longer queues for DPS, and the average Random heroic tank much worse, as it's only his poorly geared offspec.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I prefer tank swappage over "you only need one tank for most of these" fights. I wouldn't mind seeing more linked bosses like Twin Valks, both tanks are doing their tank thing without having to fuss with swapping, and it's equally important, unlike the "offtank stands in a corner with his or her mob and is ignored by everyone except a kind hearted healer" fights.

[kildorn]

Paelos, as a tank I rather like the swapping due to debuff. It gives both tanks (or all 3 tanks) an equal amount of "work", rather than one MT and an OT on adds or some shit.

Yes, it does. However, it's an overused and clumsy force. It's the same way an enrage timer is used as a force on the dps. They are both reactionary elements to keep groups from stacking massive amounts of bad to average dps. That, or just having awesome heals. Blizzard hates good healers.

It's either a stacking debuff or a cleave, and it's always stupid. It's a force to keep the raid from taking one tank, when in reality when you are tanking on one thing, you should only need one tank.

In a world of dual spec, that's not too much too worry about anymore.

They seem to be forgiving a bit on number of tanks required in 10 man. But the general idea is x% of the raid should be Y role. Mainly because making a 25 man raid only ever need 1 tank 3 healers and 21 DPS does nothing but make sure that outside of raids dps can't find a damned group and inside raids tanks and healers can't.

Is it a lazy method of doing it? Yeah, but it's the only really guaranteed method of doing it. Every time they make it multiple mobs that need tanking as a single "boss" fight, some jackass gears their tank right for the mechanics and gets badass healers and tanks everything himself.

I really don't think Blizzard hates Healers though. I can't see anything in the game that implies that at all. Hell, my healers tend to feel like the golden children of WoW (priests get all the love). WoW hates PALADINS, however. <3

I will say that resist fights as a mechanic are less "cool, something different!" as much as "go here, farm gear" with a side of "dump 3-5k gold into these epic crafted items with shitty stats in order for ONE boss to be less of a bitch"

Seriously, bring on the tank swapping if it means we don't need to bitch the entire raid out to go get fucking resist gear.

[SurfD]

I think the Sarth +3 example is really quite apt - the outrage over it only reenforces its appropriateness.  The example needed only to show that it is common in WoW raiding for players to discover the gimmick or trick to trivializing portions of boss fights.  It does this, in spades.

See, there is a MAJOR difference between Sarth 3D burns, and Saronite Bombs in the lich king encounter.

A Sarth 3d burn is not actually fundamentally changing the behaviour of the encounter.  It is essentially nothing more then takeing advantage of the way damage increases as gear increases.  More gear means more damage, means the boss dies faster.   And in a timed, scripted event like Sarth, where the drakes land on a FIXED timer, simple math says that if you can kill the boss before the second drake lands, it isn't an exploit, but simply an unintended consequence of greatly increased dps.

The lich king encounter is Scripted in such a way that the outer portions of his encounter area break away, and mobs grab your players and attempt to drop them to their doom.  The platforms are 100% NOT intended to come back after breaking away, so it is pretty obvious that when the platforms magically (can be intentionally forced to) respawn, thereby completely removing an entire dimension of that phaze of the encounter from consideration, somethiing is very wrong.