CM "tricks" - MoP and future

[YggdraIO]

Ever since MoP, something has been nagging at me. For my initial gold run on my main, my guild organized a core group and spent weeks formulating the best methods and getting the final rewards was one of the most memorable aspects of the expansion. Then I went to get Gold on my alt on another server. Because I did not have a full-time guild there, and hated the idea of paying for a run, I resorted to OpenRaid. I found a great group one day and finished the majority of all the runs in one session, but I had a bad feeling about some of the tactics the group used, and I think this has become a pretty gray area concerning CMs.

The stuff that bothered me was A) Resetting the archer event in Scarlet Halls so that his small adds count twice towards the kill count B) LoSing Jandice to prevent her mirror images phase in Scholomance and C) Clicking the cleansing ritual in SPM with more than one person, to skip subsequent packs. I attempted to go back and re-run SH after I got the achievement, just to do it "organically," and at least three subsequent groups used the same strategy, making finding a PUG CM group that late in the expansion that wasn't relying on these strategies pretty much impossible.

Now it seems impossible Blizz doesn't know about these strats. That doesn't necessarily mean they aren't exploits, though. So I guess I was just hoping for some opinions. I am looking to break into WoD CMs very soon, and I assume tactics like these exist there as well. More than anything, I want to feel like I earned the achievement on the alt fairly. I realize this whole thing will probably sound absurd to a lot of people, but I try to be a purist when it comes to gaming. Thanks for any feedback and/or response.

[Saiyoran]

WoD CMs have their fair share of these tricks. You can still wall-jump in Everbloom to skip part of it, most people lock portal through the invis wall in Shadowmoon if they have a lock, Dark Sim trivializes numerous encounters (last boss in Bloodmaul is the biggest one), some people reset the mob at the end of Skyreach and Bloodmaul with a hunter, etc.

I think the only really "required" one that pretty much every group will use is the Everbloom one because the timer is just too tight to not do it and still have leeway to make mistakes in the run.

[Schizoide]

If they fix the exploits/tricks, they need to drop required times and reset leaderboards. They have said they're doing that for Everbloom, but not for Skyreach.

[Tehterokkar]

If they fix the exploits/tricks, they need to drop required times and reset leaderboards. They have said they're doing that for Everbloom, but not for Skyreach.

All you win is roughly 15 seconds in Skyreach, it's not that big of a deal. For Everbloom I agree though.

[Crimsonfell]

Like the above posters said, Everbloom is pretty much the only one you would use an "exploit" but all you do is climb up the hills..and blizzard has blocked off climbing hills and walls before to prevent you from doing things like this, so they must know that people would be doing it to make the time, and Everbloom is very stingy on time.

As for the others, you can pretty much just chain pull the instances if you have good dps, and just lock them down, utilizing your setup to the best of its capability, maybe using an invis potion through packs you don't want to deal with and still have a good time---not to mention still qualify for realm best times just by doing things the simple way. It will just depend on what you have on your team and how well they know their class, just as blizzard intended. I should mention that, when we first started CMS when WoD launched and we lvl cappd and got the gear, we pretty much just entered the instances without watching anyone else doing it, and just did a few pulls to see how fast we could go and managed to got most of our golds that way, our only exemption was the everbloom.

[Schizoide]

All you win is roughly 15 seconds in Skyreach, it's not that big of a deal.

It's not a big deal for me either, but it probably is for people going for leaderboards.

[Deleted]

If they fix the exploits/tricks, they need to drop required times and reset leaderboards. They have said they're doing that for Everbloom, but not for Skyreach.

That is the biggest reason imo. There is no 'fair' way to go about it, regarding leaderboards.

I know what you mean, OP, when you talk about going back and finishing the runs with 'legit' tactics. I as well did all runs towards the end of MoP and it was impossible to find groups for legit runs.
Now I've done the WoD CMs asap, before the sell runs went rampant, and before the the abuses were known. It's possible and more fun anyway

It's weird they picked Everbloom. The way we did it was kill the flowers to the far left end of the first 'hallway', then run up the cliff to the tree boss. After killing it we went round the tree and engi-glidered over the path to the first boss to the other side. From what I hear that was altered. Just... why? I think all the pre-run setup shit like Skyreach is 100% an abuse. Running up a hill and using an engi glider like in Everbloom does not feel like an abuse at all. Well, whatever, I'll stop ranting.
@OP, it's possible to do legit runs atm

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All you win is roughly 15 seconds in Skyreach, it's not that big of a deal. For Everbloom I agree though.

Yeah, and what are 15 seconds in a time-run setting where runs are <10 minutes, right?
Right? :/

[Tehterokkar]

Yeah, and what are 15 seconds in a time-run setting where runs are <10 minutes, right?
Right? :/

15 seconds is something you can easily gain by getting good trinket RNG and just slowly starting to rush the dungeon faster and faster. The times improve all the time.

Of course gear also plays a small role, getting the BiS gear will help with catching up. Granted Sockets don't work, but still getting perfectly itemized pieces will make a difference.

[Gumboy]

15 seconds is something you can easily gain by getting good trinket RNG and just slowly starting to rush the dungeon faster and faster. The times improve all the time.

Of course gear also plays a small role, getting the BiS gear will help with catching up. Granted Sockets don't work, but still getting perfectly itemized pieces will make a difference.

So the people that got them first had an unfair advantage that you need RNG to beat, and you think that is fine?

[Mormolyce]

The stuff that bothered me was A) Resetting the archer event in Scarlet Halls so that his small adds count twice towards the kill count B) LoSing Jandice to prevent her mirror images phase in Scholomance and C) Clicking the cleansing ritual in SPM with more than one person, to skip subsequent packs. I attempted to go back and re-run SH after I got the achievement, just to do it "organically," and at least three subsequent groups used the same strategy, making finding a PUG CM group that late in the expansion that wasn't relying on these strategies pretty much impossible.

A) Could be done easily without resetting the archers, you just pulled an extra pack at the base of the stairs (and/or a dog pack around the corner, forget exactly), the timer for SH gold was super lenient so that one was really just a convenience.

B) Doing the fight without LoS made it a lot harder, you'd either use the JandiceHelper addon or a Hunter could use Hunter's Mark and some careful observation to spot her. That Jandice thing was ridiculous really.

C) I'd say this one was tricky to do without the exploit, but not incredibly so. You had to pull extra mobs, which could be killed in relatively short order so it really only added more time - the timer in SPM wasn't super difficult to beat so you had room, the main issue was the length of the place and how much it would wear on your patience if you failed the timer multiple times.

I personally used all three on most runs, though I did do 9/9 without A) and I think C) too at one point. Could be wrong on C), memories of my first runs are dim now.

WoD CMs have their fair share of these tricks. You can still wall-jump in Everbloom to skip part of it, most people lock portal through the invis wall in Shadowmoon if they have a lock, Dark Sim trivializes numerous encounters (last boss in Bloodmaul is the biggest one), some people reset the mob at the end of Skyreach and Bloodmaul with a hunter, etc.

I think the only really "required" one that pretty much every group will use is the Everbloom one because the timer is just too tight to not do it and still have leeway to make mistakes in the run.

People use the Everbloom skips in NM as well though!

[Equoowe]

The stuff that bothered me was A) Resetting the archer event in Scarlet Halls so that his small adds count twice towards the kill count B) LoSing Jandice to prevent her mirror images phase in Scholomance and C) Clicking the cleansing ritual in SPM with more than one person, to skip subsequent packs. I attempted to go back and re-run SH after I got the achievement, just to do it "organically," and at least three subsequent groups used the same strategy, making finding a PUG CM group that late in the expansion that wasn't relying on these strategies pretty much impossible.

The stuff groups did for times in MoP and in Wod went much further then just these few tricks, Blizzard doesn't seem to consider even the worst of them to be exploits so I see nothing wrong with using them and none of them are needed to get gold.

15 seconds is something you can easily gain by getting good trinket RNG and just slowly starting to rush the dungeon faster and faster. The times improve all the time.

Of course gear also plays a small role, getting the BiS gear will help with catching up. Granted Sockets don't work, but still getting perfectly itemized pieces will make a difference.

The wall jump in Skyreach is a much bigger deal then 15 seconds, the packs you are skipping are replaced with packs that are much easier to group up and aoe down, just getting gold is a bit different but pushing times it is a big thing, also most groups without the wall jump would invis pot the first pack which means you have no dps pots for most of the run.