Looking back on the Ensidia Saronite Bomb Ban:

[adelerollsinthedeep]

i think it makes you a smart player

the spellsteal was hotfixed an hour or two after vodka killed it though so i assume it wasn't intended

the reason people use questionable tactics is because they know there is only a 50/50 chance they will get banned but there is a 100% chance they will get an advantage

so its a no brainer

[Deleted]

They used saronite bombs. They claimed it was "accidentally", but they never show any actual proof:
- no video - they said no one frapsed world first kill of lich king, yeah right,
- no logs - they show some screenshots of wol parse. It's hard to edit html code in notepad and screenshot edited page .

because it was fucking NON HEROIC LK we are talking about. nobody cares about NH LK Videos so why would you fraps it please tell me ?

[Kuthe]

Eh. Never liked Ensidia.

That post is stupid because it's full of bias.
I read it, but it was a waste of time.

They got banned, deal with it.
It's years old now. Old old news.

[lordjust]

I've read a post from one of the officers from Ensidia and I think it was the right thing to give them a temporary ban. Back then it was said that they used the saronite bombs and knew that something wasn't right and made a bug report but instead of waiting or changing their tactics (like Paragon did with Sinestra in Cata) they just used the same tactic and used the exploit to make their kill.

It's one thing if you use an exploit without knowing about it or using one when you know that it exists and you even know what causes it. The high ranking people back then always said they didn't know but one of the officers that left some weeks after said they knew exactly.

Also since most of the old Nihilum people left the game Ensidia is more or less dead. They couldn't manage to get world or EU first kills and their raid groups fell apart. At the moment there are about 30 active members and they raid in 2x10 man and they planed to merge with some other guild but I think that didn't worked out.

The sad thing is that in high end raiding one of the best guilds is gone (Nihilum) so that there isn't the thrill anymore to see which guild gets the world first kill. At the moment there are only 3 Guilds worth mentioning and that are Vodka, Method and Paragon. They are on par and it's more like the luckiest one will get the world first. Nihilum (or later on Ensidia) always had some crazy tactics to get world first and just seeing them play was fun and inspiring. The other guilds play also on a very high skill level but they play "the normal way" without some crazy things.

[afkranker]

I've read a post from one of the officers from Ensidia and I think it was the right thing to give them a temporary ban. Back then it was said that they used the saronite bombs and knew that something wasn't right and made a bug report but instead of waiting or changing their tactics (like Paragon did with Sinestra in Cata) they just used the same tactic and used the exploit to make their kill..

You forget that we waited two weeks with MANY petitions to have the Algalon in-combat bug fixed. At that point it was apparent Blizzard was not going to respond in a timely fashion to the future petitions. S,o Ensidia was supposed completely stop trying to kill LK when every other top-end guild and their mother was, try to find what was causing the bug through BRUTE FORCE? Yes, Ensidia was aware of the bug, but EVERY END GAME BOSS HAS BEEN BUGGED ON RELEASE. There simply wasn't time to analyze what could be causing the bug, with all the other guilds competing for that same kill.

[Tekloth]

Now, to end this silly debate once and for all:

But when the bug happened on one of our wipes then we noticed that the Val'kyrs dropped people off on the platform again. So when the bug would accur again there wasn't any reason for us to damage them since they would drop people on the platform again.

HOW IS THAT NOT EXPLOITING A BUG?
How is that not ignoring a key mechanic of the fight?

When they didn't DPS the val'kyrs, they gave themselves an easier enrage timer to start with because they didn't "lose" 2.1M damage (700k hp per val'kyr) per wave. Not that the enrage timer was even an issue on normal though. BUT, there's a 2nd threat from the val'kyr: if you didn't kill them, they killed people (unless you were a warlock and could use demonic portal or whatever the hell the teleport is called). On Paragons video* of their 25 man normal kill they get 4 waves of val'kyr, that's 8.4M damage "lost" from Lich King to the val'kyr and 4 chances of 3 people dying.

Besides:

The most funny this is that this bug wouldn't even have affected us. We have a working strategy for every part of the fight.

Why on earth didn't they just kill the val'kyr then, instead of ignoring them?


It makes no sense to me when people try to defend Ensidia on this ban, when it's blatantly obvious that this was ignoring a key mechanic of a boss fight which is supposed to kill people if not dealt with.


There would've been nothing wrong if they would've still killed the val'kyr even after the bombs had "reset" the platform back to full size. They didn't, thus the whole ban was brought upon them by themselves. End of story.


*No fanboyism included, I could've chose any video, this was just the easiest one to find

Every time I see people defending Ensidia on this and reasoning, or trying to explain why this ban wasn't justified makes me want to do bad things to small, cute and fluffy kittens.

[Gnarles Malarkey]

So many BUGS in those encounters that I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN EXPLAIN THEM ALL and so I WILL NOT ATTEMPT TO RATIONALIZE MY ARGUMENT FURTHER.

(You do realize how self-righteous this sounds, yeah?)

[Dragonwing]

tbh, im fine with the fact they got banned. What I dislike, is Paragon cheated on Nefarian by using a blatant druid exploit and no action was taken.

but, its old news now

Getting a buff that increases the damage on the next attack, using said buff on a high damage DoT, that is a blatant exploit? I guess using Avenging Wrath and Holy Avenger at the same time is an exploit too, because I'm using the 20% damage buff from Avenging Wrath on the string of Shield of the Righteous casts that I get from Holy Avenger.

[potis]

The fight was not tested, as is every last boss fight since forever, hence so broken over the years , they need to be secretive to leave some excitement/actual race.

Nihilum got banned cause Blizzard once more, fucked up and it was the easier way to cover it up cause the boss simply died too fast cause normal version was piss easy as every normal version is.

Nihilum along with other top guilds that hit these bosses first, find bugs people will NEVER see or hear of.

As example, did you know back in AQ40, on C'thun the first couple of times Nihilum went inside the stomach there was a chance for Ouro to spawn and destroy the raid, a whole different boss would spawn in the middle of the fight, got hotfixed instantly, only a few that used to read elitistjerks would have heard about this back in 2006.

They didnt get banned for that or any other bug.

The World Of Logs back then clearly showed the rogue that used Saronite bombs, has been using them in his rotation for the last ~6-8 months ever since Ulduar Hard Mode period, therefor it wasnt an "intended" exploit, it just happened, cause the boss wasnt tested properly as EVERY last boss has been since the start of the game as i already mentioned.

The fact they didnt kill Valkyrs? Its simple, they stopped being a threat, bug or not, a world first is a world first, its not the guilds problem, blizzard fails to code, that same guild has experienced every single bug first since forever.

World First Vashj in TBC, the moment she died, she respawned instantly while the loots were there on the other Vashj corpse and wiped them, hence the joke "Last time he was seen, charging towards 27 Lady Vashj's" is from that "bug", they claimed dual kills that week, they didnt get banned, it was hotfixed a few days after.

Blizzard banned them for no reason cause the boss died way too fast after its release day cause it wasnt supposed too die that fast, its the great Lich King, and it died like Marrowgar.

[Deleted]

it all comes down to if they knew what was causing the plattform to bug or not. If they did not, they could not do anything about it, apperently it did not bug out every time. if they knew, they deserved it.

[Deleted]

The sad thing is that in high end raiding one of the best guilds is gone (Nihilum) so that there isn't the thrill anymore to see which guild gets the world first kill. At the moment there are only 3 Guilds worth mentioning and that are Vodka, Method and Paragon. They are on par and it's more like the luckiest one will get the world first. Nihilum (or later on Ensidia) always had some crazy tactics to get world first and just seeing them play was fun and inspiring. The other guilds play also on a very high skill level but they play "the normal way" without some crazy things.

Can you remember how Paragon dealt with seeds on Ragnaros heroic or defile on Lich King 25man heroic? What about feral druid stacking on Nefarian, paladin stacking on Anub'arak, 17maning Al'akir phase 1 or bear kiting big adds on Cho'gall heroic phase 1 to defeat the enrage timer? Yeah... All top 3-5 guilds will at some point pull out some crazy stuff to defeat an otherwise unkillable boss, you probably just haven't watched enough boss kill videos. Also Vodka is nowhere near the top level of Paragon and Method at least not during tier 11 and 12 which are the recent 12 judgeable tiers.

[Tekloth]

The fight was not tested, as is every last boss fight since forever, hence so broken over the years , they need to be secretive to leave some excitement/actual race.

Nihilum got banned cause Blizzard once more, fucked up and it was the easier way to cover it up cause the boss simply died too fast cause normal version was piss easy as every normal version is.

Nihilum along with other top guilds that hit these bosses first, find bugs people will NEVER see or hear of.

They didnt get banned for that or any other bug.

The World Of Logs back then clearly showed the rogue that used Saronite bombs, has been using them in his rotation for the last ~6-8 months ever since Ulduar Hard Mode period, therefor it wasnt an "intended" exploit, it just happened, cause the boss wasnt tested properly as EVERY last boss has been since the start of the game as i already mentioned.

The fact they didnt kill Valkyrs? Its simple, they stopped being a threat, bug or not, a world first is a world first, its not the guilds problem, blizzard fails to code, that same guild has experienced every single bug first since forever.

Blizzard banned them for no reason cause the boss died way too fast after its release day cause it wasnt supposed too die that fast, its the great Lich King, and it died like Marrowgar.

It's funny how easily people turn the blame on Blizzard on this case, not to mention how biased they make Blizzard out to be. I'm sure that they have certain requirements which need to be fulfilled in order for a bug to become bannable when taken use of.

For example they don't ban for bugs which, due to a boss mechanic increase your dps (Paragon/Nefarian), or a boss mechanic which is so tightly tuned that it requires special tactics (Ensidia/Hodir, Multiple guilds/Anub'arak) because they do not ignore any mechanics of the fight, they make use of those mechanics or trash mobs. The Anub'arak example is really a case which is threading on a fine line between being ok and bannable, because when you still killed the adds, you didn't ignore the mechanics of the fight. For example if you could've done this chain stun with the val'kyr on Lich King, it most likely wouldn't had been bannable, but rather just hotfixed like the Anub'arak encounter was.

But when a bug makes you able to ignore boss mechanics and you take use of it, it starts fulfilling the requirements of a bannable "offense", not necessarily making it bannable unless you can ignore the mechanic altogether.

Let's go through some of those bugs which Kungen mentions in his blog, and assume that Blizzard starts handing out bans for fully ignoring a mechanic/s of the fight:

Onyxia: It was possible to stand on ledges to avoid getting feared into fires.
Ignoring boss mechanics? No, you still get feared, which is intended. If you were lucky you didn't run to flames even if you stood on the ground.
Bannable? No. You still get feared, no matter where you stand.


Gruul: You could use Limited Invulnerability Potion to avoid his main ability Shatter.
Ignoring boss mechanics? Yes, for a single Shatter. Usable on every Shatter? No.
Bannable? No, you didn't fully ignore the mechanic because you couldn't use it on every Shatter.


Kil'Jaden: You could avoid getting add spawns with Bubble and Iceblocks.
Ignoring boss mechanics? Yes, but only if you got adds from Paladins or Mages.
Bannable? No, you didn't fully ignore the mechanic, you still got adds from other players.


Anub'Arak: Holy Wrath bug which was used on the World first on purpose. WRU bans?
Ignoring boss mechanics? Yes and no. You still get adds, but they're of little threat to the raid if PROPERLY controlled and you still needed to kill them.
Bannable? No, you didn't fully ignore the mechanic. If you could've breezed through the last phase without ever touching the adds, that would've been fully ignoring the mechanic.


Arthas: A bug in phase 3 that made the room bigger.
Ignoring boss mechanics? Depends on if you kill the val'kyr or not.
Bannable? Yes, if you decide to ignore the val'kyr. No, if you kill the val'kyr as they were intended.


I'll give you some examples not on the list as well:

Nefarian: A bug in which allowed DoT's to tick for insane amounts.
Ignoring boss mechanics? No, taking use of a boss mechanic, which was later hotfixed.
Bannable? No.


Hodir: Hardmode timer tuned so tightly, that your mages were required to Spellsteal a buff from Freya trash to make the hardmode timer.
Ignoring boss mechanics? No. You're just using every single asset available to make the kill happen.
Bannable? No.


Gara'jal the Spiritbinder: Heroic so tightly tuned that Vodka was required to use Spellsteal on trash before Gara'jal to make the enrage timer.
Ignoring boss mechanics? No. You're just using every single asset available to make the kill happen.
Bannable? No.

[Deleted]

Didnt we have this discusion 3 years ago?

Edit: If soulstoning 25 people with alt warlocks wasn't bannable, the bombs shouldnt have either.

[Tekloth]

Didnt we have this discusion 3 years ago?

Edit: If soulstoning 25 people with alt warlocks wasn't bannable, the bombs shouldnt have either.

We did.

They didn't get banned because they used Saronite Bombs.
They got banned because they ignored a key mechanic which was made possible by the use of Saronite Bombs.
There's a difference there. They wouldn't had gotten banned if they would've just killed the val'kyr.

[Gilian]

Wasn't there an Ensidia raid stream in which the raid leader ordered dps to ignore the valkyrs after bugging out the platform?

I suggest you read the entire article before you comment, the WHOLE thing

Then do it or don't comment.

[Tekloth]

i think it makes you a smart player

the spellsteal was hotfixed an hour or two after vodka killed it though so i assume it wasn't intended

That was hotfixed along with Gara'jals health to make it doable WITHOUT having to make use of Spellsteal.

[Gilian]

Because they were suppose to drop people off the ledge. This was a known mechanic hence the whole banned for useing a bug to your favor.

I didn't get banned when we killed Kael'Thas because he stopped spawning adds in the last phases after a patch. By some peoplese logic here we should have just let our raid wipe and wait for a fix. Or maybe pretend we are dpsing adds? Keep joking. You wouldn't do that either.

---------- Post added 2012-10-11 at 08:06 AM ----------

It's funny how easily people turn the blame on Blizzard on this case, not to mention how biased they make Blizzard out to be. I'm sure that they have certain requirements which need to be fulfilled in order for a bug to become bannable when taken use of.

For example they don't ban for bugs which, due to a boss mechanic increase your dps (Paragon/Nefarian), or a boss mechanic which is so tightly tuned that it requires special tactics (Ensidia/Hodir, Multiple guilds/Anub'arak) because they do not ignore any mechanics of the fight, they make use of those mechanics or trash mobs. The Anub'arak example is really a case which is threading on a fine line between being ok and bannable, because when you still killed the adds, you didn't ignore the mechanics of the fight. For example if you could've done this chain stun with the val'kyr on Lich King, it most likely wouldn't had been bannable, but rather just hotfixed like the Anub'arak encounter was.

But when a bug makes you able to ignore boss mechanics and you take use of it, it starts fulfilling the requirements of a bannable "offense", not necessarily making it bannable unless you can ignore the mechanic altogether.

Let's go through some of those bugs which Kungen mentions in his blog, and assume that Blizzard starts handing out bans for fully ignoring a mechanic/s of the fight:

Onyxia: It was possible to stand on ledges to avoid getting feared into fires.
Ignoring boss mechanics? No, you still get feared, which is intended. If you were lucky you didn't run to flames even if you stood on the ground.
Bannable? No. You still get feared, no matter where you stand.


Gruul: You could use Limited Invulnerability Potion to avoid his main ability Shatter.
Ignoring boss mechanics? Yes, for a single Shatter. Usable on every Shatter? No.
Bannable? No, you didn't fully ignore the mechanic because you couldn't use it on every Shatter.


Kil'Jaden: You could avoid getting add spawns with Bubble and Iceblocks.
Ignoring boss mechanics? Yes, but only if you got adds from Paladins or Mages.
Bannable? No, you didn't fully ignore the mechanic, you still got adds from other players.


Anub'Arak: Holy Wrath bug which was used on the World first on purpose. WRU bans?
Ignoring boss mechanics? Yes and no. You still get adds, but they're of little threat to the raid if PROPERLY controlled and you still needed to kill them.
Bannable? No, you didn't fully ignore the mechanic. If you could've breezed through the last phase without ever touching the adds, that would've been fully ignoring the mechanic.


Arthas: A bug in phase 3 that made the room bigger.
Ignoring boss mechanics? Depends on if you kill the val'kyr or not.
Bannable? Yes, if you decide to ignore the val'kyr. No, if you kill the val'kyr as they were intended.


I'll give you some examples not on the list as well:

Nefarian: A bug in which allowed DoT's to tick for insane amounts.
Ignoring boss mechanics? No, taking use of a boss mechanic, which was later hotfixed.
Bannable? No.


Hodir: Hardmode timer tuned so tightly, that your mages were required to Spellsteal a buff from Freya trash to make the hardmode timer.
Ignoring boss mechanics? No. You're just using every single asset available to make the kill happen.
Bannable? No.


Gara'jal the Spiritbinder: Heroic so tightly tuned that Vodka was required to use Spellsteal on trash before Gara'jal to make the enrage timer.
Ignoring boss mechanics? No. You're just using every single asset available to make the kill happen.
Bannable? No.

See my other comment. We ignored half the fight, didn't get banned.

So how do you justify this ban? Is it because they were Ensidia? Or did Blizzard just feel like it? Does it matter when it's bugged or if it's the newest tier? Don't think so.

A reset or reroll would have been enough. Players used and are still using bugs sometimes, there are no set rules that Blizzard made. Do you really think someone is going to think "Oh wait, I am now ignoring a mechanic so this could ban me but I can still spellsteal mobs from another location to increase my dps and perm stun adds."

[Tekloth]

See my other comment. We ignored half the fight, didn't get banned.

So how do you justify this ban? Is it because they were Ensidia? Or did Blizzard just feel like it? Does it matter when it's bugged or if it's the newest tier? Don't think so.

A reset or reroll would have been enough. Players used and are still using bugs sometimes, there are no set rules that Blizzard made. Do you really think someone is going to think "Oh wait, I am now ignoring a mechanic so this could ban me but I can still spellsteal mobs from another location to increase my dps and perm stun adds."

Of course the "rules" for bannable offenses in situations like these aren't set in stone like they are with bots or exploits like glider, but rather done on a case by case basis.

I justify this ban on the basis that, even if they didn't know what caused the platform to respawn in phase 3, they still made the call not to kill the val'kyr when it clearly wasn't intended to work like that, and ignoring the val'kyr in a normal situation would've resulted in the deaths of 3 players per wave so they would've lost almost half of their raid while ignoring the val'kyr in a normal situation. That's a pretty huge difference between losing half your raid and not losing a single player when ignoring a boss mechanic.

It's so simple that it's stupid to even argue about this.

[Gilian]

Now, to end this silly debate once and for all:



HOW IS THAT NOT EXPLOITING A BUG?
How is that not ignoring a key mechanic of the fight?

When they didn't DPS the val'kyrs, they gave themselves an easier enrage timer to start with because they didn't "lose" 2.1M damage (700k hp per val'kyr) per wave. Not that the enrage timer was even an issue on normal though. BUT, there's a 2nd threat from the val'kyr: if you didn't kill them, they killed people (unless you were a warlock and could use demonic portal or whatever the hell the teleport is called). On Paragons video* of their 25 man normal kill they get 4 waves of val'kyr, that's 8.4M damage "lost" from Lich King to the val'kyr and 4 chances of 3 people dying.

Besides:



Why on earth didn't they just kill the val'kyr then, instead of ignoring them?


It makes no sense to me when people try to defend Ensidia on this ban, when it's blatantly obvious that this was ignoring a key mechanic of a boss fight which is supposed to kill people if not dealt with.


There would've been nothing wrong if they would've still killed the val'kyr even after the bombs had "reset" the platform back to full size. They didn't, thus the whole ban was brought upon them by themselves. End of story.


*No fanboyism included, I could've chose any video, this was just the easiest one to find

Every time I see people defending Ensidia on this and reasoning, or trying to explain why this ban wasn't justified makes me want to do bad things to small, cute and fluffy kittens.

Where does it say you have to 'fake' mechanics if they are bugged otherwise you get banned? I'm sorry but no one would have ever killed those valkyrs if they weren't a threat just like we never killed the valkyr that picked up a warlock with a portal.

Should they have been punished? Sure, but not a ban. They could have just reset their loot and kill after they fixed it.

---------- Post added 2012-10-11 at 08:28 AM ----------

Of course the "rules" for bannable offenses in situations like these aren't set in stone like they are with bots or exploits like glider, but rather done on a case by case basis.

I justify this ban on the basis that, even if they didn't know what caused the platform to respawn in phase 3, they still made the call not to kill the val'kyr when it clearly wasn't intended to work like that, and ignoring the val'kyr in a normal situation would've resulted in the deaths of 3 players per wave so they would've lost almost half of their raid while ignoring the val'kyr in a normal situation. That's a pretty huge difference between losing half your raid and not losing a single player when ignoring a boss mechanic.

It's so simple that it's stupid to even argue about this.

I read it the first time. It's just completely unfair they get banned for it and others don't. And in my opinion a ban for something like this is too harsh. You simply can't justify banning them and not others who have done the same. If you think that's stupid then we can just stop argueing I guess.

We ignored half the fight of Kael'Thas but I never got a ban or anything.

[Tekloth]

Where does it say you have to 'fake' mechanics if they are bugged otherwise you get banned? I'm sorry but no one would have ever killed those valkyrs if they weren't a threat just like we never killed the valkyr that picked up a warlock with a portal.

I read it the first time. It's just completely unfair they get banned for it and others don't. And in my opinion a ban for something like this is too harsh. You simply can't justify banning them and not others who have done the same. If you think that's stupid then we can just stop argueing I guess.

We ignored half the fight of Kael'Thas but I never got a ban or anything.

Warlocks weren't a threat on val'kyr because they had an ability to teleport from anywhere within the range of the portal, that's just "clever use of game mechanics". As is getting Lich King to start phase 2.5 (2nd AoE phase) while you have val'kyr alive and carrying players. They just drop the players on the platform if it respawns in time.

Who used that bug other than Ensidia? I haven't heard of anyone else.

I didn't get banned when we killed Kael'Thas because he stopped spawning adds in the last phases after a patch. By some peoplese logic here we should have just let our raid wipe and wait for a fix. Or maybe pretend we are dpsing adds? Keep joking. You wouldn't do that either.

That happened on its own, and didn't require any specific player-based events to occur. So you can't really call a ban on that because you didn't have any chance of avoiding it unlike on Lich King. Now I'm not saying that the rogue should've stopped using Saronite Bombs, but that he had the OPTION of not to use them. Anyhow the use of Saronite Bombs alone, again, wasn't the reason for the bans.