An item that no one else owns in World of Warcraft and is completely overpowered. Of all things, it was a shirt – and it caused a lot of chaos in WoW.
In World of Warcraft, there are many powerful items that heroes long for. However, one item in the history of Blizzard’s MMORPG was so powerful that it could literally kill everything. Only one player got to enjoy this item, and it brought him and his guild many “World First” kills.
But here’s the catch: He should never have received this item.
The story begins in 2008 with the character Leroyspeltz. That was during the time of Wrath of the Lich King. Leroyspeltz was an active raid player in his guild, and it was a typical raid night – when suddenly there was a disconnect.
Back then, disconnects in World of Warcraft were relatively common. Sometimes the server had a brief hiccup or the router reconnected. Leroyspeltz tried to log in again – but it didn’t work. After checking his password multiple times, it dawned on him: His account had been hacked.
After Leroyspeltz requested a password reset, he found out that his entire account had been emptied – all items on all characters had been sold off and the gold had been taken away. At that time, this was a typical incident after a hack. The gold was then sold back to other players by the fraudsters.
Blizzard could help in such cases. After a hack, the Game Masters are able, with a little processing time, to restore the account and essentially load a previous state. That’s exactly what Leroyspeltz hoped for – but nothing happened for several weeks.
Martin Fury.
One patch later, shortly after the Ulduar raid was released, he then found that all his characters now had lots of mail in their inbox. All the items he had lost in the hack had been sent back to him in the form of letters. That’s how Blizzard usually does it – items end up in the mailbox first and can then be sorted back into the inventory or directly to the character.
However, a small Warlock twink of Leroyspeltz received an item that he had never owned. And that was the most powerful item that has ever existed in World of Warcraft.
What kind of item is it? The item is called “Martin Fury”. A shirt that is quite peculiar. For it belonged to the category “plate armor”, had the rarity “artifact”, and granted the wearer an additional 34 mana and simultaneously 34 strength – thus, an item that was conceptually meant for paladins.
However, “Martin Fury” could do even more. The shirt had 100 charges for a use effect:
“Kills all enemies within a 30-meter radius. Cheaters.”
“All enemies” really means all enemies in this case. Even the strongest raid bosses.
Why did such an item even exist? The shirt had been part of the game data since patch 1.12 – that is, from the “vanilla” era of World of Warcraft. Back then, it happened that some developers created their own items, and there were also some items that were never intended for players. These were used for testing purposes or were simply a joke among the developers.
It is likely that “Martin Fury” was used for just such internal testing purposes.
World First Kills – and the ban of a whole guild
Since the item came directly from Blizzard’s mailbox, Leroyspeltz thought it must be intentional – like a small “apology” for the long restoration process. The shirt also had limited charges, so it would be a temporary “bonus” – and thus Leroyspeltz and his guild leader decided to use the shirt. He sent it to his raid character, and the guild stormed Ulduar on the highest difficulty.
The shirt was used a total of 14 times to kill bosses in the blink of an eye, achieving several “World First” kills on the highest difficulty in Ulduar as well as overpowering some older bosses in the Eye of Eternity and the Obsidian Sanctum.
How exactly Blizzard ultimately became aware of this is not entirely clear. It could be that an internal tool triggered, simply noticing that bosses fell down far too quickly and a guild made progress faster than humanly possible. On the other hand, it may be that Leroyspeltz or his guild leader were simply “snitched on” – because allegedly not all participants in the raid knew that this item was in use.
Some were quite astonished that the bosses just fell over and first thought it was a bug.
Blizzard’s reaction came swiftly and hard. The entire guild was banned for 24 hours – regardless of whether individual characters participated in the raids or not. “Martin Fury” was removed from the inventory, and the account of the raid leader was permanently banned.
Is “Martin Fury” still in the game today? Yes and no. The item still exists as part of the game files and could thus end up in the hands of a character again as part of a bug or exploit. However, Blizzard has since adjusted the item. The shirt is no longer at artifact
level, but is now just gray. And the effect of the “use” effect is now completely different:
“The caster commits suicide and dies immediately.”
Even if the item were to come back into the possession of a character, only one single creature would die from the effect – the wielder themselves.
This is just one of many curious stories that have occurred over the years in World of Warcraft – but it is unique, for since then, no one has seen the “most powerful item in WoW” again.
