A female mage in World of Warcraft bravely fights against bots. Her strongest weapon: toys that allow her to abduct the bots.
Bots are an ever-present problem in both versions of World of Warcraft. Even in Dragonflight, there are still large groups of farming bots that kill enemies at various locations for hours, skin them, and then sell the leather and other resources in the auction house for gold. Most of you have probably seen such bot-farming groups, rolled your eyes in annoyance, and then moved on.
However, some players cannot bear the sight – and take action against it.
How to deal with bots? In the WoW Subreddit, “orc_with_a_bear_mask”, better known in-game as “Cynndia”, described some incidents with bots. At first, she simply trolled the botters by pulling enemies with special loot out of the bots’ range.
But later, Cynndia got more creative. She used numerous toys to spread them near the bots – like items such as comfy furs or cushions. Gradually, the bots landed on these and got stuck.
Especially amusing: Cynndia discovered that bots can also be placed on the “sleigh of Iskaara”. This is a toy where one player gets on a sled and can be pulled by another character. Cynndia took advantage of this to separate bots from the group and send them on a little world tour. She showed several screenshots where she led bots to the nearest lava pool or directly onto a ship heading to another continent.
Why does this work? Most bots operate automatically with fixed routines. This means they lure enemies to a specific spot, kill them there, and then interact with the corpses to gain leather as skinners.
However, this “interacting” can be wonderfully exploited. If you place a toy on the corpses that allows for an interaction, the bot will eventually click on the toy and get stuck on it. Because some toys require a special button press to “get out” again.
Aside from that, Cynndia naturally reported the respective accounts for botting. However, it can take several weeks or even months for that to lead to a penalty – because enough reports are needed and bans usually occur in waves, with several thousand accounts being closed simultaneously.
Additional photos of Cynndia’s “adventures” have been uploaded to imgur.
Community reacts enthusiastically: The post in which Cynndia presents her adventures has received over 1,500 upvotes in the subreddit – with 98% approval. The community has praised this work, although some note that this is something Blizzard should actually take care of or that such behavior can also pose a danger to one’s own account:
- “And I played Mythic+ all this time without realizing that this was the actual endgame content.”
- “I had to laugh out loud at the sabotage with the sled. Thanks for that.”
- “Be careful when you confront botters. They can report you en masse, and then you will be automatically banned. That has happened to me before.”
If you ever see a group of farming bots, take a slice from Cynndia – and give the bots a little trip to the nearest lava pool or to another continent. They will surely curse you later.
