A druid led the Horde to victory multiple times in WoW: Classic – but then got banned. Others thought he was AFK the whole time.
The Alterac Valley in World of Warcraft: Classic (and Burning Crusade Classic) is a popular place to farm honor. No other battleground offers as much honor, and matches go quickly if you stick to the “standard approach.” However, those who do not participate are often reported – and that can cost the victory.
What happened? In the WoW Classic subreddit, the druid player “Cheezeburger” reports that he was banned in World of Warcraft. He was reported too many times for inactivity, although that is not true. Instead, he claims to have played very strategically, defending his boss in the bunker and earning many victories, which his teammates hardly found out about.
When everyone rushes forward, a druid runs back
What was his strategy? Right after the start of the match, all players usually rush forward. Alterac Valley is mostly a “race” to see who can take down the enemy boss in the opposing base first. True PvP rarely occurs, as it is often just a PvE race.
However, the Horde druid Cheezeburger belongs to the players who defend their boss to give their teammates a bit more time at the front. He enters his bunker, buffs all bosses with thorns and the Mark of the Wild, and then waits for 2-3 minutes in stealth until the enemies approach.
During that time, he was often reported as “AFK” – after all, he is sitting there almost motionless in the bunker, but that’s part of the strategy.
Assassin-Druid holds back the entire raid alone
He waits until the Alliance storms the bunker and the boss fight begins. Once the tank has built up enough aggro, Cheezeburger appears and hits the tank with “Cyclone.” This temporarily removes the tank from the fight, allowing the boss to go berserk and take out several DPS players. While chaos ensues and the tank comes out of the cyclone, Cheezeburger is likely to kill him with a stealth attack – after all, the healers are busy handling the panic in the group.
The end result is that too many players in the group die, and without a tank, the Alliance has to regroup to start the fight anew. Usually, this provided enough time for the Horde to win their own fight against the Alliance’s bunker boss.
Now, after leading the Horde to victory with this strategy for a long time, he was banned by Blizzard for 8 days – presumably automated after too many AFK reports.
What is Blizzard doing? Cheezeburger attempted to appeal the ban and submitted a ticket. However, according to his statement, Blizzard could not “comment on specific strategies” and they had “no access to data that could lead to the ban being lifted.”
Cheezeburger sees only one solution: he will likely have to record every one of his matches on video to have evidence.
What do you think about this matter? Is it okay to report players who do not follow the tactic of the “whole team”? Or should such behavior be punished? Does the automated ban system need to be reconsidered?
