In World of Warcraft, the Race to World First (“RWF”) is currently underway in the first raid of The War Within, the Palace of Nerub’ar. The two guilds Liquid and Echo are once again battling it out for the top spot. And one of the players has gone a bit too far.
Who is the professional?
- Imfiredup, or Fireup, is one of the mages of the US guild Liquid, one of the best raid guilds in the world.
- Liquid is currently racing against other guilds for the World First kill on the current final boss Queen Ansurek.
- At the moment, Liquid is in the lead and is even already in front of the final boss. The competition from Europe, Echo and Method, is still stuck on the penultimate boss.
This is what Imfiredup did: During the battle against Nexus Princess Ky’veza, Imfiredup exploited a nasty exploit. Mages have the ability to build a special buff through their heroic talents: Embedded Shards.
Once a certain number is reached, the buff on the opponent triggers the effect Shardstorm for a bit of damage. The possibility is limited because the spell triggers at 8 stacks.
However, Imfiredup cheated here: By selecting himself as the target instead of the boss, he was able to stack the buff almost endlessly. With over 200 stacks, he finally unleashed the spell.
In the DPS meter details, you can see him dealing several million damage points all at once and significantly increasing his DPS (via YouTube). The total damage isn’t supposed to have been that much, PCGamer mentions a 4% increase. However, it can no longer be verified fully.
Blizzard takes action – But what about a ban?
Imfiredup showed the exploit live on stream on Twitch, but tried to hide it. Instead of the normal “raid interface” like his colleagues, he displayed a focus target in the place where the actual target should normally be visible.
However, he was constantly targeting himself and casting via macros. Several observers and experts noticed this and pointed it out on Reddit, Twitter and others. Blizzard quickly fixed the exploit, but Liquid is still in the lead.
As of now, Imfiredup is still in the race and was even present for the kill of the penultimate boss. According to a leak, he is said to have already been banned, but the source cannot be verified (via wowvendor).
The lack of information causes displeasure in the community and especially among the competition. After all, such an exploit should ideally lead to exclusion, at least for a few days. Even with small advantages, it is still about fairness. And the US guilds have a significant time advantage anyway: the US guild Limit has already defeated 4 bosses before Echo and Method are allowed to participate.
