BoA Shoulders + Gladiator's Inscription = What?

[Drayner]

Let's discuss what is an exploit and what is not. The is no doubt that we could argue points all throughout the history of twinking in WOW. Let's break it down a little. Let me warn you, I have never applied anything though an exploited means, so my info might be a little whack.



Shortly after BC, there was a way to apply aldor/scryer enchants to head and shoulders and get them to your twink. The methods included a mail thing, Auction house, and guild bank exploiting. These were not gotten without "exploiting" as far as I know. I have had a couple people tell me that early, early BC, there was a way of doing so without exploiting the system. Either way, many of these have been removed by GMs and such. Some are still out there though.



Enter Naxx... All of a sudden, out of the blue, it was discovered that the 4 naxx enchants could be applied to BOE items and traded even though the actual naxx item was BOP. This sent twinks, including myself, out on a mission. I was happy because this was a shoulder enchant that could be obtained without exploiting. I equate this shoulder enchant method to be the modern day "Librams". I ended up getting a total of 7 naxx shoulders and still have 4 on current twinks. I think these are totally legit/legal and so do most GMs. The enchants no longer drop since WoTLK revamped Naxx.



Next up were the ZG rep enchants. Totally legit method of applying. Put them on the BoA shoulders and mail to your twink. The method was not as intended, obviously and Blizzard made the application of these enchants no longer work. Those that got these right away, before the nerf, were grandfathered.



Finally, where we are today. BoA Shoulders + Greater Inscription of the Gladiator. I have read a couple threads in battlegroup forums arguing about whether this is an exploit or not. I am a pretty honorable guy and do not care for exploits, so I wouldn't do it if I felt they were exploits. I just completed my quest for BoA shoulders + these last night. I hardly consider this an exploit. I consider this kind of like the leg armors now. They are not working as intended, as indicated by a couple blue posts. They will most likely be nerfed (the ability to apply them), but I am sure they will be grandfathered just like the ZG ones.



What do you think? Exploit or just another "not as intended"? Does taking advantage of something blizzard has allowed make you an exploiter? If you answered yes to this, please remove your leg armors and head enchants. Ok? Did you consider the "mining bug" an exploit? How many of you actually stayed at 225-290 to benefit from this bug? That's no different than getting the inscription while you can, right? I am pretty strait laced and I don't feel they are "Exploits".

 

[Alteffour]

It is an exploit because clearly blizzard did not intend for this item to be useable. If it was supposed to be used then any of the req lvl 70 chants should be able to work but none of them do.



Any time blizz changes these things or fixes them they should be removed from items that they were specifically not intended for (as per the blue post) the whole idea of grandfathering them in is completely stupid and shouldnt be seen as a means for people to complain.



Should people with enti's sword from before the fix still be able to use it?



Whats even worse is when blizz grandfathers some items and not others. Looking specifically at the latest changes when gathering buffs were grandfathered for people but inscription items at the same time were not grandfathered.



Blizz doesnt care about twinks, never have and never will. But this whole grandfathering thing is getting a bit tired.

 

[ghank]

My theory is that Blizz knows all about it and made it this way to create interest in the game. When they create an item they specifiy a lot of stuff about it like item level, required level, BOA, BOE, BOP, appliable through trade window, quality, etc. There has been a ton of high end stuff that ended up being usable by low level toons. In order for that to happen they had to make it that way. So I find it hard to believe that Blizz's programmers who have been doing this for years accidentally did this.



Finding out about the BOA shoulders got me very interested in the game again as did the 225 mining hp increase. I rushed to get my tokens to buy the shoulders and rushed to level my mining to get to 225. Had I known that I needed to get to 301, now that's another story.



And with grandfathering, that doesn't make sense. They say something like "this was a mistake and we fixed it" yet they allow those who did it to keep it? Hmm... And my 29 twink lock with 225 inscriptions logged on one day to see her offhand to require level 40 and still be equipped. Of course it wasn't working and Blizz apologized for the inconvenience. "Sorry you are SOL". So in my opinion if they did it, it was intentional, but grandfathering doesn't seem to be fair for the newbies.



Enti's sword was obviously not working as intended. Was supposed to be .8 dmg lol.

 

[Rayekk]

I think there is creative application, and then all out exploits. If you look at twinking, I think that it’s fair to say Blizzard never anticipated that people would use the highly-expensive and hard-to-get items on a level 19. to them, the game was about reaching end-game content, and bored rich players realized that they could really dominate the lower PvP brackets if they applied these enchants. The twink community was born, and capitalized on the abilities used in-game, even if it’s “not as Blizzard intended.” Creative application becomes exploit when you’re leveraging bugs to gain an unfair advantage, such as Enti's Quenched Sword, the 225-290 mining bug and the Aldor/Scryer guild bank fiasco.



If comes down to bug verses Blizzard oversight. A bug is an exploit, same as if you used the Lava bug to down all three OS dragons in Northrend. A Blizzard oversight is fair game, if history and precedent tells us anything.



Things like the Naxx Shoulder enchants, the Inscription of the Gladiator & BOA items, and even the 450 mining/skinning/herb skills are all examples of Blizzard oversights. This is why you’ll not see them being removed, but grandfathered.



To use another example, several years ago an electronics store decided to use some creative and interesting advertising with a wild jungle theme in a local paper, offering a +$1000 home theater system for “899 Bananas.” While everyone with common sense understood that 899 Bananas really was $899.00, a handful of people showed up in the morning with about $100 worth of bananas and demanded the home theater systems. The store immediately printed a retraction, posted an amendment in the store window voiding the offer, and pulled the radio ads and by mid afternoon the word was out that the ad was no longer valid. However, those few that where on the ball did indeed get their home theater systems for 899 bananas. The rest where turned away, stuck with a truck full of bananas.



Blizzard is doing the same thing here.

 

[advantage]

In my honest opinion blizzard went and fix or nerfed the zg enchant. I'm sure in their haste they forgot to look at other glyphs that could be applied. But they sure did not have a problem doing it other glyphs that came out during BC... Remember the shatter sun glyph? I'm pretty sure you couldn't apply this to a head piece cause blizzard foresaw what could happen. In my opinion how powerful the boa shoulders should be nerfed a little. It was hard work to get the best gear for your twink, which means you had to play your twink. Now all you have to do is log on your main for a few hours a day then bam some of the best twink items.. this is a different conversation... Back on point is it in exploit?? No, Blizzard forgot to do something, and know people are taking advantage of it.. It should be like a bank, if the bank credited you $500 dollars on mistake should you give it back or spend it? most of us would spend it, but what if they ask for the money back since it was a mistake? Most banks just take it back...

 

[Alteffour]

The shoulders are obviously not meant to be put on the BoA shoulders. The language on them reads the same as any of the other shoulder enchants yet these magically work. This means these shoulders are bugged, which also means they are an exploit. People cant come here and say that the aldor/scryer enchants are an exploit at the same time they call this okay.



To be honest most of what this sounds like is people that werent able to get the old ones and called them exploits and whined are now happy they have zg and glad chants now and dont want to lose em.

 

[Rayekk]

The shoulders are obviously not meant to be put on the BoA shoulders. The language on them reads the same as any of the other shoulder enchants yet these magically work. This means these shoulders are bugged, which also means they are an exploit. People cant come here and say that the aldor/scryer enchants are an exploit at the same time they call this okay.

Ah, but here therein lies the difference: the head enchant claimed to make the item soulbound, yet you could still place it in a guild bank, thereby negating the soulbound limitation. BoA items are already soulbound (just to the account; not the character) and this was obviously an oversight on the coding team’s side. The key factor (in my mind at least) is the difficulty to employ factor. The head enchants required all kinds of coordination to circumvent an item requirement. With the Gladiator inscription, the item requirement is met, albeit in a way Blizzard didn’t foresee, and the shoulders are mailed to an alt, just as Blizzard intended.



At least, that’s my opinion.

 

[keq]

i wouldnt call it an exploit. if it can be applied without the use of some sort of trick, like using the AH or mailing it somehow then it shouldnt be considered an exploit. i use this enchant on my twink and when i use my shoulders to lvl alts it helps a bit with the extra stam.



the fact that a blizz employee didnt put a restriction on what this can be used on i think doesnt qualify it as an exploit

 

[advantage]

I agree with you to a point. It seems like most people who are complaining are ones who were not on the ball about these enchants ( Including me minus complaining), but I honestly don't care if they are grandfathered. To me skill will always be better then gear. I can't tell you how many times I take down people in BOA + enchant. I honestly feel that the glyph should be able to be bought without level restriction. It is 100x time harder to get 10000 honor points on a 49 twink (x10 for each bracket below that) So why not let us work hard for it?

 

[Druiddroid]

skill > gear

skill + gear > skill



i care, not that much, but i do. it makes twinking unbalanced. is it an exploit? hell no. is it 'unintended?' sure.



i just wish that blizzard would stop grandfathering stuff. that way it's fair to everyone...either put up a main or play with worse gear. i know i'd roll with worse gear...but it's nice for everyone to have the ability to get the same gear.



it almost feels like twinks are becoming like level 80s in that the ones with the most time and effort get the best gear. i like it when it doesn't take a timed grindfest to get the best gear.

 

[Drayner]

People cant come here and say that the aldor/scryer enchants are an exploit at the same time they call this okay.

The difference between aldor/scryer and these is that these work without any manipulation of the game mechanics. The aldor/scryer ones had to be tricked through timing and such. You couldn't just apply and trade/mail. There was a trick to it. That makes the comparison apples and oranges imho.

 

[Zuty]

First off, I would like to say that I have not played on a live WoW server since TBC. So I have nothing to gain out of this other then to state my opinion on the matter at hand.



That being said, Old Naxx chants could be put on BoE gear and I saw nothing wrong with that. It just upped the leveling of what twinks needed gear wise. I see nothing wrong with doing something that doesn't involve exploiting a bug. Also going around at the time when I played were BoE rings that had been chanted aswell as BoE shoulders with Aldor/Scryer chants. To obtain these items you needed to exploit a bug because the item you chanted would become soulbound to you. I do think that at a time A/S chants did not cause the item to become soulbound and if it stayed that way I would be perfectly okay with it.



WotLK brought along BoA items that can be tossed around your account so you can help out your under geared character to level them up. That is not what twinks use them for, but that doesn't mean they aren't allowed to use them. So if you want to enchant your BoA shoulders for character A so he can have a better health pool while you level, why can't character B do the same while he PVPs? I see nothing wrong wtih chanting BoA gear and then tossing it to your twink.



~Zuty

 

[advantage]

skill > gear

skill + gear > skill

with this, most of the time if you have been playing your twink you know who is skillful and who are random players. It seems that now if you want the best twinking gear you have to raid... which is why I twink, so I don't have to raid yes i have a main, but I'm sick of the grind. I honestly think BOA gear should be tuned to be matching gear at that level.. the BOA mail 49 shoulders have +100 attack power? thats a little insane....

 

[Rayekk]

i just wish that blizzard would stop grandfathering stuff. that way it's fair to everyone...either put up a main or play with worse gear. i know i'd roll with worse gear...but it's nice for everyone to have the ability to get the same gear.

I think THIS is the topic we should be discussing/trying to do something about! It's not the creative application that's the issue, but Blizzard deciding to stop it, for whatever reason. It seems to me that this grandfathering thing became an issue due to the Naxx shoulder enchants being applied on BoA items after Naxx moved to Northrend (correct me if I'm wrong). The they extended it to the ZG shoulder enchants. Then they (mistakenly) thought that the gathering professions would be "self limiting" and once they realized that we're a very creative bunch, stopped that as well. Grandfathering that very first shoulder enchant has paved the way for creating “unique twinks” and that seems to be the issue. I do not believe that they should remove things, especially if the person was dedicated and driven to make them work, but removing the ability for the future; that seems like bad form.

 

[Swoopsies]

IMO:



Manipulating mechanics in a dishonest way to twink as best as possible = exploit.



vs.



BoA shoulder being able to be chanted (although with some certain level requirements) and be traded within the account = what Blizz intended.





Although, if Blizz said that's not what they wanted to happen with it, and have intention on changing it, that's the way it's going to be. However, I really just can't see them grandfathering it or making this impossible at all. I think, and hope, there will be no change.





Also, I don't think Blizz "doesn't care about twinks - never have and never will" as someone stated earlier. Twinking is a large part of the Blizz community. Just as hardcore raiders, etc.

 

[ArthurianKnight]

i can't agree more on this one...

i mean blizz do not care for this ?

get real, i've spoke to a GM about game mechanics.

reality is there is somewhere a set of gears for every levels, just like there is multiple sets for the 80, just like there was for the 70 and even the 60ies. that GM told me the stats were scaling thru the levels to end as the best you can have, meaning all stats are already calculated until the maximum, This process can actually be seen by heirloom as they scale over the levels, just not in a fixed way like the regular gears.



twinking by his own difinition is not even an an exploit or things that shouldn'T be in the game since the whole game interest is to actually get better gears reguardless of the levels. may you try to level faster by doing dungeons and getting more powerfull gears or may you PVP by having the best gears you can have even at level 19 is all part of the game as the game itself is made for that particular purpose.



a good exemple of blizzard caring for lower levels... they changed SFK, they changed about all dungeons between 30 and 60. why would they do that if they didn't cared ? they enabled people to get mounts at 30 instead of 40. again why if they didn'T cared at all ?



conclusion of my talking about twinks with a GM... its all part of the game, they're not going to ditch this and that cause it ruins in, its part of the game deal with it, if you don't like skip thru. level up and play high end content instead.



as for an exploit, i don't agree about it being everything not intended for !

an exploit is a BUG, nothing else, a bug is part of a game working in a way not intended for. exemple an item that gives +x stats when its not even written on it as is. or simply mailing that accept BOP items to be traded. or even the +700 HP at 225 when its suppose to be 70.



and even there they aren'T bugs but most likely a typo.

the aldor/scryer was an exploit as the way to obtain it was thru mail and guildbank using LAG as a way to stop the server from getting the response right away. thus allowing you to bypass the system to actually do something you really shouldn'T be doing at all !



do i think this is a an exploit, nope... do i think they will fix it... hope they don't !

this actually enable glass canon to be good by giving them a way to increase their HP without losing their strenght. i'm not about grandfathering either, for many things... i think that if its to be removed, then go ahead and remove it from everyone. but i do understand why they grandfather it, those people actually took time to get it, it would be ridiculous to just get rid of something they worked so hard to get in the first place.



as for twinking not being part of blizz strategie...

sorry but if it was true... the leg enchant, the libram on head, the shoulders, about every enchants on items and all of that would already have been fixed too. that GM back then told me the truth about it, and its about getting the best gears possible at our level reguardless of how we get it ! they know about twinking, and why haven't they done anything against it up to this point, simply because they do not disallow it. and i kinda remember a thread on the official forum one day, long ago, where they said that they kept twinking in mind when doing new gears. errors could happen, we're all human, but still... to say they do not care for twinking would mean we'd be way higher geared then this, or way undergeared then this.



i don't think its by mistake that we ended as we are today. i blizz development knows what they are doing when they create an item. just like they have GM gears only which are like 100 times stronger then what we can have at 80 !

 

[shanker]

i do not think the gladiator enchant is a exploit, however it was not intended. the aldor/scryer enchants at first where able to be but on white/grey items using no mail exploit. some players still have these on rugged spaulders and serpent shoulders from when they were a white/grey item. they only equip them when really needed and remove them so they don't show on the armory. they also don't wear these in a situation where they would get inspected. if reported blizz will remove these.



there are many things in the game that players have worked hard for and earned. these fall into the same category as the gladiator enchant, basically a Blizz error. they weren't exploits, however were not intended to be used by lower levels.



- sha'tari skyguard trinkets. yeah players got summoned to the area and earned rep while ghosted. but really no different than players who used "Net Limiter" to get their gathering to 450. these trinkets were nerfed to req-lvl 70. players still have them, can't use them.



- demons deck. this was not a exploit, just another blizz loophole error. same as the gladiator enchant. weapons from this deck where nerfed to appropriate level.



overall i think Blizz should quit claiming they only care about endgame and 80's. but yet create, grandfather, and nerf items that affect twinking, but are not consistent in what they do.



personally, blizz should either blanket remove the Gladiator enchant or leave it as is. that would make the game fair for all...not grandfather.



someone who earned aldor/scryer rep worked hard to get access to those enchants, more so than someone who paid 10000 honor points. 10000 points at 80 is easy. we are not talking 10000points at 19, 29, 39, 49.



say "twinking was not part of Blizz's plan" or they had "no idea twinking would start" is flat out wrong...in fact a lie.. right before WSG being put into the game, Blizz put the official word out, and MMORPG sites were talking about the tweaking of players gear, enchants, gameplay etc. based on the info that Blizz provided and info already known about the game. this all occurred before WSG ever released to the public.



one of the first pre-bc twink 19 rogue builds where similiar to today other than the leggings had +100hp librams, and gloves had +7 agi enchants, feet of the lynx were it, or trailbalzer boots with minor speed or +7 agi. players had ZG enchants or librams on eng goggles, ZG enchants on BOE shoulders, along with Naxx enchants on BOE shoulders.



blizz saw all this, yeah it may have surprized them to see all the loopholes players found. obviously they learned and when BC released they stopped some things and others slipped thru. some they nerfed some they didn't..... like leg armor kits.



once again blizz learned when WOTLK released they made sure leg armor kits wouldn't be abused this time. but once again are missing things and creating loopholes. prior to WOTLK releasing it was known what the gathering professions loophole was going to do...IT WAS KNOWN. people were already talking about it. i had already dropped some trades on my twinks and started gathering. the 225 bug, now that was a true error. as for a level 10 or even lower to get 450 gathering skills....IT WAS KNOWN prior to the wotlk patch and wotlk release.

 

[Jadyn]

I believe that instead of discussing whether this is an exploit or not, we should be discussing the potential damage grandfathering this enchant could do to the various twink brackets.



For instance, would it be useful, for the sake of competition, to declare the enchant an exploit? It seems pretty clear that it isn't by the standard definition, but an extra 30 stamina and 15 resilience is a substantial advantage. In my case, I'm multiplying that extra bonus over 10 players in a premade match, which leads to a very large advantage.

 

[Tetox]

basically...these are clearly not working as intended and need to be fixed...they arent an "exploit" because the owner doesnt have to do anything illegal to get them, but they are still no working as intended and i think in the future, ppl will look upon those who use these shoulders in premades/arenas the same way we currently look upon ppl who use scryer/aldor exploits



personally i think the huge margin of voting for "not an exploit" is explained by the fact that practically EVERYONE has these shoulders...if these were as infrequent to see as 450 profs, i think the vote would look very different...i voted that it wasnt an exploit based on my reasons stated above (i dont have these shoulders btw) but i think most of the votes coming in are out of personal interest



basically these arent exploits but they are fucking cheap (not saying this out of spite...i could have em if i wanted....i just wouldnt even use em over naxx most of the time) and i think in the future, it will be seen as cheap/noobish to use these in twink vs twink situations

 

[Swoopsies]

i think in the future, ppl will look upon those who use these shoulders in premades/arenas the same way we currently look upon ppl who use scryer/aldor exploits

I don't think this will be the case at all. Uninformed people who didn't go through this (if Blizz does grandfather it) may frown upon those, but it's simply not an "exploit" like the scryer/aldor chants were. Manipulation is much different than mailing back and forth a BoA item which is intended for that purpose. But then again, if Blizz has stated it's not supposed to work like that, my guess is it will just be grandfathered regardless.