Hello everyone!
I am recieving a lot of PMs lately and I apologize for not responding to everyone individually. I really did not want to discuss anything related to exploiting or removing kinships from this list publicly, but since there seem to be many different opinions on certain kinships, a clear and public communication may be the best solution.
First of all, I would like to explain my personal understanding of what counts as "severe exploit" and what doesn't:
In my opinion, there is a thin line and a lot of gray area between making clever use of unintended mechanics and a real exploit.
Let me give you some examples of what I consider "making clever use of probably unintended mechanics" and I think there is no reason to blame anyone for doing it:
- Using your cooldowns (for example Captain's "To Arms") pre combat and and using them again after they resetted when starting a bossfight.
- Switching your LIs or Armour in-combat. Note that switching armour is not possible any more but was commonly done pre HD expansion.
- Using old clickable armour or jewellary to gain some buffs pre-combat and then switch back to some items with better stats (e.g. Rift armour with 25% shadow damage avoidance).
- Interrupting skill animation with immediate skills to accelerate your skill rotation (if everything is done manually without the use of third party software).
- Re-summoning your Loremaster's pet to have no cooldown on their skills.
- ...
Then there are some "borderline exploits" which are clearly unintended but they are widely used and give you a comparably small boost. I feel switching trait trees pre-combat falls into this category. And while I am not happy to see this happening, I still don't think it justifies permanently removing a kinship from this list.
And then there are "heavy exploits" such as:
- Client hacks.
- Use of third party software messing with your skills.
- Using Inspired Greatness in raid instances.
- Stat exploits such as the Warsteed bug from some time ago.
- Exploiting enemy mobs so that they can't attack you any more. For example via heal aggro or Beorning taunts from outside the boss room.
- Using terrain exploits / glitch jumps to reach positions where you shouldn't be.
- Basically everything that allows your group to avoid the main indented mechanics of a fight, making the fight significantly easier.
- ...
If someone finds evidence that a certain kinship used "heavy exploits" to get a kill then I will certainly act accordingly.
I am recieving a lot of PMs regarding two things:
First, in Portal's Gothmog T2C kill video, we can see that there are 5 Minstrel Anthems active and some people suspect them of using an exploit. I personally don't play a Minstrel but I know that there should be no more than 3 Anthems active at the same time. Switching trait trees pre combat allow you to get a maximum of 4 Anthems but I do not know how 5+ Anthems are possible. I would like to see a statement of Portal explaining to us: 1.) how it is possible to get 5+ Anthems at the same time without exploiting and 2.) if it is a "borderline exploit", do you think it influenced your abilty to get the Gothmog T2C kill in a significant way? Why / why not?
I am also seeing your DPS classes are not affected by the "bird knockback", however I do not think it counts as severe exploit, so you do not need to comment on that.
Second, Eru Echor kinship made a public statement (both in English and in German) on their website:
http://eruechor.ml/
So it seems like they got their first legit kill on Gothmog (without help from a GM) on 30 August which would mean they would be on rank 5 instead of rank 4. So I'm kind of torn between changing their kill date to 30 August and not changing it.
At the moment I am more on the side of not changing it because of two reasons: 1.) the fact that Turbine did not revoke their titles indicates that they did not "scam" a GM but simply had help to get past a bugged door. Also they did not skip any phases of the fight and the GM granted them the deed after monitoring them during the rest of the fight. 2.) I think it is VERY likely that they would have been able the beat it during the same lock cycle (they had raid locks after 20th August), so they would still be on rank 4 on the list nevertheless.
Please everyone keep civil and don't be hostile or disrespectful towards any other players or kinships!