Id be really interested to know whether archon snapshots the Tal Stacks, ive only had the time to try tal/vyrs spec out for about an hour or two - judging from that, Tal Stacks are not snapshot but "dynamic", amirite?
They are for sure yes. You notice a very significant damage drop after the initial first seconds.
If you have an equipped Teleport or Slow Time skill with a rune on, does the Archon version of those spells also benefit from it? Like Safe Passage from Teleport for reduced damage while teleporting around as an archon?
Slow time works, and it even stacks with the non-archon verson. Aka you can get 2x 10% attack speed. For teleport I'm not sure but you need the damage rune to proc arcane tal-rasha anyway so I can't really imagine a build using safe passage.
I seriously don't understand why people play with frost nova when you can just play with Ray of frost, remove arcane torrent and get a free skill slot.
You're using Focus/Restraint with a build concept that's predicated on running around in chicken form and ONLY stopping to kill elites, with trash melting in ~2 seconds (before you get 2-2.5 screens away and LS stops ticking).
There's a way around this and it's something I'm working on (750 paragon levels later), but it's a pretty steep gear requirement to be 'ultra efficient' in T7 group play. Basically you need about 2-2.5m sheet dps unbuffed.
I agree focus and retraint might not be optimal. I mostly keep them for boss kills but I'm sure there are more optimal alternatives.
Helltooth standart build bears/cloud with chicken is still the best option. Why you still trying to reinvent the wheel )
No way helltooth with chicken is best for t7 speedfarming. Arachyr gives +800% damage to chicken and to locust swarm. Combine that with a quetzalcoatl, wormwood and spec into pestilence and you can race through t7 only exploding on elite mobs and killing everything else with locust swarm. Helltooth is miles behind, your chicken does no damage so you have to get out of chicken, get the helltooth set damage bonus up by casting wall of death, and then you can start killing mobs with acid cloud, all of that while being static without moving an inch. Completely crap.
Acid cloud one-shots half of screen on t7, lol.
While swarm spreads you alredy have all mobs killed. I tryed both builds. And HT is better. That's my opinion. It's okay that you disagree — maybe your helltooth set is not good enough, IDK.
And one more thing - FROG_EATS_MOBS. It's annoying )
Acid cloud is an active ability that you need to stand still for to cast. You also need to get the helltooth bonus damage up by casting wall of death. Thats the whole flaw in the build.
The damage from the arachyr/locust setup is 100% passive. You cruise through levels and kill everything without ever stopping to cast except for popping out of chicken to explode on elites/very high hp targets and instantly go in chicken form again.
The concept is really simple, what do you prefer:
1) Cruise around in chicken, pop out of chicken on elite mobs (killing them by chicken explosion) pop chicken and instantly move along.
2) Cruise around in chicken, pop out of chicken on every single mob with an explosion that deals almost no damage and kills nothing, cast wall of death to get the buff up and cast acid cloud to kill everything around you, pop chicken and move along.
So ye, walking and passively autokilling everything is always gonna beat walking and actively having to stand still to cast. Talking about gear, the first option is far more gear dependent because its harder to reach a threshold where your locust swarm kills all white mobs before you get out of damage range running past mobs then it is for helltooth acid cloud to reach the threshold where it one shots everything. I'm currently 1300paragon level and only played WD this season, so trust me I have the gear.
Helltooth standart build bears/cloud with chicken is still the best option. Why you still trying to reinvent the wheel )
No way helltooth with chicken is best for t7 speedfarming. Arachyr gives +800% damage to chicken and to locust swarm. Combine that with a quetzalcoatl, wormwood and spec into pestilence and you can race through t7 only exploding on elite mobs and killing everything else with locust swarm. Helltooth is miles behind, your chicken does no damage so you have to get out of chicken, get the helltooth set damage bonus up by casting wall of death, and then you can start killing mobs with acid cloud, all of that while being static without moving an inch. Completely crap.
I'm sure if Blizzard would do a large banwave once a year the large majority of the community woudn't bother with botting.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. The number of people who bot will continue to raise with 1 or 2 banwaves per year. Blizzard have to do minimum of 2 banwaves per season in order the number of botters to start at least lowering. This means minimum of 8 waves per year. And still the smart coders won't be caught.
Ye right, the majority of people who bot are willing to buy 7 diablo licenses a year or 2 per season. ok.
@Willemh, don't forget that in wow, Blizzard also have an economy to look after. It's an MMO and botting there actually has a greater impact on things than they do in D3. So yes, less effort is probably put into to counteract the botting in diablo but I still doubt it's an easy task to permanently keep bots out of the game.
You made a post earlier where you brainstormed a few measures one could take to identify a bot. In the same time I (or someone actually writing bots) could alter the code so that your software would not be able to detect the bot. There are ways that are super easy a bot, but those ways are also super easy to counteract by someone writing these scripts. I'm betting Blizzard doesn't want to have this endless chase and want to come up with a more permanent solution, i.e. Warden, that they keep improving. It's also important that Blizzard keeps the game playable, which means they can't have Warden checking on everything you do nor have in-game CAPTCHA that needs to be answered on a regular basis.
I'm sure if Blizzard would do a large banwave once a year the large majority of the community woudn't bother with botting. So this 'endless armsrace' of blizzard finding something and the bots adjusting to it really isnt that big of a deal as you make it sound, at best this armsrace would be very slow and happen once a year. They only need to do this stuff once a year orso to give the majority of the community a large incentive to stop botting. Searching for something to identify bot users once a year really doesnt sound like that big of a task.
Nah, I simply do not believe that Blizzard can't detect and ban the large majority of bots if they would make it one of their priorities. The thing is, they dont. Apearantly they feel the issue isn't important enough to spend sufficient resources on. That is the key issue. Not the fact that any of these bots are undetectable. Believing that is just plain stupit.
If the bot is written good, there is no way a software could detect it. In online poker for example there were major problems with bots generating more than a million from rakeback (percent of money a player receives based on the generated rake) while being breakeven (breakeven means the bot doesn't win or lose anything with rake included). And guess how they caught them: The other players suspected it, observing and seeing identical patterns in the bots play style. And we are talking about a lot of money here, not the desire of some dude to be part of a leaderboard with nicknames. So catching bots is very hard. And if the bot is custom made, you can forget about catching it at all.
The design of Diablo 3 should not give botters any advantage over the normal pool of players. That's the only way.
Ye ok, funny man. How are you comparing a bot thats written by 2 guys in their spare time in a few weeks time with a super sophisticated poker bot.
You know how companys like Riot, valve and the game smite countered Map hacks, by hiding crucial information from the client so that nobody can see it unless the server sends that specific information. Same shit is being done with bots, long gone are the days where downloading something provided the entire package. Authentication and encryption is how they hide a lot of the workings of a bot.
Some bots still use injection, which CAN be detected, if they find the method of which they're hooking into the client. The problem with this, is so many things actually attach to the client, one way you can see this is load up cheatengine, it automatically hooks into all programs and when you start WoW up, it is detected and you're told to close it. But you can't do that if it doesn't actually write to the memory that is actively scanned.
I know a few Runescape bots that use a method called Reflection, where it literally is a very advance color bot that clicks on specific colors and has ZERO interaction with the game besides that.
It's not just an easy throw money to find solutions. Looking at patterns COULD lead to banning bots, but any smart person wouldn't bot 20+ hours a day for 4 weeks straight.
Just look at the most popular bot for WoW, blizzard had to take them to court to attempt to shut down the program because they have so much trouble detecting. They used some hotspot methods which caught people in MoP but that was quickly fixed and botters were back again. They caught people in WoD because of the rotation bots and kick bots which have inhuman reaction times (~50ms reaction to kick).
It's just not as easy as people think it is, throwing money at it won't solve it. I'll look forward to you actually scripting, implementing and showing the results of these so called easy methods to detect bots.
[tinfoil]It's so easy guys, even a chimp can do it, but clearly bli$$ are just lazy![/tinfoil]
WoD banwave for WoW wasn't only related to rotation and interrupt bots. EVERY active user of the bot was banned at that point. There were actually 2 ban waves in a row for 2 different bots very shortly after eachother. I know this because a guildie of me got banned 2 times in a row within a month. These ban waves were huge. Also these hotspots and inhuman reactions are part of the current bots used for Diablo aswell. I would gladly argue that the main bot for WoW is far more developed and sophisticated then the bots currently used for Diablo. So if Blizzard can do it for WoW, what makes you think they can't do it for Diablo? That's right, apearantly it doesnt have priority and there is no manpower available to do so.
Nah, I simply do not believe that Blizzard can't detect and ban the large majority of bots if they would make it one of their priorities. The thing is, they dont. Apearantly they feel the issue isn't important enough to spend sufficient resources on. That is the key issue. Not the fact that any of these bots are undetectable. Believing that is just plain stupit.
If the bot is written good, there is no way a software could detect it. In online poker for example there were major problems with bots generating more than a million from rakeback (percent of money a player receives based on the generated rake) while being breakeven (breakeven means the bot doesn't win or lose anything with rake included). And guess how they caught them: The other players suspected it, observing and seeing identical patterns in the bots play style. And we are talking about a lot of money here, not the desire of some dude to be part of a leaderboard with nicknames. So catching bots is very hard. And if the bot is custom made, you can forget about catching it at all.
The design of Diablo 3 should not give botters any advantage over the normal pool of players. That's the only way.
Ye ok, funny man. How are you comparing a bot thats written by 2 guys in their spare time in a few weeks time with a super sophisticated poker bot.
Also ITT, people expect not to be banned for obviously abusing a bug. Lesson learned, if you want to "see" what an exploit can do, watch youtube vids or streamers who decide they want to roll the dice with their accounts.
Check playtime this season, if more then 20 hours/day over the average of 4 weeks, instaban. Check sessions for keyboard input, if 10+ hours without a single minute without keyboard input, instaban. Monitor movement in town, if running the exact same pattern from the vendor, to the rift portal, to the blacksmith, to kadala for 10+ times in succession, instaban. Monitor targeting inside rifts, if never 'miss-clicking' air instead of a monster for 1+ hour, instaban. Monitor the use of potions, if never using a potion above a certain treshold for 100+ potion usages in a row, instaban. Monitor the use of certain skills, if never using skills like smokescreen of spirit walk above a certain health treshold for 100+ usages in a row, instaban. Monitor movement in specific rift maps, if taking the exact same route at the start of certain maps, 100+ times in a row, instaban.
This are just things I can think of in 5 minutes of brainstorming. You simply have to find the things a human can't do and a bot can. If you would put an actual team on it to work on it for a week you could come up with so many more factors that show non-human behaviour. If you're telling me blizzard cant write that, then I have to respectfully disagree with you. They could, they simply decide not to put effort into it.
Banning someone because they play too much is out of the question... who are you to say "oh gee, this guy plays to much, must ban him" Also, not hard to script in a god damn pause for bots, simple wait function with a random integer.
I would be banned for the "always pressing keys", I've gone 14+ hours for 3 days in a row when the season started. It's easily done if you don't drink too much liquid.
After I finish a rift, I always close, salvage/repair, kadala(after 3-4 rifts), ID, salvage, deposit, open new rift. I would be banned.
Targeting can be done with shift clicking, which doesn't require you to actually aim at a monster to hit them with it...
Thresholds for abilities/potions have a "use between 50%-70%" Instantly counters all of those points.
When I get particular rifts, I take the SAME path, Bots are more likely to take a more randomized pathing due to well, not wanting to trigger hotspots, something they already do in WoW which bots already counter by having randomized waypoints.
Anything a human can do, a bot can be programmed to do. What you're suggesting would catch so many false positives that it's not worth the time to sift through it all. People generally don't grasp what is actually needed to catch bots/cheats but will always complain or tinfoil their opinions as to why blizzard isn't doing it.
The thing is, Blizzard is always 1 step ahead. Sure a bot CAN be coded to counter all of this. But the bot that is currently used by everyone sure as hell doesnt have everything randomised. So when suddenly all bot users get banned, how will the bot creator figure out what caused the ban? Blizzard wont tell him, thats for sure. So he would have to 'guess' the detection blizzard used, out of the countless options. And after he changed his bot blizzard can simply download it, check it out, and figure out a new way to detect it.
And no I'm not the one saying 'oh gee, this guy plays too much, must ban him'. I'm the one saying 'oh gee, this guy plays more then any human being can possibly do, lets ban him'. I'm not talking 14+ hours a day, I'm talking 20+ hours a day, for 4 weeks straight. No human being can go 4 weeks of playing diablo 20+ hours a day. If you want to argue about that feel free, you just make yourself look silly. And I seriously call bullshit on your 14 hour+ of joining a rift, leaving a rift without a single MINUTE of not pressing any buttons. There is NOBODY who manages that. I dont think you go 14 hours without peeing a single time. Or 14 hours without grabbing a drink. Or 14 hours without grabbing some food and stuffing it in your mouth. All of that is a minute downtime AT LEAST. No human plays the game for 14 hours without a single micro break of 1 min. If you really want to argue about this, feel free, but you really make yourself look silly if you say you played 14 hours a day without a SINGLE MINUTE downtime the first 3 days of this season.
Nah, I simply do not believe that Blizzard can't detect and ban the large majority of bots if they would make it one of their priorities. The thing is, they dont. Apearantly they feel the issue isn't important enough to spend sufficient resources on. That is the key issue. Not the fact that any of these bots are undetectable. Believing that is just plain stupit.
Also ITT, people expect not to be banned for obviously abusing a bug. Lesson learned, if you want to "see" what an exploit can do, watch youtube vids or streamers who decide they want to roll the dice with their accounts.
Check playtime this season, if more then 20 hours/day over the average of 4 weeks, instaban. Check sessions for keyboard input, if 10+ hours without a single minute without keyboard input, instaban. Monitor movement in town, if running the exact same pattern from the vendor, to the rift portal, to the blacksmith, to kadala for 10+ times in succession, instaban. Monitor targeting inside rifts, if never 'miss-clicking' air instead of a monster for 1+ hour, instaban. Monitor the use of potions, if never using a potion above a certain treshold for 100+ potion usages in a row, instaban. Monitor the use of certain skills, if never using skills like smokescreen of spirit walk above a certain health treshold for 100+ usages in a row, instaban. Monitor movement in specific rift maps, if taking the exact same route at the start of certain maps, 100+ times in a row, instaban.
This are just things I can think of in 5 minutes of brainstorming. You simply have to find the things a human can't do and a bot can. If you would put an actual team on it to work on it for a week you could come up with so many more factors that show non-human behaviour. If you're telling me blizzard cant write that, then I have to respectfully disagree with you. They could, they simply decide not to put effort into it.
'But he also did it' or 'he did it far more' is like the most used excuse by 8 year olds. Once you grow up you learn it doesnt work that way, except for half the people in this topic it seems.
Please consider the age of the people here. Even though this game is rated Mature (17+), I expect many players to have broken the law in this respect. Furthermore, 17 is still really young, and at least 4 years away from cerebral maturity (and with that, the ability to properly weigh risks).
Young people (and also some older people) are going to do stupid shit, and they're gonna rationalize it. This is what happened, and I'm glad that blizzard is finally taking a step in the right direction in terms of punishing stupid shit. Maybe the banned players will grow up a little because of it...
I'm sure mannercookie is quite a bit older then 17 considering his beard
'But he also did it' or 'he did it far more' is like the most used excuse by 8 year olds. Once you grow up you learn it doesnt work that way, except for half the people in this topic it seems.
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I seriously don't understand why people play with frost nova when you can just play with Ray of frost, remove arcane torrent and get a free skill slot.
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Well so much for group meta running multiple dps...S6 is exactly the same as S5 and this change did nothing in regard to the meta.
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Acid cloud is an active ability that you need to stand still for to cast. You also need to get the helltooth bonus damage up by casting wall of death. Thats the whole flaw in the build.
The damage from the arachyr/locust setup is 100% passive. You cruise through levels and kill everything without ever stopping to cast except for popping out of chicken to explode on elites/very high hp targets and instantly go in chicken form again.
The concept is really simple, what do you prefer:
1) Cruise around in chicken, pop out of chicken on elite mobs (killing them by chicken explosion) pop chicken and instantly move along.
2) Cruise around in chicken, pop out of chicken on every single mob with an explosion that deals almost no damage and kills nothing, cast wall of death to get the buff up and cast acid cloud to kill everything around you, pop chicken and move along.
So ye, walking and passively autokilling everything is always gonna beat walking and actively having to stand still to cast. Talking about gear, the first option is far more gear dependent because its harder to reach a threshold where your locust swarm kills all white mobs before you get out of damage range running past mobs then it is for helltooth acid cloud to reach the threshold where it one shots everything. I'm currently 1300paragon level and only played WD this season, so trust me I have the gear.
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Ye right, the majority of people who bot are willing to buy 7 diablo licenses a year or 2 per season. ok.
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I'm sure if Blizzard would do a large banwave once a year the large majority of the community woudn't bother with botting. So this 'endless armsrace' of blizzard finding something and the bots adjusting to it really isnt that big of a deal as you make it sound, at best this armsrace would be very slow and happen once a year. They only need to do this stuff once a year orso to give the majority of the community a large incentive to stop botting. Searching for something to identify bot users once a year really doesnt sound like that big of a task.
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And no I'm not the one saying 'oh gee, this guy plays too much, must ban him'. I'm the one saying 'oh gee, this guy plays more then any human being can possibly do, lets ban him'. I'm not talking 14+ hours a day, I'm talking 20+ hours a day, for 4 weeks straight. No human being can go 4 weeks of playing diablo 20+ hours a day. If you want to argue about that feel free, you just make yourself look silly. And I seriously call bullshit on your 14 hour+ of joining a rift, leaving a rift without a single MINUTE of not pressing any buttons. There is NOBODY who manages that. I dont think you go 14 hours without peeing a single time. Or 14 hours without grabbing a drink. Or 14 hours without grabbing some food and stuffing it in your mouth. All of that is a minute downtime AT LEAST. No human plays the game for 14 hours without a single micro break of 1 min. If you really want to argue about this, feel free, but you really make yourself look silly if you say you played 14 hours a day without a SINGLE MINUTE downtime the first 3 days of this season.
Nah, I simply do not believe that Blizzard can't detect and ban the large majority of bots if they would make it one of their priorities. The thing is, they dont. Apearantly they feel the issue isn't important enough to spend sufficient resources on. That is the key issue. Not the fact that any of these bots are undetectable. Believing that is just plain stupit.
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Check playtime this season, if more then 20 hours/day over the average of 4 weeks, instaban. Check sessions for keyboard input, if 10+ hours without a single minute without keyboard input, instaban. Monitor movement in town, if running the exact same pattern from the vendor, to the rift portal, to the blacksmith, to kadala for 10+ times in succession, instaban. Monitor targeting inside rifts, if never 'miss-clicking' air instead of a monster for 1+ hour, instaban. Monitor the use of potions, if never using a potion above a certain treshold for 100+ potion usages in a row, instaban. Monitor the use of certain skills, if never using skills like smokescreen of spirit walk above a certain health treshold for 100+ usages in a row, instaban. Monitor movement in specific rift maps, if taking the exact same route at the start of certain maps, 100+ times in a row, instaban.
This are just things I can think of in 5 minutes of brainstorming. You simply have to find the things a human can't do and a bot can. If you would put an actual team on it to work on it for a week you could come up with so many more factors that show non-human behaviour. If you're telling me blizzard cant write that, then I have to respectfully disagree with you. They could, they simply decide not to put effort into it.
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'But he also did it' or 'he did it far more' is like the most used excuse by 8 year olds. Once you grow up you learn it doesnt work that way, except for half the people in this topic it seems.