The WoW Shadowlands Mythic title for Season 4 has finally been awarded to the MMORPG‘s most dedicated players, but anyone who exploited a rather irritating legacy quest buff has been deemed ineligible for the reward.
Throughout the tail end of Shadowlands, players were able to share buffs from a legacy quest when completing Mythic plus dungeons. The quest (Zen’kiki, the Druid) provided players with an improved Mark of the Wild Buff, granting more than 15% resistance to nature-based spells. Given just how good this buff is, and the fact you could easily redo the quest to reset the buff, it’s pretty easy to see how it would help out with dungeon clears.
A second exploit also slipped through the cracks, where players were using a PvP consumable that granted 10% extra stamina, which again is obviously a very powerful upgrade. This exploit has not been addressed by Blizzard at the time of writing.
Instead, those who exploited the Zen’kiki buff will not be receiving the Shrouded Hero title, with Blizzard explaining “in this region [EU and NA], we had to disqualify some players who abused a buff from sharing a legacy quest to achieve their top scores.”
Clarifying that “the cutoff score of 3120 did not change following disqualifications,” on paper this looks like Blizzard has done a good thing – after all, some players only achieved their scores because of the exploit. The comments section, however, has been quick to disagree.
“Why did you not instantly fix the buff being usable in dungeons?” asks one fan. “Why did you not instantly make a statement saying runs with the buff won’t count towards the achievement? Why are you punishing players for something you failed to do better, when it is in no way a bug abuse or exploit since it requires you nothing more than getting a quest shared, not knowing what it does or gives, accepting out of curiosity and just well, having it.”
“I had some randoms in my keys who permanently shared the buff, I didn’t use it actively but I cant say that I’ve never had it when I completed a key since I don’t track my buffs 24/7,” writes another.
A final comment reads “just let people have their achievement, no one’s winning from this. Make a statement for the future and be clear about any future runs in Dragonflight and onwards being disqualified if any out of the norm buff is detected. And try to fix all your overworld buffs that might conflict with competitive gameplay. Take responsibility for your own game.”
This issue is a pretty complex one. While I can understand that players who didn’t use the buff put in ‘more work,’ as it were, given the lack of communication about it invalidating runs I think it would be best to just hand out the reward, then ensure any shared legacy buffs that could interfere with competitive play are ‘banned’ ahead of time. While there’ll always be a grey area for those who are the unwilling recipients of such buffs, at least players would know where they stand (sort of).
Hopefully some adjustments are made as we come into the next WoW expansion. If you’re looking to prepare for the Dragon Isles, be sure to check out our list of the best WoW addons, as well as our rundown of the new (yet old) World of Warcaft Dragonflight talents system.