Some advice from this amazing community. 9 accounts banned in 1 week?

[Aion]

You're doing something wrong than. Keep in note that blizzard knows when you are using public v pn. The only way to trick blizzard is to setup your own wpn on vps.

Or use some unpopular ones, there is tons of small vpn providers, I have botted or goldselling from such from years, and had no issues.

The popular companies are indeed flagged, due to the massive number of people using those IP addresses for all kind of stuff, including frauds, so its common that their IP ranges are already flagged.

Btw, the word vpn is not flagged from the forums nowadays

 

[Xarian]

Dont use HB, thats about the best advice anyone can give ya

 

[Aion]

Dont use HB, thats about the best advice anyone can give ya

If you do not want to bot, then the best advice here is to stay away off botting forums, instead of trolling here, right?

 

[rabbit79183]

Excuse me, but have to comment within your quote for clear results:

Dont get sad, this is called experience!

And your English is good, no worry!

Good luck.

My Main account is always using my main computer to login and play
bot accounts are using other 3 computers
total used 4 computers
and i am remote other 3 computer to control [like teamviewer , but i am using Brynhildr]
use A computer to sign A account , and every move is on A computer , other 2 too

i will not use my main computer to login other 3 bot's BN account and Game account
my main computer only to login my main account , guild account , mail account

my net coffee have two ip out , and that can't be change
all computer is use the same ip out
only different is IP network , like 192.168.10.222

last , that accounts lived 4 days , they are 8 hours / day [leveling]

just dunno how to let ban Come later , i can accept one week a ban , but 3 days is too much

 

[Aion]

My Main account is always using my main computer to login and play
bot accounts are using other 3 computers
total used 4 computers
and i am remote other 3 computer to control [like teamviewer , but i am using Brynhildr]
use A computer to sign A account , and every move is on A computer , other 2 too

i will not use my main computer to login other 3 bot's BN account and Game account
my main computer only to login my main account , guild account , mail account

my net coffee have two ip out , and that can't be change
all computer is use the same ip out
only different is IP network , like 192.168.10.222

last , that accounts lived 4 days , they are 8 hours / day [leveling]

just dunno how to let ban Come later , i can accept one week a ban , but 3 days is too much

Last night had some chat with Tensta, he posted very similar story like you.

It had more similarities than differences with your one. And he was clearing systems after bans, as most as he can afford, and still receiving shorter and shorter bans, down to 4 hours longevity on last accounts.

The similar between both of you is the sharing of the public IP address of his main account and his bot accounts, neither of which have ever logged in the same computer, but still all joined in the same home network.

Thats the reason I suggested you to test the blue&bold topic.

With VPN/VPS or other kind of leased IP address (like you can use your cell phone's internet with its own IP address for a week or so), once you bot in virtual space, never connecting to Blizzard from your home or net-cafe IP address, then you should make a break!
Its worth to test this!

Keep in mind, since you are receiving decreasing ban intervals, I really hope those are still automatic bans, but you have increased risk for manual investigation vs you, so if such happen, any kind of account from your subnet could burn, like mains, banks, trade ones and so on. So take it slowly, if you have accounts you cannot afford to loose there.

 

[Defnottabot]

This guy's experience looks A LOT like mine. Also because it happened after February ban.

Update:

I think since February blizz is changing their approach. From what it LOOKs like, they are monitoring new accounts. See below:

3/3 banned in first 3 days
6/6 banned in first 3 days
1/1 banned in first 3 days

All of these got 1-110 in less than 2 days. Now I've taken 5 days to get to 109 and still going fine. I'll update you guys on my latest test.

If, after a week I'm still good, my advice is to bot new accounts like a casual for the first 3 days and then open it up. I think this might be why those of us keep getting weak ass, fishy "Reported for Cheating" 6 monthers.

I do know they are *****ing down on "account sharing" as well. So be careful with VPNs and logging in on different PCs, I really do think it flags you for a bot/cheating investigation.

My second theory I disproved which was running multiple accounts from the same PC gets a flag. Several other botters I know started at roughly the same time I lost all my accounts and he's still going strong. Again, botting like a casual.

Hope this helps some of you!

Thanks,

defnottabot

 

[pimpampum]

Update:

I think since February blizz is changing their approach. From what it LOOKs like, they are monitoring new accounts.

...

I do know they are *****ing down on "account sharing" as well. So be careful with VPNs and logging in on different PCs, I really do think it flags you for a bot/cheating investigation.

Occam's razor comes to mind.


Do you think it is more likely that Blizzard changed his behaviour but somehow this is just happening to just a few selected users?

Or would it be simplier to assume that somehow your systems are still flagged?


If it serves you as guidance, there are plenty (hundreds? thousands?) of individual and mass botters right now. The sort of continous banning you are experiencing seem to be really far from what most people report, which is very calm waters on Blizz's banning beach.

If I were to make an assumption, I'd guess you are still flagged.


You didn't reformat your PC? Check. You didn't reinstall windows? CHECK.

same IP? CHECK. (Some folks use the "Shared house" argument trying to dismiss this possibility. Do we really think that would stop blizzard to use the most obvious linkage between accounts to FLAG them? IF you are still thinking this, better find anoter hobby. Seriously.)

You didn't completely delete Blizzard files from your System , trying to save time you copy / pasted an installation? CHECK.

You downloaded the client using a no-brand-new account (which could perfectly be your main, even when left unactioned). CHECK.

You forgot to change your HWID and MaC Id's after restoring to factory settings? CHECK.

You use old battlenets because Heirlooms? Or old guilds cause Guild bank and perks? CHECK.


And so on. There are many other options that your accounts could be identified, and you need to put massive attention to detail. We don't really now, but we can speculate, and in some cases we are succesful in running from their grasp.


Point is, you have to be extremely careful and punctilious when you are focused by Blizzard; what you seem to be suffering now.

 

[Aion]

Update:

I think since February blizz is changing their approach. From what it LOOKs like, they are monitoring new accounts. See below:

3/3 banned in first 3 days
6/6 banned in first 3 days
1/1 banned in first 3 days

All of these got 1-110 in less than 2 days. Now I've taken 5 days to get to 109 and still going fine. I'll update you guys on my latest test.

If, after a week I'm still good, my advice is to bot new accounts like a casual for the first 3 days and then open it up. I think this might be why those of us keep getting weak ass, fishy "Reported for Cheating" 6 monthers.

I do know they are *****ing down on "account sharing" as well. So be careful with VPNs and logging in on different PCs, I really do think it flags you for a bot/cheating investigation.

My second theory I disproved which was running multiple accounts from the same PC gets a flag. Several other botters I know started at roughly the same time I lost all my accounts and he's still going strong. Again, botting like a casual.

Hope this helps some of you!

Thanks,

defnottabot

Yep, I see some cool experience here!

Im glad you found out one of the common issues here with fast account bans, but it is not new since Feb. Blizzard are monitoring new accounts in the first 72h of battle chest upgrade since several years, but in the time-span, not all of those flags were directly leading to bans, sometimes they just flag this and store in the record for bans later. But it looks like in February they just bans accounts, flagged for this!

The flag for running multiple wows per machine is real too, but again, flag does not mean direct ban!. They flag by tons of factors, no doubt, and only some of them leads to ban. The usual ban factor is running several gold-farming bots from same machine.
I was kicked several times, after running 7-8-9 gather bots in same machine/same shift from Pandaria to nowadays.

 

[Defnottabot]

Yep, I see some cool experience here!

Im glad you found out one of the common issues here with fast account bans, but it is not new since Feb. Blizzard are monitoring new accounts in the first 72h of battle chest upgrade since several years, but in the time-span, not all of those flags were directly leading to bans, sometimes they just flag this and store in the record for bans later. But it looks like in February they just bans accounts, flagged for this!

The flag for running multiple wows per machine is real too, but again, flag does not mean direct ban!. They flag by tons of factors, no doubt, and only some of them leads to ban. The usual ban factor is running several gold-farming bots from same machine.
I was kicked several times, after running 7-8-9 gather bots in same machine/same shift from Pandaria to nowadays.

Good to know! I've only been botting the last 7 months or so, but I somehow missed this information searching the forums. In my experience, they didn't care when I had multiples on same bnet before, even from same PC. I would get banned 2/7 even though all 7 were doing the same thing. Now, that doesn't appear to be the case and they go for your nuts.

To disprove the IP/MAC link theory (which just sounds like too much work tbh), I haven't changed anything about my set up. Same PC, same IP, same install, same OS. Now, I may be stupid to do this, but I wanted to be able to provide "valuable" feedback to you guys.

My theory is that these fast bans have to more with tracking activity in the early stages of the account. Most likely /played time + time since account creation instead of actually flagging known botters.

I've worked in IT support management for large corporations like Blizzard before, specifically surrounding support/call centers. From my perspective, it would make since to start running filters for the most obvious bot play. I used to wonder why they didn't do this and I may be right on my hunch that now they are doing that. Most for-profit botters and botters in general want to get back up and running as quickly as possible and no new player is going to be putting in 24/7 playtime in the first few days. Seems logical. Flagging by hwid, ip, etc seems like it would be a waste of time as you IP will change periodically, your hw address can be spoofed, etc. I may be wrong, but I just wanted to test it out. If I get banned this time, I'll repeat the same test and see if it's consistent. I just don't think IP/hwid play a role or I think I would have gotten more complete bnet battle bans in 28 accounts and 5 bnet accounts and I didn't have that happen until just recently. Maybe I got lucky, but I don't believe in luck. I'll circle back with results as I have them for ya.

Anyone else see it happening this way? I know more people are getting banned with a generic "Reported for Cheating" and I think it's related. If not, I'll take off my tinfoil hat and walk back into the dork forest.

Another thought is maybe they changed the condition for right click->report to require fewer people to flag an investigation. Maybe it only takes one now?

Thanks for your help and feedback guys!

defnottabot

 

[pimpampum]

Good to know! I've only been botting the last 7 months or so, but I somehow missed this information searching the forums. In my experience, they didn't care when I had multiples on same bnet before, even from same PC. I would get banned 2/7 even though all 7 were doing the same thing. Now, that doesn't appear to be the case and they go for your nuts.

To disprove the IP/MAC link theory (which just sounds like too much work tbh), I haven't changed anything about my set up. Same PC, same IP, same install, same OS. Now, I may be stupid to do this, but I wanted to be able to provide "valuable" feedback to you guys.

So, you had this ban record:

February detection
3/3 banned in first 3 days
6/6 banned in first 3 days
1/1 banned in first 3 days

and you decided to keep same PC, same IP, same install, same OS.

Wow, man. Just wow. Certainly, you are stubborn, or just have too much money at your disposal to throw away.

My theory is that these fast bans have to more with tracking activity in the early stages of the account. Most likely /played time + time since account creation instead of actually flagging known botters.

Flagging by hwid, ip, etc seems like it would be a waste of time as you IP will change periodically, your hw address can be spoofed, etc.

Another thought is maybe they changed the condition for right click->report to require fewer people to flag an investigation. Maybe it only takes one now?

defnottabot

A big majority of botters here are botting 24/7 since day one. If that was a flag, all our accounts would all have been banned same way your accounts were.

Just the fact that ,after having > 10 licenses banned, you refuse to change your IP serves as a clear proof that IP tracking is not a waste of time. Who knows how many botters just don't do cause "insert X excuse to not do"; maybe that's too complicated for some?

While HWid and MaC addresses can be spoofed, as it has been previously stated, iirc by Chinajade, there is always a fingerprint of the original one when using basic spoofers. There's some advanced tricks but.....if there is a "restore original address" button in the program, that means that the original address can be found. Normally, it is hardcoded in the device. And it can be found for ID'ing your comp.

 

[Defnottabot]

So, you had this ban record:

February detection
3/3 banned in first 3 days
6/6 banned in first 3 days
1/1 banned in first 3 days

and you decided to keep same PC, same IP, same install, same OS.

Wow, man. Just wow. Certainly, you are stubborn, or just have too much money at your disposal to throw away.





A big majority of botters here are botting 24/7 since day one. If that was a flag, all our accounts would all have been banned same way your accounts were.

Just the fact that ,after having > 10 licenses banned, you refuse to change your IP serves as a clear proof that IP tracking is not a waste of time. Who knows how many botters just don't do cause "insert X excuse to not do"; maybe that's too complicated for some?

While HWid and MaC addresses can be spoofed, as it has been previously stated, iirc by Chinajade, there is always a fingerprint of the original one when using basic spoofers. There's some advanced tricks but.....if there is a "restore original address" button in the program, that means that the original address can be found. Normally, it is hardcoded in the device. And it can be found for ID'ing your comp.

I'm not refusing to do anything. If you had read my long winded OP, you'd see I did all of those things and I still got nailed, much like many others. Now, what I have is just a theory and, if nothing else, I'm down another account have confirmed exactly what you're saying. Any advancement in science or technology is coupled with questioning the "known." If the hwid/IP theory holds up, I should come back in 1-2 days saying I'm banned. I won't be ashamed to be wrong and tell you all that I'm wrong. If I'm not banned, then I'd be inclined to say account activity is what is grabbing me. I can't make broad generalizations, just simply share my experience dodging the bullet with you.

Things always change. Blizzard's approaches are changing and there is way more attention on catching botters since the b.net account balance rollout. What I'm trying to do is help other people that are getting "flagged" like I am, when I never was before. Wouldn't you think such a "flag" would have been put on my account after the first 8/8 ban I got? Or the second? Or the third? Something has changed from my experience botting and I'm just trying to figure out what. Given the viewcount of this post, I'm assuming others are looking for answers as well.

If there's another test you can propose, I'm all ears. I've got money and time and 7 HB licenses. To me, it's not even about dodging non-banwave detection, it's about figuring out how I'm getting nailed so I can find a way to "beat them."

My goal isn't to survive, it's to understand better how they're running shop.

Thank you,

defnottabot

 

[pimpampum]

Well mate, I had read the OP. And there you state that you do a wipe & reinstall the OS. Which doesn't neccesarily mean that you changed the IP or the HWids that you can easily spoof.

In fact, after reading through it and your latest posts, I still understand that you have chosen to not changing your IP in order to be able to determine whether that's a factor in flagging accounts.

You seem to be well aware that Blizz methods ain't static, and have changed and probably will keep changing over time; beyond that, they handle different penalties to golds sellers, multibotters and single botters.

It is a complicated time to try to take conclusions due to many factors involved; 3 bans waves in quick succession could also mean that they still hold us by the balls and they just ban whenever they feel like it.

 

[Tensta1337]

Hey guys, Tensta here. Back from 2 days of hard work trying to solve my issues regarding botting and I had yet still not solved my issue, i'd like to recap and share you guys what I've experienced and what I've done so far. I'd like to hear a discussion and your feedback about this, I've been enjoying reading the last 2 pages of this thread, you guys have some serious valuable feedback! I am getting tired of reading from people that hasn't experienced anything and keeps spamming the obvious common solutions that I have done over and over again as you will read further below. Back to me and my experiences:


Since february-ban wave: 6 accounts have been banned. They have been running one-by-one. The way these bans are characterised is that I get PERMANENTLY CLOSED and I receive NO mail on the WoW account mail of any explanation or reason - just banned.(I don't think I am flagged, I am in a far worse position - Blizzard knows who I am 100%.) From the february-ban wave till now I have done the following(in no specific prioritised order):
Reinstall WoW everytime I received the ban-hammer.
Reinstalled Windows on my PC and my laptop
Resetted my router between botting sessions
Changed my MAC
Changed my HWID
Changed my VolumeID
Used a VPN (I can't change my public IP-address, tried that as well)
Removed my WoW and Bnet registry keys on my PC
Created a new mail every time I created a new bot
Added human behaviour and general preventive-ban botting behaviour while botting
Reduced the amount of time I've botted
Used different botting profiles.

None of the following attempts to avoid getting banned has helped. I always get banned in the morning around 9 AM, logically where Blizzard employees work. I agree with pimpampum and defnottabot that 1) Blizzard have changed their way to handle botting and how they ban. 2) Their theories of how they might flag players. 3) New WoW accounts from battle-net chests that bots instantly gets banned/flagged faster.

I'd like to add my latest new attempt to prevent getting banned. I have always logged in with my main account, and I have never botted with it since 2012, so it has only been used as the gold receiver. My theory is that Blizzard knows that this account is ME, and they know that I am NOT botting on it but I am using it to trade mats and so on with. Instead of banning me they keep my main acc flagged and everywhere I login makes the PC flagged. I realised that at all times I have always logged in with my main battle.net acc when I wanted to download WoW again and I often logged in to my WoW acc as well just to play the game which added the acc to the WTF folders. I have now tried to do most of the stuff as listed above again, but this time I completly not log in with my main battle.net acc but only with a new one.(I am using my public IP-address again. No VPN, in my experience changing your IP-address with a VPN does not have ANY effect or solution to the problem of botting.) I'll tell you guys how it goes, and I'll join this debate seems like it has been very constructive the recent pages. Keep it up guys, thanks for everything so far.

Added note: If this bot gets banned, I am convinced that the following theory of: 3) New WoW accounts from battle-net chests that bots instantly gets banned/flagged faster is something that is becoming a reality. That would be my next move I guess.

Tensta

 

[Defnottabot]

Hey guys, Tensta here. Back from 2 days of hard work trying to solve my issues regarding botting and I had yet still not solved my issue, i'd like to recap and share you guys what I've experienced and what I've done so far. I'd like to hear a discussion and your feedback about this, I've been enjoying reading the last 2 pages of this thread, you guys have some serious valuable feedback! I am getting tired of reading from people that hasn't experienced anything and keeps spamming the obvious common solutions that I have done over and over again as you will read further below. Back to me and my experiences:


Since february-ban wave: 6 accounts have been banned. They have been running one-by-one. The way these bans are characterised is that I get PERMANENTLY CLOSED and I receive NO mail on the WoW account mail of any explanation or reason - just banned.(I don't think I am flagged, I am in a far worse position - Blizzard knows who I am 100%.) From the february-ban wave till now I have done the following(in no specific prioritised order):
Reinstall WoW everytime I received the ban-hammer.
Reinstalled Windows on my PC and my laptop
Resetted my router between botting sessions
Changed my MAC
Changed my HWID
Changed my VolumeID
Used a VPN (I can't change my public IP-address, tried that as well)
Removed my WoW and Bnet registry keys on my PC
Created a new mail every time I created a new bot
Added human behaviour and general preventive-ban botting behaviour while botting
Reduced the amount of time I've botted
Used different botting profiles.

None of the following attempts to avoid getting banned has helped. I always get banned in the morning around 9 AM, logically where Blizzard employees work. I agree with pimpampum and defnottabot that 1) Blizzard have changed their way to handle botting and how they ban. 2) Their theories of how they might flag players. 3) New WoW accounts from battle-net chests that bots instantly gets banned/flagged faster.

I'd like to add my latest new attempt to prevent getting banned. I have always logged in with my main account, and I have never botted with it since 2012, so it has only been used as the gold receiver. My theory is that Blizzard knows that this account is ME, and they know that I am NOT botting on it but I am using it to trade mats and so on with. Instead of banning me they keep my main acc flagged and everywhere I login makes the PC flagged. I realised that at all times I have always logged in with my main battle.net acc when I wanted to download WoW again and I often logged in to my WoW acc as well just to play the game which added the acc to the WTF folders. I have now tried to do most of the stuff as listed above again, but this time I completly not log in with my main battle.net acc but only with a new one.(I am using my public IP-address again. No VPN, in my experience changing your IP-address with a VPN does not have ANY effect or solution to the problem of botting.) I'll tell you guys how it goes, and I'll join this debate seems like it has been very constructive the recent pages. Keep it up guys, thanks for everything so far.

Added note: If this bot gets banned, I am convinced that the following theory of: 3) New WoW accounts from battle-net chests that bots instantly gets banned/flagged faster is something that is becoming a reality. That would be my next move I guess.

Tensta

Thanks for contributing, man. We gotta at least let our lost money in accounts go to something, right?

Just a couple of thoughts/comments:

The perma ban, in my experience and searching forums, means someone manually reported you via nastygram to [email protected]. Do you happen to be playing on the same server every time? Can I get your start up strategy? Do you change your start up strategy?

Mine is one of two paths:

100 char boost
98 DH - 110 via Auto-Loader
StarlightRose -> 200k for gear/bloods/oblit -> 10/10 oblit gear
Millz BG Farmer -> Prestige 8+ / 2 legendaries
Combat Routine

OR

100 char boost
98 DH - 110 via Auto-Loader
Millz BG Farmer -> Prestige 8+/ 2 legendaries
Combat Routine

I have done the same thing every time I've started back up. Knowing more about your activity and patterns would help a lot. Let me know if you'd like me to trade with your gold farmer to see if it flags me on a fresh botting account. I find it hard to believe that they have a leaf node set up for known gold storage accounts, that seems like it'd be way more trouble than it's worth. One thing I can think of is that there is a filter on this report to exclude older accounts from getting flagged. Which, would make sense if you think about it. Newer users shouldn't be hardcore, but a 5+ year old account with many acheivs, feats of strength, etc could definitely be hardcore and play 24/7.

Now, I know playtime can't be the only thing they're looking at. I encourage all those affected to share your routines, activities, specifically surrounding these fast-ban accounts that are happening. We might be able to do something with the data. I know it's very tinfoil hat, but if we can back it up with controlled tests, it may not be gospel, but it could help people.


If I'm not banned tomorrow, I'd say it's safe to say the following:

Blizz is selecting accounts where DaysSinceCreation < 3 and playtime > X. I'll explain more on why I think this after I see what happens. If I'm right, all you have to do is not play new accounts for 3 days and then open the flood gates. There are likely other specific selects for obvious botting that they generate automated investigation tickets for their "GMs." I would be willing to bet money that this is part of the initiative to ***** down on botters. If you think about it, it's a serious concern, as a buddy of mine just bought HB for $25 to get enough gold for Overwatch and now he's done and doesn't even play WoW anymore. Imagine how many other people are doing that same thing right now. It would make sense for the budget to be approved to start flagging accounts based on activity.

I do not believe Blizzard uses IP/MAC address for flags. Again, further testing should prove/disprove this. The reason I say IP is that your IP will change during the DHCP handshake between your router and your ISP when your DHCP lease is renewed (default is 24 hours). Your HWId is also not PROOF that you're botting. It's not useful to pinpoint specific accounts that you've attached a bot to. This means that a query that looks like this would have more "noise" or false positives. More false positives = more time wasted investigating accounts that you could better identify through criteria I mentioned above. Also, I've used different PHYSICAL servers for botting every time I've been banned, so I know the HWID is changing

I think they've got a new slew of queries that are targeting obvious botting behavior and I think this is the fist time they've done something like this or at least actioned it in real time instead of saving them up for a wave. Another example would be geolocation to ***** down on people using VPNs or "account sharing," flagging it for an investigation. Doing a select for different IP wouldn't be too terribly helpful, BUT if you looked for : select Accounts where count(distinct SUBSTRING(IP,0,5)) > 2, meaning the first 5 characters in the IP are different, indicating a different geolocation (dumbed down example). Another flag could be related to people who have bought wow tokens.

Another idea is that these flags may be triggering an on-demand scan. I've heard a lot about the "green circle of death" and I've seen the same damn circle. I've seen it several times since February and NEVER saw it before. No, I'm not changing the client, no the client wasn't repairing, no I've never seen that damn circle before. I've also noticed right before a ban I start getting performance problems within HonorBuddy, similar to what I'd expect if a virus suite hit it with a memory scan. Those of your reading and wanting to contribute, tell me if you've seen a correlation between a green circle in the upper middle of your wow client and getting banned shortly thereafter or if you noticed some unexplainable "lag" within HonorBuddy/Wow client before you got banned. An explanation for this could be that the type of scan they're running causes client contention and they only want to scan those that are flagged for potential botting. Other companies do detection this same way.

If I'm right, I'm sure this is just the beginning. They probably are running ~5 reports to action (for some reason people like the number 5 in rollouts like these). With more information, we might be able to figure out what kind of activity they are targeting, but I bet you money they'll add more reports after the slideshow they show to management conveys the results they're looking for.

Credentials:
Sr Solutions Architect
Lead Data Architect in Security
Service Delivery Manager - Global Support Operations
10+ years as a Software Engineer

Thank you,

defnottabot

 

[pimpampum]

Since february-ban wave: 6 accounts have been banned. They have been running one-by-one. The way these bans are characterised is that I get PERMANENTLY CLOSED and I receive NO mail on the WoW account mail of any explanation or reason - just banned.(I don't think I am flagged, I am in a far worse position - Blizzard knows who I am 100%.) From the february-ban wave till now I have done the following(in no specific prioritised order):

Resetted my router between botting sessions

Used a VPN (I can't change my public IP-address, tried that as well)
Removed my WoW and Bnet registry keys on my PC

These 3 are interesting points that deserve further comment:

1) When your ISP assigns you a static or semi-static IP (semi-static are frequently advertised as Dynamic, but ,sensu stricto, they are not. A Semi-static IP will change monthly or periodically; these are no good for our endeavors as we really need to be able to change it at will (after a hard ban). Starting a new set of accounts on your old IP and then reset your IP a few days later will only flag your IP for review, since it could be related to account sharing (which indeed is gonna be frowned heavily from now I agree) or account theft.

Resetting your router between botting sessions is no proof that your IP changes. You need to check that it actually changes; What's My IP Address? - Obsolete Browser Page

If your account is static or semi-static.....find a new ISP.

Beyond that, too frequent IP changes (as you said, between bot sessions) will flag your account for investigation as per above. 1 per week is even excessive (personal opinion).


An important point to remark is that an IP change is NOT enough for Blizzard to consider an account in danger. You need to combine a new IP with a new computer , a new system or new HW information for Blizzard to ask for email unlocking confirmation when trying to log. Which clearly means that IP alone isn't the only flag reason;specifically for logging at blizzard servers, it is a combination of Hardware fingerprints and IP. Which ones? Feel free to guess as anyone else.


2) VPNs: As Aion explained before, you need to avoid the bigger ones like the plague. The outcome of using them will be exactly the opposite of our intention; it will insta flag your accounts. If you need to go this way, choose a small provider with good references and ask for a dedicated and whitelisted IP.

3) About the registry keys, you also deleted the hidden folders at C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local , C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming and ProgramData (battlenet and Blizzard) , did you?


Last thing that got me wondering is that you said "Blizzard knows who you are 100%"; you are using different names when creating your accounts right? and different payment method?


These have also been used in the past by Blizzard to ID botters.

 

[pimpampum]

@Defnottabot


You are assuming Dynamic IPs; which are the most common in certain places, but not overall. It's good for setting an standard so let's assume it.

Again, you return at Days since creation and playtime as flagging factors. While your personal experience is always useful, you need to see the bigger picture here; a big majority of botters bot 24/7. We are not being banned Within 3 days, a week or even a month lately. That flag, if existing, is only been applied to a really small percentage of users.

Which doesnt make much sense from a flagging perspective, does it?



Of course Blizz uses IP for flagging .....why wouldn't they?

Let's see, this one (A1) is a bot. (manual). Hey, there are other 8 accounts (A2-A9) using this same IP at the same time. But we are not gonna check (FLAG) these accounts later on cause that's not a hard proof.

If that's your way of thinking , your should rethink it. We are talking flagging, not banning. No matter that, at a later point, you change IPs and HWids. These accounts will already be flagged, and using them in a new IP will only produce that new IP to also be marked as a possible offender -botting IP.


About your other points, Wow tokens indicate that someone has gold. If you buy a number of them, you have a lot of gold. Which could be a trace of botting. They would be stupid not to follow that trace, and I don't think they are.

I haven't seen the green circle before so can't give an opinion on this.


Thanks for your experience sharing. There's always a profit in hearing everybody's experiences. I wish more people would join the conversation and provide insight / experiences, that are always useful to see patterns.

But for clarity's sake, let's differentiate between banwaves (software detection) and personal bans. No need to discuss the 1st ones, as that is beyond our scope.

 

[Tensta1337]

@Defnottabot @pimpampum

First I'd like to thank you guys for your great answers, thoughts and feedback. Just great. I can relate to lots of your thoughts, frustrations, stream of conciousness and how you create your own theories how it is because they are no easy/obvious answers or any direct help to receive. Keep it up.

My answer to Defnottabot regarding how I bot usually is the following:

I do NOT buy WoW with my credit card/paypal on the WoW website. I insert a key I get from a website where I buy the copy from, usually instant-gaming.com.
Once the account activated I've had the mentality that most botters have and that we are theorizing about being dangerous - I instantly set it up to bot away ASAP.
I create a DK -> boost it to 100 -> Quest bot it for 1 day and set it to Gatherbuddy2 till it gets banned basically.
I've primarily used the same gathering profile, but I used some others too, but I've tried to change profiles to see if it helped it got me banned without any help.

Please note to both of you, that I get banned EVERYDAY the EXACT same time(the next day - 9:00 AM banned). It doesn't matter if I do this and do(not to sound hopeless or I have given up) that, if they know it's me I am DONE. That is why I am still dealing with this theory that If I can remove all the 'evidence' that it's NOT me(by not logging into my main acc) they wont see it's me.

Regarding the green circle theory you're sharing with us, I haven't experienced it and I would honestly directly falsify it. The green circle pops up because you haven't downloaded the game and you are therefore streaming it. Yeah it makes sense when you describe in that way though, that they would 'scan' your game before banning you but I have personally never tried it and it doesn't seem Blizzard likely, for me they are much more sneaky and subtle.

I am also convinced that I have furthermore not been reported by any players, in the whole WoD expansion I received daily threats that I would be reported by direct whispers of players. In Legion, NONE. And I never got banned in WoD or had any issues - but in Legion I've hit the biggest wall ever. I am not saying that this does not mean that I have not been reported, of course not - we can never know. I am just convinced that this is not a most likely possibility.

Defnottabot after my experiences with changing HWID, VolumID and Mac Addresses I agree with you fully that it's completly useless and doesn't help.

Moving on to pimpampum.

I was nodding a lot, when I was reading your response to my recent post. We seem to have the same mindset, regarding IP-address though it's the thing that confuses me though. As you ask at the end of your response, that Blizzard knows 100% what I am is actually meant by IP-address or by account-linkage. And you're right, resetting your router... Doesn't help much, it was also one of the first things I did in the beginning because of my ignorance and it felt like 'I was atleast doing something'. The issue is I can't force change my MAC-Address on my router, it wont allow me. But I can see the IP-address is Dynamic, but doesn't help much as you have described and argued for well. So yeah, finding a legit smaller VPN provider would be a smart idea, I didn't think I was using any big one though, but still got banned. Plus VPN sucks if you actually want to use your PC for gaming, but I guess it's not relevant here.

As mentioned before, I do not use any payment method and I do use different names for account. If I should think of a time where my own credit card has come in plays, and this might sound a little 'far out in the universe but': I use my own credit card when I activate my main account WoW account to buy a month of game time. I have used the same credit card when I bought gametime to returning bots from previous ban waves(you know 6 months ban, they come back you only pay 12euro for a whole bot ready to go because it's ready etc). One of these bots actually got banned at the feb ban wave, that is the only case there could be a linkage between me, my credit card and botting. Just a thought that streamed through my mind when I read your question, but to answer it directly, no I have not used the same credit card all the time when I bought my recent 20 bots over the years. Inserted CD-keys bought from external foreign websites.

Yes I have deleted all my keys and the exact folder(s) you asked of. Thank you for reminding me!

But hey guys why do we always speak of flagging? Why do we always speak of that they flag you -> and then ban you at same time? It has been going too long this way. We have all confirmed and admitted that they are using OTHER methods. The flagging-wait-ban wave method is something I can EASILY relate to and understand, but hey - how can it answer why I am getting banned every morning?

I'd like to discuss your last post pimpampum from my perspective. I got banned, and I ran 1 bot at a time to always test if the bot was 'safe-to-use' from a suicide-botter perspective to add more bots in the future, and it wasn't. You're only discussing if a guy is running more bots than 1, but what if he is running 1? And he gets banned no matter what the next morning? Furthermore, I used a VPN for 2 days as mentioned before and botted and I got banned please note this: I got banned in the EXACT same way and time as usual. That means I received NO mail, perm ban and banned 9:00 AM in the morning. Alright lets assume the VPN was flagged, would there not be ANY difference in the 'way' I was banned or should be treated? Just a little variation. No, because changing your IP or using a VPN did not help me out. They knew it was me still DESPITE changing my IP-address to another location. And what if we assume the more likely case: that my VPN was not flagged?(I did not use a big VPN provider I would like to add), what then?

I'd like to argue for account-linkage and botting within 72 hours of battle-chest activation is the reason why they can ban me in this way and always know where I am. I am testing this right now, and I will of course share you guys with all my detail and results. Following with that, I would argue for IP-address flagging 100%.

I'd like to save this for last, but I would like to share an update on my current test I am currently running as I mentioned in my previous post(with the theory that they know I am, so I deleted bnet and wow for the first time did not log into my main battle.net acc to dl wow but a whole new one) for you guys we could debate on.
Update: The bot has not been banned yet. It was DC'ED when I logged though and HB was closed down. When I logged in it doesn't look like it was stuck or had any issue in-game(doesn't make sense why HB closed down then, most common issue ) but most important is that it's not banned I guess. Minor mistake: When I went to bed I purposely didn't want to turn on my laptop because I recall it was already logged in my main acc on b.net(I only erased everything on my PC at that moment), when I woke up I literally took the battery out to ensure it was 'shut down' but when I turned it on I couldn't believe my eyes, it had everything opened like as if I just opened the lid for quick use. I instantly deleted bnet and WoW and restarted my laptop, now I don't know if it has managed to link everything together and destroy my testing of this theory.
I don't want to be optimistic at all, but this is the first time a bot have survived one day for me around a month now. It's running right now smoothly. Keep you guys posted.

Sorry I did not quote your stuff to make my post easier to understand, I kinda suck at the quoting stuff on the forums. Hope you guys can follow, otherwise just ask - ask - ask more questions, curiousity makes us all clever. It's a pure pain to deal with this alone.

Tensta

 

[pimpampum]

I'd like to argue for account-linkage and botting within 72 hours of battle-chest activation is the reason why they can ban me in this way and always know where I am. I am testing this right now, and I will of course share you guys with all my detail and results. Following with that, I would argue for IP-address flagging 100%.

I'd like to save this for last, but I would like to share an update on my current test I am currently running as I mentioned in my previous post(with the theory that they know I am, so I deleted bnet and wow for the first time did not log into my main battle.net acc to dl wow but a whole new one) for you guys we could debate on.
Update: The bot has not been banned yet. It was DC'ED when I logged though and HB was closed down. When I logged in it doesn't look like it was stuck or had any issue in-game(doesn't make sense why HB closed down then, most common issue ) but most important is that it's not banned I guess. Minor mistake: When I went to bed I purposely didn't want to turn on my laptop because I recall it was already logged in my main acc on b.net(I only erased everything on my PC at that moment), when I woke up I literally took the battery out to ensure it was 'shut down' but when I turned it on I couldn't believe my eyes, it had everything opened like as if I just opened the lid for quick use. I instantly deleted bnet and WoW and restarted my laptop, now I don't know if it has managed to link everything together and destroy my testing of this theory.
I don't want to be optimistic at all, but this is the first time a bot have survived one day for me around a month now. It's running right now smoothly. Keep you guys posted.


Tensta

Lets make shorter posts, for clarity pls.


After reading through your update, 1 thing came to my mind: bait accounts.

When 5 man bot parties were a thing, Blizzard often left 1 or 2 alive on every botfarm. This is not an opinion; it's what they did and there are lots of proofs in the ban section.

I always thought of those accounts as bait accounts; you know we botters are very lazy, and 9 out of 10 would reuse that same account on their next batch. Result?: Easiest flagging linkage ever.


What If your main account is your bait account?

That could be really bad news for you, since in the past, when I stopped using the "bait accounts", they were often banned EVEN WITHOUT AN EMAIL. Just poof, we know you are not gonna use it, so let's kill it.

But at least, you would know what is going on.

 

[Tensta1337]

Your theory has been falsified. My bot just got banned, wasn't linked to anything. Bait accounts are not thing probably. Back to square one.

 

[pimpampum]

Your theory has been falsified. My bot just got banned, wasn't linked to anything. Bait accounts are not thing probably. Back to square one.

sad to hear that, but didn't you log into you main account using the same IP or same computer?