1)Were you using Honorbuddy, Gatherbuddy or both on the account? Both 2)If so, when was the last time?: 4:42pm Sunday, 8/4/13 was when both HB logs errored out. 3)What profile were you using?: Gatherbuddy2, Profilechanger (5 Pandarian Profiles with random time fro 1 to 2 hours and randomized selection of zones), Herbalism & Mining 4)What combat class were you using? if None Just put Default then the Classname: Singular 5)What plugins are you using?: Blacklister (@0 so I didn't land if mobs there), Avoidplayer @200 yards, Logmeout, Rarekiller for the whisper alarm, PlayerReportDetector, NoBotHere 6)How many hours per day did you bot for?: 6 hours today (6 - 12 hours a day normally). I let them farm for 6 hours, let them logout in the morning and then rinse and repeat in the evening. 6.5)What honest percentage of time did you supervise your bot? 50% (I ran both accounts while I raided and PvP'd on main account). 7)How many auctions per day did you have?: Zero on the either farming toon. 1st account had many auctions on another toon that didn't farm, 2nd account had zero actions. 8)Did you Use Any Other Bots, Hacks, or Mods? No 9)Was your account involved in gold selling? No 10)EU or US realm? US 11)Is the banned account a Scroll of Resurrection or an actual paid account? 1st account: Paid, 2nd account: SoR Personal Note: I was surprised that I was caught. I thought I had a very conservative plan since I never landed when others were around and rarely fought mobs due to blacklister. I thought the randomized nodes, with randomized zones, with random farming time per zone and farming herbs and minerals at the same time would be keep me safe. I also always chatted back when someone whispered me in case they were testing if I was a bot. I monitored when folks looked at me with PlayerReportDetector as well. Also both accounts were on different servers with different ownership names. When banned, both accounts were logged off at the same time and the emails from Blizz were sent at the same time. These accounts were only used farming as described so my farming strategy obviously didn't work. I will see if I can get the accounts reinstated with a 72 hour ban but since I was caught with all of these protections in place, I am not sure what else I can do. Maybe bot for 4 hours? Since one account didn't use AH (mailed mats to another account - which wasn't banned), I don't think it was AH usage.
You were well prepared, but you missed single major point - they autobanned you for up to 12hours/day farming. People have been autobanned even for 6 hours daily! Maybe its better idea to narrow the bot time to 4 hours indeed, but improve the NPH on the gathering, so you can compensate partially.
I see alot of faults, 1st - no one farm 6hours without a break 2nd - u told 5 profiles but are that private? And do you switch all 5 profiles each day to new profiles? I think its LCP because u have 5 profiles BUT u change everytime to the same profile again.
To be honest, I didn't think a private profile would be needed since my farmer never took the same routes since he was always skipping nodes due to Blacklister, AvoidPlayers, bouncing from mines to herbs, picking a new starting node from the GB2 randomized feature, stayed in a zone for a random time between 1 and 2 hours and would only do a zone once a session since it auto-logged out after 6 hours. At this point, I can only concede that you have to be right though. I don't think it is the farming time since that would only be tracked once the account had been flagged. Something had to point them to me. It must have been LCP. I would appreciate it if anyone who makes private profiles to PM me. I would like to discuss having some made for me.
Blizzard simply cannot afford to give the resources to allow LCP to be used as a constant method of detection, they rely on player reports which again is very effective and is good enough on it's own, I really think that such as system would detect a lot more people and it should be 20 botters banned a day or more if they used such as system.
I don't know how someone could have reported me if they don't see me farming and I am only in a zone for 1 to 2 hours. Between Blacklister, AvoidPlayers and NoBotHere, what else can be done? From PlayerReportDetector, I see that no one ever targets me during farming runs. The fact that two separate accounts on different servers with different ownership names got banned at exactly the same time should be telling. After thinking about it, maybe this IP detection theory might have some merits. My IP address is the only thing that the accounts had in common. Although, there are two other non-farming (raiding) accounts using the same IP that have not been banned. Granted, only one of the non-banned raiding accounts is actually botted on and that is with Tyrael or monitored BG Bot. I plan on doing some research on their IP detection now. I am interested in everyone's theories. I would like to find a way to farm in a safer way than I was doing. Please feel free to PM with as well.
I vote for your opinion. Since the LCP theory became popular, I for purpose stopped changing profiles for some of my mop gathering bots, and they are up and running since 4-5 months. Ofc I restricted them other way - reduced sessions to less than 2hours, and improved their NPH alot! Specced them to instagib any add, they get in combat while gathering, geared them with 510+ ilvl off LFR+ Outdoor bosses, and that way randomized their play pattern - not gathering only, but playing few dailies, few LFR and outdoor bosses every week.
