I have a theory of what caused HB to be detected....

[SenpaiSweg]

Yesterday, while doing my daily bot routine I noticed HB had an update. I update my bots then launched them and noticed something peculiar, it was sending a few of those [Blahblahblah] messages from the HB log to the center of each wow's screen... I figure they did this buy LUA or something similar and if so blizzard could have easily tracked it down. This was about the only change in HB on tuesday and is about my best guess of what happened.
R.I.P to all the botting accounts (for 6 months >.>)

[Vengfull]

This data that is projected is from BuddyControlPanel in your plugins. Its open source but i don't think this is how it was detected.

See following files:

HB > Plugins > BuddyControlPanel > UIOverlay

[Trixiap]

No, that wasn´t detection since I didn´t bot on one account since update and it is still banned.

[subrand0m]

Most likely they have known/detected HB and who was using it since near launch of WoD. Collecting data and making sure people who were using it actually used it for more than a few minutes etc etc.

I have friends and guildies who haven't botted(but the only bot they did use was HB) since the 2nd month of WoD and they got banned.

[Vengfull]

The only differences i have seen are the following;

1) Address 0x0000000000662AE9, Size 0x0000000000000004
2) Address 0x000000000010D070, Size 0x0000000000000006
3) Address 0x0000000000662AC1, Size 0x0000000000000005
4) Address 0x0000000000F5E894, Size 0x0000000000000008


1) Address 0x000000000010D070, Size 0x0000000000000006
2) Address 0x0000000000F5E894, Size 0x0000000000000008
3) Address 0x0000000000662AC1, Size 0x0000000000000005
4) Address 0x0000000000662AE9, Size 0x0000000000000004


1) Address 0x000000000010D070, Size 0x0000000000000006
2) Address 0x0000000000662AC1, Size 0x0000000000000005
3) Address 0x0000000000F5E894, Size 0x0000000000000008
4) Address 0x0000000000662AE9, Size 0x0000000000000004

But these are all 64 Bit scans from warden.

[Trixiap]

My opinion is, that it wasn´t in client. It was server side detection.

[Annaisha]

There are other programs/bots that have been detected as well, including raiding rotation bots and even some interrupting bots. so the ban wave is not targeted at one specific program, but rather something server-side on their end.

[Dielord]

Most likely they have known/detected HB and who was using it since near launch of WoD. Collecting data and making sure people who were using it actually used it for more than a few minutes etc etc.

I have friends and guildies who haven't botted(but the only bot they did use was HB) since the 2nd month of WoD and they got banned.

I've botted my main 702 ilvl warrior from 80 to 100 on kicks profiles in january(he was leveling when i was sleeping/working, so it was full afk). I've botted my 85 mage to 100(full afk too) on kicks in march. I've used Soapbox Rotation bot on my monk from december till mid of january when i rolled warrior. I then used its arms warrior rotation on Iron Maidens in mythic. As soon as i heard about 6 month bans on HB forums early april, after WoW tokens introduced in US, i completely stopped using HB. But still used my rotation bot from Soapbox for 1-2 maiden kills(just lazy to play as arms ), i was even using it yesterday when 3 of our raid members DCed with 6 month suspension. Maybe their banwave isn't over yet, but i'm still not banned.

[HI5]

Whatever triggered detection, it did not happened on Tuesday, HB got detected first around 10 days ago.

[Dielord]

Whatever triggered detection, it did not happened on Tuesday, HB got detected first around 10 days ago.

I've remembered few 6 month suspensions in middle of april on HB forums, after their Tripwire panic event.

[HI5]

I've remembered few 6 month suspensions in middle of april on HB forums, after their Tripwire panic event.

Wasn't a detection back then, and even if was - there was no way to tell, it was simply to little bans (not even 1% got hit).

Basically - this is the very first detection that can be confirmed by the numbers since GatherBuddy banwave back in like 2010.

[xcureanddisease]

Whatever triggered detection, it did not happened on Tuesday, HB got detected first around 10 days ago.

Im gonna lean on this theory here. Because I have the last time I botted down as May 5th. I haven't fired up HB since. I botted the last couple levels on my Paladin and hit 100 that night. Didn't need it after that. I dont fish bot, grind, rotation etc. I literally only use HB for questing, I was using Kickass profiles.

[Dielord]

Wasn't a detection back then, and even if was - there was no way to tell, it was simply to little bans (not even 1% got hit).

Basically - this is the very first detection that can be confirmed by the numbers since GatherBuddy banwave back in like 2010.

Maybe it wasn't. Maybe they were just testing something. I can also say, that a friend of mine that got hit for 6 months didn't use HB since 29.04. So its a little more than 10 days.

[HI5]

friend of mine that got hit for 6 months didn't use HB since 29.04. So its a little more than 10 days.

mm, "around 10 days ago", point was it happened earlier than Tuesday as OP suggested + most of accounts I'm aware of that were bot free for two weeks are completely fine, so there's a chance some people are just confusing how long ago they actually were botting (no reason for them to memorize it before the banwave after all), there were few raisins in the cake claiming they got hit after not botting for months, but that's obviously very questionable, and smells a lot like "everyone got hit 10 days ago? pff, I'm different, I'm unique for sure, I must have got hit 11 days ago!"

Maybe it wasn't. Maybe they were just testing something.

You could pretty much say that about any "wave" (or more like batch of bans) that occurs every few weeks / months, but there's no point in that kind of speculations, they don't really take us anywhere as ban numbers were simply not nearly enough to confirm a detection based banwave, so more likely simple batch of bans caused by random reports, it's pretty normal they deal with these kind of things in bigger bundles from time to time. There's numbers of reasons why they would do that, like: new gm who wants to show off how good he is at his new job or some mad botter going on rampage with reports, or simply GM's being busy with other things and doing some catching up at the end of the month before their job evaluation and probably couple dozens more possibilities.

So basically - no point looking for some deeper, planned reason behind it, it's a normal company with normal people working there, including slackers and people who wants to stick out, blizzard is not a huge evil mastermind planning their every single move carefully on even lowest levels (hell, if they would, then they wouldn't be losing more and more subs every year).

[fedelis]

I have two accounts I use, and I was botting on both using HB. My primary "fishing bot" account didn't get banned dispite using HB to quest a toon 14-20 days ago. However I did use EWT to fishbot in the last two weeks, so I guess EWT didn't get detected?

My second account which I was using to level toons with HB did get banned.

Is it possible there was no detection and the banwave was merely from player reports?


Sidenote: The hogger quest is bugged on a lot of servers. My HB actually stood around for 2-3 hours at hogger before I noticed it and logged out. There was around 20 other bots stuck at the same point on hogger as me. This happened on the account that got banned but wouldn't explain any horde accounts that got banned.