Ex-Nihilum member claims guild exploited
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Jun 3rd 2007 at 10:15PM
There's some pretty interesting forum drama going on in the European Raids and Dungeons forums.
Lewt, an undead priest who spent two years in the guild before quitting WoW, claims that Nihilum purposely exploited a bug on their world first Lady Vashj kill (instead of an accidental bug that took away HP, as the guild states.) According to Lewt, you can purposely wipe at 20 percent and have a paladin use Divine Shield, which I don't really understand unless Lewt actually meant Divine Intervention. Then Vashj will reset to Phase 2, but since her HP is connected to the pillars she has, the HP will disappear when they despawn. This leaves her at 1 HP. Presto, a priest pops a soulstone and Shadow Word: Deaths her, and there you go. Lewt even provides a screenshot of him finishing off Vashj with an SWD, complete with chatlog.
Kungen, Nihilum's guild leader, fires back with some screenshots of guild chat immediately following the kill, which are full of confusion. He said that the HP loss was a bug during the fight that surprised Nihilum, not a specific strategy that they exploited to get the kill. Lewt responds by saying that Nihilum had exploited in the past on BWL, bought gold, and had the guild second-in-command, Awake, pay Kungen's real-life bills. I've heard the first two accusations, but the last one is freaking awesome. My guild leader never pays my bills.
And from there, the thread goes on in many entertaining ways, with Nihili (or whatever) and ex-Nihili arguing about the guild: whether it's possible to lead a normal life in Nihilum, whether the "Danish Mafia" edged out the English players, and a lot of other things that I'd probably understand if I spent more time on the Euro forums.
I really don't know enough about the Vashj fight to judge this. I don't like Nihilum's guild recruitment policy and the gold buying rumors, but I'm not exactly ready to take the word of someone who named themself "Lewt." Another forum poster probably has the right sequences of events: The raid wiped, they noticed that Vashj had bugged out, Lewt decided to pop the soulstone and SWD her, writing "Sorry, I couldn't resist" in chat. Then the Divine Intervention thing was when they were trying to get their loot off Vashj #1 while Vashj #2 had spawned. And now that Vashj is fixed and the top guilds are on to Black Temple, it's sort of a moot point anyway. As proven with Overrated, guilds who truly cheat will get found out eventually.
What do you think?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
X Jun 3rd 2007 10:25PM
yeah looks to me like they were surprised by it.
Max Jun 5th 2007 7:42PM
If anything the ex-member is pissed he is no longer part of the guild and is trying to screw them over. But if they he/she is telling the truth then eh, they are blowing though the content like it's nothing either way. Also it would be to late for the GMs to do anything.
Sammalamma Jun 3rd 2007 10:38PM
I hope Lewt is right. I hate Nihilum.
Guernia Jun 3rd 2007 10:40PM
LF Guild to pay my mortgage, PST
Tony V Jun 3rd 2007 10:40PM
I think they actually mean Paladin DS. A real wipe with any soulstone or DI would be easy to do, but Vashj would regen her HP immediately.
If everyone wipes and the paladin DS's for 12 seconds, that means 12 seconds where the only potential target is immune to all (and mobs ignore immune targets), which would create a buggy situation (say, the pillars resetting but Vashj's HP not restoring yet), and then the priest pops up and goes pew.
Just a guess.
The Jaded Jun 3rd 2007 10:51PM
I assume by "I don't like their recruitment policies" you mean the no girls thing, which I thought turned out to be a joke.
X Jun 3rd 2007 10:52PM
@#2 sammalamma
wtf?
Are you that jealous?
Rich Jun 3rd 2007 11:06PM
While I can't say I hope Lewt is right, I wouldn't be surprised if he was.
Sammalamma Jun 3rd 2007 11:07PM
They're typical elitist jerks. Just what you would expect from such hard-core raiders. I'm not a girl, so their recruiting policies don't effect me, but it's an assinine policy anyway.
Carlsberg Jun 4th 2007 12:06AM
who cares, bunch of super nerds who play wow 24/7
Krianna Jun 4th 2007 12:10AM
5- that's what they claimed after the crit hit the fan, so to speak.
I believe there was some talk of trying to get the guild forcefully disbanded for that.
larsiezwei Jun 4th 2007 12:43AM
Well i dont think that what Nihilum does is exploit flaws purposefully. Thats what the alliance is for. Secondly, i know people think that all of these guys play way too much, it doesnt matter what you think. If they have that much time and our willing to support each other ie, (the hypothetical of Awake paying some of Kungen's bills) who careES?! thats the whole point of a guild. to help each other. and if it means if the person who is willing to keep the progress of the guild going, as long as its in his/her power to do so...then i say great. Im envious of Nihilum's gear and progress, however i can not devote that much time. but i still say stop bitching and applaud them for all they're worth.
Pronoiac Jun 4th 2007 12:48AM
I think you hit it right on the head larsiezwei.
"who careES?!"
ExTopRaider Jun 4th 2007 1:23AM
All top raiding guild exploit bugs to beat encounters early on. This is perfectly exceptable when you're essentially beta testing boss fights on the live servers. I remember all the bugs when BwL first came out. There was a bug with nearly every encounter the first few weeks (LoS-ing drakes AoE, for example).
Stop being clueless, jealous casuals (whether you really are or not). :)
Baluki Jun 4th 2007 2:01AM
I really doubt that by "paying bills" they meant big bills. Maybe the one guy paid for a month of WoW for the other guy for some reason. Back when I was raiding, I had to take an unwanted break for a couple weeks due to lack of funds, and a few guildies actually offered to cover it for me. I didn't accept, but that just shows how cool some people can be.
As for the `sploitz, there's often a fine line between exploiting and working with/around a bug. End-game encounters are notoriously buggy.
Even if they did deliberately exploit, who cares? Vashj is old news, and they've been smashing their way through Black Temple for the past few weeks, so their skill is definitely not in question.
For those calling them elitist jerks, (is that guild still around?) note that they've shared more than most other guilds; have you watched those videos they've made? They don't show how they kill the bosses, but at least they show us what the encounters are like.
Angelworks Jun 4th 2007 2:45AM
We used to exploit just about every bug in heroic mechanar - turned it into like a one hour run if that. They fixed most of these bugs, but we found it was a lot less frustrating when it was a bit easier.
One thing I've noticed about pre-bc content like Naxx, BWL - is that they are a lot more buggy. I suspect its because only about 40-80 people on any given realm have seen this stuff.
bluebottleblues Jun 4th 2007 2:55AM
Seriously who cares? :)
Gror Jun 4th 2007 3:00AM
I hope that Blizzard bans them. Nihilum and guilds like them is everything what is wrong with WoW, and Blizz should discrourage this sort hardcore raiding.
Deewee Jun 4th 2007 3:21AM
All Top Guilds cheat in some ways,
I know it, cuz ive played in one for over 1,5 Years.
In the old days it was Out of Combat ressing in Moltencore,
In BWL it was stealthpulling Razorgore to Vaels room,
nowdays its stuff like this...
People will always use little exploits, for the big loots.
And thats why i dont even CARE when i read stuff like:
"Guild XYZ killed XYZ world first"
All the Stress for the big purples is just not worth it,
nowdays i just enjoy PvP, and small Instances.
-Dw
mijuil Jun 4th 2007 4:11AM
i dont see what the fuss is about. 'wall jumping' anyone?