We received the above video from tipster Jimmynorden (better quality video on Vimeo here) about an absolutely amazing bug with the Death Knight ability Death Grip. If you initiate a duel with a Death Knight who's aboard the ship in Booty Bay while you're standing on the dock, Death Grip will pull you -- not to the ship itself, but all the way across and through the world. Elizabeth Harper has just tried this on live servers ("You get PvP flagged from flying through the arena in Stranglethorn!") and her character finally landed on a random ship in what the map insists is the Alterac Mountains, southeast of where Dalaran used to be.

Death Grip is described as harnessing the unholy energy that surrounds and binds all matter. They certainly got that part right. I don't have a Death Knight online in my guild right now and I'm really curious to see if this just works in Booty Bay, or if it works wherever there's a ship or zeppelin docked. I'm assuming it's the latter; from my admittedly limited understanding of the game's plumbing, once you're on a ship you're not actually where the map "thinks" you are but rather in some nebulous area without real coordinates before the ship transfers you between servers.

UPDATE: A few guildies and I tried this; you'll find additional results and notes behind the cut.

Elizabeth had time to take a few screenshots, which you'll see below:

After grabbing a few willing guildies, we found that this doesn't seem to work in Ratchet. We haven't yet had time to try this anywhere else, but apparently it's not a universal bug with all ships.


Booty Bay works perfectly, and you'll be pulled through Stranglethorn Vale, the coast of Westfall, Darkshire, Elwynn, Stormwind, Dun Morogh (but not Ironforge, to our disappointment), the coast of the Wetlands and then the huge bay between the northern and southern parts of the Eastern Kingdoms, Hillsbrad Foothills (including a really trippy portion going through the Azurelode Mine), and then finally a stationary "ghost" ship moored beneath Alterac. You can get multiple people on the ship, and -- even funnier -- you can Death Grip NPC's in the same manner, but they'll only appear on the ship for an instant before despawning (but seeing a goblin go flying off the dock was, I believe, the highlight of my colleague's career as a Death Knight). Stepping off the ship will send you hurtling into nowhere, and you'll have to spirit-rez at the Ruins of Alterac graveyard.

Elizabeth is still testing this out as well and got a different result than we did -- in stepping off the boat, she finds herself dead but still moving slowly in the direction of Silverpine.

I'm almost to the point of hoping they never fix this because this is unquestionably the best bug of all time.

Tags: booty-bay, bug, bugs, death-grip, death-knight, humor

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Bugs, Death Knight, Humor