tracheaspider

There are a fair number of "how do you know it's a plat farmer" posts in this forum, so I thought I'd resurrect and revise my Field Guide for these confused individuals. Please note that each entry in the Field Guide is not intended for use in parts: I have attempted to be highly specific in order to delinate better between legitimate players and professional parasites.

Species: The Group Leech

• Class: Usually a wizard, sometimes a necro, very rarely a warlock.
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Randomly generated name, no last name, unguilded or in a defunct guild. Hardly ever speaks except maybe to complain when the group isn't moving fast enough. The wizard variety will often spontaneously morph into a Solo Named Killer upon reaching level 60 or 70.
• Markings: Has so-so gear. Some decent pieces, some really outdated pieces. Fledglings tend to have terrible gear. Adults, at 51+, will often fail to upgrade anything other than large nukes.
• Known Habitats: Dungeons and instances with gullible pickup groups.
• Behvior: Goes LFG as soon as he logs in, trying to get an instance or dungeon group. Follows NBG until the good loot drops. If group members challenge him for looting something he shouldn't have, he acts confused till kicked from the group or disbands himself. Immediately goes LFG again. If group is too slow going after named mobs, he will often spam the group with ''kill'' or ''go'' or some other monosyllabic imperative.
• Source of Income: Selling masters, fabled and legendary gear.

Species: The 4-Boxer Slaughter Team

• Class: Combination of 1 tank (usually a berserker or SK, sometimes guardian), 1 healer (almost always a fury), and 2 sorcerers (either 1 wizard and 1 warlock or 2 wizards).
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Randomly generated names, unguilded or in a variety of defunct guilds or guilds known for mass invites. Sometimes use Mandarin Chinese or randomly generated last names or butchered English like "Dollsweet" or "Pretymage." Occasionally will form their own guild to give an aura of legitimacy and use of shared bank space, but the guild stays level 4 or 5 forever and has no members besides the boxer team and level 1 mules.
• Markings: Tank has decent legendary/mastercrafted gear, the rest have so-so gear. Non-tank toons are almost always erudites or high elves.
• Known Habitats: There are three major habitats for the Slaughter Team. Some specialize in the overland areas with lots of solo mobs, such as the craters outside Ruins of Varsoon or the Sandscrawler areas in Pillars of Flame. But even these specialists will sometimes show up in the other two areas: instances and shared dungeons. They favor instances with large numbers of low- to mid-level mobs, such as Nest. And they thrive in shared dungeons with plenty of named mobs, such as Obelisk of Lost Souls, Kaladim, Sanctum of the Scaleborn, Mistmoore Catacombs, and Palace of the Awakened.
• Behavior: Healer and wizards autofollow the tank around, rapidly killing off all the mobs in the area. Will move only after all mobs in the vicinity are dead. Will take out any nearby named mobs. Are extremely unsympathetic toward people who need the mobs for quests.
• Special Note: This species is particularly prone to botting and can sometimes be caught with their toons stuck in casting loops (mages and fighter AE repeatedly and healer casts a group heal over and over till a mob wanders into their path, whereupon their cast patterns all change).
• Source of Income: Selling trash body loot to NPCs. Selling masters, LoN cards/packs, legendary gear and status items.

Species: The Solo Named Killer

• Class: Wizard.
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Randomly generated name, rarely has a last name, unguilded or in a defunct guild. Keeps /anon up. Infamous for spamming the level channels with collection pieces, masters and legendary gear for sale.
• Markings: A fledgling has horrible gear and often starts life as a Group Leech. Once he reaches farming maturity, will obtain damage proc gear and protective gear such as the Enspelled Vultak Eye, X'haviz's Gown of Glory, and Signet of Light from Darkness. Won't upgrade spells past level 50 other than roots and large nukes.
• Known Habitats: Any zone with lots of non-caster named mobs on a fast respawn timers, such as the Bonemire. Will also attempt dungeons and instances where they can bypass enough trash to get to named.
• Behavior: Spends all his time running around to instances with non-caster named mobs and overland areas with non-caster named spawns. Sometimes takes on caster mobs when geometry exploits can be used to avoid attacks. Solos the named mobs for master chests. Will die frequently, but is generally successful. Tends to favor overland areas given the high number of see-invis multi-mob encounters in instances and dungeons. Unsympathetic towards anyone needing the mobs for a quest. If he finds someone else camping the mob, he will, however, try to join the group and make off with the master drop.
• Source of Income: Selling masters, fabled and legendary gear.

Species: The Solo Slaughter Artist

• Class: Wizard, necro, warlock.
• Distinguishing Characteristics: (see Solo Named Killer)
• Markings: This species sticks with terrible gear, though will try to acquire damage proc gear such as Grizzfazzle's or the mage orb earring. Often sports such titles as "Destroy of Aviaks."
• Known Habitats: Any area with large numbers of low level solo mobs, particularly multiple mob encounters. Trade Court in Living Tombs and certain areas in Silent City are favorites, as are the Strifewind, Aversion and Desolation islands in Barren Sky and Gazer in Tenebrous Tangle.
• Behavior: Stays logged in as long as the server is up and generally sticks to his area as long as he can, rounding up low level mobs and nuking them down before he gets killed. The necro will almost always use his mage pet for added DPS instead of tank pet to keep aggro off. Makes a point of picking up any collection piece he can.
• Special Note: Many regular players might mimic the behavior of the Solo Slaughter Artist from time to time for their personal gain--the key differences are overall game time spent in solo areas, length of play, volume of items for sale and preference for cussing out others in Chinese when disturbed.
• Source of Income: Selling trash body loot to NPCs. Selling L&L pieces, rare masters, LoN cards/packs, collection pieces, and status items.

Species: The Overpowered Duo of Death

• Class: Wizard + fury.
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Randomly generated names, rarely uses last names. Either unguilded or in a guild known for mass invites. (Each toon might be guilded separately.)
• Markings: Poor gear in general. The wizard of the pair will often have a mix of items that proc damage and ones that proc wards or heals. Often won't upgrade spells other than AEs, large nukes, snares and fury heals.
• Known Habitats: Found in nearly any overland region with lots of solo mobs, especially Pillars of Flame, most islands in Barren Sky, Loping Plains and Mystic Lake. They can often be found leveling up in Steamfont, as well. This species seems to be slowly replacing the 4-boxer Slaughter Team in this habitat, possibly due to greater economic fitness in the face of increased efforts to eradicate farmers.
• Behavior: Fury autofollows the wizard around. If they are high enough, both toons cast fire carpet spells and then the wizard rounds up a large number of solo mobs and drags them over the carpet. To maximize damage dealt vs. damage taken, the wizard will often snare and DOT the mobs and drag them in a loop, pausing when he needs heals.
• Source of Income: Selling trash body loot to NPCs. Selling rare masters, LoN cards/packs, L&L pieces and status items.

Species: The Rabid Harvester

• Class: Usually a wizard or necro.
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Randomly generated name, no last name, unguilded or in a defunct guild. Keeps /anon up. Will have 10-50 of any particular rare at a time on the broker. Can be observed undercutting himself, actively selling the same rares at two or three different prices.
• Markings: Terrible to so-so gear. Often has several pieces of outdated gear.
• Known Habitats: Zones with regularly spawning, easily accessible nodes such as Feerrott, around the goblin camps in Pillars of Flame, the Vultak Scavenging Site, Fear-Tainted Isle, etc.
• Behavior: Spends all his time online harvesting nodes. Doesn't seem to care if he is harvesting something someone else got to first, but will become upset if you harvest a node he was already working on. Is on as long as the servers are up, but will occasionally log out at a safe spot and then log back in a few minutes later making it likely that he is manned by more than one person.
• Source of Income: Selling harvested rares.

LFG

Very nice post, thanks

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"Bottom line: we're not all being honest with ourselves here." Become, Kraken forums

Illuminator

If the player is not careful to toggle the autocasting off between locations, you will see his botted characters generate continuous "interrupted" combat spam caused by autospamming spells while running. This is an easy thing to screenshot and include with a petition, especially if you can get a good enough picture without any enemies in it.

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Blackburrow.Aleraku - 80/140 Wizard
Blackburrow.Alaedraa - 80/140 Illusionist
Blackburrow.Calandra - 73/91 Paladin
Blackburrow.Cavatina - 80/135 Troubador
Blackburrow.Selanna - 80/140 Warden

Don't vote for Obama.

Faxon

5 stars man. lot of great info there hehe, all though some of the details i have seen can differ from time too time. for instance you will occasionally see a player who you knew at one point too be a real player turn into a bot/plat farmer because they sold their account. i remember the first leader of The Fury Council, Methiaz, had this happen too him. used to talk too the guy all the time, then one day he up and just stopped talking, period, and started spending 24 hours a day in feerrott meeting all the criteria for species rabit harvester cept that he was t5 fabled out lol

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Lithin

lol ya... he didnt like eq2 as much as eq1 thats why he went back there... he was high the day he left and laughed that he would sell his char...

that guy still makes me laugh lol

murphjp

Heh, I'm a Species: The Solo Slaughter Artist but I have good gear and I'm in a good guild, and I don't sell the plat I get :D

Taylen

LOL, you noob......

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Taylen - Lv 80 Necromancer
Misha - Lv 80 Troubador
Latanya - Lv 61 Warlock

Balthor

The GMs should seriously read this! I went to Isle of Aversion on Butcherblock last night just to look and there were six, Species: The Solo Slaughter Artist farmers all fighting over the eyes, it was pretty comical.

Faxon

lmao usually in numbers like that some of them end up heading somewhere else o.O

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Legate

Eventually the plat farmers themselves will get sick of other plat farmers!