Saturday, October 24, 2009

Mystery kills

Both Acaaju and I have a recent mysterious kill of unknown origin in our stats...

First, we both have 1 kill stat with a known origin; mine is the ghost that spawns in Stormwind during the Stalvan quest chain, which a town guard killed but it gave me credit for a kill, and Acaaju tried to Hibernate a bear when a town guard killed it.

Acaaju's stats don't even make sense. They now read:

Total kills 2
Total kills that grant experience or honor 1
Creatures killed 1
Different creature types killed 1
Creature type killed the most Beasts (1)
Total Honorable Kills --
World Honorable Kills 1
Continent with the most Honorable Kills 1
Total Killing Blows 1
World Killing Blows 1
Continent with the most Killing Blows Eastern Kingdoms (1)

So she has 1 honor kill, but 0 total honor kills....??

My stats are somewhat different:

Total kills 2
Total kills that grant experience or honor --
Creatures killed 2
Different creature types killed 2
Creature type killed the most Humanoid (1)
Total Honorable Kills --
World Honorable Kills --
Continent with the most Honorable Kills --
Total Killing Blows 1
World Killing Blows 1
Continent with the most Killing Blows Eastern Kingdoms (1)

My stats at least are consistent.

I check my kill stat pretty often (and during escorts), so I know this is pretty recent. The only quests Acaaju and I have in common are the Halloween dailies to stop the fires and smash the pumpkin. The "Shade of the Headless Horseman" dies after the fires are put out, and there are actually two different "Stop the Fires!" quests - one is actually called "Let the Fires Come!", which is available if the HH hasn't been summoned, and accepting it summons him. I wonder if doing the summoning version of the quest tags the Shade of HH as your kill, no matter who kills it. I can test this with a bank alt. But that wouldn't explain Acaaju's honor kill, and if the Shade isn't humanoid, my humanoid kill stat, or why it affect our stats differently.

UPDATE: "Let the Fires Come!" does not appear to tag the Shade of HH as yours; I started the event, but my bank alt still has 0 kills.

UPDATE 2: The only other possibility I can think of is that the horseman's Conflagrate attack can give players an aura that can kill other players, giving the first player a kill credit (and depending on level difference, a bogus honor kill).

UPDATE 3: Since Conflagrate can proc player abilities, it is almost certainly the cause. Luckily, the Horseman gives a warning just before this attack, so it's possible to run far enough away to avoid it.

3 comments:

Carlah said...

I too got a phantom honor kill on Carlah. It actually doesn't have a value for where, (under continent with the most kills) it posts as () though it does say eastern kingdom later on. My stats are exactly like Acaaju.

Somehow I got a killing blow for it.

My theory, highlight a player that is attacking the shade of a headless horseman. I had the guy who got the killing blow highlighted when I accidentally clicked him instead of water bucket. It looked like he got the killing blow. I'm not sure how that effects it, perhaps since I'm focused on the killer it links us, perhaps it was the conflagrate.

I saw the guy I was targeting kill the horseman and had a deep feeling of dread, sure enough there was the kill. I'm fairly sure someone did die in a conflagrate too, so this is possible.

I'd have to start a trial account to test the "focus" theory, but I can watch for more conflagrate kills.

Unknown said...

I'm pretty sure it's the conflagrate.
Since other types of friendly fire can proc abilities, like Victory Rush, I can see how you would get a kill credit.

Carlah said...

I can confirm that the conflagrate is the cause of the mystery kills. I got caught in one on Carlah and two players died because of that. I immediately checked my stat page and sure enough. Two additional world pvp kills.

So the old adage stands true, don't stand in the fire!