Deserter Debuff Workaround

[MongoJerry]

In the recent patch, Blizzard implemented the "deserter debuff" that makes it so that you can't join battlegrounds for 15 minutes if you /afk'd out of a battleground. The idea is to prevent people from joining, finding a matchup they don't like, and then leaving to try to find a match more favorable to them. The problem is that there's an easy workaround if you're in a group.

The deserter debuff will prevent an individual from joining a battleground and will also prevent "Join as Group" if anyone in the raid leader's party has the deserter debuff. However, a person with the debuff can be in the raid -- just not in the leader's party. So, if you're in a group and you "Join as Group" to Arathi Basin, you can have one person go in and check to see if it's a good game or not. If it's not a good game, the person can /afk and be placed in a group other than the raid leader's group. The leader can now "Join as Group" again, and everyone, including the person with the deserter debuff, will be queued as normal.

You'd think that Blizzard would think to check the entire raid for deserters rather than just the leader's party, but you can never underestimate the laziness of programmers.

[Mirajj]

Odd, as when the Avarice crew had a member with the deserter debuff, I couldn't join as a group, with the "Deserter" in my group, or in group 3 (of a 15 man AB attempt).

[MongoJerry]

Odd, because I was able to join a group that joined as a group and get in an AB even with the deserter debuff on. I was told that not being in the leader's party was the key. Are you sure that you didn't have other people in your raid who had the deserter debuff?

[Mirajj]

Odd, because I was able to join a group that joined as a group and get in an AB even with the deserter debuff on.  I was told that not being in the leader's part was the key.  Are you sure that you didn't have other people in your raid who had the deserter debuff?
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Yep. There were 14 of us assembled, and the 15th /afk'ed out of WSG to join us in the queue. He was added to the party (in the 15th slot) and I tried to queue. Told me I coudn't join because someone had the deserter debuff when I tried to queue us for both.

[MongoJerry]

*Shrug* I don't know. We were able to do it again several times tonight with people who had deserter debuffs.

[Mirajj]

Weird. But right up Blizz's alley. ;)