At least 13 people from the clan <Sc> (Super Casual), and other clans, have been hit with a banwave, according to early reports about Blizzard’s Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 4 Man Season 9 Leaderboard showing Banwave

Diablo 3 Profile Unavaiable After BanwavePlayers like nDeniYal and PowerAbuser who were clearly a part of the Rank 1 four man clear, suddenly are missing all available information. You can click to see their battle.net profiles, but you won’t find a whole lot of anything.

How do banwaves work?

Diablo with his Ban Hammer after Season 9 BanwaveIt is still unclear, to anyone not working with Blizzard themselves, exactly how Blizzard detects and bans users who are breaking their policies. However, there is a bit of information that has become pretty clear over the last few seasons:

  • Bans are all carried out manually
  • Blizzard uses the leaderboard as a point of reference to begin their ban list
  • Not all botters are caught (I can personally verify this)
  • Being high up on the leaderboard greatly increases your risk of being caught
  • Banwaves are inconsistent and separately tackled across all regions
  • 3rd party programs (including Autohotkey Macros) will get you banned
    • Automation is the primary target of bans (bots/macros)

Thumbs Up keep the banwaves coming BlizzardConclusion

Yes, Blizzard banned a handful of people, and for that, every one of us non-cheaters out there applaud you. Please don’t stop here. Keep BANNING cheaters.

While you’re at it, could you please address the issue of users recreating new accounts for the sole purpose of gaining 3 rollbacks every season? Exploiting a useful mechanic in this way is still an exploit. Why should these users get 3x their bounty mats and 3x their keys?

Beyond that, all I can say is be consistent Blizzard. Ban every season, for every leaderboard, and we will start to see the game be truly competitive.