Are you wondering what has caused all the ruckus in the raiding community the past few days? Have you been typing your fingers to the bone since Wednesday night, arguing for one side or the other in forums and chat channels? Whoever you are, or whatever side you're on, in the still-burning aftermath of Ensidia's ban, I feel some reflection is needed. Thus, I am going explain, to the best of my ability, what happened to cause such uproar in the raiding community this week. I am also going to, as the title implies, offer my speculations.

For those of you not up to speed, let me summarize what happened in the past day. On Wednesday evening, the guild Ensidia defeated the Lich King encounter in 25-man Icecrown Citadel. Not long after that, Blizzard performed a hotfix to the game, disabling the damage dealt by Saronite Bombs and Global Thermal Sapper Charges. Blizzard stated that the hotfix was made to temporarily deal with a bug that was causing the bombs to rebuild the Frozen Throne platform during the Lich King encounter. Ensidia then updated their original post in response to the hotfix, saying that the bug did affect their kill, but that they did not know that it was the bombs specifically that was causing the platform to rebuild during every attempt, because their rogues always use Saronite Bombs in their DPS rotation. Blizzard, in response to a question about whether or not Ensidia would receive a temporary ban for the bug, then stated:
"It is not our policy to discuss disciplinary action for exploitation. With that said, we take exploits very seriously and will action players that use exploits to overcome an encounter.

We continue to closely monitor all 25 player Lich King attempts and will take action if we deem players blatantly exploiting the encounter."
Early Thursday morning, Ensidia updated their website, saying they received a 72-hour ban from Blizzard, and notification that their achievements and loot would be removed. I, personally, was very surprised; but what happened exactly? Let's first examine how this bug could compromise the difficulty of defeating the Lich King:

During the Lich King encounter, the platform that you fight on crumbles at the edges, reducing the area in which players have to maneuver on all sides. From then on, Val'kyr mobs (3 in 25-man, 1 in 10-man) will periodically spawn, pick up members of your raid, and fly towards the edges of the platform. If the Val'kyr mobs are not killed before they reach the edge, your raid members will be dropped by the Val'kyr to their deaths. In order to buy yourself as much time as possible to kill the Val'kyr, it makes the most sense to position your raid at the center of the platform. Unfortunately, while this is occurring, the Lich King will periodically target a member of your raid and cast Defile. Defile causes a black pool to form under the feet of the target and deal shadow damage to anyone who comes in contact with it. To make it worse, every time any player touches that pool it will increase in size, and the damage dealt will increase as well. So, if your raid is stacked at the center of the platform when a Defile is cast, everyone has to scramble out quickly to avoid enlarging the pool, while continuing to DPS the Val'kyr. On top of all this, the phase is based on the Lich King's health, so you have to whittle his health down as well, or else the phase will never end.

So where does the bug come in? It's pretty simple: if players can rebuild the Frozen Throne to its original state, you will have more space to avoid the Defile. This might not seem like a big deal if you've watched the 10-man kill video from Blood Legion, but add in 15 more people and it quickly becomes a much more difficult aspect of the fight.

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