An item that no one else in World of Warcraft has and is completely overpowering. Of all things, it was a shirt – and it caused a lot of chaos in WoW.
In World of Warcraft there are many powerful items that heroines and heroes crave. But one item in the history of Blizzard’s MMORPG was so powerful that it could literally kill anything. A single player was able to enjoy this item and it gave him and his guild many world first kills.
But the catch: He should never have received this item.
The story begins in 2008 with the character Leroyspeltz. This was during the time of Wrath of the Lich King. Leroyspeltz was an active raid player in his guild and it was a typical raid evening – when suddenly there was a disconnect.
Disconnects in World of Warcraft were comparatively common, especially “back in the day.” Sometimes the server had a brief interruption or the router reconnected. Leroyspeltz tried to log in again – but it didn’t work. After checking his password several times, it dawned on him: his account had been hacked.
After requesting a password reset, Leroyspeltz discovered that his entire account had been emptied – all items on all characters had been sold and the gold taken away. Back then, this was a very typical incident after a hack. The fraudsters then sold the gold back to other players.
But Blizzard could help in such cases. After a hack, with a little processing time, the GameMasters are able to restore the account and, so to speak, load it to a previous state. That’s exactly what Leroyspeltz hoped – but nothing happened for several weeks.
A patch later, shortly after the Ulduar raid was released, he noticed that all of his characters now had a lot of mail in their mailboxes. All of the items he had lost in the hack had been sent to him in the form of letters. This is how Blizzard usually does it – items then end up in the mailbox and from there can be sorted back into the inventory or directly to the character.
However, a little warlock twink from Leroyspeltz received an item that he had never owned. And that was the most powerful item ever in the World of Warcraft.
What kind of object is this? The item is “Martin Fury”. A shirt that is quite strange anyway. Because the shirt belonged to the “Plate” category, had the “Artifact” rarity and granted the wearer 34 additional mana as well as 34 strength – an item that was designed for paladins.
However, “Martin Fury” could do even more. Namely, the shirt had 100 charges for a use effect:
“Kill all enemies within 30 meters. Cheater.”
“All enemies” in this case really means all enemies. Also the strongest raid bosses.
Why did such an item even exist? The shirt has been in the game data since patch 1.12 – the “vanilla” era of World of Warcraft. At that time, some developers made their own items and there were also some items that were never intended for players. These were then used for testing purposes or were simply a joke between the developers.
It is likely that “Martin Fury” was used for precisely such internal testing purposes.
World first kills – and the ban of an entire guild
Since the item came straight from Blizzard’s mailbox, Leroyspeltz thought it must have been intentional – a little “apology” for the recovery taking so long. The shirt also had limited charges, so it would be a temporary “bonus” – and so Leroyspeltz, along with his guild master, decided to use the shirt. He sent it to his raid character and the guild stormed Ulduar, on the highest difficulty.
The shirt was used a whopping 14 times to kill bosses in a split second, scoring some world first kills in Ulduar on the highest difficulty as well as overpowering some older bosses in the Eye of Eternity and the Obsidian Sanctum.
How exactly Blizzard ultimately became aware of this is not entirely clear. On the one hand, it could be that an internal tool was activated that simply noticed that bosses were falling too quickly and a guild was making progress faster than should be humanly possible. On the other hand, it may be that Leroyspeltz or his guild leader were simply “ratted out” – because apparently not all participants in the raid knew that this item was being used.
Some are said to have been quite surprised that the bosses simply fell over and only thought it was a bug.
But Blizzard’s reaction came and it was severe. The entire guild was blocked for 24 hours – regardless of whether individual characters had taken part in the raids or not. “Martin Fury” has been removed from the inventory and the raid leader’s account has been permanently banned.
Is “Martin Fury” still in the game today? Yes and no at the same time. The item still exists as part of the game files and could therefore get back into the hands of a character as part of a bug or exploit. However, Blizzard has since adjusted the item. The shirt is no longer at artifact level, but is just gray. And the effect of the “use” effect is completely different today:
“The caster commits suicide and kills himself instantly.”
So even if the item were ever to come back into a character’s possession, only one creature would die from the effect – the wielder himself.
This is just one of many strange stories that have happened in World of Warcraft over the years – but it is unique because no one has seen the “most powerful item in WoW” since.