WoW Dragonflight’s controversial Court of Stars WeakAura, explained

I spy a hotfix.

Screengrab via Blizzard Entertainment

Just minutes after Echo won the 2023 Mythic Dungeon International on Sunday, April 2, the team’s tank, Naowh, showed off a WeakAura that he used during the tournament that many fans found to border on cheating. The WeakAura, which is exclusive to the spy-finding minigame in the back-end of the Court of Stars dungeon, makes the minigame completely moot since it prevents your character from accusing any of the nobles at the Grand Magistrix’s party except for the spy-in-disguise. 

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To make use of the WeakAura, all one has to do is click on every Suspicious Noble in the area until they find the eventual Burning Legion spy. Since there are multiple dialog options available internally when accusing a spy in the minigame, WeakAuras can manipulate the code of the game to only allow players to speak to the correct NPC. The WeakAura completely eliminates the need to find clues during the minigame and allows your group to save the time they’d spend speaking with “Chatty Rumormongers” and making wrong accusations. 

After Blizzard hotfixed the effectiveness of the controversial WeakAura, Naowh has come back and revealed an updated version that negates Blizzard’s hotfix. Here’s how the WeakAura works. 

How the Court of Stars spy WeakAura works

The Court Spy WeakAura automatically selects the correct spy in the Jeweled Estate minigame whenever you click on them. Cycling through the available Suspicious Nobles in the area will eventually yield a positive result since the game prevents you from guessing incorrectly as long as the WeakAura is installed. 

Related: All interactable items in Court of Stars

According to a Reddit user named Saxayone, the WeakAura uses an optionID dialog code that’s related to the specific combination of clues a Suspicious Noble can have attached to them and will always guess the correct solution when that optionID is present. 

Court of Stars WeakAura timeline of events 

Sunday, April 2: Echo wins the 2023 MDI and Naowh reveals the Court Spy WeakAura to the public. Mixed reactions spawn from Naowh’s reveal, as many fans accused Echo of cheating via using this WeakAura, while other fans blamed Blizzard for overlooking this potential gap in the game’s code. 

Tuesday, April 4: Blizzard pushes a hotfix to the live servers that negates the effectiveness of the Court Spy WeakAura. 

Wednesday, April 5: Naowh reveals an updated version of the WeakAura, flipping Blizzard’s previous hotfix. 

It’s likely Blizzard will continue to make strides toward hotfixing the Court Spy WeakAura’s effectiveness in the coming days. The WeakAura will not have any impact once Dragonflight season two launches on May 9 and the game’s dungeon pool changes entirely. 

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Michael Kelly
Staff Writer covering World of Warcraft and League of Legends, among others. Mike's been with Dot since 2020, and has been covering esports since 2018.