1. Introduction
It is no news that the game is riddled with combat hacks for the past few years. In the North American server, SnailGames refuses to address this issue. In the Chinese servers, they do address the issue by actually punishing hackers and making their name known on a wall of shame.
This guide aims to inform the players about the most common form of combat hacks that can be spotted through simple observation. This guide does NOT include quality of life hacks that are harmless in combat, and instead help the players save time in an already-busy life.
The terminology used in this guide are the most commonly used within the North American community.
2. Auto Swap
"Auto Swap" is a way for inept players to automatically swap between weapons and bracers that boost the skills they're casting, because pressing keys is too complicated for them. One method of detecting auto swappers is by simply visiting their YouTube channel and seeing if:
They swap to a piece of equipment that is not visible on the screen, or
They swap their equipment that are visible on the screen, but they don't press any buttons, or
They unironically cover their inner bar, implying they use auto swap
In this example, you can see methods #1 and #2. This player swaps to a wristguard not visible on the screen, when they cast Nihilty. Afterwards, when casting Impermanence, they swap to a wristguard on the inner bar without pressing any buttons. The equipment bag is also not visible, so the player couldn't have manually clicked it.
This is why so-called "skillful" Wushu YouTubers hide their inner bar when they upload videos, because they don't want to expose how unskilled they really are. It is generally agreed upon within the community that any video upload, with the inner bar unironically hidden, automatically labels the uploader as a clown, and the video as meaningless.
Another method of detecting autoswap, without YouTube, is by viewing a suspected player's equipment while they're in combat. If they swap wristguards and annotation books at the exact same frame (give or take 2), then that is guaranteed autoswapping.
One can argue that this is a non-problem, now that CN has a different equipment system. But we're not CN version, thus not everyone has access to this unfair advantage.
3. Penglai Island/Shifting Palace Teleport
Certain hacks enable faint-hearted players to teleport to a different scene in the middle of combat. The game takes extra care of disallowing players to do this, but hackers found a way to specifically teleport to these two maps.
In this example, you can see that the player teleports to Penglai Island mid-combat, because they couldn't bear the thought of dying against a character with the level of Keep Your Own Counsel. As a consequence, his cowardly move got immortalized on the internet.
4. Deping
Deping allows players who make excuses about bad ping, to exhibit all sorts of unusual phenomena with their character, giving them an unfair advantage in combat.
Unusual parry
Deping affects the user's parry in such a way, that they can parry in the middle of skillcasting, or while being crowd-controlled.
In this example, you can see the player parrying, while being knocked down.
In this example, you can see the player parrying in the middle of casting skills.
Move during charges
Deping also affects the user's movement, putting them in a permanent "unlocked" state, allowing them free movement at all times, even when they're locked by a charging skill. This is especially evident when their target has yellow or red armor.
In this example, you can see the hacker moving around while casting the Heart Buddha Palm charge, because the Winds of Fury user has yellow armor.
Anti air immunity
Finally, deping allows users to instantly get up from, or parry anti air skills, such as Lotus Palm's Green Lotus, or Stranger's Soaring Aurora, due to the permanent unlocked state. This is especially evident when they don't have any form of yellow or red armor.
In this example, the player gets yellow armor after casting the heal, and not during. Therefore, the player resisted the knockdown with deping.
5. Blink/Jump Hack
Blink hack, or jump hack, allows players who are highly sensitive to their characters dying, to escape when they're in a pinch, without having to switch scenes. They often try to blame it on lag, but coincidentally (and funnily) enough, it only happens when they're pinned down and/or about to die.
In this example, the player blinks away twice, both with shameless abandon.
6. Auto Parry Drop
Auto Parry Drop allows incompetent players to drop their parry against all parry breaks, including skills that are otherwise too fast to react to. Example of such fast skills are Weeping Demon Stab's Concentrated Confusion, or Demon Heart Chain Hand's Devil Eye. There are two methods to identify parry drop hacks:
Rewatching the fight's recorded video footage, and see if the average duration of their parry drop against a parry break, is the same amount of frames every single time, with an error margin of 10%.
The player initiates a parry with autoparry, and then immediately drops that parry, while they are occupied with the chat or simply AFK.
This example perfectly demonstrates the player parrying and dropping parry while being occupied with ironic writing.
7. Tracker Hack
There is also a hack for paranoid players to determine when their character gets divined. If you track an enemy with a divinator, and the enemy suddenly starts moving in irregular patterns (like aimlessly orbiting around a city), or rapidly switching maps, then that is an indication that they have tracker hacks. Although there is no gif of this, a player did stupidly enough admit to owning such hacks.
In Age of Wushu, there is no legitimate method to determine who is divining you.
8. Bubble Hack
There's a hack made specifically for players who feel pain irl after taking a hit or two in-game. You can recognize the hack by the player casting Tai Chi Bubble, doing a little jump animation, and then their HP and MP restoring (sometimes almost) to max. You can also see the green aura around them, as if they take damage. They actually do, in the form of hacked fall damage.
In this example, you can see the player using this hack, with a little jump. He heals up to like 90% HP. There's no arena pill at play here. The green aura is visible, despite the player not taking any hit, or falling from a significant height. This all indicates hacked fall damage.
9. Captor Hack
If you ever had the moment of "I could've sworn he didn't have captor", boy do I have good and bad news for you. The bad news is: It's a hack. The good news is: You're not crazy. The other good news is: Along with the captor status, the caster also obtained life-long ridicule.
There is a hack which makes a player instantly obtain captor status without having to run to the captor NPC. This allows frauds to unfairly ambush their unsuspecting bountied enemies, especially inside safe zones. The only way to detect this hack is by checking previous recordings, after having such an "am I crazy?"-moment.
Watch closely. In this example, you can see the player obtain captor status (blue rotating aura) out of nowhere, with a comically shameful attempt at hiding it with the Eastern Seas Ninja skill.
10. Music Bot Hack
This hack looks like a more evolved version of auto-music. This specific version actually makes the musician automatically follow the raid leader and stay at a certain given distance. The bot does this by brainlessly (just like the owner of the bot) making use of the blink hack, teleporting closer and closer. It gives the raid an unfair advantage in combat.
In this example, a well known music alt bot mindlessly attempts to follow its equally mindless owner.
11. Credits
Special thanks go to the two fraudulent players most commonly known as Miaou (also known as "Shinigami", "Zanpakuto", "Jinzo", "Th3tec" and many other names) and RHAELH for voluntarily providing the author with the examples needed. They are the North American server's role models as unskilled players, relying on hacks pretending to be legit and good at a videogame. It matters a lot to them.
12. P.S. the recent "Teleport Hack" allegations
Some players mistakenly believe that enemies are ambushing them with teleport hacks. However, they do not understand that cities are filled with NPCs and the game prioritizes rendering NPCs over players, whenever the player is on the move.
For the trained eye, it is simply a player autopathing. For the untrained eye, it is erroneously perceived as "teleport hacks".
It is also possible that a player simply exited an instance, or their home, and they happened to be nearby an enemy player.