1) All I can say is that given the previous few incident regarding few large guilds' encounter with each other on Valkyrie Randgris, the screenshot (albums) they have successfully provided would've been effective enough to enforce MVP Domination Rule though sadly useless under current rulings. Time stamp is usually an effective indication of first engagement. Usually, first time "things go wrong" it's assumed accidental but once it repeats, heRO seems to be well informed on how screenshot/support ticket should work, and will screenshot to prove an unwanted interference.
Kill steal is a 'continuous process' yet screenshot is asked for evidence instead, and we certainly have been enforcing that one successfully (not 100% all the time, but pretty darn good at it.)
2) Party 1 is ok because "as long as the strategy is justified and does not
solely intended to prevent others to come and kill it." The pneuma serves a purpose against the MVP. Now *IF* say Party 1 is using pneuma on something like GTB who doesn't use SW, then that pneuma is there to "solely intended to prevent others to come and kill it" and will be violating MVP Domination Rule.
If Party 1 is the dominating party, then Party 2 "may" use land protector but it'll depend if Party 1 is also relying on AoE or not. LP serves the same purpose as negating SW, so Party 2 is "not interfering in the strategy that the dominating player/party is using" and they did try to mold to this. However, if Party 1 is using both melee and AoE attack, then LP molds to the melee part but blocks Party 1's AoE part of the strategy, so LP violates MVP Domination in this case.
3) The last sentence of 'does not apply to MVP slave' is best shown by Detale and Hydro, where both of them mobs. Hydro remobs at 2, but starts off at 4. It's not unusual to take out blue acidus to prevent Stop. However, if another party kills all of hydro's slaves so hydro remobs, that is ok because rule didn't apply to Hydro: that is, not knowing how hydro remobs, or causing hydro to remob.
Another example is Dracula's slave familiars. It's not overly difficult especially for paladin or priest to tank dracula, grab a snow bunny card/autocast cards with a gremlin clip, and farm forever str food off of dracula. If another party comes and wants to kill dracula, is this a violation of MVP Domination interfering with your 'strategy' to farm dracula? Absolutely not. Same can be said for using magnum break/meteor storm on GTB's slaves to farm box of thunder and agi food.
Now for thanatos though, that is an obvious violation to MVP slave control.
4) If Party 1 blocks you from attacking while it has no benefit to themselves at all, and you are only using the exact same strategy as Party 1 (say, both you and Party 1 relies on just DSing the hell out of it) this violates the Strategic MVP Support section of "solely intended to prevent others to come and kill it." The fault is on the dominating party.
Just because a party is dominating, that doesn't mean they can do everything that they want to.
5 + 6) Yes. It is a safe assumption for almost all cases that there is no secrets left in terms of AI on old MVPs for such an old game. Players ought to do their part as well to know what they are doing.
Now of course, if an old MVP got a new AI change (such as Atroce getting its new skills in our most recent svn change), that does count under 2 week grace since the AI did get changed and is therefore, 'new.'
If say brand new skills accessible for players are released through whatever methods, then this allows room for new/custom strategy and leniency are also given since 'a change occured.' But if everything is exactly left as is for status quo, then yes, we state that all players are fully knowledgable on related strategies.
The current 'gray' area that still exist in MVP Domination is on custom MVP because there is no way to find out their AI even if you want to research unless you got friends who know of it already, in which case GM team (probably me
) have to pound out all those in the heRO wiki ASAP when possible. The only one is really Levia and Tendrilrion though. Piamette can't be found naturally so she's not an issue. God Poring and Skoll has neglectable strategy as they really have nothing specific (God Poring's elemental switch between the 2 crosses cannot be prevented whatsoever anyway.) Hardrock Mammoth is only a giant series of anti-player strategies for the most part as well.
2nd gray area is for Surtur if Surtur, though he is a quest MVP, would be excluded by MVP Domination or not... but such matters is why the rule takes effect on the 14th instead of immediately in effect.