I play with warmode off. I’ve had this occur a few times in the last couple of days, where someone who is flagged for pvp will put themselves in the path of my aoe abilities which in turn flags me for pvp. They then proceed to attack me. It’s always during some big zerg like on a primal storm boss or some big obsidian sanctum killing, where it’s chaotic and hard to tell what’s going on. As you might guess by my frustration, it doesn’t end well for me.
So why is this now a thing that can happen? I don’t recall this ever occurring since the introduction of warmode.
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I know that targeted crowd control abilities that don’t deal damage can be used on flagged players by unflagged players. For example, I can use Paralysis or Polymorph on a flagged players while I’m not flagged and I will be flagged. I am not sure how that works for aoe abilities though. However, I have heard of people finding ways to flag unflagged players that the devs may have overlooked.
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You should not have any ability hit a flagged player, assuming you mean retail and not classic. There might be a free for all area though, but those flags are different than normal PvP flags. If you are sure you are not in a FFA zone, and it’s not classic, do put in a bug report.
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I’m playing on an enhancement shaman for this. They have no shortage of aoe abilities. Perhaps it is even one of their less direct aoes, like hailstorm.
Yeah, retail. And nope, not a FFA area. I will put in a bug ticket. Cheers.
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Given the mobs you described, this is on Retail. It should not be a thing on Retail. So if you are absolutely certain you did nothing to target the player, then post on the Bug Report Forum.
I will also add that healing a flagged ally will flag you. So, consider if you have any abilities/talents/procs that can heal other people.
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Beyond Hex, I am unsure with Shaman. I would guess the root totem could possibly be a culprit, but I have never tested that.
Healing stream totem perhaps? Still that wouldn’t seem very fair for that to flag me.
I am not certain if a totem would be the culprit. Possibly, but I would imagine we’d be hearing a lot more about this.
If it is the culprit, it’s not intended. That’s why the Bug Report Forum is where you should report it.
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Yeah I definitely feel comfortable calling this a bug. Thank you all.
I have to say as well, I had no idea the CS forum was this active and helpful. I dwell in the general discussion a lot and this is not at all the kind of interactions I usually have around here. This has been nice. So thanks for that too 
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As a side note, I think this is how it used to work, but at least for the past few years, you aren’t able to heal an ally flagged for PVP. You’ll get a warning that you need to flag yourself for PVP in order to heal them. I am guessing it was added as a protection to avoid players unintentionally getting flagged. (PSA for those PVPers I can’t heal who are dying on world bosses 
)
I will also add that sometime in the past year while fighting Soundless in Nazjatar, my other party member somehow got flagged for PVP and started getting attacked. We never did figure out how it happened. As others mentioned, a detailed bug report is best.
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By chance were they also hostile to you?
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yesterday i was doing a hunt, and i don’t know if the NPC did something to cause it… but all the enemy players became hostile for a short period of time
(it was my first hunt, i have no idea if this was intended)
That’s a good question. I don’t think they were, but it was awhile ago, so I can’t be 100% sure.
The hunt bosses cast a charm ability called Inspire Awe. I unfortunately got charmed on my druid while in guardian spec and eliminated the demon hunter next to me lol. According to the spell details, reducing the charmed players’ health below 30% will free them.
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thanks, that’s good to know
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In retail you will get an error message when you try to heal a player who is flagged, that you must flag for PvP to do that.
This bug has just occurred for me again during a Storm’s Fury event. Still on my enhancement shaman. Still not sure what triggered it. There was a couple of already flagged enemy player around. My assumption is still that one of my many passive aoe abilities hit them.