Maybe there's a way to disincentivise botting by altering the rewards. Set a minimum contribution target to receive a reward. If your contribution to the battle is below a certain threshold, exp/tome/marks payout is reduced to zero.

I want botters to stop because they gain absolutely nothing. Setting the parameters to kill bots without affecting real players is really hard though, especially considering healers and join-in-progress players.

I just feel so bad about the situation on Aether datacenter. Entire teams of bots for months/years is unacceptable.