Warcraft 3 hostbots offer:

-Lower latency. Previously server latency was over 100ms.

-Host control: users can control their lobbies using kick, ban players from future lobbies they host, amongst countless other features.

-Ease of finding games. Communities have risen up around websites which offer a complete list of games hosted, making it much easier to find the game you want than the archaic game list which offers only a portion of games hosted and must be refreshed.

-Autohosted games. Many players play a few mods exclusively. Instead of having to manual host, there are autohosts which rehost automatically. This makes playing what you want extremely easy.

-Thanks to autohosts, competitive communities have grown through the use of stats and elo tracking. Here is an example: https://entgaming.net/customstats/legionmega/ . This website allows you to track your elo, game history, and retrieve replays. Bots have also allowed for community moderation, keeping the environment competitive thanks to moderation teams that review replays to stop cheaters.

Without hostbots, these communities will die. This decision was not communicated with the community beforehand, nor was it explicitly mentioned in the patch notes, only that they were releasing a new hosting system:

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/bnet/topic/20769476896

Their hosting system does not offer any of the above features mentioned.

I had to confirm it was their intention to remove hostbots and replace it with their own system via discord. We are fed up with these patches that are breaking not only the game through crashes, but the features we have given the game ourselves in the absence of developer support.

Hostbots should be supported by Blizzard, not removed. Sign the petition to send Blizzard the message that we do not want this.