Math behind 2.4 honor gains
Almost everyone has heard by now that once patch 2.4 drops, we will no longer have to guess at our honor gains. We will no longer have to wait in order to reap the rewards of our victories, and our honor will not diminish with each kill of a player.
Because of this, our knowledge of the honor calculation system as explained to us after patch 2.3 by Nethaera needs to be revised. Will we be gaining more honor, more quickly? Just how much of a potential is there to earn more?
Let's take an in-depth look at the new math behind our patch 2.4 PvP kills and compare it to what we have been used to. Because these changes will be applied to individual kills and not to honor awarded for objectives, any questions about each individual battleground's honor potentials can be answered using our explanation of the honor system, or by consulting our discussion of the 2.4 changes to Alterac Valley and Warsong Gulch.
As we have discussed before, one battleground kill at level 70 is worth 20.9 honor. In the soon-to-be-history honor calculation system, you earn 10% less honor for each subsequent kill of the same player. After a mere 10 kills, the honor count drops to 0.
Patch 2.4 is setting out to change all of this, banishing diminishing returns. This means that at level 70, each kill will be worth 20.9 honor regardless of its novelty. There will be one new restriction; after 50 deaths, a player will no longer be worth honor.
What does all of this mean for your honor gains in each system?
Calculating potential honor in the old system dictates that each subsequent kill's honor drops by 10% of the initial 20.9 honor, or 2.09 honor less per kill. This would net the following:
20.9 (1st) + 18.81 (2nd) + 16.72 (3rd) + 14.63 (4th) + 12.54 (5th) + 10.45 (6th) + 8.36 (7th) + 6.27 (8th) + 4.18 (9th) + 2.09 (10) + 0 (all kills of Player A hereafter)
In total, at level 70 fighting another level 70, you could earn up to 114.95 honor per opponent.
The potential honor gains as of patch 2.4 is calculated as follows, assuming that no other changes are made before the patch drops:
(20.9) * (50) + 0 (all kills of Player A hereafter)
This means that theoretically, at in a level 70 battleground, you could earn up to 1045 honor per opponent.
Although it is unlikely you will ever manage to kill every opposing player 50 times, it is inevitable that you will kill most more than once, at which point, you already are earning more honor than you would have otherwise.
For each kill after the first, you are earning 2.09 multiplied by 1-10 more than you would otherwise for that kill. Up to 40 kills of that same player will earn you 100% more honor!
On top of this, we will be seeing accurate honor totals rather than estimates when we check our honor for the day, and all of it will be available to spend immediately. There has even been speculation that the removal of diminishing returns might help solve the AFK problem in Alterac Valley.
While you still may find that completing objectives is a quick way to earn some honor, actual PvP combat will become much more lucrative after patch 2.4; almost 9.1 times more. Especially for battlegrounds like Warsong Gulch, or Alterac Valley during a turtle, this boost to the honor awarded per kill is definitely going to appeal to all players. In fact, these changes should also bump up the total honor gained from losing.
Are you excited about these changes? Do you think they are overpowered, or insufficient? Do you foresee Blizzard sticking with these new numbers, or do you feel more adjustments will be coming in the future?
