honor-points
Latest
Warlords of Draenor: Call to Arms removed
Way back in 2005, patch 1.7.0 brought with it Battleground Holidays, intended to offer additional rewards to players who participated in particular battlegrounds over a designated weekend -- later renamed the Call to Arms in Wrath of the Lich King. Since then, the familiar sight of representatives from various battlegrounds has been a staple of the Warcraft experience. As new expansions were introduced, new battlegrounds came with them, and were subsequently added to the Call to Arms rotation. While the thought of getting bonus honor might have been pretty good incentive when the feature was first introduced, as the years have gone on, the Call to Arms weekends have been doing exactly the opposite of what they'd been introduced to accomplish. Unfortunately, some battlegrounds are still perceived as favoring one faction over another -- which means that on Call to Arms weekends, queue times can skyrocket as one side piles on to queue for the additional bonuses, and the other simply avoids the battleground altogether. So what's the solution? Removing the Call to Arms weekends altogether.
Poll: RNG gearing or points-based gearing?
There seems to have been something of a shift of late in Blizzard's gearing philosophy. We've moved from a heavily points-based system, where players had to earn currency -- specifically valor -- to buy items. They also had to earn reputation, which was another thing we can compare to points, although they're not a currency you can spend. Now, we've got Valor only used as an upgrade system, players are reliant on drops for the initial item to upgrade. The Timeless Isle does award currency, but you're more likely to rely on RNG-based drops to get gear from there. Not to mention the RNG nature of Warforged gear. And it looks like this is only going to move more towards RNG with Warlords' removal of currencies, removal of reforging, and the addition of sockets and tertiaries as RNG elements on top of the Warforged system. PvP gear remains mercifully points-based, and in a play system where gear equality is so important, we can only hope it remains the case. But in PvE, what's the good and bad of each? Well, points-based gearing is predictable. It gives you certainty and goals to work towards. Just so long as you keep grinding points, you know categorically that you will get that piece of gear. You can see your points build up, and it's satisfying. On the downside that predictability makes it less exciting. In PvP, that's no bad thing -- you certainly don't want the opposition to get their weapon and 4-set first while you get 2 rings, a neck and some bracers!
Honor hotfixes are live in a battleground near you
WoW Insider posted recently about upcoming honor hotfixes, which increase the honor gains from building up points and achieving small victories in battlegrounds. These hotfixes are now live, as Community Manager Lore tweeted today: As of today's maintenance, all of the BG honor hotfixes should be live! http://t.co/kqpgfKXr1f - Lore (@CM_Lore) March 11, 2014 Periodic honor earned in points-based BGs, namely Arathi Basin, Battle for Gilneas, and Eye of the Storm, will be doubled, so you'll get bonus honor every 130 points as opposed to 260. This is altered for Silvershard, where it's every 200, as opposed to 265. The flag capture battlegrounds, Warsong Gulch and Twin Peaks, will see the Focused Assault debuff applied faster in an effort to make them shorter, and there's a bonus for capture prevention. Strand of the Ancients will give a bonus for destroying gates, or preventing their destruction. It won't outdo the PvE methods for efficiency, but it's a step in the right direction.
Changes to Honor earned in certain Battlegrounds
Blizzard Community Manager Lore has posted today in the official forums about some changes to honor earned in several different battlegrounds. His full post is, as ever after the break. The devs have concluded that players are earning too little honor in various different battlegrounds, specifically Arathi Basin, Battle for Gilneas, Eye of the Storm, Silvershard Mines, Warsong Gulch, Twin Peaks, and Strand of the Ancients. All other battlegrounds remain unchanged. While these aren't huge changes, which is to be expected given that they're arriving via Hotfix, every little helps. The jist of the changes is that the periodic honor earned in points-based BGs in the list above will be earned faster, so you'll get bonus honor every 130 points as opposed to 260. This is altered for Silvershard, where it's every 200, as opposed to 265. The flag capture battlegrounds will see the Focused Assault debuff applied faster in an effort to make them shorter, and there's a bonus for capture prevention. Strand will give a bonus for destroying gates, or preventing their destruction. Whether this will be enough to replace the most efficient methods of farming honor -- Krasarang rares, Isle of Thunder PvP dailies, Grizzly Hills quest and JP conversion -- remains to be seen. I suspect not, but it's at least a step in the right direction. Hit the break for Lore's full post.
Simplify point-based currencies in Warlords
We've covered in the past how the best way to gear for PvP is to grind justice points, and I have recently experienced this - since I wanted to get some pieces of Season 14 for transmog (and to do some PvP on the side, since I like running random BG's) I spent the past couple of days capping honor so that I could pick up several pieces as soon as possible. This led to running dungeons for justice points. Lots of dungeons. And this led me to realize that justice points themselves have a lot of uses - picking up older gear to catch up, converting to honor for PvP gear - but they feel strange and antiquated. There's literally two ways to get them in the current endgame - run scenarios or dungeons - and they only upgrade blue dungeon gear, so their use as an upgrade currency is fairly limited. While you can in fact also buy them with honor, that would have been self defeating in my case.
How can Blizzard improve Honor with Warlords?
If you read my recent initial PvP gearing post, you'll know that we're in a bit of a strange situation right now with earning honor. Honor points are the points for the mid-level PvP gear, where the entry level is crafted gear and the top level is Conquest gear. They are currently not earned at their best rate via PvP. Instead, in order to maximise your Honor point gains and gear up with Honor gear as quickly as possible, players would be best advised to do a few different things. First up, you should farm the three rares in the opposing faction's Krasarang base. They drop 275 honor per kill, more if you have a Guild Standard or similar. Their respawn time averages out at around 30 minutes. There are sometimes oQueue realm-hopping groups, which, while frowned upon by many, are the most efficient ways to farm them. Other than that you should do Wintergrasp and Tol Barad whenever they're up, they're usually deserted and an easy way to get some fast honor. And if that all seems too much waiting around doing nothing, then you can farm Justice Points by running heroic dungeons, and converting them to honor. Yes that was changed with patch 5.4 to be less efficient, but it's still far more reliable than what you should be doing: random battlegrounds. Yes, your first win of the day is worth getting, it nets you conquest points too, but if it takes you five tries to win one, you're wasting your time.
PvP Season 12 ends March 5
Attention Arena and Rated Battleground enthusiasts! Blizzard has announced the end of Season 12 for both Arena PvP and Rated Battlegrounds. The season will officially end on Tuesday, March 5, at which point the process of determining which players are eligible for end-of-season rewards will begin. Until rewards are handed out, those that feel they are eligible for titles or mounts should avoid transferring their characters until after the season ends, just to avoid any problems with handing out the goodies. While players will be able to keep their Valor in patch 5.2, Conquest points will still be converted to Honor points. Keep in mind however that all Season 12 gear will be able to be purchased with Honor points at that time -- while 5.0 and 5.1 Valor gear will still cost Valor. Also note that any items with a rating requirement attached will no longer be available for purchase after the Season's end, so be sure to pick up any gear you're missing before March 5. Blizzard Entertainment Arena and Rated Battleground Season 12 is scheduled to end on Tuesday, March 5. At that point, we will determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards, a process that should take approximately one week. It's very important for players who feel that they may be eligible for Arena titles and/or the Malevolent Gladiator's Cloud Serpent to refrain from transferring their characters to another realm or faction until after Season 12 ends. The awarding of Season 12 titles and mounts will occur approximately 2 weeks after the season ends. At the end of the season, Conquest Points will be converted to Honor Points and any honor above 4000 will be converted to gold at a rate of 35 silver per point. The honor cap will remain at 4000. All Season 12 items will cost Honor Points (equivalent to their previous Conquest Point cost) when the season ends, with the exception of any items with rating requirements attached. These items will no longer be available for purchase. The next Arena and Rated Battleground season will begin approximately one week after the current season ends. During the break between seasons, all Rated Battleground and Arena matches will be unavailable. Team and Personal Ratings will be reset when Season 13 begins. source Does this mean we'll see patch 5.2 hit the live servers on March 5? Possibly -- but as always, dates are subject to change, and we'll just have to wait and see. Until then, if you're a PvP enthusiast, consider this your heads up to decide what to do with any remaining Conquest or Honor points you may have kicking around.
Preparing for PvP in Patch 5.2
Community Manager Daxxarri posted today with a lot of useful information to help players get to grips with the new PvP gearing methods in patch 5.2. There's some old information repeated, but if you weren't paying attention the first time around, here's his recap of the changes to the PvP gearing system: Daxxarri Rating requirements will be removed from PvP gear. Malevolent Gladiator's gear will be available for purchase with Honor Points. A new tier of Conquest Point gear will be added that becomes available once 27000 Conquest Points have been earned for the season. Team Rating will gradually increase during the season for teams and players who continue to compete in PvP. This system is explained in the Mists of Pandaria PvP Dev Watercooler. source But that's not the most complicated bit that players have to prepare for. That arises when deciding what to do with conquest points now, and after patch 5.2. Unlike valor points, which are not being reset, conquest points will be converted to honor after the patch, with any that put the player's total honor points over 4,000 converted into gold. The upgrade vendor is also disappearing. This creates an interesting conundrum when it comes to gear choices.
Patch 5.2 PTR: PvP dailies, and additional rewards for PvE Dailies.
The option to choose between PvE and PvP dailies was mentioned a while back in the first set of patch 5.2 PTR patch notes, and now they're finally live. There's no unlocking required, either, both factions simply need to complete their "Assault on..." scenario -- for the Alliance it's Shaol'Mara, for the Horde, Zeb'Tula. Both scenarios play out exactly the same, speak to either Jaina or Lor'themar to start the solo instance, and fly over the island with your scout, and go from there. I won't spoil it, but a little while and a lot of killing (the Alliance one was quite a bit harder than the Horde one for a fire mage) later, you'll leave the instance and find yourself in either Sunseeker Premontory or Violet Rise, depending on faction. Once you've unlocked the faction base, you'll need to seek out the Assignment Map to choose your variety of daily quest.
Incoming hotfix buffs JP gear, nerfs honor point gear
If you thought the item level of endgame PVE gear purchasable with justice points was a little low, Blizzard apparently agrees with you. Bashiok just let the official forums know that a hotfix is incoming, bumping the ilvl 450 PVE rares to 458. Additionally, the hotfix brings down the item level (and rarity color!) of the ilvl 464 epic PVP gear available for honor to 458 and rare. In conjunction with the hotfix removing the reputation requirements to access the JP gear, it should be considerably less of a hassle -- and involve a lot less PVPing -- to gear up for heroics. The downside is that the PVP gear you probably bought just to cheat the queueing system is a little worse. I can live with that. The full post from Blizzard is after the cut.
Patch 5.0.4 currency conversion clarified
While we put together a comprehensive guide on what to expect with patch 5.0.4, there was something missing from the list. Currency conversion had yet to be explained on the current patch notes -- while we knew it was coming on Aug. 28, we didn't know the exact details. Blizzard has finally clarified the conversion rates, going one step farther by outlining what currency conversion will look like all the way up to patch 5.1. Valor points will be disappearing, converted to justice points, and conquest will be converted to honor. There will be no gold conversion for excess points, because the cap for justice and honor points will be removed until Mists of Pandaria launches. Blizzard Entertainment The currency conversion coming with Mists of Pandaria is going to happen in three stages, and this is how we plan for it to progress: With Patch 5.0.4 on August 28 Valor points will be converted to Justice points, and Conquest points will be converted to Honor points. Neither of the resultant currencies (Justice and Honor) will have an enforced hard-cap at this time. The current Arena season will end. Players will no longer be able to earn Valor or Conquest points (bosses will drop Justice, Arenas will be closed). Items formerly purchasable for Valor/Conquest will be available for Justice/Honor. With Mists of Pandaria on September 25 Valor can be earned again. Characters can earn up to 1000 Valor per week, and carry a maximum of 3000 Valor. Daily quests, random Scenarios, random Heroic dungeons, and all levels of raiding will reward Valor. Valor will be used to purchase ilvl 489 gear in Mists of Pandaria. The Klaxxi, Golden Lotus, Shado-Pan, and August Celestials factions will sell this gear. Revered reputation with each faction will be required. Conquest will become earnable. There is a cap of 4000 Conquest points. Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds reward Conquest. It will be used to purchase ilvl 483 gear from Pandaren battlemasters on the Great Wall. With Mists of Pandaria, Patch 5.1 We currently plan to upgrade the Valor system as Ghostcrawler described in Mists of Pandaria Looting Explained in the 5.1 patch, allowing you to upgrade your gear using Valor points. We'll have additional information once Mists of Pandaria launches and we get closer to the 5.1 patch release. Do you have questions or comments about currencies in World of Warcraft? Please let us know in this discussion thread. source Hopefully this clears up everyone's questions about this process. If not, you can always check out the discussion thread on the official forums and ask away! It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Blood Sport: How will patch 4.3 impact PvP?
WoW Insider covers the world of player vs. player action in Blood Sport for fans of battleground, world PvP and Arena play. Steering you to victory is Olivia Grace, who spends most of her time in Azeroth as a restoration shaman turning people into frogs. With patch 4.3 imminent and Arena season 10 due to end Nov. 29, it seems reasonable to assume the patch will appear in early December. While you're racing to get your team into title range, get that last piece of gear, or just running laps of your capital city, you might be thinking forward to the arrival of the patch and wondering what your fate will be in PvP as the nerf bat winds up for another swing. Firstly, let's deal with some housekeeping. Conquest points, the PvP equivalent of valor points, will now be far, far easier to earn from ordinary Battlegrounds. The first daily Battleground win will now award 100 conquest points, up from 25, and wins after that will award 50 conquest point, up from, well, none! The conquest cap will remain, so while it will still be far quicker to reach it through Arena, it will also be attainable via Battlegrounds of the non-rated variety. This makes it far easier for solo players to build up the resilience numbers people often demand (fairly or otherwise) for access to Arena and Rated Battleground teams or just to gear for Battlegrounds.
Honor compensation date announced for recent PVP gear debacle
Blizzard's Bashiok has posted a time frame for the previously announced 4,000-honor point compensation package for players who spent honor on old gear during the week between the PVP Season 9 and Season 10. Any player who spent honor on ilevel 365 gear during the transition week will be awarded a free 4,000 honor points, which can go over the point cap and can be spent on the new, higher tier of Vicious PVP gear. This free honor will be awarded to players during maintenance on July 19 (this coming Tuesday). I think this is a pretty good compensation package for players who were not informed of the change in how PVP gear would be handled this season. The biggest issue from the debacle was that players spent a huge amount of time and effort grinding out honor for ilevel 365 gear during the off-week, then spent it, only to see the gear became useless just days later. Now that work has essentially been restored in the form of new, shiny, over-the-cap honor points. You will not be able to earn more honor points until you dip below the cap again, however.
Blizzard to offer compensation for PVP Season 10 transition woes
Yesterday, we talked about an issue that had PVP players in an uproar: Conquest points were accidentally down-converted to honor points a week early, with excess points converted to gold. On top of that, Blizzard launched a new tier of ilevel 371 gear without warning, just after making ilevel 365 gear available for purchase with honor. Players who spent their points decking themselves out in the latest PVP armor found themselves abruptly faced with the stunning realization that had they saved their points, they could have had better gear. It was a mistake, and it was acknowledged by Zarhym (Blizzard community manager) in a fairly lengthy blue post, along with a mention that Blizzard was exploring some options to try and make it up to players. Happily, it appears those options have been explored, as Blizzard's Bashiok posted today with a proposed solution for compensation: Players who were caught off guard by the change will be provided with 4,000 honor points, stacking over the cap. Players will not be able to accumulate more honor until spending below the 4,000 cap, but that should give PVPers a chance to pick up that new gear. This will not be immediately implemented, as it seems Blizzard is still trying to figure out how, exactly, to determine who was affected by the sudden transition and who was not -- so don't expect those 4,000 points on your character tomorrow. Still, it's nice seeing Blizzard acknowledge something that was clearly a miscommunication in regards to the transition between seasons and that it will be making sure those players caught in the middle of the fumble will be getting something back. Follow after the break for the full announcement from Bashiok.
Patch 4.1 PTR: New PvE-to-PvP currency conversion
If you've seen the patch 4.1 PTR patch notes recently, one thing will probably jump out at you immediately. Namely, you can now buy honor points for justice points and vice versa, and you can also buy conquest points for valor points. Updated 4.1 patch notes for April 7, 2011 General Honor is now purchasable from the Justice Commodities Vendor at 250 Honor per 375 Justice. Justice is now purchasable from the Honor Commodities Vendor at 250 Justice per 375 Honor. Conquest is now purchasable from the Valor vendor at 250 Conquest per 250 Valor. source
Gold Capped: Patch 4.1 and Maelstrom Crystals
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! Is the sky falling? Will patch 4.1 herald the end of the high price for Maelstrom Crystals? The informal communication channels between auctioneers (sharing market analyses with each other in IRC and custom channels or tells in game and on gold blogs) have been abuzz with the frantic analysis that patch 4.1 will drive the price of Maelstroms down to ridiculously low amounts. Personally, I'm not sure I'd blindly buy that.
Tol Barad hotfixed to reward 360 honor on offensive win
After the hotfix last week (rewarding 1,800 honor to the offensive team) aimed to increase Tol Barad changing hands from faction to faction, Blizzard has recanted and lowered the amount of honor gained when the attacking side wins the PvP objective. There was much confusion over why Blizzard would introduce such a huge honor gain for the attackers, as it clearly encouraged players to win-trade Tol Barad back and forth, negating the whole reason for a PvP objective. However, Blizzard has just changed the amount of honor gained when the attacking side wins Tol Barad to 360 honor, down from 1,800. Let your servers know that the win-trading can stop. Zarhym -- Tol Barad Honor Change As you're probably aware by now, an update was applied to Tol Barad shortly before the holidays which granted the attacking side 1800 Honor Points for a victory. While the goal with that change was to provide more incentive for the attacking forces to claim victory, it ultimately led to an undermining of the spirit of competition in Tol Barad. We've just applied a hotfix which has lowered the attacking faction's gain to 360 Honor Points for a victory. The defending faction will still earn 180 Honor Points for a victory. We appreciate all of your feedback regarding this change. We'll continue working to make Tol Barad a fun and engaging PvP environment. source In addition, Blizzard is currently working on a fix for what many termed the "Tol Barad Bridge Marathon," where players would run across the Tol Barad northern bridge to enter the zone as the battle was ending to reap the benefits of the victory, even if they were not called to participate in Tol Barad. Quote: Whats the word on the bridge exploit? We're working on a fix for this right now. source
Rated battlegrounds now award honor at conquest point cap
Rated battlegrounds have been criticized as being unnecessary after a player reaches his conquest point cap for the week, which is fairly easily obtainable. This resulted in many people shying away from rated games after the cap, and queues for rated battlegrounds being lengthy and annoying. Blizzard has just announced that rated battlegrounds will now award honor points when a player has reached the conquest point cap. Bashiok -- Rated BGs Now Award Honor at Conquest Cap We've recently made a change in an effort to promote continued play in Rated Battlegrounds. Now when a player is at their weekly Conquest cap they will receive the full amount of Honor from kills, objective completions, victories and losses while in a Rated Battleground match. Those not at their cap will continue to earn Conquest normally, and will only earn Honor once they reach their weekly cap. Whether you're capped and others on your team aren't, or you're all capped and just want to keep playing, we hope this change will allow more flexibility for those participating in Rated Battlegrounds. source World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Cataclysm 101: A guide to PvP changes and challenges
There are quite a few changes to PvP in Cataclysm. Let's have a look at how the changes in the past few patches will affect the other aspect of World of Warcraft gameplay ... Resilience is different Resilience no longer reduces critical strike chance but instead only reduces damage across the board. As resilience is the premier PvP stat, this impacts gameplay in a major way. First, critical strikes are back on the table. This means that talents contributing to crit are valuable in PvP again. Burst damage from crits will happen more often, and players can opt to stack crit for PvP without it being devalued ... much.
The Art of War(craft): Building your battleground kill crew
Zach of The Art of War(craft) enjoys PvP in all its forms, which includes competitive sports, martial arts and the considerably less badass and infinitely geekier miniature wargaming. Like Warmachines. Or maybe it's because he kind of just likes anything with the word '"war" tacked onto it. Last week we took a look at the delicious possibilities that Cataclysm will bring to battlegrounds PvP. It's going to be pretty brutal out there, and you're going to need friends. While there is a whole bunch of cool stuff all over, the best thing about Cataclysm for battleground enthusiasts will be the rated battlegrounds. Unfortunately, one of the things this will contribute to is the decline of solo play. In order to get the most out of your battleground experience, you'll need to be part of a group so that you'll reap the benefits of rated matches. The new Vicious Gladiator gear for arena Season 9 (or rated battlegrounds Season 1) is listed on MMO-Champion, and I'm sure avid battlers are drooling in anticipation of how these sets look. Then again, it could just be me. At any rate, there's a whole load of gear waiting to be claimed through honor and conquest! Most importantly, one thing that separates itemization this upcoming PvP season -- and this is a game-changer -- is the availability of personal-ratings-free weapons and armor through the new system. That marks the first time that max-level PvP weapons will become obtainable by players of all skill levels and the first time that top-tier PvP armor will only have a cosmetic distinction separating them from their ratings-free counterparts. You read that right: PvP gear with ratings requirements will have the exact same stats as PvP gear with no ratings requirements.
