PvP'ing for epics -- is it worth it?
by Paul Sherrard 
Dec 15th 2006 at 2:22PM
Okay, so here we are in "Before the Storm", and one of the biggest changes to the game has got to be the PvP setup. Let me state here that even though I leveled my first 60 on a PvP server, I've always been more about the PvE game. You can count my total total hours of battleground PvP on all of your fingers, and maybe a toe or two.To be honest, the old PvP grind didn't do it for me. It was a time sink, much like endgame raiding, and I only had room in my heart and life for BWL. To put in 80+ hours a week to hit Grand Marshall wasn't something I was prepared or able to do. And so PvP became a slight social distraction for me when my guild asked me to fill out an Arathi Basin group, or I had a long time to wait for a lasagna to defrost.
A quick primer on the new PvP reward system for the uninitiated: You earn honor from killing opponents, completing objectives in each of the three BG's - Warsong Gulch (WSG), Arathi Basin (AB), and Alterac Valley (AV). You gain tokens called "Mark of Honor" from participating in each BG which are unique to that BG. You get 1 token for a loss, 3 for a win. By turning in both tokens and honor points, you can purchase new PvP gear, in both rare and epic form. Go read this forum post for a better, longer breakdown.
This is how it is as I make a thorough commitment to check out the new PvP reward system. How thorough? Well, I'm taking my Orc Hunter, who's equipped in 4 pieces of Beaststalker, 4 pieces of Black Dragonscale, with a bow 10-levels old, and I'm going to commit myself to the Battlegrounds until I earn the epic bow and 6-piece epic hunter set.
Yes, 118125 honor points, 110 Arathi Basin tokens, 50 Alterac Valley tokens, and 30 WSG tokens.
If my first afternoon in the BG's is any indicator, this could take a long long while.
I've been joining the BG's solo for most of the day, sometimes with a friend (who's now deserted me for a guild pvp group!). With rare exception, I've been on the losing end of every battle.
So, what did 4 hours of PVP get me? So far 2 WSG tokens, 1 AV token, and 15 AB tokens. Not a bad start. How are the honor points? Not as good - my PvP tab shows about 4200 points for the day's efforts. This 30% reduction in earned honor is going to hurt.
So, if this is consistent - 1 battle is about 20 minutes, which nets me 1 token and 250 honor. I'm scared to do the math, but let's forge ahead anyway.
In 64 hours I'll have the tokens I need for my 7 pieces of loot. Unfortunately, it looks like 158 hours of my life will be consumed in trying to get the honor I need to go with those tokens. That's a lot of hours to spend for 7 pieces of gear. Of course, they're better than I can find soloing, and you could argue it'd take at least that much time working your way up in a raiding guild.
I'll come back and update once a week with how I'm progressing, and to get your take on the new PvP system - is the grind worth the reward? Got any tips for those of us just starting to explore PvP as a way to enjoy the game? Post in the comments below.
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, PvP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Wartoad Dec 15th 2006 2:42PM
PvP for Epics? Considering I don't raid, yes. Yes I will.
Pruflas Dec 15th 2006 2:34PM
I'd say it is for the newer players (or new characters). I've got a rogue i raid with, and started out a mage - i went pvp with the mage and working through the bg's as i level. The pvp gear i've gotten (i'm lvl 38 now) is far better then the blue's I have picked up in the instances (ok so i didn't win the roll on the caster hat in SM).
Clay Dec 15th 2006 2:40PM
I wouldn't worry about PvP stuff and work on leveling other characters up to 60 before BC comes out. The items you'll get in 5 man raids in Hellfire Citadel will be almost as good as the PvP stuff with a fraction of the hours needed to get them.
Lao Dec 15th 2006 4:07PM
Find a group, get some wins. It'll go faster, you'll have more fun. You'll get many more tokens, and a good bit more honor. This is one of my critiques of the system... I have more marks than I can spend with the honor that I've got. Oh well, guess I'll buy another mount. =P I wish I could have the option of turning in some marks for more honor.
One of the 'features' of the new PVP game is that everybody and their brother's dog is PVPing. Many guilds have given up or reduced their raiding and turned to PVP... Organized groups are the norm 90% of the time, and solo-grinding PVP in PUGs is, for now, a thing of the past.
Things will probably tone down a bit at 70, when the raiders go back to doing their thing.
hamsammich Dec 15th 2006 3:25PM
I think the idea behind the ORIGINAL PvP change for 2.0.1 was nice. I don't have the time it would take to maintain honor/rank in the old system, and that was completely unfair. So, the idea for change was a welcome one.
However, since my time hasn't increased any, and since Blizzard decided to nerf honor gain, it is almost like the old system anyway. Yeah, my rank doesnt decay and my honor doesn't drop either, but the overall time spent is still cumbersome and, well, a little ridiculous.
I swear Blizzard tailors WoW to people without jobs, families and anything else that would, otherwise, take up a good portion of a work day or weekend.
Asher Dec 15th 2006 3:36PM
Of course the other option they could have taken, was to cap honour per week. That way they could decrease the time needed for a casual player and prevent the grinders from spending two weeks solid in BG and getting their epics.
Or they could have put honour on a curve, which would steadily decrease the honour earned based on how many hours per week or per day the player had already PvPed.
Both solutions, of course, require more overhead and design, so it may have been impractical from that standpoint.
Bunkai Dec 15th 2006 4:21PM
I welcome the changes that have been made to the honor system, because I had the chance to witness two guildies struggle to their HWL rank, and let me tell you, with a wife(prego), a 3yr old son and a little girl on the way, a full time System Administration job (24/7 on-call) with the occasional side PC repair jobs, and being a guild officer that is generally expected to attend any/all guild raid events, reaching rank 14 would never have been possible at any level. I did manage to reach rank 8 and almost rank 9 before I gave up on PvP in the old system.
With the new system, things were made more reasonable for the casual player, and even with the 30% reduction in honor gain, are not nearly as bad as the grind to Rank 14. However, I'd really like to see something done about the time difference needed to earn the honor to match the number of tokens you gain. Maybe allowing the turn in of tokens for honor and rep like it was in the old system. It wouldn't need to be at the same rate, but that idea would help with the amount of wasted tokens that we all have now.
Tibbsy Dec 15th 2006 4:27PM
Hey Paul!
Most of your non-raiding players will very likely be in the same boat. My friends and I knew that this was our solution to ramping up with some phat epix prior to the BC expansion. The real question was, what order did we want our stuff in?
But first, tips to maximizing your honor. In AV, there's a long held belief that base-racing is THE fastest way to earning honor - kill the Lts, boom the towers, kill the boss. ASAP. And while this is a GOOD source of honor, they're missing one point: killing a few players will net you the same honor as killing an Lt will. So be smart about it. Convince at most 10 people to play defense with you. Just 10. No turtle - you're just making things difficult for the opposing side. Trying to take FW or SP GY with 10 people defending is NOT easy to do. And the defenders? They get MAD HKs for this. The benefits? Your team wins because of the valiant effort that you and your comrades put up stalling the opposing side, so you get all the bonus honor that you're entitled to. And then you get 100 HKs or so worth of honor. I played two games of AV yesterday and earned almost 600 honor a game. That's pretty solid given the 30% reduction.
As for WSG and AB, I absolutely refuse to participate in that unless I'm in a pre-made. And even then, our pre-made will scout the other side to make sure it's not a pre-made. This is debatable of course - does your team want to generate honor asap, or does it want to have fun AND win? If it's the former, your team leaves and re-queues. Otherwise, you're having at 'er with an awesome team. 5-noding in about 5-10 minutes with a solid team generates good honor and lots of AB tokens. A similar fate awaits those in WSG when you have a solid team behind your flag carrier.
As for the question of what to buy - I have one of the tougher decisions - for my warrior, do I save up for a 2hander worth 45k honor, or take the 1hander and gear out with armor? I love PVP, and that 2hander will make huge differences in my fights against casters (those aren't really fights so much as me bending over). But, given that none of my gear is raid-level, the extra armor and HP (and stats) afforded by the armor will also enhance me greatly. Also the fact that the 1hander has higher dps than my current 2hander makes it more tempting.
Personally, for caster classes it's a no-brainer - update your armor first, then your weapons. The reason is because for casters, weapon slots are really just "gear" slots, like any other gear. It makes sense to get the two pieces of marshal's gear (and that 20 Sta bonus) before you get a GM 1hander. But for melee classes, weapons ARE deathly important, and the question is whether being able to survive longer or being able to kill faster is more important to you.
Just my two cents on the matter. 30k made, 15k to go ... and that's just for a big stick to hit people with. Then I have armor.
Jason Dec 15th 2006 5:47PM
@Paul
The epic PvP gear won't be replaced your first run through Hellfire Citadel, especially not for a hunter. Anything you can get for that class PvPing is easily as good as anything coming out of BWL, and that will last until 65 at the least. Other classes can expect to see the same return out of their PvP epics or T2 sets.
Personally, I'm going to try and pick up the PvP healer mace, and maybe another 1h for leveling come the expansion. I'm not terribly concerned about the 1h; I've got a Herald of Woe waiting for me to hit 61.
Vaelin Dec 16th 2006 4:14AM
As a Paladin, I love the new system. So much of my raid gear is designed with healing in mind. It's hard to collect good PvP gear. Judgement Armor is great for a Holy build, but not really optimal for Retribution which arguably benefits more from melee stats like Str/AP/Crit. The Field Marshal's Aegis has a healthy amount of this, along with enough spell damage to add real umph to your judgements. Combine it with a Grand Marshal's Claymore or Battlehammer and you have more and better gear than you could ever hope for short of being able to clear AQ 40.
MartinC Dec 16th 2006 8:03AM
I think you are missing the point of the PVP system. It should be there for fun, not mindless grinding to get epics. The regulars that I PVP with do it because it's fun to run an organized and coordinated group. The rewards that can be purchased should be thought of as a nice extra. In comparison to something like Counter Strike, do people play hours of this game online with their friends so they can get uber rewards after a bunch of matches? No, there are no uber rewards. They play because it's fun to play with your friends, communicate over voice chat, try out different strategies, etc.
With the epics so much easier to get now, it has somewhat changed the attitude towards PVP. You see a *lot* more organized preform groups, which is nice (for us preforms to fight against), but it leaves the PVP rookies and PUG groups out in the cold, getting slaughtered by the organized preforms, and leaving the matches complaining "How many more losses do I have to go through to get *my* epic blah-blah?" The answer: start winning games and having fun. How do you do that? Get a good group together, or join an existing preform (there a *lots* out there now), get on voice chat, and learn to play as a group. The games will go much faster, you will get more wins, have more fun, and at the end of the night, you will be pleasantly surprised how much honor and tokens you have earned.
Suzaku Dec 17th 2006 8:39PM
I got really gung-ho about it Tuesday before last, and was working at it quite a bit, averaging about 900-1000 honor an hour or so in AV. Got a few of the blues instead of saving it for the purples (which I now regret). But after the 30% honor gain nerf, it seems to be taking a whole lote longer; I ran AV for just over four hours today and only managed to get about 2100 honor, according to the in-game estimations.
Might be due to the Holiday-related of snowballs and defensive turtles that seem to have popped up in the last couple of days, though, as I had a couple games that last over 40 minutes.
I'm thinking about just doing it casually when I've got nothing better to do until AV Weekend, then grinding hard. Hopefully get a couple more pieces of armor and an HWL dagger before BC comes out, to help me the first couple of levels before I replace them with new greens.
jreffy Dec 18th 2006 4:31PM
At first I was going to have to agree with Tibbsy's comments about AV and playing defense with a small group, but then I saw his comments about AB and WSG.
I currently am the proud owner of a Mage who grinded to Rank 13 under the old PvP system. I was planning on 14 since it coincided with graduating from college, but I found a job a lot quicker than I thought so I had to abandon the grind. Needless to say I'm exstatic to be able to fill out my rank 14 set. So far I've got my spell blade, working toward the off-hand and then finally the High Warlord Staff (just because I like being the mage with the most hp on the server by far, 5200 buffed)
Anyway, Tibbsy is correct about AV. Most players think it's the best honor and to be honest, they are right. It's also the best for soloing since the only way you can organize is if everyone ques at exactly the same time (we've done it with about 8-10 people max). Playing defense will help your team win (a bit more honor) and also earn you bonus honor from the kills.
However, if you're going for AB and WSG tokens, do it on the weekends that those battlegrounds are bonus honor. You'll get more honor, and going up against pug groups are much more common. As for Tibbsy's comment about "scouting" games. I personally think that is a dispicable and terrible practice that players use. They purposefully avoid a challenge. I come from a PvP server (I'll never roll on anything else) and I belong to arguably the best PvP guild on the server, but it didn't start that way. We faught against great groups, we were outgeared for a long long time, but playing these games made us better players.
If you're just in it for the honor and the gear, then there's nothing I can do. Personally Il ike the challenge, and making myself and my guildies better players, and a better team. For doing AB or WSG, find an organized group, or start one yourself if you have access to a ventrilo server. You'd be suprised how well you can do if you simply have 10-15 people on vent, regardless if they've played together before or not. This is by far the fatests way to get honor on bonus weekends. Most organised groups can win AB and WSG handily and rake in the honor on the bonus weekends. If you're forced to solo, AV is the way to go.
Good luck.