Yes, Virginia, there is an honor cap
by Matthew Rossi 
Oct 31st 2007 at 11:30AM
Drysc confirms that the 75k honor cap isn't going away, in response to a post on the forums discussing the situation. Since I'm doing it myself, I know full well that a lot of posters are hoarding honor so that they can buy the Season 1 Arena gear as soon as it comes out for the honor system. Drysc points out that with 75,000 honor it's possible to buy the entire armor set whereas the arena is capped much lower, comparatively, and while in the past I've found myself disagreeing with him on this issue we're in synch. If anything, the honor cap is a bit too generous.Honor hoarding for future gear isn't seen as a big problem by Blizzard right now. I would think one of the reasons for that is because they know that the honor cap will keep people from going too insane when the arena gear comes out, and that if the cap wasn't in place then they might well impose a lower one. I'm fairly sure that a whole lot of people are grinding various battlefields with Season Three in mind: I've been running a few arenas and am planning on getting more heavily involved once my wife's hunter has the patch behind it and we can form a 2x2 team. I also know that long-tern arena players are going to sneer at our gear and wipe the floor with us, since they've worked a lot harder to get their season 2 and (eventually) 3 gear and I'll be walking around with stuff I got from running a bunch of AV's. Of course, the goal in starting a 2x2 is that I hope to improve upon that, and I want to use the S1 gear as a base, not as my end goal, but I still don't imagine that folks who have been running the arenas for the past two seasons are particularly impressed by the complaints about the honor cap.
What do you think? Too low, too generous, what's your opinion about the honor cap?
Edited to add: because folks have asked and it seems pretty relevant, here's our previous post on Season 1 gear available for honor, with links to MMO-Champion. The weapons are included, not just the armor.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, PvP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
vak Oct 31st 2007 11:48AM
Yet no one seems to mention the ridiculously benchmarked 100 threshold for Marks of Honor. Personally keep the honor where it is, but give out some incentives to burning marks for xp/rep like in the past.
This might actually aid in leveling, while inadvertantly nading some x9 slotted twink's master plans!
p3ngu11 Oct 31st 2007 11:48AM
way too generous
the honor cap used to be set at 2 times the cost of the highest priced item...but now you can buy a whole set?
YAY FREE EPIX
:-/
JB Oct 31st 2007 11:55AM
"folks who have been running the arenas for two years"
Two years? didn't Burning Crusade come out in January? Pretty sure season 1 started a while after launch as well.
Vaca Oct 31st 2007 11:57AM
Yup, it's a great way to gear an alt. 75k is just fine, you can get the S1 but no the new vindicator stuff which is what I am looking forward to more than anything.
Nothing is free, I had to grind all the marks in WSG as well and that is worse than 10 weeks of Arena.
Matthew Rossi Oct 31st 2007 12:07PM
I'm sorry, it should say "Two seasons" and I'll change it in text. Just a plain old slip of the brain there.
Masterless Oct 31st 2007 12:15PM
75k is fine. The new epic trinket by itself is 30k. Vindicators epics are about 20k each(if I remember correctly). So its impossible to get all new epic honor rewards at S3 start.
Now all we have to do is try and win more AV's on Alli side so some of us can hit that cap!!!
On a sidenote: Damn those horde started winning AVs without so many AFKers. WHich means its harder to get good amounts of honor these days =(
Epiny Oct 31st 2007 12:54PM
I think it's good the way it is.
Arnold Oct 31st 2007 12:23PM
I think that the cap is fine--how many people seriously have 75,000 honor stashed away?
And yes,I know that WoW is a MMOTS (massively multiplayer online time sink), but accumulating that much honor takes a LOT of time. I had monday off, so I decided to run AV until I could stand it anymore. I ended up doing about 8 hours total (four in the morning, four in the evening) and got about 9000 honor. That was for AV honor weekend. A little more than 1000 honor/hour in the Battleground which awards the most of all the BGs. I play alliance and of the roughly 35 games I played we won 3 times. The Horde were probably getting 1.5 to 2 times as much bonus honor in the same time, but no matter how you look at it, that is a STILL A LARGE TIME COMMITMENT to grind out all that honor and battle marks. I'm an attorney by profession and have WoW as a hobby, and doing 8 hours of legal work I can earn a substantial chunk of change. Spending 8 hours doing battlegrounds were probably ultimately a lot more fun and rewarding, but considering that that is the highest honor per battleground available to me on that BGs honor weekend, it will still take me a ridiculously large amount of time to get all that honor together...
Paw Oct 31st 2007 12:25PM
I love when people say stupid crap like "YAY FREE EPIX". It isn't like I will be logging on come patch day to find my honor account credited with 75k points. Honor points are honor points. At least the gold farmers haven't figured out a way to sell them (outside premades). Now THAT would be FREE EPIX.
MechChef Oct 31st 2007 12:30PM
I have no problem with the honor-cap. I've never had too much honor. I max out my Battle Tokens long before I'm anywhere near the cap. Hell, I recently bought a Frostwolf Mount I don't intend to ride simply because I needed to burn AV marks.
p3ngu11 Oct 31st 2007 12:36PM
There is no skill or difficulty involved with running around a BG to get honor. The only thing it takes is time. It's free epics. Seriously, go raid some endgame content that's not on farm, then get an arena team with a +2k rating. Then come back and say which is the easiest to get epics...
Matthew Rossi Oct 31st 2007 12:42PM
A tip if you need to burn marks:
you can buy the equivalent of major healing potions or major mana potions in Orgrimmar or Stormwind from the vendor in the various PvP vendor halls. It's 2 marks per pot, 10 stack cap. So you can burn 20 marks fast if you're near the ceiling, and you can use these potions outside of the BG's as well.
I use them instead of my good healing pots when grinding or questing or running 5 man instances.
Vaca Oct 31st 2007 12:44PM
It's all the same, whether you are a 2k arena team, a BG honor farmer or a Raider. The only thing holding you back from getting what you want is time and a few clicks of the keys and mouse.
And heck, we all pay the 15 bucks a month, nothing in this game is free.
Krick Oct 31st 2007 12:53PM
Is any of the season 1 arena gear worth grinding honor for if you're a PvE tankadin?
...
Krick
http://www.tankadin.com
Matthew Rossi Oct 31st 2007 1:01PM
Krick -
I think it depends on if you like a spell damage weapon or not for tanking. I've seen paladins tank with weapons warriors usually go for, and I've seen them tank with low damage weapons that add spell damage, so I can't be too sure here.
If you want defense on a tanking weapon, these aren't really your best bet. If you want fast speed and high damage, they're not bad. If you want spell damage, I'm really not an expert: I barely ever look at caster stats.
Thing Oct 31st 2007 1:09PM
@13
Gladiator Gavel. Good speed, excellent spell damage, pretty decent stamina. Slap the +40 sd enchant on it and you have pretty much all the threat alot of tankadins run with on 1 item.
Adese Oct 31st 2007 1:12PM
In general, PvP gear isn't good for PvE tanking. Tanking needs stats like defense, block, dodge, parry, stamina, and armor. While PvP gear has stamina and armor, it doesn't have the rest.
While resilience does lower your chance to be crit just like defense, defense also gives block, parry, dodge, and miss - which are much more valuable for a paladin tank in the quest to get uncrushable.
Diaz Oct 31st 2007 1:12PM
Time isn't free.
Just because you value your time in the arena or in a raid more than someone elses time in a BG doesn't mean the rest of the playing field agrees. Your perceptions do not equal other people's reality.
Krick Oct 31st 2007 1:39PM
Matthew Rossi,
I have a Crystalforged Sword already in the bank...
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32660
...so I have the weapon covered unless the season 1 arena weapon is a LOT better.
Any thoughts on the rest of the gear? I know resilience is pretty useless for PvE.
...
Krick
http://www.tankadin.com
icarusdrc Oct 31st 2007 1:16PM
I don't understand why people would have a problem with this... you're getting the honor either way, this just determines when. 75k is a good cap, you can get an entire armor set or a weapon and some armor. For the amount of time it takes to farm up that much in AV, its perfectly reasonable.
Also, players who feel the need to degrade pvp for "free lootz" generally suck at pvp. You don't need much skill for pve gear in this game either... just knowledge of boss strategy, luck and patience. In pvp, you have tangible goals that you can attain on your own time without bringing in drop rates or dkp... thats a very good thing. So sorry to ruin Christmas for the raiders.