World of Warcraft was envisioned as a world at war. The real time strategy, army versus army, foundation of the Warcraft Universe was brought into a MMO environment on an entirely new level with the introduction of the Honor System in 2005. This war-torn vision of Azeroth materialized into vast endless fighting throughout the world. The epic battles in the fields between Tarren Mill and Southore became legendary and are now enshrined as a periodic event in retail to this day.
The WoW Classic Phase 2 Honor System heavily incentivizes Honorable kills of players within your level range. Your total number of kills, the rank of the players killed and your standing amongst players on your server all contributed to your weekly contribution and ultimately determine your rank and access to PVP gear.
WoW Classic Phase 2 PvP System Strategy | The meta
In order to fight well and remain competitive in WoW Classic PVP a strong understanding of the PVP system is required. Becoming an exceptional player in PVP requires extensive practice, trial and error, and experimentation.
A continual process of character improvement and growth as a player is essential. Humility in the face of the sheer scale and complexity of fighting in Azeroth; which confronts players with a giant open-world PVP environment spanning two virtual continents across diverse and challenging terrain.
Our Guild Community has played World of Warcraft religiously since day one Vanilla launch fifteen years ago. We are still learning new things that improve our individual and group performance on a daily basis. Invest time into additional in-depth study of your character’s abilities, mechanics and class roles.
- WoW Classic PVP is complex and infinitely replayable.
- There is no substitute for practice and experience in a live game environment.
- Voice communication, coordination of abilities and consumables as well as experience playing as a team are essential for success.
No two encounters in the open world or in battlegrounds are the same. This is part of the magic that has kept World of Warcraft relevant and interesting for the last fifteen years.
All classes and group compositions can be countered to some degree by other classes and group compositions.
RESOURCES
It is important to learn from as many different sources as possible. Make use of specialists focusing on your class and specific PVP play style.
Even with extensive original Vanilla World of Warcraft PVP experience it is important to make use of the expertise available from private server veterans.
Private WoW Classic servers have provided the most relevant testing environment to prepare for the launch of the official Blizzard servers. Modern computers and stable internet connections as well as more advanced and stable Blizzard servers allow for much larger battles than were ever possible in the original World of Warcraft.
RANKING
The Classic PVP system is very different from the current retail War Mode system in several important ways. Most importantly your rank is constantly updated, rising and following based upon the number of Honorable and Dishonorable kills obtained during the week.
HONORABLE KILLS
- Honorable Kills are earned when you or someone in your party or raid kills a player who is within 10 levels of you.
- Honorable Kills award different Honor points based upon their PvP rank. A higher ranked player will award more Honor.
- Honor can also be gained from completing objectives in battlegrounds upon launch in phase three.
DISHONORABLE KILLS
- Dishonorable Kills are a penalty from killing non-player civilian characters. Generally vendors or quest givers designed to discourage griefing behavior.
- A “Civilian” tag will be visible on the NPC.
- Dishonorable Kills carry a heavy Honor rating penalty applied immediately.
- If enough Dishonorable Kills are caused during PVP your rank can decrease.
Your rating will be calculated at the end of each week based upon your current standing and the standing of other players on your server. This rating is determined by the number of Honorable Kills you have acquired.
RANKS
14 ranks exist for each faction. As your rank increases additional titles, gear and other benefits are awarded.
At rank 6 Knight for Alliance Stoneguard for Horde access to the Officer’s barracks is made available in Stormwind and Orgrimmar respectively. Vendors in the barracks provide access to a variety of combat consumables as special faction themed tabards.
PvP Honor Sets Overview
Each class has to two different sets available from PvP vendors. A rare and epic variant. The sets are rank dependent.
Each set has a total of 6 pieces with associated set bonuses. The four set bonus provide PVP focused ability improvements while the two and six set bonuses are stat increases.
HOW TO FARM HONOR
Generally, the best way to farm honor is to join a PVP focused community committed to actively fighting in the usual PVP hotspot zones throughout World of Warcraft. Blackrock mountain, the Tarren Mill versus Southshore region as well as the zones surrounding faction capital cities are the traditional open World conflict areas. Stranglethorn Vale and other transit hub areas between continents are also notorious for small to mid-scale (group to raid group) fights.
Appropriate addons for your class and key binding your abilities are essential for effective performance.
WoW Classic Phase 2 Honor System | Large Scale Open World PVP
Large scale guild versus guild engagements are common in WoW Classic. World Bosses and raid entrances regularly result in conflict between raid and PVP guilds for access to rare and powerful gear. The methods highlighted in this video neatly breakdown the basics required to fight and win in these challenging environments.
Encounters Covered
- Azuregos
- Kazzak
Strategy
Appropriate raid composition for each encounter, ensuring sufficient healers are present and stacking the most effective classes for the environment are important considerations for any raid leader.
Situational awareness, scouting, coordination on voice communications as well as the appropriate timed use of offensive pvp consumables such as grenades and sapper chargers are particularly decisive.
POTION AND CONSUMABLES IN VANILLA
The use of consumables is essential in Vanilla World of Warcraft. The use of consumables detailed in this guide will provide a significant advantage in open world and battlegrounds in phase three.
Class Viability in PVP
WoW Classic can be extremely unforgiving in PVP. Gear, consumables, your modification and group composition all play a critical role in your ability to fight and win.
Every class has an important and in many cases essential role to play in PVP. Understanding what your role is and how best to support your team is one of the most important factors for success.
Extensive specialized guides detailing the strengths and weaknesses of each class archetype are available from a variety of sources.
The general roles of scouts, ranged dps, tanks, healers and melee dps hold broad functions in small, mid and large scale pvp.
HISTORY
It is clear that many people are excited for the return of the Classic Honor system. The primary reason is due to the legendary reputation achieved during the original Vanilla Honor experience.
Warcraft is at its core a World at War. Conflict on PVP servers was always present and intense in contested zones and particularly intense around World Bosses, raid and dungeon entrances.
The early PVP system the War in Warcraft was real, omnipresent and inspiring! Entire server communities engaged in endless large scale conflict over an entire virtual world. The experience was constantly changing, challenging and provided an environment to meet large numbers of people and make friends. Recapturing that experience that has compelled so many to return to a game now 15 years old.
The fact that World of Warcraft initially featured a comprehensive World PVP ranking system shows a commitment to bringing the Warcraft universe to life for players.
The current retail War Mode system will certainly benefit from lessons learned from the re-introduction of the Honor system in Classic.
Hopefully, Blizzard will bring the retail War Mode system more closely in line with this earlier vision in which Honorable Kills and fighting in the open world were a central element of character progression.
The developers of World of Warcraft clearly envisioned a world at War and created a PVP system that was designed to bring that vision to life. The original World of Warcraft Honor System was extremely successful at encouraging players to engage in sustained large scale fights throughout the world.
Unfortunately in mid-2005 when the original PVP system was implemented many players and Blizzard’s server infrastructure was simply unprepared to handle the sheer scale and intensity of fighting generated.
As a result the decision to create battlegrounds, a controlled, instanced form of player versus player fights in which no more than a maximum of 80 players could be present.
It is our hope that World of Warcraft will return to its roots and provide a true comprehensive World PVP system in the spirit of Classic!
