The PvP System and Progress Within

killing frenzy has been running through the World of Warcraft (WoW) Community since the introduction of the PvP Honor System, starting with mass slaughters in the open fields and moving to relentless rounds in the game's three Battlegrounds; Warsong Gulch (WG), Arathi Basin (AB) and Alterac Valley (AV). Unfortunately, for the vast majority, the main concern is gaining Honor (Contribution Points, "CP"), and in turn, maximizing their rank potential in their pursuit of Rank 14, earning the title of Grand Marshal / High Warlord and the associated weapons that come with it. But alas, the majority also tends to not be quite sure on how to most effectively do so, or fully understand the mechanics of the system.

And that's where this article comes in.

For the basic breakdown, players are able to examine their Honor progress through the Honor Tab (Pressing H). This Honor progress is totaled once a week (Tuesday) and then compared against all your fellow players of your faction. Honorable Kills is the total number of kills you have attained on the specific date range (Today, Yesterday, This Week, Last Week, and Lifetime). Honor is the numerical value that you have gained for that, and what will be totaled to make up your weekly standing. Your weekly standing is, just that; your overall standing in terms of Honor gain against everyone else, if your #1, then you've gained the most that week out of everyone. The higher your standing, the more progress that will be made that week, and take heed - unless your able to maintain Standing 1 or 2, do not expect to reach the fabled Rank 14. If you break into the top 1000 overall, you will be ranked on the WoW Server PvP Status page. That will be discussed later. Firstly, how to actually gain Honor.

Honor is gained through two main sources, Honorable kills (HKs), and a flat increment from winning in the Battlegrounds. The gain of Honor through HKs is one of the most misunderstood points in the system, and unfortunately has promoted some less wise tactics because of that. To start off the HK Honor discussion, be aware that no matter where the HKs are garnered, at any point in the day until it is tallied, every HK of the same person is on a degrading value under the system of:

• 1st Kill: 100% Value
• 2nd Kill: 75% Value
• 3rd Kill: 50% Value
• 4th Kill: 25% Value
• 5th Kill and on: 0% Value

This is a flat value, no matter the gain from a player, and is divided off the flat estimate Blizzard gives in its popup honor gain that is displayed on a kill. Due to this, the longer the battle, generally the less you will end up gaining through it. On a smaller population server where your more likely to get repeated opponents, it can become quickly worthless to kill *anyone*. The secondary hit to your Honor gain through an HK is your fellow players - if your in a Raid or a Group all players regardless of participation or lack of it in the HK gain radius (Approx 200 yards) will get an equal value of it. For example: if you kill an opponent and only 1 group member is within the radius, even if they did nothing, you both will get 50% of the value, and then you will take the diminishing return penalty after that. If your outside of a Raid or Group and another player damages the opponent, the amount will be divided based on % of the opponents health taken, or % of your health healed. This means if your fellow faction mate takes off 40% of the opponent's health, or heals you for 40% of your health, you will get 60% of the kills value, and they will get 40%, and then diminishing returns will be applied.

Does this mean you should fall in the trend as of late to play Solo without a Raid Group? Not at all - You may be able to milk a slight amount of extra honor out per kill, but in truth - HKs are a inefficient way to gain Honor. There are players gaining 800,000 to 1,000,000 Honor per week, and I can assure you, they are not getting those numbers through HKs. The most efficient way to garner Honor is through fast and repeated wins in a Battleground, in which a raid group (Preformed; a group that joins as a group, or Pickup Group; PuG, one that forms as it enters) has the advantage. Outside of a Raid players will not be able to effectively monitor status and health of their fellows, see stealthed players, or often use key abilities like a Priest's Shield spell. That being said, a preformed group will have an advantage over a pug due to players more likely to be attempting to work together, and a class balance. Forming groups is not really difficult, so I encourage you to try. And so comes the flat values.

Upon winning in a Battleground you will be given an amount of Honor based on your level tier (Ex: 10-19, 20-29) and secondarily, the nature of the battle. WG gives you a set amount of Honor per flag capture, AB gives Honor based on number of nodes held and for how long they are held, and AV gives Honor when you kill the opposing General, burn down towers or other major objectives, and having yours alive at the end of the match. Winning should be your primary goal if your attempting to move up the ladder, so join up in that Raid group and work with your faction mates.

However, that's only one factor in understanding how you gain rank. The main thing is just that: actually gaining the ranks. Through the work of players like Icon, Jargar, and Zeldyan on breaking down the PvP Ranking Page, we finally have an understanding of how the system actually works. One of the main differences a player will see when visiting the Ranking Page is the inclusion of Ranking Points (Rating), which otherwise are not visible anywhere else. These are what set your actual rank, as follows:

• Rank 1: 0-1999
• Rank 2: 2000-4999
• Rank 3: 5000-9999
• Rank 4: 10000-14999
• Rank 5: 15000-19999
• Rank 6: 20000-24999
• Rank 7: 25000-29999
• Rank 8: 30000-34999
• Rank 9: 35000-39999
• Rank 10: 40000-44999
• Rank 11: 45000-49999
• Rank 12: 50000-54999
• Rank 13: 55000-59999
• Rank 14: 60000-65000

Special Note: Rank 1 only requires 25 HKs, there is no other requirement.
Secondary Note: Rank 10 is roughly top rank the average player can expect to achieve.

Remember, this is Rating Points, these are not Honor Points or else the system would be a breeze for many players. Honor Points are wiped weekly, while Rating Points are continually stacked. Assuming after decay (further in) you gain 2,000 RP (Rating Points) the first week, and 3,000 RP the second; you would have the total of 5,000 RP, and thus reach Rank 3. The RP gain per week possible is 13,000 (Standing 1). That being said, that does *NOT* mean you can reach 14 in 5 weeks, due to the natural RP decay. Expect at least 3 months at a rough minimum to reach Rank 14 assuming your Standing 1 (Which can mean 16+ hours per day PvPing, give or take depending on server).

With how Ranking Points are established, and how many can be gained - they are also lost naturally. The rate of decay per week is set at 20% of your total RP - this is factored in before that week's new numbers are added. If you wish to have a positive gain of RP (and thus move up in rank), you have to gain more points then you lost to decay, naturally. Beyond this, the maximum number of RP that can be lost per week is 2,500 (or 10% of your rating, whichever is lower). This means it gets progressively harder to gain a positive value, while decay not being overly harsh if you have a negative input (ie, at Rank 14 you have 60,000 RP, if you lose 20% and go down 12,000 RP you would be able to drop to Rank 11 from one week. Ouch. Thankfully this is not possible.)

Now for a more user friendly breakdown of the process, lets say Player A has a rating of 30,000. They PvP that week and manage to reach a standing of 1,023 which awards them with 2,000 ranking points. But this is before decay is accounted for. To factor that in, remember all ranks have a decay of 20%. That means with his 30,000 RP Value they lose 6,000 RP instantly to decay. Unfortunately, since they only managed to gain 2,000 RP that week, that would penalize them with a loss of 4,000 RP. But remember! No player can lose more then 2,500 RP in a week (or 10% if its lower, but in this case only 3,000, and since that's above 2,500 it doesn't matter). Since their loss would otherwise be 4,000 RP, it is reduced to a loss of 2,500 RP, bringing them to Rank 7.

To summarize, the player's total RP at the end of that week will be the decay (2,500) subtracted from the original RP Value (30,000 / Rank 8) to bring him to a total of 27,500 RP (Rank 7).

You'll notice however, an odd lack of a breakdown of the RP given per Standing as it's not exactly a fixed value for any Standing, or on a linear scale beyond that. Rank Points are drawn from a pool accumulated through your entire Factions PvP efforts that week, so while the top Standing players get the greatest share, the further and further you go down the more squeeze placed on players as there's less RP to be passed down. Assuming your on a relatively large and relatively active server however, your RP value per standing shouldn't vary too much week to week. To once again reiterate, it's not a fixed ratio, the difference between Standing 1 and 100's RP gain is not the same as say, 101 and 200. The further up you place the better off you will be, as the higher players get hit with the least squeeze and get a better share of the Faction RP Pool. Remember however the more Honor you have personally doesn't give you a direct gain in RP, Standing is what influences that - but the total Honor gained by your entire faction does give you more RP to draw from.

Be aware however that there is a secondary bonus to the Faction RP Pool beyond Honor totals - Faction PvP Leaders. Downing a Faction PvP Leader will result in a fair sized increase on your Factions Pool, whether it's a % bonus or flat value is not known unfortunately. They are on a roughly 12 hour respawn rate, the bonus stacks per kill, and supposedly the more difficult the leader the greater the bonus. Difficulty of leaders per side is as follows:

Horde

• Orgrimmar - Thrall
• Undercity - Sylvanas
• Thunderbluff - Cairn Bloodhoof
  
  Alliance
  
• Ironforge - Magni Bronzebeard
• Stormwind - Anduin Wrynn
• Darnassus - Fandral Staghelm

And so there lies the Honor System in all its simplified glory. Hopefully after reading this you have a better insight into the workings of the system, and are able to apply it to your normal game play.