I hear this a lot from players who just dinged.
These players tend to get flamed because it is usually the case that one
very poorly geared player will cause an entire team to lose in the smaller
bg's. This ignores an important point I feel: bg's are a terrible way to gear
up for pvp, ironically. It is not really in the interest of the freshly-dinged
to grind honour through bg's.
The only time pure PVP is the best route to honour grinding is at the start
of the season. Later in the season the smaller bg's should be avoided till
you have better gear.
There's a number of issues here:
1) Firstly, there's a difference between mediocre pve gear and awful pve
gear. The gear you have when you ding is just not good enough to do
anything. Two hours on TI gives you enough stats to at least be helpful
in a 2 vs 1 situation.
2) There are other ways to grind honour, Krasang Wilds rares for example
and Isle of Thunder quests. You are going to get way more honour per hour
doing those than playing pvp early on.
3) Now, you shouldn't avoid PVP altogether because certain bg's like Isle
and AV are not that strongly affected by one poor player, you are just
one guy out of 40. I've never understood why, when you get an AV or Isle
call of arms, you still see cata-geared players in warsong gulch.
4) Certain class abilities make certain bg's more attractive so focus on
those. For example, classes with knockback abilities can make a real
difference in Eots. Mages with whatever ilvl are useful in Strand Of The
Ancients.
5) By the same token Strand and Isle have important roles for vehicle
drivers/gunners that require no gear at all. When a well-geared player
has to jump in a tank that means their dps or healing does not benefit
the rest of the team, you really help by filling that role.
Please make sure you know what to do with the vehicle though: Isle
of Conquest is often lost entirely because of incompetent glaive drivers.
6) Also consider whether you might have a more enjoyable experience
crafting gear or farming to generate cash for it on the auction house.