Legion PvP Preview
Lots of changes are coming to Legion PvP:

  • Honor and Conquest currencies are gone!
  • You now earn Honor Points to increase your Honor Level, granting access to more of the PvP talents, as well as Gold and Artifact Power.
  • In PvP instances, you use a stat template for your class and spec, all of your gear is nullified other than the Artifact.
  • Your average item level increases your stat template by a percentage, a 25 item level difference between two players results in a 2.5% difference in stats.
  • These stat templates allow for better tuning, allowing the team to balance for PvP and PvE independently.
  • The strongbox system worked well, so something similar is coming in Legion.
  • You will earn gear from completing battlegrounds and arenas, with quality based on your rating for rated matches.
  • There is no PvP specific gear, so the best players in both PvP and PvE content will be able to earn the best gear.
  • The end-of-season PvP awards are given separately to the top percentages of players in each faction, instead of in relation to the overall player base.
  • There will be shorter and more frequent PvP seasons.
  • Resetting your Honor Level once you reach the cap gives you a Prestige Level.
  • Earning Prestige Levels gives you a badge on your nameplate, unit frames, and scoreboards, as well as a title, wearable faction pennant, Artifact skin, a mount, and pet.
  • Two new arena maps are being added.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
There are a lot of exciting changes coming for PvP in Legion, and today, we'd like to take the opportunity to share some more details on some of those changes!

The Honor System
In Legion, Honor and Conquest will no longer be currencies that you use to buy gear from vendors. Instead, characters who have reached maximum level will earn Honor Points from competing in Battlegrounds or Arenas, similar to how lower-level players earn Experience Points. As you earn Honor Points, you will increase your Honor Level, up to the maximum Honor Level of 50. Along the way, you'll earn a number of rewards, including Gold, Artifact Power, and a brand new set of PvP-only Honor Talents.




Honor Talents are a special set of Talents that are only active when a player is in a PvP instance (such as a Battleground or Arena) or otherwise engaged in PvP combat, and work in addition to your normal Talents. They are unlocked, one at a time, as your Honor Level increases. So, by Honor Level 10, you'll have one option available in each row, but as you continue to increase your Honor Level, more and more options will become available for you to change up how you approach PvP gameplay.

For example, a Windwalker Monk who has reached Honor Level 10 can choose Rushing Tiger Palm, which lets them use Tiger Palm at range to dash toward and slow their target. Or, a Restoration Druid who has reached Honor Level 46 can take Deep Roots, which makes their Entangling Roots spell no longer break when the target is damaged.

Which Honor Talents you choose can have significant impact on how you play your character, and allow you to tailor your abilities to fit with the type of PvP content you're participating in, or even who you're playing with!

Kicking It Into Gear
So, if you're not earning Honor or Conquest to purchase gear any more, how will your equipment contribute to your character's strength in PvP? The answer is... it won't (much).

In Legion, as soon as you zone into a PvP instance, the stats on your gear will be nullified, and you'll be given a pre-determined set of stats that's uniquely configured for your specialization. Furthermore, any set bonuses, enchants, Legendary bonuses, or trinket effects will be deactivated (although your Artifact and its related Artifact Powers will remain active).

The only contribution your gear will make to your overall power is through a small modifier based on your average item level. For every point that your average item level increases, your pre-determined PvP stats will increase by 0.1%. That means a 25 item level difference between two players only results in a 2.5% difference in stats, compared to the 25% difference it makes today. There’s still a little incentive to improve your gear – a concept we think is important for World of Warcraft – but the benefits are much less pronounced.

These changes bring a couple of major advantages. First of all, it puts everyone participating in organized PvP on a much more even playing field. Obviously, you'll still want to unlock your Honor Talents to reach your full potential, but you'll be able to hold your own in battle in the meantime.

Second, it allows us infinitely more control to make PvP-specific balance tweaks. If one spec's Mastery is too strong in PvP, that's fine – we can just reduce the amount of Mastery they have. If a spec is too easy to kill, we can increase their Stamina. If a healer is having too much trouble keeping teammates alive, we can increase their Spellpower. In short, we can tune classes for PvP in a way that’s exclusively focused on PvP.

Equipping For Battle
Even though your gear has very little impact on the strength of your character in instanced PvP, and you won't be spending Honor or Conquest to buy gear from vendors, we still want you to be able to earn gear through PvP. We really like how the Strongbox system has worked out so far in Random Battlegrounds and Skirmishes, and so we're working on a similar system for Legion, with some major improvements.


In Legion, you’ll earn gear simply by completing Battlegrounds or Arenas. In rated matches, the quality of the gear will be increased based on your rating. Of course, that's in addition to the Honor you'll earn towards unlocking your Honor Talents.

We're also doing away with the idea of PvP-specific gear. Since your stats are pre-determined, trinkets and set bonuses are disabled, and your item level gives only a small increase, we don't need to worry about making you wear a separate set of gear in PvP. So, in Legion, gear is gear, regardless of where you earned it, with no PvP-specific stats or fluctuating item levels, and the best players in both PvP and PvE content will be able to earn the best gear.

'Tis The Season
Legion is also bringing several changes to how PvP seasons, as well as their rewards, will work. Over the years, we've seen the high-end PvP community tend to flock to one faction over the other, even if it's not the faction they'd prefer. Racial balance is an important part of that, but we also think many players tend to simply choose the faction where they feel the best players are.


So, in Legion, we'll be handing out end-of-season PvP awards separately to the top percentages of players in each faction, instead of in relation to the overall player base. That means that, even if you believe one faction to have an advantage over the other, you can still play the one you want to, without having to worry about losing your shot at Gladiator.

On top of that, we're planning to have more frequent, shorter PvP seasons. Since your Honor Level doesn't reset between seasons, and the effectiveness of gear has been greatly diminished, you'll be able to start competing at near-maximum potential immediately, instead of having to wait several weeks while you collect a new set of gear. That means we can have more PvP seasons, which means rewards can be handed out more regularly.

All For The Prestige
However, once you've reached Honor Level 50, you'll have a tough choice to make. You'll be given the option to Prestige, which will reset your Honor Level back to 1, and once again restricting access to higher-level Honor Talents. However, in return, you'll increase your Prestige Level, which grants access to a number of other rewards, including:

  • A badge, based on your Prestige Level, which appears on the scoreboard in Battlegrounds and Arenas, as well as on your nameplate and unit frame.
  • A title, also based on your Prestige Level.
  • A wearable faction pennant
  • A new appearance for your Artifact
  • A unique mount and pet


The higher your Prestige Level, the better rewards you'll have access to. We see the Prestige system as a great way for players who aren't interested in pursuing higher rating, but still enjoy PvP, to have their own unique rewards to chase after.

A Change of Scenery
There's one more exciting addition we’d like to share today: Legion is bringing two brand-new maps to the Arena.


Located in the fortress of Black Rook Hold, this arena features a large statue in the center, as well as three alcoves to the sides. Access to those alcoves is restricted by a series of gates, which will open and close randomly as the match continues. When the gates are closed, you can use them to hide out of line of sight of your opponents… just be prepared for them to open again moments later!

Also in development is another arena located in the forests of Val’sharah. When you first enter this arena, you’ll be encased in a dome of vines. When the match starts, those vines will retreat, leaving the starting area exposed to the rest of the arena. In the center, you’ll find three statues, which can be used to break line of sight. However, those statues are located very close to each other, so you’ll need to keep moving if you want to play defensively.

We're very excited about all of the improvements coming to PvP in World of Warcraft: Legion, and we hope you are too! We look forward to seeing you on the fields of battle.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Legion PvP Preview started by chaud View original post
Comments 217 Comments
  1. GMZohar1's Avatar
    Work hard for gear, get fun trinkets.. Enter PvP all that work means nothing lol... Oh well
  1. MasterHamster's Avatar
    Heh, talk about a change players think they want until they get it. Oh you'll be so bored once you realize "upgrading" your gear makes almost no difference at all... hell with such a tiny difference between worst and best gear I'll probably run around in would-be joke transmog gear. Why not, I'm only a few percentages worse off than you. A lucky crit will have more of an impact. Not to mention the homogenization once Blizzard can fine tune everything on a whim without caring about PvE consequences. There will be no class flavor what so ever left, and without powerful weapons or trinkets and whatnot, you'll feel like your character is stagnant.

    As always Blizzard goes all-out-10000%-or-nothing when it's not needed. Trust me, gearing having near-zero impact in PvP will be one of the main whining bandwagons of Legion.
    This is a great change for high-level arena players but the rest? Oh boy.

    Sure I can understand they want players to be more on an even playingfield but good lord. A massive part of the enjoyment of MMOs comes from power growth in a personal character, so how fun is it to be locked to a "stat template"? About as fun as entering a timewalker and realizing that everyone's scaled to the same ilvl. Well, at least then there's still fun trinkets, set bonuses etc.
  1. mmoc79af98f473's Avatar
    "Lets rebuild PvP from the ground up, what could go wrong"
  1. yuca247's Avatar
    I like these changes but since they are borrowing heavily from GW2 PvP they should go ahead and make it account wide as well. This new honor and prestige system sounds really good but it would limit players to one character.

    It was nice being able to switch to any class in GW2 PvP and your pvp experience and karma be the same across all toons.
  1. GMZohar1's Avatar
    Since the stats will be predetermined as in (not having a choice in your stats for the 2nd straight expansion) means if you like a certain Stat with your character, too bad.. Like with my WW Monk I like Crit but with these predetermined stats I will most likely get more Mastery or Multi (if it's still a stat in Legion)... Being able to choose and stack your own stats was always a part of building your character not having them chosen for you
  1. Eazy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Thelxi View Post
    Not a fan of the gear changes whatsoever. Acting like random box gear is the best thing ever and so much better than honor/cp vendors.
    The next Expansion should be called WoW: RNG GODs.
  1. yuca247's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tommyhil622 View Post
    Correct me if i'm wrong but, the highest ilvl in gear will be PVE gear which will be via raids no?

    And since there's no PVP gear anymore in Legion, people who want to focus on PVP and have the best advantage will have to raid?

    Seems wonky to me if that's the case. Hopefully the strong boxes will provide equal gear, sure 25 item levels is only 2.5% increase,

    but having to resort to pve to boost your pvp is very strange.
    Meh lets say 50 item level different is still only 5% increase yea its a little better but not like it is now days so I don't think you HAVE to resort to pve to boost your item level.
  1. yuca247's Avatar
    Lol reading some of these responses proves no matter what Blizz does they cannot win. First it was all "remove item levels and pvp gear so I can be more competitive" and now its "what now I won't feel like I'm getting more powerful."

    We as players can't have it both ways.
  1. Thessik-Irontail's Avatar
    They better damn well have new Battlegrounds this expansion, WoD no BGs was unacceptable.
  1. DrMcNinja's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Fynnlagh View Post
    What really should bother everyone is



    which means "pve players will dominate pvp outside of instanced pvp". Remember timeless isle?
    Good thing world pvp isn't their focus
  1. thilicen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Fynnlagh View Post
    What really should bother everyone is



    which means "pve players will dominate pvp outside of instanced pvp". Remember timeless isle?
    "And the best players in both PvP and PvE content will be able to earn the best gear."

    Yes, let's just overlook that statement completely.
  1. GMZohar1's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by yuca247 View Post
    Lol reading some of these responses proves no matter what Blizz does they cannot win. First it was all "remove item levels and pvp gear so I can be more competitive" and now its "what now I won't feel like I'm getting more powerful."

    We as players can't have it both ways.
    The only people who asked for that were PvE people not PvP people lol
  1. mmoce01e91b901's Avatar
    Dear Santa!

    All I ever want for christmas is that Holinka gets fired!!!
  1. Jarryftw's Avatar
    "Second, it allows us infinitely more control to make PvP-specific balance tweaks. If one spec's Mastery is too strong in PvP, that's fine – we can just reduce the amount of Mastery they have. If a spec is too easy to kill, we can increase their Stamina. If a healer is having too much trouble keeping teammates alive, we can increase their Spellpower. In short, we can tune classes for PvP in a way that’s exclusively focused on PvP."

    Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.. worrisome. This is still an RPG - maybe I want to go straight mastery on a class that is not deemed to have a need for it.. tough luck? . . .

    If they said "templates that you get to design!" that would be absolutely amazing and could give even better customization than we have today since you can only get so much of a stat due to stats set on pvp gear.
  1. thilicen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by GMZohar1 View Post
    The only people who asked for that were PvE people not PvP people lol
    Actually a lot of "pvp" people have asked for that so that games can be more skill-based, and not decided by who has had the most time grinding gear.
  1. bahman30's Avatar
    Those Arcane Talents tho.....
  1. Puxycat's Avatar
    Reward:
    - an unique mount.

    I mean.. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAH
    greatest jk ever.
  1. Dnusha's Avatar
    great changes, looking forward to roflstomp everything in premades ha-ha
  1. Scrysis's Avatar
    I like this change. It means that if you're delayed getting into pvp, you won't be so severely penalized for it.

    This might bring more people into pvp in general.
  1. Mask's Avatar
    Awesome! This is exactly what I've been wanting from a PvP system since Burning Crusade. The split between PvP gear and PvE gear making you farm two separate sets turned me off as soon as I burnt out on farming gear during Season 1 and 2 at the same time as progressing raids (back in 2007). I have barely pvped since that time because of the game being completely separated in such an annoying way. This change is reminding me a little bit of how vanilla WoW was where you could take PvP gear into raids or take raid gear into PvP and remain competitive either way.

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