WoW Forever PvP guide: honor, ranks, battlegrounds and best classes

How PvP works now

There is no rated PvP: no arenas and no rated battlegrounds. PvP progression uses two separate things. Honor is a currency you spend on PvP gear. Rank Points fill your rank bar and are never spent, so buying gear never costs you rank.

Your rank no longer depends on what other players do, and it does not decay week to week. You fill a track from rank 1 to rank 14 (Grand Marshal or High Warlord). There is a weekly cap on how far you can climb, so steady play beats a single big week.

The track resets every PvP season, and each season brings its own rewards. Blizzard lists PvP season refreshes in its roadmap, but has not said how long a season lasts.

Where Honor and Rank Points come from

Honor comes from killing players, battlegrounds and PvP quests. Rank Points come from battlegrounds and PvP quests. Each season also has weekly tasks that pay Honor and Rank Points, and three of them grant a Legacy Point.

During its holiday week, a battleground pays extra Honor and Rank Points. Honor gains were evened out across battlegrounds, so no single map is the only efficient choice, and Alterac Valley pays a little less than the others.

There is a maximum amount of Honor you can hold, so spend it as you go instead of saving forever.

Battlegrounds

Warsong Gulch (10 vs 10) opens at level 10, Arathi Basin at 20, the new Darkspear Islands (15 vs 15) at 30, and Alterac Valley (up to 40 vs 40) at 51.

Darkspear Islands sits off the coast of Kalimdor. It mixes four capture points, which score faster the more you hold, with a central flag you carry to a base your team controls. The first team to 2,000 points wins. The Horde fights as the Darkspear Raiders and the Alliance as the Theramore Expeditionary Force, each with its own reputation.

Battlegrounds mix players from every ruleset except Hardcore, so queues are shared even if your ruleset is small. Each battleground gives its own Marks of Honor, which you need for gear and reputation, so play all of them.

Ranks and rewards

Rank 1 unlocks the faction tabard, rank 2 the PvP trinket, rank 3 cloaks, rank 4 a necklace, rank 5 combat potions, rank 6 an elite tabard and rank 7 a battle standard.

From rank 8 to rank 13 you unlock Emboldened Seals, one armor slot at a time; rank 11 also unlocks the war mounts. Rank 14 unlocks the epic weapons.

The rank 2 trinket is the first real goal: it breaks crowd control, and in world PvP and battlegrounds it is the difference between escaping and dying.

PvP gear

Honor buys a rare (blue) set that needs no rank. Each piece can then be upgraded to epic with an Emboldened Seal, which requires the matching rank. In practice you buy the blue set early and upgrade it slot by slot as you climb.

Weapons are the exception: the epic weapons only unlock at rank 14, so they are the end goal of each season.

Rulesets and world PvP

On the Normal ruleset you only fight players when you choose to. On the PvP and Roleplay PvP rulesets you can be attacked almost anywhere outside safe areas, and there is no protection for low-level characters from high-level ones.

On the PvP ruleset you can only create characters for one faction, and Blizzard uses faction balance tools, such as temporarily limiting new characters for one faction. Battleground progress is the same on every ruleset except Hardcore, so you can rank up on Normal too.

Best PvP classes

It is too early for hard numbers, so this is our reading of each class's tools, and we will update it as the season goes on.

Rogue: the best world PvP class. Stealth picks the fight, Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot and Blind control it, and Vanish ends it. Warlock: Fear, Death Coil and DoTs that keep working while you run; Soul Link makes it very hard to kill.

Mage (Frost): Frost Nova, Polymorph, Blink and Ice Block, plus the new Ice Barrier that adds Frost damage. Shadow Priest: strong damage, Silence, Psychic Scream and Mana Burn against healers.

Paladin: WoW Forever made it a real healer and fighter, with Holy Shock, Light's Vigil, Hammer of Justice, Blessing of Freedom and Divine Shield. In battlegrounds a Holy Paladin keeps flag carriers alive.

Druid: the best flag carrier thanks to Travel Form, Feral Charge and self-heals. Warrior: Mortal Strike and huge damage, but it needs a healer behind it. Hunter and Shaman were the most played classes in the first PvP events and are strong in battlegrounds: the Hunter with traps and range, the Shaman with Earth Shock interrupts, Purge and totems.

Best PvP races

Human: Will to Survive and Perception, plus 1% crit. Night Elf: Shadowmeld lets you drop combat and set up ambushes; it is the classic Rogue and Druid PvP pick. Gnome: Escape Artist frees you from roots and slows. Dwarf: Stoneform now cuts physical damage, which is great against Rogues and Warriors.

Undead: Will of the Forsaken still helps against some crowd control, although it no longer grants full immunity to Fear, Charm and Sleep. Orc: Blood Fury and Hardiness. Tauren: War Stomp stops a group of melee and caps nodes. Troll: Berserking for burst.

The full list of racials, with the final numbers, is in our race guide.

Tips for climbing the ranks

Play a little every week: the weekly cap rewards steady play more than long sessions. Use each battleground's holiday week for extra Honor and Rank Points.

Rotate battlegrounds to collect every type of Mark of Honor. Get the rank 2 trinket as soon as you can.

Use a PvP build. The level-60 builds on our class pages are made for dungeons and raids, so for PvP add more survival and control talents.