WoW Classic Honor System Overview

The Honor system is the base behind all of the PvP rank gear rewards.

The Honor system progresses through the accumulation of Honorable Kills and Contribution Points, and Dishonorable Kills must be avoided as they instantly lower your current rank by a significant amount.

Each week, players will be given a title and rank according to their current amount of Contribution Points. This rank lasts for the week and will then be updated the following week, depending on that player's PvP activity.

In Phase 1, players can only progress to Rank 3, which unlocks the powerful Sergeant's Cloak. The main honor sources, besides world PvP kills, are the Ashenvale periodic battle and Warsong Gulch.

An Honorable Kill is a kill on an enemy player that is either the same level as you or within 10 levels below. The kill will have a numerical value attributed to it, given in Honor, which allocates each player an amount that they are "worth".

This is calculated by looking at the player's past experience in PvP, how many Honorable Kills they have, and their rank.

As implied by the name, a Dishonorable Kill occurs when a player kills a "civilian" NPC; these are NPCs of the enemy faction that have a Civilian tag and can normally be found in leveling areas around the game.

If you kill a Civilian NPC, you will lose points in the Honor system and, if you continue to do it, you can receive even greater penalties, such as completely losing a rank.

Contribution Points are a term used to refer to the points that are used to calculate the rank a player will receive for that week. In-game, this is the amount of Honor you have.

Rank Points are what dictate your position in the weekly rankings and are calculated by a formula using your current rank, the number of Contribution Points you received, and your past activity.

Honor is obtained by killing enemy players that are within 10 levels of your character.

There are a few "rules" in place that impact your gains:

• The higher the rank of the player, the more points you receive for killing them. Killing an experienced PvP player with a high level of Honor will grant more points than killing a player that has never had an Honorable Kill.
• The higher the character level of the player, the more points they are worth.
• Any Honorable Kills that you get while in a group or raid will have the points value split, with each player receiving points equivalent to their contribution to the kill.
• Killing the same player repeatedly will result in diminishing returns on the points gained. This resets after 24 hours.

Battlegrounds can also award Honor, in the form of extra points that are given for completing objectives. This is added to the Honor total that you receive, in addition to the points gained by killing players.

Alterac Valley contains a huge number of activities when compared to the other battlegrounds, meaning it can be an extremely good way of farming Honor.

The following activities will give you bonus Honor upon completion:

• Killing enemy leaders, including the Captains, Commanders, and Lieutenants, as well as finishing the game with your friendly leaders still alive.
• Destroying enemy structures, such as Towers or Bunkers, or finishing the match while still in control of friendly structures.
• Rescuing your faction's Wing Commanders.
• Killing the enemy General and winning the match.

Warsong Gulch grants bonus Honor for only 2 things that are integral to the battleground: capturing flags and winning the game.

Even if you lose the game, you will still gain extra Honor for each flag captured.

Players can also obtain points by killing the opposing faction's leaders, with the points being split between the raid dependant on their contribution to the kills.

The rankings in Classic and their rewards are as follows.

For players to rank up in the Honor system, they will need to have earned enough Honor/Contribution Points to receive enough Rank Points for the next rank.

Each rank has a minimum rank point requirement, as listed below. To receive Rank 1, you simply need to have obtained 15 Honorable Kills to qualify for the rank, rather than requiring a number of Rank Points.

Each week, players will be given a PvP rank, which is dependant on the amount of Honor they have accumulated in comparison to other players on the server.

In order to be given a PvP rank for the week, you will need to have obtained at least 15 Honorable Kills that week. On more populated servers, this requirement may be higher due to the number of players that are taking part in PvP.

In current Classic Era and Season of Discovery there is no Rank Decay, fortunately!

The best way to illustrate how things are calculated and awarded is through examples of RP calculations, as shown below.

Note that you will need to know the following terms:

• HKs — Honorable Kills, the number of kills you obtained this week on players within 10 Levels of you.
• DKs — Dishonorable Kills, the number of civilians you killed this week.
• CPs — Contribution Points, equal to your Honor in-game.
• RPs — Rank Points, calculated using past PvP experience and your contributions for the week.
• HS — Honor Standing, your standing in the Honor rankings relative to other players in terms of Honor earned.
• NRP — Number of Ranked Players, the number of players that were a part of the Honor Ranking System for that week.

Rank Points are calculated in two ways:

• The game calculates them exactly, using your current RP level, your CP level for this week, and your current rank, which is then used to place you in a new rank for the week.
• We can estimate them for the last week, and then try to calculate an approximate figure for the next week's amount, based on current performance.

Players will need to first find their estimated RP amount by looking at the bar at the top of their Honor tab.

The bar represents a single rank and, given that each rank requires 5,000 RP progression, you can estimate it using the RP boundaries presented in the table above.

To estimate your RP amount, you simply have to follow these steps.

• Take the bottom boundary for your current rank using the table above.
• Look at the bar in your Honor tab and estimate the percentage that it is full.
• Add these figures to the following sum:
  • [Bottom Boundary + (5000 * % of bar)]

If you are Rank 3 and have a bar that is 50% full, you can estimate that you had approximately 7,500 RP for that week. This is because the bracket for Rank 3 is 5,000-9,999 RP, and [5,000 + (5,000 * 0.5)] is 7,500.

Weekly Standings can have a huge impact on your rank, as there can only be a certain number of each rank, depending on the NRP.

If you achieve the amount of Rank Points required for a certain rank, you may still be given a lower one due to a large number of players that managed to reach a higher RP amount.

In short, you need to make sure that you keep up with the curve of progression on your realm and not just your personal Honor-grinding curve. If you do not increase the amount of Honor you obtain each week at a reasonable rate, you will lose out on higher ranks due to other players earning Honor at a better rate.

If you hope to achieve a high rank in the Honor system, you will need to not only dedicate a large amount of time, but proper planning and understanding of the figures is vital.

For the first 2 weeks, you should simply try to grind out as much Honor as you can, which will give you data to work with and a better understanding of your realm's competition.

After receiving your rank for the first week, make sure to make a note of the following information:

• Your estimated RP level, using the method outlined above.
• Your weekly standing for that week.
• The amount of Honor you earned for that week.

Once you have this information for both of the weeks, you can then start to look at approximately how you stand in terms of your server, as you know how much Honor will place you at a certain standing for the week. This is not an exact representation, as the participation of players will change every week, but it at least gives you a cursory idea of what needs to be done.

From here, you can start to calculate how long it will take you to grind to certain ranks (approximately), as well as where you will end up if you do not change your current amount of time grinding.