WoW Classic Honor System Overview

The Honor system goes live with Phase 2 of Classic and with it comes the PvP rank rewards.

The Honor system changes the way world PvP works with the addition of Honorable Kills, Dishonorable Kills, and Contribution Points.

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 taking part in world PvP are only doing it for the fun of PvPing. The Honor system introduces Honorable Kills, which is part of the calculation that decides what PvP rank you are given.

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, any decay changes, 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.

Rank	Alliance Title	Horde Title	Reward
1	Private	Scout	Tabard
2	Corporal	Grunt	Insignia Trinket
3	Sergeant	Sergeant	Rare Cloak, 10% discount from faction NPCs
4	Master Sergeant	Senior Sergeant	Rare Necklace
5	Sergeant Major	First Sergeant	Rare Bracers
6	Knight	Stone Guard	Officer's Tabard, Potions, access to Officer's Barracks
7	Knight-Lieutenant	Blood Guard	Rare Boots and Gloves
8	Knight-Captain	Legionnaire	Rare Chest and Legs
9	Knight Champion	Centurion	Battle Standard
10	Lieutenant Commander	Champion	Rare Helm and Shoulders
11	Commander	Lieutenant General	Epic Mount, access to World Defense chat
12	Marshal	General	Epic Gloves, Legs, and Boots
13	Field Marshal	Warlord	Epic Helm, Chest, Shoulders
14	Grand Marshal	High Warlord	Epic Weapons

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.

Rank	Minimum Rank Points Required
1	N/A
2	2000
3	5000
4	10000
5	15000
6	20000
7	25000
8	30000
9	35000
10	40000
11	45000
12	50000
13	55000
14	60000

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.

Players will receive a weekly decay amount that is dependant on their current standing and ranking.

Players will have to offset this decay amount each week before they can increase their rank. If they are not able to do this, they will go down in ranking.

In Classic, rank decay occurs at a rate of 20% per week.

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 this week, adjusted for decay.
• 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, your decay amount, 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.

Decay can be one of the largest barriers to obtaining ranks, especially as you get higher up the system, but you can calculate and estimate the amount of decay you will need to offset using a very simple formula, as listed below.

• Take your estimated RP value from last week.
• Put it into the following sum:
  • (Last Week RP * 0.2)

If your estimated RP value from last week was 10,000, you would receive a decay value of 2,000 at the end of the current week's calculations. This means that, if you only earn 2,500 RP this week, you will only have 10,500 RP at the calculation time, due to the decay.

You now have the raw decay value that you will need to overcome before you can earn any additional RP to get closer to your next rank.

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 not only lose out on higher ranks due to higher decay amounts, but also because other players will earn 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.

If you do not change the amount that you play the game, you can calculate what rank you will achieve (approximately) and how long it will take you to max out due to decay.

Decay comes in at 20% of your current RP value, meaning you will have reached your maaximum rank as soon as the decay amount is equal to your RP earnt (as this will grant you a net zero change in RP level).

Your maximum rank can simply be calculated by taking your estimated RP earnt per week and multiplying it by 5.

If you earn 3,000 RP per week before decay, your maximum rank will be Rank 5, as 3,000 * 5 = 15,000 RP, the minimum boundary for Rank 5.

You can estimate your time required to reach a certain rank at your current level of play by doing the following:

• Take the estimated RP level from the first week and calculate the decay amount.
• Take the estimated RP level from the second week and calculate the amount of RP earnt, remembering to add the decay to the difference.
• This final figure will be the amount of RP you earnt over that second week with decay included.

To give an example, we will take a player that went from approximately 12,000 RP to 14,000 RP in the second week.

The player, having started at 12,000 RP, will have had a decay amount of 2,400 RP (20% of 12,000). The difference in RP shows 2,000 RP having been earned on top of this (14,000 - 12,000 = 2,000).

This means that the total RP earned by the player in the second week was 4,400 RP, but only 2,000 RP progress was made due to the decay.

To do so, simply extrapolate from the main formula, adjusting the decay amount as you go.

• Week 1 — 12,000 RP
• Week 2 — 14,000 RP
• Week 3 — (14,000-(14,000*0.2)) + 4,4000 = 15,600 RP
• Week 4 — (15,600-(15,600*0.2)) + 4,400 = 16,880 RP
• Week 5 — (16,880-(16,880*0.2)) + 4,400 = 17,904 RP
• Week 6 — (17,904-(17,904*0.2)) + 4,400 = 18,723 RP
• Week 7 — (18,723-(18,723*0.2)) + 4,400 = 19,378 RP
• Week 8 — (19,378-(19,378*0.2)) + 4,400 = 19,902 RP
• Week 9 — (19,902-(19,902*0.2)) + 4,400 = 20,322 RP

This player, who started at 12,000 RP in Rank 4, would need 9 weeks of playing the exact same amount to reach Rank 6.