What was the difference in honor ranking from Vanilla & TBC? Was there still a relative ranking system or was it purely accumulation of honor points + tokens to get PvP gear?
TBC doesn’t have ranking. You just earn a flat amount of honor and you can purchase gear with the honor you earn. It’s just another form of currency.
What it does have is arena ratings and arena points which are earned weekly. The higher your rating the more points you get. Also, certain gear requires a certain rating to purchase. But most of it does not require a specific rating.
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Don’t you need arena rating for the good PvP gear?
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I believe it’s just the shoulders that require a higher rating. Maybe the weapons too but I don’t remember.
You basically play 10 arena games a week and get BIS weapons
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Ahh, so the rating system still presents a relative ranking system, but not to the level of Classic ranking, and is tied more directly to PvP performance in arenas.
Would it take as long to earn all the honor points & tokens to get PvP gear as it currently takes ranking?
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Absolutely not. You’re only required to win 10 games a week to earn points. This can be done in a few hours or less by even the noobiest of noobs.
However, if your rating is low you will not earn a lot of points and it will take significantly longer to save up enough arena points to purchase gear.
And a few pieces of gear are locked behind a rating. If I remember correctly a 2200 or higher rating is required to purchase the shoulders. I believe that’s the only piece that requires a rating. Maybe weapons as well, but I don’t remember.
Your rating is based on your record and the teams that you win/lose to. Everyone starts at a 1500 rating, which is approximately the average rating. High ratings are over 2000 and gladiator (top 0.5%) is around ~2700. Although I think in BC gladiator was lower around ~2300.
At the end of each arena season, which typically lasted 3-4 months, you could earn a title. Gladiator meant your team was in the top 0.5% and as gladiator you would earn a unique mount, which in BC were various colors of armored Netherdrakes, one of the rarest mounts in retail.
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I see, thanks for the info.
I wonder what the TBC PvP gear grind would look like…given current day playerbase vs whats unfolding with the Classic PvP gear grind.
I was watching a streamer, who’s been ranking, say that they’ll finally hit HWL after 3 months of of 12+ hrs a day of ranking. Crazy!
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It’s been a while, but I believe there were seasonal gear, arena ratings, and pvp currency. I don’t recall what order everything was implemented, but it went something like this:
The currency allowed you to buy Seasonal BiS gear. Your Arena rating allowed you access to seasonal gear, where current season = best gear. However, your currency can also buy previous seasonal gear, which can still be very powerful, but less poweful than current season’s gear.
So Arena ratings still account for something, every season. Kinda like the current ranking system, where at certain ranks/ratings, you’ll have access to certain current seasonal gear.
Hope that makes sense… based on my vague memory of when all this transitioned over.
It will be what it was. BC PvP gear grind is not the insane time sink it is in vanilla. Even for players shooting for a high arena rating, once they get a high rating they can keep it there and just earn their points from a different bracket (2v2, 3v3 or 5v5). And even if they continue playing in the same bracket they only have to win 10 games a week to earn points.
In other words, the amount of time you play doesn’t matter. Your record determines your rating.
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In TBC, the rank system was gone. Sort of. There was Arena instead. You play matches, and gain rating when you win, lose it when you lose. You got Arena points weekly based on your rating. You use those points to buy arena gear.
This means, everyone can eventually get the arena gear, but players who win more get it faster.
Honor was only for a few offpieces.
Very fast. Comparatively. 5v5 arena awarded a huge amount of points. My memory might be foggy, but I’m pretty sure I got a piece every week, if not every other week. We had a 2300-2400 rated 5s team.
It was more than just a few.
PvP arena set was only 5 pieces of gear plus weapons/off hand. Everything else was earned through honor. Cloak, amulet, wrists, belt, boots, rings and trinkets were all earned through honor. So it was more than half your gear.
Slot wise, yes, but their power was nowhere near the power of the arena armor. You could slot PVE gear in those slots instead and be fine. Likewise, it didnt take long to buy them all either.
True. Weapons alone were a huge part of your damage. And set benefits are pretty neat.
I believe that there were 2 tiers of arena weapons. One for 1800 or maybe 2k, I forgot, and one for just playing enough matches. Whatever it was, I do remember there being 2 tiers of weaps.
Head shoulders and weapons were out of reach of most back then. It varied by seasons though, i knew some Gladiators without the shoulders in S4 as it was super short and they had bumped the requirement to 2.2, which was very high back then.
That’s WotLK.
Arena had absolutely no rating requirements on gear in seasons 1 and 2. Beginning in season 3, two items had rating requirements.
Weapon - 1800
Shoulders - 2200
Wrath further refined the tiers of arena armor and the intricacies of personal rating vs team rating.
You are probably correct. I did just google that you could get previous season’s weapons for just marks, when the new season came out, but yeah not really 2 tiers.
your rank didnt decline like it does now.