TL;DR - Actually participate in PvP during battlegrounds. Play the game as intended and have fun. The honor and gear will come!
All the talk about how bad PvP was made me worried about the honor grind. Folks were saying you’d have to basically quit your job in order to get 1 piece per week. Well, I started a couple weeks ago. I think I put somewhere around 30 hours into battlegrounds since I started. I managed to buy the shoulders, gloves and trinket, along with 4k more honor to spare. I think that puts me around 1200+ honor per hour.
Aside from a few times where I queued with a guildie, it’s been solo queues all the way. I checked where each player was from at the beginning of each battleground. I don’t recall seeing more than 2 or 3 from a single server (i.e., no premades.) Yeah, Alliance has fast queues, and a fair shar of players who quit when Horde breathe on them… but we also have some decent players. It’s possible to PuG (at least as Alliance) and get some quality honor.
So, what did these PuGs do that’s so different? Well, for the most part, they tried.
The WSG weekend was great for me. We had like an 80%-90% win rate, and we were able to get 3 or 4 per hour. Whether it was a win or a loss, most matches had one thing in common - lots of HK’s. I typically had 50+. Most of the losses I was in were still okay. We’d cap a flag or 2, and still rack up HK’s. Win or lose, you got decent honor.
AB was decent for me over the past 2 weeks, with approximately a 50% win rate. Most matches were 3:2, where we earned both bonus honor and honor from HK’s. This one is less consistent, because if you defend, you risk getting less HK’s. The good teams that communicated would relieve defenders so they can get their share in.
AV was less successful win-wise. However, we usually managed to capture some towers and kill Galv (all at 63 bonus honor each.) If you seek combat in AV, you can rack up quite a few HK’s. Helping defend part of our base, or helping defend a tower we’re trying to capture will net you some kills. It wasn’t uncommon for me to see 70+ HK’s in the AV’s I participated in. I’ve had 100’s in some.
I have not queued much in EotS lately, but it’s very much the same. Actively participate, and you’ll get honor. Solid communication and team work help win matches, which further increases your gains, but it’s not entirely necessary.