88 dps 1 handers and 114 dps 2 handers, so, as Blizzard had already confirmed, existing high end gear is not really going to cut it in the expansion (though I say that without knowing how much effort the high end weapons will take to attain.) At any rate, it gives a pretty good sense of where itemization is headed in the expansion pack, though it’s hard to get a complete picture without knowing exactly how hit, crit, and resiliance ratings will function.
PvP servers should be fun when the level 70s get bored and decide to dominate lower level areas. I wonder if Blizzard will upgrade the guards in towns to be more of a match for level 70s?
Many items already go up into the 80s for ilvl who knows how high these might be. From what I’ve heard these are the high end PvP items, so they’re the level 70 versions of the HW/GM gear currently available and I’d imagine obtaining them will be rather difficult.
Looking at those prices, they are in the new “honor” currency. The numbers seem low, which indicates that the CP you get now is not going to translate into this new currency.
The big question is, how fast can you get this honor currency. Right now a solid AV win will net you about 10k honor. What will it net you in BC?
I think if it gave you 100 honor currency, it would be a bit low, but still decent for casual PvP. 250 honor currency for an AV win would be more reasonable though.
You sir, are flat out fooling yourself if you think you’ll be able to buy an item after 5 or 6 AVs. I believe these are just for the arena stuff, not the BGs, though I could be wrong about that. Either way it’s going to take a hell of a long time to get this gear. It’ll probably be on par with the current honour grind (just without the decay), or perhaps the AB/WSG faction grinds. You’re probably not going to be able to spend an evening in the BGs and be able to buy one of these items. Expect to spend weeks (even months) to get a full suit.
The new honor currency thing is going to be totally different from the current setup.
The stuff listed on that page appear to be Arena combat awards. This is separate from standard pick-up-group stuff like AV.
Arena combat will be with set teams you create yourself, with backup alternates. You will be ranked against other teams, and teams will be matched up by the equipment they have (so you don’t have barely-70 guys fighting uber decked-out guys with their tier 3 high end raid gear). You’ll get Arena ranked combat honor points to spend on arena rewards.
For “regular” PVP like it exists today - standard “hop into an AV or AB game, do some world PVP, whatever” - you’ll get other regular honor points, separate from the Arena PvP points. There are PvP rewards you’ll buy with these regular honor points, separate from the Arena PvP stuff.
The really big key for me, and I suspect most players, is that there’s no “upkeep” required to earn stuff. If you earn 1000 honor points by playing your ass off one week, and then don’t play at all for a month, you still have 1000 honor to spend when you log in. You can play just a little bit of PvP every week for two years and eventually still be able to buy the high-end gear. Just as you can earn just a couple bubbles a day of XP and hit level 60 eventually. The current model means that if you don’t keep playing battlegrounds, and even accelerating the amount of hours you play, you will lose rank and never be able to get the high-end gear. It’s a huge and totally welcome change.
For example, the amount of battlegrounds I play - and I like it a lot - amounts to me being stuck right on the threshold of rank 5 and rank 6. I need to reach rank 7 or 8 before I start getting the good stuff, and even that pales in comparison to the drops in relatively easy end-game dungeons like stratholme and scholomance. If I did nothing but end-game instances, I would get much better loot in a fraction of the time investment it would take me to reach the epic-quality PvP gear. Under the new system, I don’t have to continue to play catchup on PvP. I can play 3 hours of battlegrounds or world PvP a week and EVENTUALLY get the awesome stuff.
Possibly. It may take 1000 hours. Who knows? But the point is, I can’t do that at all today. I only get honor every week based on my rank against everyone else on my side of my server that week. And my honor decays every week, too.
So if I don’t put in a hojillion hours PER WEEK I stop going up, and start going down.
With the new system, just like experience points when you’re sub-60, or reputation, you can play a ton and get a ton of points, or you can play a little and get a little. But you can get it at your own pace without penalty for not being an incredible catass.
I’ve read that they’re going to make a lot more of the loot in Burning Crusade based on tokens, turn-ins, and rep, too. I think that’s a fantastic idea. Instead of doing an instance 16 times hoping to get the drop for my class, I can have a measured amount of success. Every time I go in, I can get that much closer to enough tokens for my class epic, and virtually no trip is wasted. Plus, they can more easily measure out the difficulty of getting epic items without leaving it to chance - if the designers want you to have to do an instance about 5 or 6 times on average to get your loot, they can easily set the tokens/rep such that it works out like that for almost everyone.
I tell ya, between the PvP changes, socketed items, and more token/rep based end game material, I’m gonna really like Burning Crusade. Damnit.
The old PvP-grind finally drove me from the game (uh, that and having a baby :) - I just couldn’t play enough to get past rank 8 or so on my server. Having honor accumulate like faction might actually bring me back, as I could actually make progress playing only an hour or two a day.
