PvP Rewards in Patch 7.1

With Patch 7.1: Return to Karazhan arriving on October 25, we wanted to share some updates on PvP rewards from Battlegrounds, Skirmishes, Arenas, and Rated Battlegrounds. Like many of the players we’ve heard from over the last few weeks, we’ve identified areas where PvP rewards could be more satisfying. Along the way, we made a few changes through hotfixes, but we can do much more in a full content patch.

Artifact Power

Soon after players began exploring the Broken Isles, we recognized the incredible impact that Artifact Power has as a reward mechanism. While PvP already rewards Artifact Power, it isn't clear how much Artifact Power you might get from doing a particular PvP activity, which might have made some players reluctant to participate. To address that, Artifact Power rewards have been increased for PvP in Patch 7.1, and the user interface will now show you exactly how much you'll receive for a victory.

First Victory of the Day Bonus

The Honor reward for your first Random Battleground victory of the day has always been twice that of subsequent victories. In Patch 7.1, we've extended that bonus to all of the other brackets in PvP: Skirmishes, 2v2 Arenas, 3v3 Arenas, and Rated Battlegrounds. Furthermore, in addition to bonus Honor, your first victory of the day will also reward a large Artifact Power bonus. This means big rewards for players who participate in a variety of PvP formats each day.

Here are examples of Honor and Artifact Power rewards for each bracket, including first-of-the-day bonus rewards:

Gear from PvP

While the impact of gear in Battlegrounds and Arenas in Legion is different from past expansions, we still believe it’s important for endgame activities to reward items. In Patch 7.1, every Battleground or Rated Battleground victory will reward a piece of gear. Losses will also have a chance to reward gear based on the final score of the match, and Skirmish and Arena victories will have an increased chance to drop gear. This gear will has a chance to roll up with the possible bonuses you’re used to, including Warforged, Titanforged, socketed, and with tertiary stats.

Our initial approach for Legion has been to have the item level of gear rewards from PvP increase with your Honor Level. However, the way this works hasn’t been obvious to players, and it resulted in the unfortunate circumstance where some players tried out PvP only after gearing up elsewhere—and were disappointed by the PvP rewards. In Patch 7.1, we've transitioned PvP gear rewards to more closely mirror the type of item level progression you see from World Quests. This means PvP should feel as rewarding as other parts of the game that offer high replay value.

Weekly Bonus Gear from Rated PvP

Previously, your first victory in each rated bracket of PvP (2v2, 3v3, Rated Battlegrounds) rewarded a piece of gear based on your current PvP rating. This wasn’t ideal. Often, players didn’t know what item level reward gear would offer before participating. Winning a single game represents a fairly insignificant amount of effort for a piece of high item level gear, especially considering this gear has the potential to rival the best items from raids or Mythic Keystone dungeons. The decision to use your current PvP rating also discouraged players from doing anything that might result in their rating going down. For example, if you've just had an amazing run in Arenas, you may decide to stop trying to improve your rating, or you might be reluctant to put your rating on the line with a less-skilled friend who just logged in.

In Patch 7.1, each bracket of rated PvP (2v2, 3v3, Rated Battlegrounds) has a weekly quest that rewards items based on your best rating from the previous week. The quests for Arena brackets will require 10 wins, and the quests for the Rated Battleground bracket require three wins. Below a rating of 2000, these quests will always reward a piece of gear with the current season's Gladiator appearance. Above 2000 rating, these quests will always reward a piece of gear with the current season's Elite appearance. Again, you’ll always see the item level of the gear you’ll receive in the tooltip of the weekly quest.

Here is an example listing of the rating-to-item level breakdown for Season 1:

We hope you'll find all of this information useful as we head into Patch 7.1: Return to Karazhan. We want PvP to be a compelling activity for all World of Warcraft players, and we want to make sure it rewards those who commit extra time and effort to the competitive side of the game.