It Takes Up to 45 Hours to Earn a Set of PvP Gear - Is the Pre-Patch Honor Grind Still Too Long?

Posted 2026/01/20 at 9:00 AM by PopularTopular

boosted charactersFebruary 5thincreased Honor gains by 150%lowering the prices of PvP gearthe Honor grind is still too long45 hours

Spoilers if you don’t want to read post: Honor buffs weren’t enough. They need to cut cost by 50%, personally I think it should be cut further. Especially for a prepatch we only have 3 weeks to play in.

I did the entire honor grind just queuing alone the entire time and here are the statistics from just my personal experience from a fresh 60. I had 4 days off of work to do this grind

Bg’s played: 97

BGs Won: 48

Total time spent in grinding honor: 45 hours from the moment I started playing until I bought my last piece. This could be lower if you premade but this is to attempt to get a casual players perspective/experience.

So slightly under a 50% win rate which makes sense as im solo queuing and ran into premades in probably 15% of the bg’s. And this was for 8 pieces of gear. Weapons, and main set pieces. No off-set items from WSG, AB, or AV vendor. I mainly played WSG and AB as before the honor buffs I sat in AV for about 6~ hours getting 40ish marks.

For a prepatch this is way too much time to be spent grinding honor for 8 pieces of gear and when you factor in that most people play extremely casually for maybe 1-2 hours a day the grind for 8 pieces is simply not a viable route for people attempting to gear mains for tbc or even alts. Even if you cut this grind in half this would still for a lot of people be way too much of a grind. We also only have 3 weeks of prepatch. This isn’t a case of we have months and months of a phase to get gear. That means if a casual player (1-2 hours) of gaming did the grind they’d get all of their main set and weapon pieces a couple days after TBC releases.

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Comment by khader91for people coming back to classic anniversary it is way too long
the boosted gear is terrible so why not let the people who want to get the pvp gear get it a little easier now? not like the titles and such are includedComment by cosmicrayWho cares about outdated temu gear ROFLComment by PixelOracle45 hours for a full set? That feels like a marathon for a pre-patch. I get that some people want it harder, but for anyone with 1–2 hours a day, it’s almost impossible. Maybe at least lower the PvP gear cost a bit so gearing for TBC doesn’t feel like a job? What do you guys think?Comment by TheRealAmelioIf Blizzard refuse to reduce the cost of the gear, then they should allow us to buy a full set from the store, that would be a win for everyone! Classic Andy's can waste their time running boring content over and over, meanwhile the rest of us with jobs can enjoy the game without boring grinds whilst supporting the developers.Comment by RimnerIf Blizzard refuse to reduce the cost of the gear, then they should allow us to buy a full set from the store, that would be a win for everyone! Classic Andy's can waste their time running boring content over and over, meanwhile the rest of us with jobs can enjoy the game without boring grinds whilst supporting the developers.Comment by GekkelokoI see retail people complaining they don't have the time for this?
45hours total, in 21 days.... That means it's a little over 2h per day of playing during pre-patch.
If you're that poor on time , either manage it better or play something that doesn't require as much time investment as an MMO really.... ?Comment by Cyrukha simple fix would be allowing us to turn in single type of marks instead of all 3. i have 100av marks and like 5 ab and wsg marks because you average around 50% winrate in av while getting destroyed by premades in ab or wsg, also av games are way faster in my experience.
and i bet the majority got 80-100 av marks while less than 10 ab/wsg marks (if any at all)

let us turn in 3 av marks for 500honor instead of 1 mark of each bg.Comment by HolyzboubJesus christ the number of hardcore players that have no life at all and wants the game as it was XX years ago.
Please chill a little bit. You are the one creating this cleavage between retail players and classic player.
Also, those classic-andy-tryharder are the one that benefit the most from this huge wave a new players. All the prices dropped at reasonable prices so that it doesn't cost 250G for each naxx. Also, you don't have to wait 1 hour to create a group to your favorite dungeons.

Idk, the truly toxic players are the no-lifers classic-andy. Not the other way around.
As someone with 8 alt, the grind is impossible as it is right now.
Is it mandatory to have those R14 items? Not at all. Will other players benefit from me (tank on paladin + warrior or as healer on druid/shaman/paladin) having those items? Surely, the dungeons and the leveling experience for everyone in the group will be smoother.
But the toxicity of those "I had to play 8H a day for X weeks long to get that R14 gear". Yeah, you HAD. But it's prepatch so nobody care how much effort you put into the game.
This isn't the case of "I didn't have fun & It was painful" so it must apply to new players. Fudge that mentality. Seriously, grow up.Comment by trekkanI think it is absurd that people don't want to earn ANYTHING. If there is no effort AT ALL to acquire stuff then why play the game? Go do something else with your time. The gearing and mount collecting and pet collecting etc IS THE GAMEComment by deathshaloIs retail that carebear?Comment by cokeboyswagAnother issue people are overlooking is that for whatever reason, you are allowed to carry over 75k honor and 100 of each mark into TBC at level 70 and buy all the gear. Ton of my friends would not be pvping entirely as who really cares about 60 epics with launch coming up, but the 75k honor/100 marks is such a huge jumpstart.Comment by WarlockFromHellit shouldnt be easy to get what some people worked weeks for.. 45 hours is fine for full set. its not like you have to farm it to be able to playComment by Holyzboubit shouldnt be easy to get what some people worked weeks for.. 45 hours is fine for full set. its not like you have to farm it to be able to playComment by NacrissaThis weekend on Sunday alone I lost 15 AVs in a row. 10 of them were 10-12 minute losses and the other 5 were absolute turtles with the longest going for 45 minutes. It's rough in a solo queue world. I then won 2 in a row and called it for the day. I don't believe my grind will be anywhere near 45 hours.

Also for those saying "you don't have to farm it" ... It's guaranteed gear with stats in an era where people don't want to bring boosted characters and depend on gear score for content. So, yeah you kinda do want to do this grind compared to trying to raid with a higher barrier to entry.

The blues from dungeons are ok but only as direct placements of the god awful boost gear. Ultimately most of these pvp pieces won't be replaced until 65-70 by specific dungeon drops or long quest chain pieces.

Also for the "I did the grind!" crowd. Congrats, you farmed rank 14 over the course of months for the longevity of almost a year of use. You got your time, it's now prepatch, it's time to move on.Comment by ArthurianYes the honor grind should be even shorter.

No your "achievement" gear doesn't matter, you've been locked into your rank, be happy with that, the gear depreciates quickly in TBC so yes it should be easy to get while people are in pre-patch and trying to get into raids with communal gear, they can't gear up fast enough otherwise, let them have some avenue to play the end-game content within the short timespan we have until TBC launch.

No one else cares that you grinded AV running back and forth for hours for your rank 14, You did that for the opportunity to use the gear while it was still relevant, its soon to not be relevant, so let people have their fun.Comment by oranj45hrs is a joke. Took us 8 weeks to get R14, and that's the nerfed version. Previously in 2021, took us 3 months.Comment by TheRealAmelioit shouldnt be easy to get what some people worked weeks for.. 45 hours is fine for full set. its not like you have to farm it to be able to playComment by Gekkelokoit shouldnt be easy to get what some people worked weeks for.. 45 hours is fine for full set. its not like you have to farm it to be able to playComment by DarangenIt's not like the gear is required, it's just something you can do to get a head start. It will ALL be replaced by pre-raid BiS stuff.

Quit complaining, do the grind if you want to or just wait for replacements in Hellfire Peninsula.Comment by GreywoodYes, I really hope the honor boost will be upped (to some 300%) or the prices will be cut significantly. I really want the set for my pala, even already for its badass looks, but probably wont be able to get it under the conditions today.
Please, Blizzard! Make it happen!

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