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PvP

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In this article, you will find everything about PvP in World of Warcraft.

What is PvP?

Player vs. Player or "PvP" is the general term for competetive gaming between two players. In World of Warcraft it is mainly the Horde and Alliance players that in addition to fighting the monsters in the world, fight each other. Of the World of Warcraft servers (also known as "realms"), some are dedicated to PvP play, while others are more dedicated towards killing monsters. However, both PvP and PvE servers can engage in PvP. To do this, your opponent must have his PvP flag enabled.

PvP Flags

If you want to attack other players, they have to have their "PvP flag" enabled. The same goes for anyone wanting to attack you, it is only possible to attack other players with their PvP flag enabled. It is easy to see if you are flagged for PvP, as a shield with your faction's crest appears by your character portrait. You can see if others are flagged for PvP if their character name (and guild name) is written in either red or yellow.

Manually change PvP Flag

If you want to activate your PvP flag in order to provoke attacks from players of the other faction, or just to appear threatening, you can do this easily. It is done either by rightclicking on your portrait and selecting "Player vs. Player" to view or change your PvP flag, or by just writing "/pvp" in the chat window and hitting Enter. In order to remove the PvP flag, you just click your portrait again to change status, or write "/pvp" while flagged for pvp to toggle the flag back. Please note that changing the flag back is not instant, it will take 5 minutes to remove the flag for PvP.

Automatic PvP Flag Change

Attacking or debuffing a player or NPC flagged for PvP will automatically activate your PvP flag as well. The same goes if you heal, buff or ressurrect a PvP flagged player or NPC of your own faction that are flagged for PvP.

Depending on what type of server you play on, your PvP flag will be automatically turned on in different zones. In general PvE (Player vs. Environment) servers will never flag you for PvP, unless you enter an area under control of the opposite faction (the other faction's starting areas), a "World Arena", The Arena or a Battleground. On PvP servers, you are generally always flagged for PvP except in your faction's starting areas or Capital Cities.

PvP Status of Other Players

Players in the game have their names (and guild name) floating above their avatars. This option can be turned on or off in the game options. When it is on, the names are colour coded to reflect the PvP status of a player.

Colour	Status
Dark Blue	PvP flag disabled. You can't attack that player.
Light Blue	PvP flag disabled. You can't attack that player. He is in your party.
Yellow	PvP flag enabled. You can attack the player, but he can not attack you, because you are not PvP flagged. Target will see you as Dark Blue.
Red	PvP flag enabled. You can attack the player and he can attack you, because you are also PvP flagged. Target will see you as Red.
Dark Green	PvP flag enabled. You can't attack that player. He is in your faction. The target will see you as Dark Green or Dark Blue depending on your PvP flag.
Light green	PvP flag enabled. You can't attack that player. He is in your party. The target will see you as Light Green or Light Blue depending on your PvP flag.

Removing the PvP Flag

If your PvP flag was enabled automatically, or if you have manually enabled it and then choosen to disable it, it will take 5 minutes for you to disable the PvP flag. During that time, you can't be in an area that automatically flags you for PvP or perform any "PvP action" such as hitting a player or NPC, casting any spell on player or NPC flagged for PvP. This includes both offensive (like Frostbolt) or helpful spells (like Flash Heal or Battle Shout) spells. Cast spells on dead PvP flagged players will also reset the 5 minute timer (like Redemption).

PvP Game Functionality

The PvP game differs slightly from the regular "PvE" game style where you kill monsters in the game environment. Issues such as balance between classes, spell functionality changes and death differs from PvE play.

Class PvP Balance

Game balance is of the utmost importance to Blizzard and they're approaching PvP with a "rock, scissors, paper" type solution, where some classes will fare better against others in combat, and a Duel between two specific classes might almost exclusively end with one of the classes winning, regardless of the players participating. It sounds unfair but this decision was made to encourage teamplay and guild formation. A mixed team is supposed to fare better than a team with only one character class. An example of this is that Paladins can beat a Rogue fairly easily, but they will in turn in most cases get defeated by a caster class like a Mage or Warlock.

Level-Based Combat

PvP Combat in World of Warcraft is mostly based on your level, just like when fighting against monsters. Players with higher level have a much higher chance of resisting your spells, and have much more Armor to absorb your hits. This means that higher level players have a great advantage over lower level players, unless their levels are rather closely matched. Blizzard is aiming for a progression system where 2 players of a certain level will be about an equal match for a single player of 10 levels higher. There are currently no level restrictions on attacking players, and no plans to implement any.

It is very possible to kill players of much higher level. They can be hit and there are certain class combinations that will still work in your favor even though the level difference might be big. Generally speaking, it is a lot easier killing a player of higher level than a monster of equally high level. The biggest difference between the level of character is the damage output, so many players of lower level players can take down a single player of higher level with their combined damage output.

PvP Death and Durability

Death is different if you die by the hands of another player rather than because of the game environment (monsters, fall damage, drowning or fatigue) as you do not loose the 10% durability on your worn equipment. This can be a small comfort if you were killed as you tried to kill a monster. This is also an argument to say that if you know that you have no chance to kill the player attacking you, you might want to try to kill the monster first, to avoid the odd chance of being killed by the monster. If you die repeatedly, the game will set a timer to your ressurect just as when you die repeatedly from the environment (monsters, fall damage or drowning). If you ressurect by a Spirit Healer after being killed by a player, you still suffer the 25% durability loss on all equipment as well as suffer the Ressurection Sickness.

If you die in a Battleground, you will be placed besides a special Spirit Healer, who ressurects all ghosts on the Graveyard once every 30 seconds. You can still leave the graveyard, and go look for your corpse to ressurect, but players of the opposite faction can loot your corpse, and if they do, you can only ressurect at the Spirit Healer. You are also subject to a timer, just as when you die in the outside world.

If you die in an Arena battle, you can only continue playing if you get ressurected by one of your team mates.

Spell Limits - Diminishing Returns

In order to make fighting between players as interactive and entertaining as possible, the game have built-in limits on how much you can limit other players ability to do things in a given combat. These limits are called "Diminshing Returns", and just means that if you use multiple "control" or "slowing" spells/abilities on a specific player in a short amount of time, some of them will have less or no effect.

The idea is that if a player recives several control or slowing effects within a 15 second time, they will have lesser effect, or no effect. The first spell or ability used on a player for every 15 seconds will have the full effect (if not resisted). The second spell or ability of the same type used on the same player within 15 seconds of the first effect wearing off will have it's duration reduced by 50%. The third's duration will be reduced by 75% and the player will be immune to the fourth casting. In other words, a player will recive the full effect of a spell if he have been unaffected by that effect for the previous 15 seconds.

These types of spell effects have Diminishing Returns:

There is a few exceptions to these, in cases where abilities or spells are randomly applied, they rarely contribute to Diminishing Returns (like Seal of Justice). Generally, all spells or abilities that produce one of the effects above will be subject to Diminishing Returns if it is manually used by the player. It is the effect that is important, so some items that produce similar spell effects will also be included.

PvP Ranks

In The Old Honor System, you gained more Honor Points than you do in the current version of world of warcraft, but they also deteriated every week, so you had to play many hours every day to reach a "high rank" and get access to good equipment. When you reached a rank, you would then display it to others as a sign of achievement. With the new system, you can no longer reach those ranks, but if you recived a rank during the time the system worked, you can still choose to show it off. New players can currently not get one of these ranks.

There is also special ranks that you can gain from different things in the game, as well as from The Arena, if you have a good standing by the end of an Arena Season. These are also optional to display.

Zone Under Attack Messages

Whenever a player of your faction is under attack with a player of the opposing faction, the game will send out a message of what zone is under attack. In some cases you might want to have this active, so that you know exactly where the heat is and want to either stay away from it, or perhaps joining in the fray! These messages are by default turned off, but you can turn them on by writing "/join LocalDefense" or "/join WorldDefense" in your chat window and hitting Enter. If you feel that it might be a tad to noisy in your chat window after joining either of these channels, you can leave them by typing "/leave LocalDefense" or "/leave WorldDefense"

PvP NPC Guards

Many NPCs in the game will have guards protecting them including quest givers, vendors and all major cities. Some of these guards are clearly visible while others are summoned only when the NPC is attacked. Some of these guards will keep spawning regularly until the attacking players or NPCs are killed. In order to avoid exploitation of house roofs, water areas etc, many guards are equipped with powerful rifles to shoot at offending players, can swim and dismount flying mounts. Being killed by a guard will give you a 10% durability loss.

Guards all have very fast respawn rates. If you want them to stay dead for a longer period of time then don't loot their bodies. As soon as you loot a guards body that body will decay and spawn within minutes. By not looting bodies you can double the re-spawn time. This will not affect the normal spawn time, however.

Faction Town Guards

If you visit a town of the opposing faction, any guards there will automatically attack you on sight. There is also patrolling guards that can see through stealth, to make life more difficult for stealthed players. If you are in your own faction's town, the guards there will never attack you, unless you are Mind Controled by a player of the opposite faction.

Neutral Town Guards

Guards of neutral towns, such as Ratchet, Gadgetzan or Area 52 has an intelligent system where they attack players that perform any PvP action (as explained above) against a player that is PvP flagged for you (and kill if the offanding players does not run away!). In many cases, the guards are not 100% reliable though, and sometimes the player that was was attacked is the one getting assaulted by the guards. If you are attacked by another player (either by him accidently clicking you, or by malicious intent), try to move closer to the guards, and let them kill or chase him off without hitting him, as that might in itself draw the guards to attack you instead. Another advantage of letting the guards do the job is that the attacking player will suffer the durability loss as a sort of penalty for trying to kill you.

Battleground NPCs

NPCs in Alterac Valley such as the Dwarven Rams or the Orc Wolves are among the "guards" that will respawn very quickly if looted. Not looting their corpses will keep them from respawning for a much longer time.

The Arena & Battlegrounds

Battlegrounds

On the Battlegrounds of World of Warcraft, Horde and Alliance battle each other over important areas, or just over resources. From these battlegrounds, you can gain signets and Honor Points that can be traded for equipment to further your battle powress. Battlegrounds are not part of the actual continents in World of Warcraft, but are Instanced, so that they do not interrupt questing. The entrances exist in the "real"world, but the area where you play is not visible to those that are not part of the Battleground.

The Arena

The Arena is different from Battlegrounds, as it does not portray battle for an area or power, but rather just for honor, and the bloodlust of their audience. It is battle for sport, where faction does not matter, and you can end up fighting your own guild mates. The Goblins have set up a system for The Arena where you compete with teams of 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5 for glory and rewards in the form of better equipment to continue to beat your opponents with! The Arenas are part of the World of Warcraft, but are Instanced, so that they do not interrupt questing. If you enter one of the arenas in the game, you will have entered a World Arena.

PvP Rewards

As part of making PvP like an entertaining game in itself, inside World of Warcraft, there is different ways to reward being an active and/or skilled PvP player. If you kill players of the opposing faction of about your level range, you will recive Honor Points, which can be traded for new shiny PvP equipment. Playing in Battlegrounds will also award Honor Points, as well as bonus points for clearing the Battleground's objective and signets for that specific Battleground, which also are needed to get new shiny equipment. Making an Arena team and playing in The Arena will give you a standing if you are good, and once every week give you Arena Points based on your standing. These Arena Points can give you even better gear. Finally, there is PvP reputation rewards, as well as a possibility to clear Outdoor PvP objectives. All in all, there are many PvP Rewards to be had.

PvP Terminology

Honorable Kill (HK)
An Honorable Kill is gained when you kill, a player of the opposing faction of a similar level. A HK give players Honor Points which are used when getting PvP Rewards in the Honor System.

Honor Points
Honor Points are gained by killing enemy players and are used to trade in for PvP equipment.

Dishonorable Kill (DK)
Dishonorable Kills are currently disabled in WoW and you can not accumulate them any more.

Mobs
Mobs are PvE opponents, like spiders, kobolds, orcs etc. A mob is any 1 computer controlled opponent.

Battlegrounds (BG)
Battlegrounds are areas within World of Warcraft that is only accessible through an entry portal or a NPC dialogue. It is "instanced" battles between players to gain Honor Points. There is currently 4 Battlegrounds:

Alterac Valley - 40 vs. 40. Mass PvP type battle for an important valley in Alterac Mountains. .
Warsong Gulch - 10 vs. 10. "Capture the Flag" type battle between the Ashenvale forest and Stonetalon Mountains.
Arathi Basin - 15 vs. 15. Capture and defend bases to gain resources and win, in a rich Arathi Highlands vally.
Eye of the Storm - 20 vs. 20. Combination of capturing flags and holding bases in Netherstorm on floating isles.

Duels
Duels are friendly fights between 2 players. A duel does not yield any Honor Points, Exp or Skill Points.

Common PvP Questions

Can I attack players of my own faction?

You can normally not attack players of your own faction. The three exceptions are:

If you have started a Duel with another player.
If you entered a World Arena and got flagged for "FFA PvP".
If you meet players of your own factions in The Arena.

Attacking a player during a duel would almost never end with a player killing the other. Attacking a player in a World Arena will end like a fight between players of opposite factions (usually with one or more Deaths), but there is ofcourse a big problem with getting the player you want to attack IN to a World Arena. Fighting in The Arena is very straight forward, but as the matchmaking is random, it is not possible to predict who you are going to meet.

PvP Resources

Retrieved from "http://www.worldofwar.net/wiki/PvP"