WOW Forever PVP - WOW Forever PVP Server Tips

WoW Forever PvP starts the moment the servers open on November 4 - and on the PvP ruleset, so does the danger. Forever keeps the things Classic PvP players loved, from the 14 ranks to Warsong Gulch, but changes almost everything around them: there are no realms, you can only play one faction on a PvP ruleset, Honor and ranks work differently, and every race has new racials. This guide explains how WoW Forever PvP works at launch and gives you our WoW Forever PvP server tips for choosing a faction, levelling in contested zones, surviving ganks and climbing the ranks.

WoW Forever PvP server tips: Horde against Alliance, with the PvP ruleset, Honor and Rank Points, battlegrounds and world PvP — WoW Forever PvP: one ruleset, two factions, 14 ranks.

Everything about the rules below comes from Blizzard's own posts on rulesets and PvP progression. The racial abilities are read from the WoW Forever game files. Where something is our advice rather than a rule, we say so.

WoW Forever PvP: the short version

No PvP realms - a PvP ruleset. You choose Normal, PvP, Roleplay or Roleplay PvP when you make a character. On the PvP rulesets, Blizzard says “you are almost always at risk of being attacked by opposing players”.
One faction per account on each PvP ruleset. Make an Alliance character there and you can't make a Horde one, and the other way around.
Faction balance: Blizzard plans systems to keep the two factions closer in number, similar to Season of Discovery, where new characters of one faction could be limited for a while.
Honor is a currency you earn from kills, battlegrounds and PvP quests and spend on PvP gear. Rank Points come only from battlegrounds and PvP quests, with a weekly cap.
Battlegrounds: Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Alterac Valley and the new 15v15 Battle for the Darkspear Islands, for levels 30 to 60. Battlegrounds can include players from other rulesets.
Legacy points: 12 of the 65 Legacy challenges are PvP - five Honor ranks, four battleground reputations and three weeks of the Field of Honor Journey.

Is there a PvP server in WoW Forever?

Not in the old sense. WoW Forever has no realms: instead of picking a server, you pick a ruleset, and everyone on that ruleset in your region shares one big world. Blizzard describes each ruleset as a broad player ecosystem rather than a single traditional realm, and lists five, in its rulesets post:

Normal: adventuring and fighting monsters, with PvP at your discretion.
PvP: player versus player combat - “you are almost always at risk of being attacked by opposing players”.
Roleplay: strict naming and behaviour rules for immersive roleplay.
Roleplay PvP: roleplay rules with PvP combat - “you are almost always at risk of being attacked by opposing characters”.
Hardcore: permanent death. It arrives sometime after launch.

So when players talk about a "WoW Forever PvP server", they mean the PvP ruleset, or Roleplay PvP if they also want roleplay rules. On Normal and Roleplay, PvP needs consent: you turn it on with /pvp or from your portrait, and attacking a flagged player flags you too. According to wow4ever.quest, the game's own text says the flag wears off after five minutes of non-PvP action in friendly territory. On the PvP rulesets, Warcraft Tavern explains, you're flagged automatically whenever you're outside territory your faction controls.

The rules that matter on a WoW Forever PvP server

Four rules from Blizzard's rulesets post decide a lot before you've even logged in:

One faction per account. On the PvP and Roleplay PvP rulesets, your account can only make characters for one faction. Your first character there decides it.
No free switching. You pick a ruleset when you make a character, and you can't move that character to another ruleset later. To play under a different ruleset, you make a new character there. The one exception is Hardcore: a Hardcore character that dies can move to another ruleset, including PvP.
No cross-ruleset groups. Grouping, dungeons and raids don't work across rulesets, and Horde and Alliance never group. Battlegrounds are the exception: they can include players from other rulesets, though not Hardcore.
What carries over: your collections and Legacy points are account-wide across every ruleset. Your preferred online language is account-wide too, with a 24-hour cooldown between changes.

Tip: because the faction lock is per account, agree on Horde or Alliance with your friends before any of you makes a character on the PvP ruleset. One person creating on the wrong side locks only their own account, but it splits the group.

Should you play on the PvP ruleset?

This is a choice about how you want the world to feel, not about rewards: Honor, ranks and battlegrounds work the same on every ruleset, and battlegrounds even mix rulesets. Here's how we'd weigh it.

Pick PvP if you want every trip into contested territory to matter - Blizzard's goal is for it to “carry more danger, excitement and open-world conflict” - and you enjoy fighting back, organising raids on enemy towns and levelling with friends.
Pick Normal if you mostly quest alone, play at peak hours, or want to level at your own pace. You can still flag for PvP when you feel like it, and you'll still meet PvP players in battlegrounds.
Pick Roleplay PvP if you want the danger of the PvP ruleset with naming and behaviour rules that keep the world immersive.

Our take: the PvP ruleset is at its best in a group. The levelling zones in your 20s are where the fights happen, and a pair of players who look out for each other has a very different time from someone questing alone. If you're going solo and have limited time, Normal is the safer choice - you lose nothing in battlegrounds.

Faction choice and faction balance

On the PvP ruleset your faction is a long-term decision, so make it on purpose. Blizzard says it plans systems to keep Horde and Alliance populations closer together, similar to Season of Discovery, where creating new characters of one faction could be temporarily limited. If you want the more popular faction, make your character early rather than waiting until launch week is over.

Race and class are less of a factor than they used to be. Forever opened up the old race and class limits, so both factions can play every class - Undead Paladins and Dwarf Shamans included - and the Skyborne can join either side (every race and class combination). What still differs is the racials, and on a PvP server those matter more than any damage chart.

WoW Forever PvP racials: every race's PvP abilities

Here are the racial abilities that matter most in PvP, with the tooltip text from the WoW Forever game files. They include Blizzard's October 26 racial changes:

Human: Will to Survive - Instant, 3 min cooldown. Instantly removes all Stun effects.; Perception - Instant, 3 min cooldown. Dramatically increases stealth detection for 20 sec.
Dwarf: Stoneform - Instant, 3 min cooldown. Instantly removes and grants immunity to all Bleed, Poison, and Disease effects, and reduces all Physical damage taken by 10% for 8 sec.
Night Elf: Shadowmeld - Instant, 10 sec cooldown. Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Using this ability in combat discourages enemies from attacking you, but increases the cooldown to 2 min.; Quickness - Dodge chance increased by 1% and movement speed increased by 2%. Night Elf Rogues and Druids are harder to detect in Stealth as if they were 1 level higher.; Wisp Spirit - Transform into a wisp upon death, increasing movement speed by 75%.
Gnome: Escape Artist - Instant, 2 min cooldown. Instantly escape the effects of any movement impairing effect and gain immunity to those effects for 3 sec.
Skyborne (High Order): Walk on Air - Instant, 1.5 min cooldown. Glide downward through the air for 10 sec while controlling your direction of travel.; Read Leyline - 2 sec cast, 2 min cooldown. Increases your Health and Mana regeneration by 50% for 15 sec. Used at a Ley Line it also grants Attuned for 1 hour, which raises the bonus to 100%. Attuned persists through death and ends when you enter a raid. Cannot be used while Innervate is active.
Orc: Hardiness - Duration of Stun effects on you reduced by 20%.; Shatter Curse - Instant, 3 min cooldown. Instantly removes all Curses and Banes, and reduces all Magical damage taken by 5% for 8 sec.
Undead: Will of the Forsaken - Instant, 2 min cooldown. Instantly removes all Charm, Fear and Sleep effects.; Cannibalize - 5 yd range, Instant, 2 min cooldown. When activated, regenerates 7% of total Health and 7% of total Mana every 2 sec for 10 sec. Only works on Humanoid or Undead corpses within 5 yds. Any movement, action, or damage taken while Cannibalizing will cancel the effect.
Tauren: War Stomp - 0.5 sec cast, 1.5 min cooldown. Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yds for 2 sec.; Endurance - Total Health increased by 5%.; Plainsrunning - Gain 2% increased movement speed every 5 sec spent moving, up to a maximum of 60% increase. Taking damage or standing still will reduce this effect. Does not increase mounted movement speed.
Troll: Regeneration - Health regeneration rate increased by 20%. In addition, 20% of total Health regeneration will continue during combat.; Rapid Regeneration - Channeled, 3 min cooldown. Regenerate 50% of your maximum Health over 6 sec. Any movement, action, or damage taken will cancel the effect.; Berserking - Instant, 3 min cooldown. Increases your spellcasting and attack speed by 10% for 15 sec.
Skyborne (Windshaper): Walk on Air - Instant, 1.5 min cooldown. Glide downward through the air for 10 sec while controlling your direction of travel.; Skysight - 0.5 sec cast, 2 min cooldown. Increases your movement speed by 15% for 15 sec. Used at an elemental convergence it also grants Charged for 1 hour, which raises the bonus to 30%. Charged persists through death and ends when you enter a raid.

A few stand out for PvP. Human's Will to Survive breaks every stun, and Undead's Will of the Forsaken breaks Charm, Fear and Sleep - the two strongest escape buttons in the game. Gnome's Escape Artist frees you from slows and roots, Dwarf's Stoneform cleanses Bleeds, Poisons and Diseases and cuts Physical damage by 10%, and Orc's Hardiness makes every stun on you 20% shorter without you pressing anything. Tauren's War Stomp is the only racial stun.

Our take: if you plan to PvP seriously, Human and Undead have the best defensive racials, and Orc's Hardiness is the best passive one. Our damage sims show the races are only 1-2% apart for PvE, so on a PvP server it's reasonable to choose your race for its PvP racials. See our racial changes article for the October 26 changes.

How WoW Forever PvP progression works

Blizzard rebuilt the Classic honor system around two tracks, as it explained in How PvP Progression in World of Warcraft: Forever Works:

Honor is a currency. You earn it by defeating enemy players, finishing battlegrounds and completing PvP quests, and spend it on PvP gear.
Rank Points move you up the original 14 ranks, from Private or Scout to Grand Marshal or High Warlord. They come from battlegrounds and PvP quests - not from world kills - and there's a weekly cap.
Every rank has a reward, from a tabard at rank 1 to epic weapons at rank 14. The PvP trinket comes at rank 2.
PvP gear comes in two sets: blue pieces bought with Honor, and epic versions that need the blue piece plus an Emboldened Seal with a rank requirement.
Seasons come with weekly tasks that give extra Honor and Rank Points; three tasks each season award a Legacy point.

The weekly cap is the big change from Classic. Your rank is no longer a race against everyone else on your realm, so playing longer than the cap gains you nothing that week. PC Gamer summed it up as players no longer having to “derail their entire lives for bragging rights”. Our PvP progression guide covers every detail, including what Blizzard hasn't announced yet, like the size of the cap.

PvP and the Legacy System

PvP is one of the best sources of Legacy points: 12 of the 65 Legacy challenges at launch are PvP. From the game files, they are:

Honor ranks: rank 3 (Sergeant), rank 7 (Knight-Lieutenant or Blood Guard), rank 10 (Lieutenant Commander or Champion), rank 13 (Field Marshal or Warlord) and rank 14 (Grand Marshal or High Warlord) - one point each.
Battleground reputations: Exalted with the Frostwolf Clan or Stormpike Guard, the Defilers or League of Arathor, the Warsong Outriders or Silverwing Sentinels, and the Darkspear Raiders or Theramore Expeditionary Force - one point each.
Field of Honor: completing weeks 4, 7 and 10 of the Field of Honor Journey - one point each.

Legacy points are account-wide, so the PvP points you earn on a PvP-ruleset character count for every character you have. Our Legacy talents calculator has a 16-point PvP build, built around For Great Honor's 10% more Honor.

Battlegrounds at launch

Four battlegrounds are in WoW Forever from day one. Blizzard says it has evened out Honor across them so Alterac Valley isn't the only efficient choice, and a highlighted battleground gives extra Honor and Rank Points during its holiday week.

Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley - the three Classic battlegrounds.
Battle for the Darkspear Islands - the new one: 15 against 15, for levels 30 to 60. Four capture points earn score, a central flag adds points when carried to a base your team holds, and the first team to 2,000 points wins. You can queue from a battlemaster or take the portal at your faction's base in the Barrens - the Merchant Coast for the Horde and Northwatch for the Alliance (Blizzard's preview).

Our Darkspear Islands guide has the rewards and our first-match tips.

WoW Forever PvP server tips: levelling in contested zones

Most world PvP happens while you level, in the zones both factions share. wow4ever.quest lists Duskwood, Ashenvale, the Wetlands and Hillsbrad Foothills as the contested zones for levels 19 to 31, with Hillsbrad the main hotspot - which matches our own 1-30 leveling guide: Tarren Mill and Southshore face each other in Hillsbrad, and Splintertree Post and Astranaar share Ashenvale. The Darkspear Islands bases add a new pair a short ride apart in the Barrens. These are our tips, not Blizzard rules:

Level with a partner. Two players who stick together are far harder to gank, and a healer or a pet class makes the pair stronger still.
Know where the enemy town is. In contested zones, the other faction's quest hub is close. Check our leveling guide's coordinates and avoid questing right next to it at peak hours.
Quest at quieter times. The busiest hours in your region are when contested zones are busiest too.
Keep your escape button off cooldown. Save your racial (Will to Survive, Will of the Forsaken, Escape Artist, Stoneform) for the enemy, not for a monster.
Fight at full health. On a PvP ruleset, a player who sees you fighting a monster at half health may take the chance. Eat and drink between pulls in contested zones.
Use flight paths. A flight is the safest way through hostile territory, and Frequent Flier from the Legacy System makes them half price.
Have a second zone ready. If one zone is too hot, the level ranges in Forever overlap - Ashenvale, Stonetalon and Hillsbrad all cover your 20s for the Horde, and Duskwood, the Wetlands and Ashenvale for the Alliance.

How to survive ganking and corpse camping

Getting killed by a higher-level player is part of a PvP ruleset. Warcraft Tavern notes there are no rules on level range, gear or group size, so ganking and corpse camping happen. Here's what helps, from our own experience of Classic PvP servers:

Don't resurrect into a camper. Wait at your corpse until they leave or look away, or resurrect at the Spirit Healer and come back another way. Night Elves get Wisp Spirit, 75% faster movement while dead, which makes the walk shorter.
Change zones. If someone keeps coming back, move to another zone for half an hour. Quests in Forever's levelling zones overlap enough that you won't lose much.
Call for help. Ask in your zone's chat or your guild. On a busy PvP ruleset, a camper often brings a defence party to the area.
Make dying cheaper. The Legacy talent Reinforce cuts durability loss on death by up to 40%, and The Quick and the Dead makes you faster while dead and lets your helpful spells cost nothing for a short time after you're resurrected.
Don't take the bait. A player who keeps attacking an enemy flight master or quest giver may be trying to pull you into a fight their friends are waiting for.

Layering and world PvP

WoW Forever splits busy areas into layers - copies of the world - and that affects world PvP. On its first podcast, Blizzard admitted that a layering bug could move an opponent to another layer in the middle of a fight, and said each zone's layer capacity is set with its chance of becoming a PvP hotspot in mind. In late October, as MMOHuts reported, Blizzard said it would fix players being separated after boat and zeppelin loading screens and large groups being moved to different layers when entering or leaving capital cities, while keeping some layering permanently.

Tip: if you're organising a raid on an enemy town, form the group before you travel. Players who meet up later are more likely to end up on different layers.

Best classes for WoW Forever PvP

There's no PvP sim, but there is one big result. In The Forever Open, the $100,000 level 30 duel tournament, Undead Warlocks finished first and second and Orc Shamans third and fourth (our report). Icy Veins points to Fear, the Succubus's Seduction, damage over time that stops healing and breaks stealth, and pet sacrifices as reasons Warlocks are so strong at 30. Duels at level 30 aren't battlegrounds at 60, so treat it as one data point.

For world PvP while levelling, the classes that are strong solo are strong here too: Hunters and Warlocks have pets that fight for them, Rogues and Druids choose their fights with stealth, and Paladins, Shamans and Priests can heal themselves through a fight. Our WoW Forever classes guide covers every class's strengths.

PvP gear tips

Stamina first. More health means more time to use your escape and your heals. The Darkspear Islands rings and pendants all carry Stamina for that reason.
Build the blue set before the epic one. Every epic PvP piece starts from its blue version, so spend early Honor on blues you can upgrade later.
Get the rank 2 trinket early. It's the most useful single PvP item for most classes.
Check every upgrade. PvP gear isn't always better for questing or dungeons. Paste your character into Find Upgrades to see what actually improves your spec.

Your first week on a WoW Forever PvP server

Day one: level in your starting zone, far from the enemy faction, and pick up your first flight paths.
Level 20 and up: contested zones begin. Group up, use the tips above, and keep a second zone in mind.
Level 30: the Darkspear Islands open to you, with rewards for each level bracket. A battleground is also a safe way to earn XP and Honor when the world gets dangerous.
Every week: do your Field of Honor tasks for bonus Honor, Rank Points and, in weeks 4, 7 and 10, Legacy points.

Our take: WoW Forever PvP is friendlier to normal players than Classic ever was - a weekly cap on ranks, Honor evened out across battlegrounds and PvP Legacy points that help every character. The PvP ruleset is still a PvP ruleset, though: you will be ganked in Hillsbrad. Choose it if that sounds like fun, bring a friend, and save your racial for the moment it counts.

WoW Forever PvP FAQ

Does WoW Forever have PvP servers? It has PvP and Roleplay PvP rulesets instead of realms. Everyone on a ruleset shares one world.
Can I play Horde and Alliance on the PvP ruleset? No. Each account can make characters for only one faction on each PvP ruleset.
Can I change my character's ruleset? No. You make a new character on the other ruleset. Dead Hardcore characters are the exception.
Do world kills give Rank Points? No. Kills give Honor; Rank Points come from battlegrounds and PvP quests.
Is there a weekly cap? Yes, on Rank Points. Blizzard hasn't published its size.
What level are battlegrounds? The Darkspear Islands are for levels 30 to 60.
Can I PvP on a Normal ruleset? Yes - turn on your PvP flag with /pvp or from your portrait. Battlegrounds can include players from every ruleset except Hardcore.
What's the best PvP race? Human (Will to Survive) and Undead (Will of the Forsaken) have the strongest escape racials; Orc's Hardiness is the best passive.