The patch is here and I’ve had a day to digest a lot of the changes and features I was looking forward to the most. Most of my play time is PvP based and this list reflects that. I am interested in the new PvE Sunwell content, but I may never take the time to actually do it since most of the rewards are not relevant to PvP.

5. No More Dimishing Returns.

- This change is two fold. First, it makes players worth more honor. They are worth FULL honor value up to 50 times (deaths) per battleground. This means you have an opportunity to walk out of a battleground with much more honor if you go on a killing spree. Second, now the second you earn honor points, they are yours to spend. You used to have to wait until the next day to cash in your honor points AND it wasn’t always the same number you saw the day before since it was “estimated” because of the dimishing returns calculations Blizzard ran every night.

4. New Superior (Blue) Quality PvP Gear.

- There is a new 5 piece set of armor for each class available at 5 of the Outland PvE faction representatives. For serious PvP’ers like my 70 Warrior, this change means next to nothing. But, for PvP’ers like my 70 alt Hunter and 70 alt Priest, or fresh level 70’s, this gear is a great way to put on some good gear with some decent resilience to make the rise to the epic PvP top more enjoyable. The set plays out like a minor league version of Season 1 Gladiator gear.

3. New Debuff Rules For the Flag Carrier In Warsong Gulch.

- While it won’t put a stop to stalemate rounds of WSG (it didn’t help last night as I was in one that lasted 72 minutes), it will sure help.

* When both flags are held, the flag carriers will receive 50% increased damage done to them after approximately 10 minutes and 100% increased damage after approximately 15 minutes.
* Flag carriers can now be tracked 45 seconds after picking up the flag.

2. The Join as a party option for Alterac Valley.

- LFM Premade AV MUST HAVE ENABLER!!!!. Kiss that goodbye in trade chat. Having to use a third party addon for something as simple as joining a battleground is silly. And let’s face it, the AV Enabler was good, but it didn’t always work. It did the best it could. Now if you have a handful of friends and you are on what I call a battleground tour (a playlist of the 4 alternating battleground consecutively), you don’t have to all huddle up on the AV battlemaster and keep hitting the enabler until it actually worked. Sometimes it was like trying to start a fire with a lighter that was low on fluid.

1. The “For Great Honor” Quest. For the win.

- I cannot tell you how many battleground marks went unused and disappeared from my mailbox into the nether of WoW because I had my max (100) already. I was too lazy sometimes to even go and spend some on potions instead of losing them. Now you can turn in 1 token from each battleground and get 314 honor points each time over and over as it is repeatable. This is by far the coolest feature implemented in my opinion. My friends and I are always tearin’ it up in battlegrounds and with this, you can add honor, quite heavily in some cases, directly to your points bank. Good stuff.

While writing this, I was listening to “Blu Collar Worker” by Blu & Exile