PvP ranks, Honor and gear

How progression works

Forever keeps Classic's idea of ranking up through PvP but strips it back. Blizzard's stated pillar is "Approachable and Familiar": simplify the original Honor system while staying true to it. Progression has two parts.

Honor

• What it is: a currency you earn by killing other players, finishing battlegrounds and completing PvP quests. You spend it on PvP gear.
• Holiday weeks: the highlighted battleground of the week pays more Honor.
• Balance: Blizzard reviewed Honor across battlegrounds so the rates are more even. The stated aim is that nobody should feel forced into Alterac Valley just because it pays best.

Rank Points

• Where they come from: battlegrounds and relevant PvP quests, with a boost during holiday-week battlegrounds.
• What they do: they move you through the 14 ranks from the original game, up to High Warlord for the Horde or Grand Marshal for the Alliance.
• Weekly cap: rank progress is capped each week. Blizzard describes this as keeping the original system's foundation while making the climb more reachable. The cap number is not published.

Where to check your progress: open the Character pane (hotkey C) and choose the Player vs. Player tab. It shows your rank, your Rank Points, and which rewards you can buy at your rank.

Blizzard Confirmed Blizzard, Oct 7, 2026 ↗

What each rank unlocks

This is Blizzard's list, in Blizzard's wording (the slashes are theirs). Ranks 3, 7, 10, 13 and 14 each also complete a Legacy challenge, which is why they are marked.

The "Type" column is CGN's grouping, not Blizzard's. "Epic upgrade" covers the rewards that lead to the epic set.

Blizzard Confirmed Blizzard, Oct 7, 2026 ↗ · Blizzard, Sep 23, 2026 ↗

Community Observation Warcraft Tavern, Sep 16, 2026 ↗ (datamined titles)

The gear path: blue, then epic

Honor buys two sets of PvP gear: one blue-quality and one epic-quality.

• Epic set: you upgrade a piece of the blue set, which takes the blue piece plus an Emboldened Seal.
• Seals have rank requirements: you have to reach the rank before you can buy the seal for that slot.
• Spec gaps: Blizzard added and reworked items for specializations that had no PvP options before. Shaman now have healer, melee and caster sets.

Blizzard Confirmed Blizzard, Oct 7, 2026 ↗

Seasons and the weekly journey

PvP runs in seasons. During a season you rank up and earn Honor as usual, and each season also has a journey: a set of weekly tasks.

• Completing a weekly task grants Honor and Rank Points.
• Three tasks each season also grant a Legacy Point. Blizzard's Legacy article names the weeks: 4, 7 and 10 of the "Field of Honor" PvP Season's Journey.
• Because those tasks are tied to the Legacy System, they stay available in later seasons.

Blizzard Confirmed Blizzard, Oct 7, 2026 ↗ · Blizzard, Sep 23, 2026 ↗

Darkspear Islands, the new battleground

Type

15v15 Capture Point with a Flag Capture battleground

Where

Off the shores of Dustwallow Marsh (Blizzard's earlier BlizzCon summary says "off the coast of Kalimdor")

Player levels

30 to 60

Win condition

First team to 2,000 points

Factions

Darkspear Raiders (Horde) against the Theramore Expeditionary Force (Alliance)

How a match works

• Each team scores by holding four capture points. The more points you hold, the faster your score climbs.
• A flag in the middle of the map is a second objective. Carry it to a base your team has captured to score more.
• Blizzard compares the flag play to Arathi Basin-style capture and defense.

Getting in

• Queue with a battlemaster in any major capital city or in the Barrens, or walk to your faction's base: the Darkspear Raiders base at the Merchant Coast (Horde) or the Theramore Expeditionary Force base at Northwatch (Alliance). A portal there takes you into the battle.
• Those bases have reputation vendors and the battleground quests.

Rewards

• Each faction has its own reputation track. Vendors sell trinkets, rings, cloaks, weapons and armor pieces as you reach reputation thresholds, plus consumables.
• Turn in Marks of Honor on the reputation quests. At Exalted you unlock a short questline that ends with the faction's exclusive tabard.

Blizzard Confirmed Blizzard, Oct 7, 2026 ↗ · Blizzard, Sep 12, 2026 ↗ · Blizzard, Sep 17, 2026 ↗

PvP and Legacy Points

PvP is worth 12 of the 65 Legacy challenges at launch:

• 5 points for reaching ranks 3, 7, 10, 13 and 14.
• 4 points for reaching Exalted with each battleground reputation. Blizzard says "each Battleground reputation" and counts four, but does not list them. Alterac Valley and the new Darkspear Islands are the two it has named so far; CGN has not seen the rest confirmed.
• 3 points for the week 4, 7 and 10 quests of the Field of Honor season journey.

PvP challenges cannot be completed in Hardcore, so Blizzard says Hardcore will launch with 12 Hardcore-specific challenges of its own.

Open the Legacy planner →

Blizzard Confirmed Blizzard, Sep 23, 2026 ↗ · Blizzard, Oct 7, 2026 ↗

Rulesets and PvP

• Battlegrounds can mix rulesets, except Hardcore, which stays separate. Dungeon and raid grouping is still limited to your own ruleset.
• The PvP ruleset allows one faction per account. Create an Alliance character there and you cannot create a Horde one on that ruleset, and the reverse. Normal, Roleplaying and Hardcore allow both.
• Faction balance: Blizzard says Forever will include systems to keep Horde and Alliance populations closer on the PvP ruleset, like Season of Discovery, where creating a character for a crowded faction could be temporarily limited.

Rulesets and names →

Blizzard Confirmed Blizzard, Sep 21, 2026 ↗ · Blizzard, Sep 13, 2026 ↗

Beta changes so far

• October 1 build: Honor costs for PvP gear and upgrade tokens went up, most items by about 50%, to match Blizzard's gear-pace targets. The Honor cap went from 15,000 to 25,000 to make room for the higher prices.
• Sap (Rogue) now flags you for PvP when used on a PvP-flagged target (September 24 build).

Item-by-item prices are beta data that Blizzard has already moved once. CGN is not publishing a price table until the numbers settle.

Beta Build Blizzard, Oct 1, 2026 ↗

What we don't know yet