Battleground Gear & Tips To Get Season 1 Gear For Your 70

Since before the Burning Crusade, I have played countless numbers of Battlegrounds (BGs). Grinding out my Grand Marshal (GM) gear was a pain and took many weeks of endless grinding. However, that gear helped me all the way through level 67 and even at 70, I still had a handful of GM gear that I was still using. I heard that Blizzard was making Season 1 (S1) Arena Gear available for honor in the BGs. I then started to grind out more honor for that gear.

Remember: I never group. No raids, no instances, no group quests (unless I can solo it).

When Patch 2.3 hit the live realms, I already had enough marks and honor to get 4 out of 5 pieces of S1. Instantly, I noticed a huge difference! It almost doubled my health and mana, my healing skyrocketed and my spell damage increased slightly. I never knew how grand Resilience can help you in PVP. I played some more to finish the S1 set and also the Vindicator's Boots.

After all of that, I have three words to say: Well worth it!

Now, how should you go about grinding out your S1 gear? First and foremost, you should get some background of the BGs themselves. You're going to need to play all of the BGs to gain the marks cost. Here are some websites if you never entered into a BG before:

Alterac Valley
Warsong Gulch
Arathi Basin
Eye of the Storm

On a side note, WOWWiki is my number 1 resource for WOW Info. If I have any questions about an item, a mod, or zone, WOWWiki is where I go. Highly recommended!

So, now you know what you need to do to play these BGs. Figuring you're 70 (or late 60s), you should head over to your Champions' Hall (Alliance) or Hall Of Legends (Horde) and write down how much honor and marks you will need in total to purchase your gear. You might get shocked by the total but that's the fun of the PVP grind... Well, not really but try to stay happy about it.

The best way to get honor is to grind out in Alterac Valley (AV). You can gain an easy 300 honor per 20 minutes. If you win, it is about 450 honor. Also, a little trick I learned is to stay on defense when you play AV. You can easily get honor kills. As a Holy Paladin, my healing kept many other defenders alive. Sure, I died a lot but it is worth it.

Playing the other BGs, to me, is a horrible grind. AB can take 30 minutes a match for little honor. Playing for 30 minutes and getting 1 mark of honor is a knife in my heart. My way of handling this grind was to play 1 AV right when I log on, 2 BGs of your choice, then go back to AV for the rest of your playing session (I would say 1 session would be 2-4 hours for the average player). It spaced out the grind and helped not only gain marks but also a good 1200+ honor.

S1 gear is just like having Tier 4 gear (GM gear is equal to Tier 2). It has helped me a lot and should help all of you. If Wrath comes out next Christmas, those with S1 gear will be all set to get out there and quest to your heart's desire!

(To look at S1 gear for your class, visit WOW's website Here)