BG = Waste of Time... Isn't it?

[Mercurio]

I was all prepared to spend the weekend AVing. I don't enjoy it, but was going to bite the bullet.

Then I did an analysis for about 4 hours putting together a big spreadsheet of all the stats from every possible upgrade from Heroics, Arena, Honor, and Badges for my ele shammies.

What I found shocked me. Honor is not worth much to me. Badges and arena give you better or equal versions of everything you'd want and in a shorter investment of time. Just losing 10 5v5 arena games each week my guys have about 2500 arena points saved up already and S4 is at least 2 weeks out. Farming badges is simple and makes a lot of money at the same time. Now that PvP belts, boots, and bracers are sold for badges (one season down, but still), why would you BG?

(This assumes that you have heroics on farm and have at least 5 toons to lose in 5v5 arena - 3v3 and 2v2 is doable but would take longer)

Let's take one example where the badge/arena items aren't better, just equal: 25 badges or 9500 honor for the PvP bracer (both one season down). Oh, and you have to get 20 Warsong Gulch Marks, too. Even on AV weekend, I can crank through 5-7 heroics faster than I can build up 9K honor, have a shot at epics, and I get gold too.

Am I missing something?

[kllrwlf]

You can do BGs brain-dead.

Defend the flag, die, rez, go to flag, get flag, defend flag, die, rez, go to flag, get flag, defend flag.................
Or, go to mine, fight, die, go to mine, fight, die, go to mine, fight, die, go to lumber, fight, die.....................
Go to Captain, go to tower, go to tower, go to boss, que, go to captain, go to tower, go to tower, go to boss, que...................

Personally, I think after a point, getting any new gear gets to be pointless... but that's me.
I'm currently getting close to shelfing WoW until the next expansion because I don't need to get the best possible gear after grinding X hours... only to replace it when the next xpac comes out.

[Tdog]

I don't enjoy PVP much at all. Occasinally I'll get the itch but it's rare. As for the gear I usually only go for the weps as they are usually decent and maybe the neck/rings if they are a major PVE upgrade. About the only reason I can think to really farm BG's is to gear up for Arenas in your team's downtime.

[Diamndzngunz]

BG's help you learn. I have learned alot doing them all the time.

[Mercurio]

Lets not forget that the new arena point system requires rating for every piece of gear. If you loose every single game, sure you'll get points - but you won't be able to buy anything.

For now it isn't that big a deal.

Gloves/belt: no requirement - get Brutal (S4 version)

Legs - 1550 requirement - if you can get to +50 from normal get Brutal, otherwise settle for Merciless

Chest, Head, Boots, Bracer - No requirement (and cheaper) for Merciless (S3)

Weapon, Shoulders - Rating requirement on both Merciless and Brutal - have to honor grind for S1 (or S2 when S4 comes out), or just get other options that are almost as good - Heroic SP shoulders, Heroic MgT 1st boss dagger

But if they continue this rating requirement thing in the future, it will become a much bigger issue.

[opt]

i found bgs to be a good source of gearing once i had hit 70. Now I have a number of epics up my sleave im finding that i can start doing heroics with not too much of an issue now. After I get my epic flyers ill start doing heroics more, my repair bills are still to high for a couple of badges.
I actually enjoy taking a shaman or 2 on a pug if i cant get them all into a kara raid,
But the thing about BC is there are just a number of different ways of gearing characters up, it depends on what you love about the game.

[Coltimar]

I plan to do enough PvP to get a weapon for each toon. I need the S1 mace for tanking with my pally and the healing mace is very sweet as well.

[Mercurio]

Yeah, looking through my spreadsheet (I'm such a geek), the weapons are by far the best buy using honor points compared to other "uber weapon" options. If you want over +200 spell damage, you'll spend 24,500 honor or 150 badges. Now that's an area where honor is by far a faster way of getting what you want.

[kllrwlf]

After I got weapons for all my toons, don't have much inclination to continue with that grind.

Luckily, it wasn't bad of a grind because I was doing 5v5... didn't matter if you win or lose, get points, save 'em, then use them for weapons.

It's good training like what someone else said... so weapons and a bit of training and recovering from fear bombs.

[Tamu]

I find it much more enjoyable to do heroics than farm AV. If I could get into the preform group I used to run with while single boxing, then it might not be so bad. But, after I lost 9 AVs in a row I gave up on that and switched to farming badges. Granted, my shamans have only been 70 for four weeks, but I've picked up some nice gear from badges and heroic boss drops already.