Greetings fellow honor farmers. Now with Covid19 out everyone’s spamming bgs by the looks of it, and I have noticed a rather odd trend.
There seems to be this idea that capping and holding the mines at the end of an AV win does not give honor, but only rep.
Indeed, anyone I dared question about this has been calling me the most horrible things, including asking me to jump in front of a train and rid the world of my stupidity! (seems I hit a nerve or something)
The only references I can get to this supposedly obvious thing are a few posts on the US forums and then vague allusions to a blue post that confirms it or patch notes that said it was removed.
Some people even link me wowwiki for the pre 2.0 honor system, but even there it specifically says the mines DO give honor, 198 each if you hold both in the end if you win. So not quite sure why they think that supports their cause.
Let’s have a look at those US posts then.
Basically they break down the bonus honor like this:
11 commanders @198 honor each
4 bunkers burned @198 honor each
3 wing commander saved @198 honor each
At the end you get:
4 towers saved @198 honor each
1 Galv/Bal still up @198 honor
1 Vann/Drek killed @198 honor
1 summon Lokholar/Ivus @198 honor
2 currently unknown values @198 (these have been reasonably confirmed NOT related to mines)
If your game runs 30+ min, you get an additional 594 honor
If your game runs 60+ min, you get an additional 198 honor
This is 28 objectives scored @198 each for 5,346 + 60 min @792 for a max honor of 6,138
So there is some mysterious 396 honor but it is apparently confirmed that it isn’t the mines (cannot find any such confirmation unfortunately)
Now, I have done a fair bit of AV, hitting rank 11 next week by the looks of it, and I have seen a pretty straightforward trend.
Regular 30min horde wins without losing any towers, maybe maybe not summoning icelord, most or all wing riders making it back, the games vary between 4900 - 5900. I’m sure many of you have seen such values.
What I notice is that, if I do cap the mines myself, we always get at least 5300. If I confirm the mines aren’t capped, we never get more than 5500 (again for 30min games with a theoretical max of 5900).
Indeed, back to back games all day every day its pretty obvious that those mysterious 400 honor somehow always seem to land when the mines are absolutely capped, and do not seem to be there when the mines are definitely not capped.
I have noticed that the map bugs out quite a lot with the mines. I’m sure horde have noticed that if Alliance caps the Irondeep mine first, and you then as horde cap it afterwards, the map does not display this. The mine will look like alliance on the map, even though it is full of horde npcs.
This bug goes further.
If horde DO NOT cap Coldtooth mine, and alliance caps Irondeep mine, and horde then go capture Irondeep mine, just as we have seen many times, the map does not show it, the Irondeep Mine is still blue. BUT, suddenly the COLDTOOTH mine, that noone has touched at all, will show red on the map, even though it is full of kobold npcs.
I have come to theorize that this supposed confirmation that the mines do not give honor is little more than looking at the map and seeing oh we have both mines but we didn’t get it without actually going to check the actual mines.
I have certainly been very happy to see consistent 5700+ games every single time we have all towers and bunkers done, all wing commanders safe, kept galv alive and waited for 30min, whereas before when I ignored the mines those games were very very rare indeed unless the game went to 60minutes.
Why is the myth of the mines give no honor so prevalent? And why are people so zealous to smite anyone who dares say otherwise?
Now if someone on this forum happens to have that supposed confirmation or patch note at hand do by all means enlighten me! I shall be happy to cast in the towel and admit I am wrong.