MOGS

The Epic of Tol Barad

Tol Barad has been the talk of the Pvp world for the last week due to it’s honor exploit that was just recently hotfixed. It is the level 85 outdoor PvP zone, similar to lvl 80 Wintergrasp, located off the west coast of the Eastern Kingdoms. Every two hours the island fills up with players in a huge capture the base scenario that take no longer than 30 minutes to complete.
Tol Barad originally gave the winning faction 180 bonus honor. Which was a nice change of pace for the battleground honor grind. The problem was that TB is extremely in the favor the defense, so if you held TB at some point in the morning, there’s a good chance you’re going to hold it all day and reap the bonus honor,daily quests, and boss in the zone.

Blizzard thought that if they increased the honor reward for winning on offense that the attacking faction would be more encouraged to win. I’m not sure if someone hit at extra 0 in there, but for a short period of time if the attackers won they would receive 1800 honor! The factions began to talk and a truce was signed on many servers and the win-trading began. Every 2 hours the the attackers won within minutes, and those lucky enough to get in the zone received their 1800 honor, essentially a Pvp piece. Since TB lets you in at a 1-1 basis only a select few that won the “TB Lottery” got in.

A couple of days into the lottery a bridge exploit was found. On the nothern bridge of the Tol Barad Pvp zone that connects TB and TB Pennisula you began to see hundreds of the attacking faction stack. Those who didn’t win the lotto stood and waited. It was discovered that if you could time it right as the third base was being capped if you ran into the zone, before the zone queue warning ported your character out, that you would also receive the 1800 honor. Another truce was made between horde and alliance throughout servers that allowed those on the bridges to remained unharmed so they could time it right. I found about this after I just finished grinding out honor for a week and a half. I was able to make it two or three times and it worked, and finished off my blue honor set. Then when Blizzard realised that the zone was no longer contested but being fully exploited, they did a hotfix on the honor. Their 1800 honor attacking “gift” (as they’re putting it) was available for a week, exploited in days, then hotfixed within hours. Truce treaties were broken and it became a pvp zone once again.

Now Tol Barad awards 360 honor if the attacker wins. Which is more than originally obtained yet we’re unsture if it’s still worth it or not since the zone once gave out just too much honor. Of course this is just another hotfix and the zone is subject to even more changes. We can only hope they’ll find a balance between offense and defense and provide us with a reward that isn’t out of this world yet still worthwhile.