PvP talent

PvP Talents in Shadowlands

The PvP Talents system, introduced in Battle for Azeroth, allows the player to choose from several PvP-oriented abilities to augment their character. Each character can choose up to three PvP talents. Its general concept originated with Legion's honor talents system, and a number of PvP talents began as honor talents. Unlike honor talents, however, PvP talents are unlocked simply by leveling up and do not require the player to grind honor.

PvP talents' effects are always active in PvP instances, such as battlegrounds and arenas; and always inactive in PvE instances, such as raids and dungeons. In the open world, PvP talents are active as long as War Mode is turned on. Because of this, PvP talents can also be used in open-world questing and farming.

PvP talents can be changed during the beginning of a PvP match, or while in a rest area in the open world.

Full listings of the PvP talents available to each class can be found on that class's abilities page, e.g.: Priest abilities#PvP talents.

Gaining PvP talents

On the right-hand side of the Talents pane, three PvP talent slots can be seen after level 20, when the first is unlocked. The other two are unlocked at level 30 and level 40. Each of the three slots allows the player to choose a PvP talent from a shared pool. These talents may improve the player's abilities, give new abilities, or grant passive effects.

Official preview

From the Battle for Azeroth PvP preview:

With Battle for Azeroth, we’re making changes to how we’re handling talents in PvP. In Legion’s current Honor Talent system, talents become available as you earn Honor levels through participating in PvP, which puts players looking to get into PvP for the first time at a disadvantage until they earn the tools everyone else already has. In Battle for Azeroth, we’re streamlining the system so that PvP talents will become available as you level, keeping players on more even footing.

In Legion, PvP talents were organized in rows of three, much like regular class talents; in Battle for Azeroth, players will be able to select any three PvP talents from a large pool of options, along with a special crowd-control-breaking talent (variations on the old “PvP trinket”).

You’ll earn this crowd-control breaker at level 20, choosing from one of three available options via a fly-out menu. By level 110, all PvP talent options will be available to choose within the Talent pane (N). This system offers more options for customizing your character to suit your play style or your environment, whether that’s world PvP, Battlegrounds, Arenas, or the new Dueler’s Guild (more on that below). As with your class talents, you’ll need to be in a rested area to switch between these.

Notes

• Prior to Shadowlands, there were four slots in total. The first offered a choice of PvP trinket-type talents, and the rest worked as they do today, offering a shared pool of class-specific PvP talents.
• Because hero classes started at higher levels before the Shadowlands level squish, they unlocked their PvP talent slots at different levels than standard classes:
  • Standard classes unlocked their slots at levels 20, 40, 70, and 110;
  • Death knights (which started at level 55) unlocked theirs at 56, 57, 70, and 110;
  • And demon hunters (which started at level 98) unlocked theirs at 100, 101, 102, and 110.

Gallery

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  PvP Talents in Battle for Azeroth

Patch changes

• Patch 10.0.0 (2022-10-25): PvP talents interface shifted to the bottom of the updated Specialization & Talents window.
  
• Patch 9.0.1 (2020-10-13):
  • [Gladiator's Medallion], [Adaptation], and [Relentless] removed. The functionality of removing control-impairing effects will be restored as a powerful PvP trinket option that can be purchased with [Honor] from Aneka Melae in Orgrimmar and Alice Fischer in Stormwind.
  • The level 20 PvP talent slot (which contained only Gladiator's Medallion, Adaptation, and Relentless) has been removed, reducing the number of slots to three.
  • Due to the level squish, the remaining slots are now unlocked at level 20, 30, and 40 for all classes.
    
• Patch 8.0.1 (2018-07-17): Added, replacing honor talents.