Why do people duel in World of Warcraft?

In World of Warcraft, standard PvP nets your character honor and PvP rewards while Arena battles gets you Arena points and gear. If fighting other players in these two formats allow you to pick up stuff, why bother with dueling? It just seems counter-productive to spend your time fighting in duels when it doesn’t net you anything tangible.

Blizzard Poster/ Community Manager Nethaera answered this question pretty well in the forums:

Generally, people duel for the fun of it and sometimes for the sake of learning how other classes tend to fight even if it’s in a very limited way. It gives people a means of controlling how many enemies they are facing at once and gives them the opportunity to learn from that encounter.

People have to remember that World of Warcraft is a game. Generally, players are there to enjoy themselves. To some people that consists of dueling for hours on end with friends. For others, it’s testing themselves against random opponents they meet up with. Why not try it out, you might just have some fun?

The second part of her answer is why most of the players we know duel. Seeing how different players fight will allow you to excel in both PvP and Arena. While it is true that there is no substitute for good gear in a battle, when faced with a character with roughly the same quality of equipment, the experience you can pick up in these duels may be the edge you need to pull out a victory.

Via WoW Forums

In World of Warcraft, standard PvP nets your character honor and PvP rewards while Arena battles gets you Arena points and gear. If fighting other players in these two formats allow you to pick up stuff, why bother with dueling? It just seems counter-productive to spend your time fighting in duels when it doesn’t net you anything tangible.

Blizzard Poster/ Community Manager Nethaera answered this question pretty well in the forums:

Generally, people duel for the fun of it and sometimes for the sake of learning how other classes tend to fight even if it’s in a very limited way. It gives people a means of controlling how many enemies they are facing at once and gives them the opportunity to learn from that encounter.

People have to remember that World of Warcraft is a game. Generally, players are there to enjoy themselves. To some people that consists of dueling for hours on end with friends. For others, it’s testing themselves against random opponents they meet up with. Why not try it out, you might just have some fun?

The second part of her answer is why most of the players we know duel. Seeing how different players fight will allow you to excel in both PvP and Arena. While it is true that there is no substitute for good gear in a battle, when faced with a character with roughly the same quality of equipment, the experience you can pick up in these duels may be the edge you need to pull out a victory.

Via WoW Forums