A price on your head

Kill the other faction and your bounty climbs, with no limit.

• An enemy bot counts like an enemy player: 3.
• A faction leader (Varian, Thrall, Jaina…): 100 for everyone on your side within 100 yards, not just the last hit.
• Anything 5 or more levels below you, or below the strongest of your group nearby, gives nothing.
• The same kind of NPC, or the same player, counts at most 5 times an hour.
• Nothing counts in battlegrounds or arenas, and killing your own characters on the other side gives nothing.
• Bots earn bounties too, up to W5 — so there is always someone to hunt.

Your wanted level

Your wanted level (W) comes from your bounty: the square root of bounty ÷ 10, rounded down. In other words, each level needs 10 × level² points: W2 at 40, W3 at 90, W4 at 160, W15 at 2,250.

There is no top level for players. Bots stop at W5.

The bounty hunters

From W1, a masked hunter of the other faction comes for you: Velyra Duskhood of the Horde hunts the Alliance, Garrick Blackmask of the Alliance hunts the Horde. A warning shows 10 seconds before the hunter arrives. Hunters only ever go after real players, never bots.

Where they can find you

Only out in the open world. Never in a city or capital (Dalaran and Shattrath included), at an inn, in a dungeon, raid, battleground or arena, on a flight path or while flying — and never while you are dead, in combat, in a duel or AFK. A Warband Camp is not a safe spot like an inn: hunters can find you there.

How often

After each hunt there is a quiet spell: 25 minutes at W1, shrinking to 8 minutes at W10 and above. After that, every 30 seconds there is a chance a hunter sets out: 20% at W1, rising to 60% at W10 and above. In practice:

Who comes

• W2–W4: the partner is just as strong as the hunter, and fights on if the hunter falls.
• From W5: the elite hunter is faster than you on foot. From W10 the rare elite is faster still.
• The crew (Duskhood Stalkers or Blackmask Cutthroats): 1 helper at W6, one more every 3 levels, up to 6.

How strong

• A hunter comes at your level — one level above you from W5, two above from W10.
• Their health and damage grow with every wanted level, with no cap.
• They are matched to you: better gear means a tougher hunter, and their damage is sized to your health and armor, so a plate warrior is hit as hard as a mage. A lone W1 hunter needs about 60 seconds of nonstop hits to kill you, in cloth or in plate.

Getting away

Put 200 yards between you or survive 6 minutes, and the hunter gives up. From W5 the hunter outruns you on foot, so a mount is your way out. Logging out does not save you: the hunter comes back soon after you return.

What you win — and what you lose

Being hunted has its perks.

The fine print

• Kill the hunter: 5 Bounty Coins × your wanted level, or your level², whichever is higher, and your bounty grows by 5%. A Hitman pays by its own level, if that is higher than your wanted level. No coins if someone in your group nearby is 5 or more levels above the hunter. The partner and the crew pay nothing — it is the hunter's head that counts.
• Purses: the first time you reach W5, W10, W15 and W20. After that, every 5 levels pays 250 more than the last: 750 at W25, 1,000 at W30, 1,250 at W35. Once per climb — lose your bounty and you can earn them all again.
• Collect a head: a wanted player or bot of the other faction (W1 or higher) pays 10 × level² coins (90 for a W3), and their bounty drops to 0. Once per victim every 24 hours, and only real players collect. A head 5 or more levels below you pays nothing, and they keep their price.
• If you die: by default a bot killing you does not reset your bounty; owners can change that, and on the demo realm it does.

The bounty clerks

The Bounty Office: Warden Halbrook in Stormwind (Champions' Hall) and Gorka Bloodtally in Orgrimmar (Hall of Legends). They show your coins and your price, keep the Most Wanted list, explain the rules — and run the shop.

Potions and war mounts

• Runic Healing Potion: 5 for 5 coins. Runic Mana Potion: 5 for 5 coins. Potion of Speed: 3 for 10 coins.
• The black PvP war mounts of your own faction, 3,000 coins each. In Stormwind that is the Black War Steed, Black Battlestrider, Black War Ram, Black War Tiger and Black War Elekk; the Horde list has the Swift Warstrider.

The armory

The TBC arena armory

847 items from all four TBC arena seasons: Gladiator, Merciless, Vengeful and Brutal. The armor sets, the off-pieces (neck, cloak, wrists, waist, feet, rings), weapons, shields and relics, and the four nether drakes: Swift, Merciless, Vengeful and Brutal. You only see what your class can use. Prices in coins:

Without the armory, the drakes have no vendor, Vengeful gear sells only during its own arena season, Gladiator and Merciless armor is bought with TBC raid tier tokens, and most Brutal gear needs arena points and a personal rating.

A long goal — and a treat for level 70 twinks.

The lost gear

The armory also sells gear you can no longer earn on 3.3.5a: 506 pieces, sorted into their own sections. You only see what your class and faction can use.

• The Burning Crusade: rank 14 Grand Marshal and High Warlord gear, 750 to 2,500 coins, and old holiday gear, 600 to 1,500.
• Classic: Tier 3, Naxxramas and Onyxia gear at level 60, the classic rank sets and the Scourge Invasion gear, 300 to 2,000 coins.
• Legendaries: 8 pieces, among them the four Atiesh, 30,000 coins each.
• Rarities: 9 lost pieces, 300 to 500 coins.

Services at the clerk

The fine print

• Smoke bomb: used on the spot. It fails 10% of the time plus 5% per wanted level, at most 75%. While it lasts you hear a Vanish and turn dark and half-seen; the look switches off in any fight, so it never hides you from other players.
• Bribe: the first one in a week costs 250 gold at W5 and 1,000 gold at W10.
• Bodyguards: two Hired Blades at most. They walk at your side out in the world and fight only the hunter and the crew — never NPCs, bots, players or pets — and nobody else can attack them. They have half your health: support, not the main damage. If one lands the killing blow, it still counts as yours. They leave after that hunt, or after 2 hours if no hunter comes, and remind you while they wait.
• Hitman: never on a Hardcore character. Pick a level from 1 to 10 (2,000 gold at level 10). The hunter comes 3 to 10 minutes later, and that clock only runs out in the open: a city, a dungeon or logging off just delays it. The letter says how it ended: dead, hunter slain, or got away. One Hitman per target at a time, then a 24-hour wait. It puts no collectable price on their head, and you get your gold back only if the target is deleted, takes the Hardcore oath or stays away for 30 days.

See who's wanted

NPCs in the other side's towns shout a warning when a wanted enemy comes within 80 yards: a player from W3, a bot from W5.

In the player portal supporters

The next release of the player portal adds Most Wanted: a Most Wanted board with the highest prices right now and the all-time records (owners switch it on), and skulls on the live map. You can see both today on the demo realm: the Most Wanted board and the live map.

For server owners config

• ✓
  On by default, with World PvP around the clock: a new install is a PvP realm out of the box. WowLegends.Bounty.Enabled = 0 turns it off. It needs the hunters, clerks and bodyguards from the database update.
• ✓
  Every service and the armory has its own switch and price (WowLegends.Bounty.Shop.*; the lost gear: Shop.LegacyArmory, on, and Shop.LegacyArmoryPricePct), and so do hunter strength, gear matching and the partner (WowLegends.Bounty.Hunter.*). How far you must get away: Hunter.EscapeDistance, 200 yards.
• ✓
  Whether a bot's kill resets a player's bounty is your choice too (WowLegends.Bounty.BotKillsReset, off by default), and so is what a bot's head pays (WowLegends.Bounty.Reward.BotClaimPct, 100).