I love my PvP!

A while back fellow WoW Insider blogger Adam posted his thoughts on PvP, calling PvE the only real game. He makes excellent, valid points as to why he believes this is so, such as the fact that it is quite impossible to level from 1 to 70 through PvP alone. The game was designed around a PvE-centric environment, and the relatively late additions of the Battlegrounds and Honor system are a testament to that. In those respects, Adam is completely correct.

Of course, many of you took issue with his statements, even prompting him to publish his personal counterpoint on the matter. As an avid PvP player, I found some of what Adam said to be less than savory myself. It has to be noted that Adam has extensive PvE endgame experience, and his opinions come from a raider's perspective. I will concede his first two points -- you cannot progress in World of Warcraft through PvP alone and that PvP was a mere afterthought. On the other hand, Adam's other points don't quite hold as much water.

Time =/= Progress
Adam stated that "PvP progression is based on the amount of time one puts into it." This is a funny statement if you consider the fact that it takes 10 short matches for you to qualify for Arena points. It also doesn't take into account the fact that PvE progression is time-based, as well. How long does it take a guild to master Karazhan going into it for the first time? Even Nihilum, the world's most bleeding edge guild, pours considerable time into mastering encounters. Sure, they spend less time mastering anything, but that's why they're the best raiding guild in the world. But time is such a critical factor in raid progression that for the longest time, European guilds suffered from the time differential that launched US content ahead of their European counterparts.

This isn't to say that skill doesn't play a factor. Skill is crucial. But to dismiss PvP progression as a product of time rather than skill is not only short-sighted, it's insulting. He says that players "can put in thousands of hours into the PvE game and not progress past Kael'Thas if you don't have enough skill," and goes on to say that mediocre PvP players can be geared in epics simply by logging in hours and hours of PvP. This is because Adam's benchmark for progression is gear. But by the same token, you can log thousands of hours in Arenas and never hit a 2000 rating.

Do the Battlegrounds reward a substantial time investment? Certainly. But the casual environment of the Battlegrounds shouldn't be compared to endgame raiding. It's comparable to investing enough time getting Badges of Justice, crafting epics, or acquiring enough money to buy BoE world drops. Equating the Battleground grind or slow acquisition of Arena points to high end raiding is a deliberately skewed perspective.

PvE Gear =/= PvP Success
Adam goes on to brag about his success in Battlegrounds and Arenas wearing PvE gear. He explains how players in full Tier 6 can "compete and have major success." Of course, what he isn't saying is that in the Battlegrounds, you're crushing players without any Resilience. I can assure you that, given equal amounts of skill -- which Adam doesn't mention -- a Warrior in full Vengeful Gladiator's Battlegear will crush another Warrior in full Onslaught Battlegear. Every time. Because another thing that Adam conveniently leaves out of his argument is talent spec. A PvP-specced MS Warrior will demolish a dual-wielding PvE-specced Fury Warrior given equal skill. That's just the way the game is built.

You can't blog about pwning face in Battlegrounds and Arenas without mentioning equal competition. If you jump into the Battlegrounds wearing full Tier 6, of course you'll dish out some hurt. That's not rocket science. It's like entering some 5-man instance wearing full Season 3. The disturbing thing with Adam's argument is that it doesn't put skill anywhere in the equation. I used to heal for Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep in PvP gear and topped heal efficiency and curing done numerous times matched against other raiders in equal item level PvE gear. Sure, it wasn't Hyjal/BT, but I didn't, as Adam put it, "fail miserably".

He says that you cannot tank anything well in PvP gear. Well, I'll concede that. Then again, you won't be pwning face in tank gear, either, will you? Adam says that he does "so much more damage faster and in larger crit amounts then my PvP counterparts that they just can't keep up." Of course, he isn't really talking about real PvP counterparts. If you're decked out in Tier 5/6, your PvP counterpart is in Season 2/3 gear. I can assure you that those "larger crit amounts" won't be there because of Resilience. If you're going to talk about pwnage, talk about a level playing field and not crushing scrubs without Resilience.

PvE > PvP... not so sure about that
As much as Adam tries to downplay it, his condescending attitude towards PvP is palpable throughout his entire post. He says that "those PvE skills you acquire are always going to outweigh your PvP skills." That's interesting, because you can get away with mouse clicking and keyboard-turning in PvE, but it won't be as efficient in PvP. Like I mentioned in an earlier column, no PvE opponent will kite you. Ever. You will never learn to counter-kite in PvE. No PvE opponent will ever deliberately abuse Line-of-Sight to break your spells.

Exactly what PvE skill outweighs PvP skills? Threat management, maybe? When I'm healing through a 25-man raid boss, I don't have to move nearly as much as I do when I PvP. I also don't have to worry about getting interrupted nearly half as much as I do when I'm healing in Arenas. I don't need to juke a heal in order to bait a Counterspell or Earth Shock. There are no Deadly Boss Mods to tell me a Druid is about to Cyclone me. If I'm doing PvP, I'm not working on a six or ten minute enrage timer, I'm looking at a barely one minute window where my opponents can kill me or my teammate.

I'm not about to proclaim that PvP is better than PvE. I don't think Arenas, as much as I enjoy them and as much as Blizzard is infatuated with them, are the pinnacle of World of Warcraft PvP. Just like endgame instances, Arenas require you to spec a certain way or find the right class combinations in order to have an easier time towards success. On the other hand, I do believe that PvP contributes greatly to the improvement of my game. After a loss in an Arena, my team spends a considerable amount of time dissecting the match and where things went wrong. It's almost like wiping from a boss, except that most bosses have strategy guides. PvP has none. There is no single strategy guide that will tell me how my 2345 team can defeat a triple-healer double-melee comp. Even if you manage to find a solution to defeating a team, you can encounter a similar comp, use the same strategy, and still lose as opposed to Nihilum Guild leader Kungen's proclamation about the Eredar Twins where, if you use the right strategy, you can down them every time "guaranteed."

I don't agree with gear being the right barometer for PvP progression. That's simply not how I think. I look at how I learn from every game of PvP and compare myself to how I played before. That's the true barometer for me. Learning how to use racial skill reactively, such as Arcane Torrent or Berserking during critical times as opposed to simply being part of my spell cycle is something I value. It's true that you can play World of Warcraft entirely without participating in PvP, but I enjoy PvP because it completes my game. I learn skills I otherwise would never have used in PvE. I learn to think outside of a spell cycle. I learn to play reactively and instinctively, adapting to a situation that promises to keep changing as opposed to a script I need to master. So while PvE might be what some call the "real game", complementing my PvE with PvP allows me to experience a complete game. And I'm quite happy with that.