StumpyWSF wrote:
If you ever want to evaluate your ability to play your class well, pvp is the only way.
uhm.. no.. PvP isn't the only way to evaluate your ability to play your class.
Both PvP and PvE are the only ways. You could be the best PvPer but suck at killing monsters. You could be the best at killing monsters but suck at PvP. Or you could fall somewhere in between.
To be the best at playing that class, you have to be able to
1) defeat the toughest monsters (especially those that your class is "weakest" against)
2) defeat the classes that your chosen class doesn't measure up as well against.
This actually reminds me of something that happend on UO. My guild and I were doing a Champ spawn (for those that don't know: you kill lots of monsters, that progressively get harder and harder until you spawn the champion monster, great fun until the PKers show up). We were doing great against the monsters. Then the PKers showed up. They attacked us well we were at our weakest. Needless to say, we died. There were 20+ of them and only about a dozen of us. Anyways, I stayed behind as a ghost to watch. They finally were able to spawn the Champ (because we had gotten the spawn timer halfway thru the hardest level of monsters before the champ, they didn't have that many to kill). They BARELY were able to kill the Champ, and they had a much much harder time at it then we would have (I know this because the guild had beaten that particular Champ before so I knew how tough it was).
See, they were geared towards PvP and not PvM.