Every now and then I see the usual thread/post/comment about "Skill > GS".
I think this isn't true. Don't get me wrong, I'm against "if GS not 5.5k gtfo" and in favor of letting everyone raid and have fun, but I think what a lot of people say isn't true.
Let's examine the role of DPS in a raid.
There are three factors which affects the contribution of a DPS role:
1. Gear.
2. Rotation. (the spells he uses and when)
3. Knowledge. (tactics and whatnot)
Let's start with the least controversial:
1. Knowledge. It's not difficult to find everything you need to know about a certian boss/raid in the internet. Every idiot can use Google, wowwiki, etc.
So far, everyone could do that. No skill so far.
2. Rotation. This could fall under knowledge, but whatever. Anyway, if you level your character all the way to 80, you figure out along the way what spells are good and bad, and when to do what. If you couldn't figure that out, (which isn't hard) you can always Google it up. Again, not hard.
So far, everyone could do that. No skill so far.
Both of the section above can be learnt by anyone, it's not hard at all! That leaves us only with gear as the factor that affects how will the player contribute.
3. Gear. In order to get a good gear you must do heroics and raids. If a player knows the two factors above, he can reach that without any problems. As we saw, it's not hard to master a good rotation and get some information, so that leaves us only with the gear!
In PvE everything is already known, you don't even need to think, just do what the tactic says. The players know how the boss would react.
In PvP though, one must have skill, how your opponent will react is unknown, Therfore, you have to react by thinking fast, and doing the right action. In every combat, you have hundreds of possibilities, everything you do will affect the combat.
So, after examining that, skill = your reaction, the better you react the more skillful you are. If skill is in fact, your reaction, then in PvE it has no significance at all! The part which is concidered as your reaction in PvE is knowledge and rotation, which could be found on the net. You know what your opponent will do next, hence you know what to do next without even having the need to think of doing that.
In PvP, you can't know what your opponent will do next. You can try and predict it but you won't know it for sure. You will act according to the opponents actions, which aren't known to you!
Most of you will say "You have to know your class"... Comon... Read a bit, play a bit and your good to go.
Tanking is harder I must admit. Tank must have some skill because there will always be some unpredictable stuff: losing aggro. This would probably happen if the DPS didn't follow the tactic, which brings us to just reading... again.
Healing is also a bit harder than DPS, although all you do is throw some heals, throw a shield once in a while, and that does it.
You can flame me all you want, but you know it's true.