Originally Posted by ChaoticCoyote

Whenever ANet makes changes that negatively affect PvE, the PvP crowd snidely says "Learn to adapt. PvE is already easy. The skills you use in PvE don't matter."

Of course, the PvP people look at PvE through the eyes of human-on-human competition. In PvP, the game is about mini-maxing skills, about fine-tuning to achieve a specific *game* goal.

You can't validly apply that philosophy to PvE.

In PvE, the experience is the goal. With the exception of farming, PvE is not about mini-maxing, it's about playing a character and experiencing a universe.

So why are skill changes a problem in PvE? Because it can ruin a character in terms of role-playing.

An example of this is Beast Mastery. My ranger does not take a pet for the tactical advantage -- she has played her 1200 hours with a pet because doing so is part of her character. A nerf that makes a pet unviable in PvE would ruin the fun I have playing my character.

Don't get the idea that my characters are one-trick ponies who rely on one skill bar. For example, my ranger runs more than two dozen very different builds, depending on the environment.

For me, defining a character isn't about picking eight skills and never changing them -- when I create a character, it is with a specific philosophy and personality.

My necromancer never runs minions. She is a witch, a spellcaster with a focus on the Curses line. She may have a dozen different builds, but they are all coherent within the concept of "witch-mage". Any change to the game that would prevent me from using curses effectively would wreck the character -- not because I don't have "options" in changing to another skill line, but because another skill line doesn't fit the character.

Fortunately, ANet has yet to make pets or curses unusable; but for other classes...

I stopped playing my Ritualist a while back, after skill changes rendered my favorite builds unenjoyable in PvE. I had a specific mental image of who the character was and what her motivations were -- I can't play a PvE toon unless it has some sort of identity, and the skill changes destroyed the identity of my character. Yes, I could use another skill line, but that would be an entirely different character.

If role-playing is unimportant to GW, then why have PvE at all?