Pve is hard because there is always one or more players that won’t stop casting when they have to move.
PvP is 50% broken class/spec 40% gear and 10% skill. That’s why EA sports events are all about that 10% people or less who play at max lvl. with skill. Everything else boils down to broken class/spec and gear.
I was alright at pvp when I was in highschool. Wow pvp is kind of just whoever mashes their keyboard first to win. So I would say pve is harder
PvP can potentially have a bit more randomness with it but even then considering winning strats are what win the match/bg and so teams will stick with that if they wanna win just how raid groups stick with boss strats, they’re equally demanding in skill.
Good thing most others on this forum post agree that PvP is harder.
Not a bad take at all- in fact, I’d say most people agree that PvP is, in fact, harder.
PvE scales to where you are comfortable, and you can control it.
You can’t control who you face off against in PvP. You could be a first-timer against glads.
And that’s a large reason why people left. The gaps in skill are huge, and it arguably takes months/years to play on the top level.
Class balance has always been an issue, even for PvE. It’s not a new problem.
It’s just that it’s probably the worst now it’s ever been- reworks happening mid-season is terrible, for both pillars of content.
Not to mention, the elephant in the room that there isn’t anywhere to learn PvP but normal bgs, which are inherently where people like me play for fun, so folks get stomped.
In PvE, you are always learning. Once you nail the song and dance, it does not change.
PvP players might anticipate you using your abilities, so mindgames are at play.
PvE? Lol, the boss ain’t gonna trick you if you already know it.
For organized groups, PVP is harder. When it comes to pugging high level PVE content…pugs are the most difficult affix ever.
PVP, your target isn’t preprogrammed. It’s about knowing how to counter your targets, how many class and specs are there again?
For me, it would be PvP. Dungeons can become predictable after X number of runs, but on the field with crazy humans controlling the characters, anything can happen.
Oh I like this breakdown a bunch.
Like sight reading music for an orchestra and sticking to the classics (and having the knowledge to understand why the original composer used what they did when you recreate it) , versus ability to mesh with your band mates and improvise during music theory- heavy jazz sessions.
Pve, you can master by easily predict an NPC’s patterns, those never change.
PvP, unless you can read you opponents mind, or if they are just plain bad, there isn’t a pattern you can predict.
In my opinion, PvP is a bit more difficult then PvE
whichever one has pvp players in it, obviously 
I’d say PvP since you need to memorize all the different comps as well as how they would interact with each other etc more so than knowing the basics of what a class brings to M+.
Then again I primarily do PvE, so I might be skewed towards thinking PvP is harder. Every time I try PvP I get DESTROYED.
lol utterly meaningless. You can walk into a McDs and ask people if they make good burgers, the majority is going to tell you “yes.” That’s doesn’t make it so.
There’s not much, if any, constructive reasoning as to why one is “harder” than the other, and in fact the BEST responses in this thread lean on the fact that it’s mostly just a stupid exercise to compare the two in the first place, since they’re apples to oranges.
But if you want to lean on the people with no objective reasoning that simply support your point of view… I can’t stop you.
I guess this is why so many people clear Mythic. It’s all scripted, it’s so easy, right? lol
Here you go… you go enjoy your PvP now. Have fun!
It is definitely PVP. It has the higher skill-ceiling. I’m not saying PVE is easy, trivial, or doesn’t require skill and concentration. It is just that, especially at the higher levels, the amount of knowledge you need (other classes and what they do, recognizing telegraphs, weighing cooldowns, etc.) combined with needing to react quickly to unexpected things makes it more difficult than scripted content. Often by a large margin.
PVE is like classical music, while PVP is more like Jazz. One requires serious improvisation skills beyond just understanding music theory and memorization to perform well.
This.
You basically need complete knowledge of every single class and their abilities.
Even down to the sound effect of those abilities.
There are add ons to help, no different than PvE, but I know I just juked this rogues kick because I heard it go off.
I know this warrior just popped spell reflect because I recognize the icon that appears above his head.
…and none of this is scripted.
So are your posts, and WoW account.
It’s not like people care about Mythic, lol.
I’m just glad I can demolish any PvE hero that would come at me, because PvP is all I do.
Winning a fight against another player is more important to me than killing any PvE boss on any difficultly.
And that doesn’t matter to PvE players.
They’d better not turn on Warmode, lol.
PvE because it scales forever and you need a good team. PvP you’re only dealing with other players and most of them are worse if you’re in the top percentile.
Which makes PvE harder imo. With PvP it’s only hard if you’re also against an even opponent which is rare it’s usually lopsided in one way or another
Sore subject for this guy, butthurt it seems.
Take out the variables.
I mean…who cares? Why does it matter?
PvP requires more addons and more keybinds becase you need focus target macros to succeed in arena.
Having said that, I think it’s time to ditch arena as the “main” form of content pvp is balanced around and create a solo shuffle battleground with varied objectives that go beyond trading your swifty macros for a kill.