I'm aware of PvP in WoW, if that's the competition you're referring to. I'm curious to know what it takes to win in WoW PvP though since most MMO's are gear(grind)fests.
Totally depends on what level you are and where you want to compete and how you want to compete. Arena PvP is somewhat gear dependent but there's a lot fo skill that goes into it and the gear comes easily enough if you have the skill and keep progressing. There's competition in PvE, too. Everyone knows the guilds that are at the top and achieve server firsts in terms of downing bosses, etc. The gear is your reward.
ive noticed that the people who play the most and grind the most have the best gear, and in general win alot more in PvP. Ive seen my friends who i know kick ass in PvP but lost because the other person/team has better gear...wtf is with that? pvp? more like GvG (gear vs gear). weaksauce
When I played WoW (pre-BC/after Naxx) I enjoyed PvP, but more in the duel sense than the battleground/world PvP. Duels were interesting with my rogue/warlock(they were hard to PvP with after fear nerf/before they made deathcoil into imbacoil)/hunter. I would say it took skill. Obviously, it was a different skill than what is seen in FPS's, but more a skill of knowing what to do, when to do it, what the other class will do, and how to best avoid it. My hunter was filled with engineering gadgets which made it even more interesting. I dominated much better geared players in duels with my hunter simply because I could out-play them. The one thing about WoW, though, was gear did make a tremendous difference. I could kill better geared MS warriors with my hunter, but it took precision because if they charged/intercepted and got a hit or two off I was simply dead, where as, an equally geared warrior would take many, many more hits to kill me. It was also excessively easy to kill with my warlock because he was in raid gear up to Naxx with some AQ 40/BWL stuff. It was too easy because I could just two shot people and it made it no fun. Well, to get to a point: I think WoW had too much of a gear based system, but even so, skill still played a part. I am not sure how the arenas are, as I never played in them, but maybe they made things different (I can't see how though). And that is my wall of text. Thanks for skimming through it and only catching this last line! : P
NP bud =) On a side note, hunters were/are ridiculously powerful, strong attacks/armor/a pet.... i mean dam, what else do u need =)
In Arena you rely on a lot of the same skills as dueling. Yes, you can get gear that makes you more difficult to kill, but it won't help you kill the other guys (who have access to the same ridiculous gear) without knowing how to play. The PvP gear is more about defense and less about damage, so worst case it takes you a long time to kill a bad player with good gear. He's not going to kick your ass unless you haven't bothered to pick up some decent defensive gear as well (all relatively easy to obtain). It's not like the PvE gear where a bad player with good gear does a ton of damage by default, just because of the gear.