I know this is late but still. I'd rather MCMMO was removed than potions were nerfed, it added variety before, there wasn't much to combat. We now have plenty of stuff in vanilla for combat and things like the sword skill only promote grinding mobs, thing's would be different if you could only skill up combat skills on players, but still having the sword skill as a deciding factor in battle sucks, it always did (Even though I whored it, wat, easy kills).
Like, someone could join the server, gear up with everything needed to PvP, pots, enchantment, fud, armour, bow and completely outplay someone just to die because the person he's fighting against has a 400 sword skill. So really, the only thing this new guy can do is either suck it up and die often or go grind swords to be competitive.
Address MCMMO before addressing pots mang