The combat in Guild Wars 2 is like a blend of traditional tab targeting elements and action game inspired elements. Tab targeting is a staple of MMORPGs and even Guild Wars 1 had it even though it’s not really an MMORPG. The action game elements might be similar to Devil May Cry, Dark Souls, or even Resident Evil 4 if you’re playing with ranged weapons. I say similar because Guild Wars 2 is still an RPG at heart so you don’t really get that twitchy gameplay or that over the top action. I included Dark Souls mainly because of GW2’s dodge mechanic being very similar in that how its use is limited by endurance. Making the game too action focused would alienate certain players and I think in GW2’s case take away from the synergy in group situations. I will get back to this later. My position is on GW2 actually having a lot of combat depth but it’s just not instantly recognizable.
First of all, people need to stop focusing on gear and builds and start thinking about combat in terms of the fights themselves. The stats are normalized so every profession will each benefit from certain stats like power, vitality, and toughness. They should still be important but shouldn’t be the deciding factor between victory and defeat in a fight. Traditionally, you would have stats that benefited certain classes/professions but not others. Such stats included intelligence, defense, and agility. Certain builds in this game would no doubt benefit more from specific stats. This was all done to take the focus away from builds/gear and move it towards player interaction.
What the game lacks in depth in stats it certainly makes up for by providing much more involved fights than what players are used to in traditional MMORPGs. You could argue that it’s really just about moving out of red circles and dodging telegraphed big attacks. However, not all red circles are made equal. For instance, you have the instant damage spikes by Subject Alpha versus the persistent AOE that the last boss of CM path 2 leaves on the ground. Of course, there’s Giganticus Lupicus who in addition to red circle AOEs does shadowstrikes and the occasional projectiles which are both dodgeable. That’s just the enemy side of things. You really have to react differently to different abilities. Sometimes you can simply walk out of a red circle while others if there are multiple red circles overlapping in a small area you have to dodge. Managing your endurance often becomes crucial in keeping yourself alive.
There’s also the skills available to your character. Sure, only a select few skills from your plethora of skills is available for active use but each of these skills has a real purpose. In the traditional MMORPG you had tons of skills and they were all active and maybe even necessary but they were all just variations of one another. Because you’re responsible for your own survival for the most part your utility skills have a much bigger impact. Still, cooperation plays a bigger key in survival and in the success of a group. With a thief’s smoke screen you can completely nullify projectile damage, a guardian’s sanctuary goes one step further by preventing enemies from physically getting to you and your party members, and an elementalist’s geyser (water field) lets other players heal themselves by using blast finishers in addition to its own healing effect. A traditional MMORPG can’t include skills like these because they would trivialize the role of the dedicated healer and even to a certain extent the dedicated tank.
I think people need to see past what they have been used to in the past. They claim that taking away the trinity actually takes away depth and places a limit on creating innovative fights. They could not be further from the truth. As mentioned above, utility skills that outright mitigate damage could not be included in a game with trinity and that limits what skills are available to choose from. The synergy between successful everyone in a group of dungeon runners would be limited to only the tank and healer. Bosses would also have to deploy completely unavoidable skills, which further limits the possibility of making something truly innovative. The frequent deployment of combo fields, the damage mitigation skills, the focus on everyone doing damage and staying alive, and most skills being able to be cast while in motion really add depth to the combat in the game.