Your Opinion on the Current State of Job Identity/Balance in 6.4?

[Shurrikhan]

Old SCH was not NEARLY that dynamic. You used your DoTs on duration for refreshes, and Quickened Aetherflow was unreliable and often janky.

So you're again going to leave out Bane, the low duration requirements for instant-cast DoTs to overtake Broil, that its AoE spell was a (6s, in Stormblood) DoT, giving SCH higher simultaneous healing and damage in AoE situations... all to mention Quickened Aetherflow... which had nothing to do with DoTs outside of spending AF stacks on Bane?

"Moreover," - No, we haven't. Which MMO is that?

The majority of actions MMO with both melee and ranged classes, for starters. Sword and magic right alongside TPS/FPS elements.

I played up to the mid-20s

So the basis for your deduction that GW2 had no role specialization or 'Trinity' elements, however fluid... was that you rarely if ever party up, and didn't even make it to level 30, in a game that went to level 80 before its first expansion (though using alternate means of progression, a la Merit systems, thereafter)?

People largely just...didn't group at all, or only did so for the big FATE Boss things.

Because we do oh so much grouping up in XIV... and have such elaborate role interactions... pre-30? The... occasional Cure or... turning on tank stance and then using our 1-2-3 combo like a simplified dps?

Even at that level, though, if you actually went and grouped up with people in GW2 and started learning about their kits and yours, you'd find that skills have synergies that make for a far more than linear increase in efficiency when playing together well. A larger difference, even, than in XIV, short of being able to sustain truly massive pulls for your AoE spam (before tanks become self-sustaining anyways).