So an inherent part of most MMORPGs is the rotation - the order you're meant to use your skills in to achieve the best DPS/tanking etc. Being someone who's played a good chunk of MMOs, one of the most interesting differences I noticed when I picked up Guild Wars 2 was the skill system they use. Most games give you a rather large set of skills according to your class, spanning a good chunk of your bottom screen (or another part if you're not into that). I would estimate it's usually at least 12 skills you'll have in an MMORPG, give or take.

In GW2, all professions (classes) have a set of 5 skills that are determined by their weapons: two-handed weapons give you all 5 at once, while one-handed weapons give you 3 skills when wielded in the mainhand, and 2 skills when wielded in the offhand (allowing you to mix and match). For some weapons, the skill in the first slot is a "chain" skill - if you successfully land the skill, it'll auto-cast another skill and then another after that, both of these "chain" skills usually being stronger than the original skill you have to use to execute the chain.

Then you have a heal skill, three "utility" skills which are things like passive buffs, party buffs, damage skills similar to weapon skills, etc. Finally, there's an "elite skill" that has a long CD and is usually very significant, like summoning a large minion, doing a lot of damage, a temporary transform, or mass buffs/enemy debuffs. And this is how ALL classes work from level 1 to the cap (80) - although all of them do have specific class mechanics that add different skills themselves.

You're probably thinking, "that sounds like a very small rotation", and it is. There is weapon swapping in combat, so assuming you're doing that that's 15 skills to work with plus the mechanics of whatever class you're playing. The main thing I noticed when learning some rotations is that the smaller number of skills leads to more manageable rotations. In more traditional MMOs like WoW and FFXIV it's not impossible to memorize/muscle memory your rotation, but the raw number of different skills you have can be daunting for players to figure out how to set/bind. In Guild Wars 2, the controlled/set nature of skills makes it very approachable - you don't have a lot of clutter with tons of skills and it's easy to quickly read what your skills do.

The meta builds do revolve around swapping weapons frequently as well as fully utilizing "Elite Specialization" mechanics that are often fairly complex, and I'm not going to act like a new player could hop in and instantly learn that. But I have found that a big thing new players comment on is how much simpler skill usage feels to them and how it's more satisfying to be able to try and utilize everything to the best extent rather than faceroll skills and hope for the best. More often than not, this means it's easier/faster for them to pick up these meta rotations in the endgame and play proficiently with less training/help needed for the most part. Again, I'm not trying to claim Guild Wars 2 has inherently better design, this is just what I've seen in general.

So what do you guys think? How do you feel about rotation complexity as a factor in bringing players to endgame content, how do you feel about the way Guild Wars 2 does it, etc. Interested to hear your thoughts whether you've played Gw2, or your thoughts on how it compares to rotations in the MMORPG(s) you do play. Thanks for reading, cheers.