Everybody has their opinion on combat. And it's mostly because of the fact it's a splicing of traditional MMORPG combat with recent online action RPGs like Vindictus.
It's a system that's bound to be mixed on reviews. However, it achieves one thing:
making the combat accessible to players on both sides of this spectrum.
Consider this: Cucurbita is fond of combat like Vindictus or TERA. There is no way he'd ever play WoW on the sole fact of its combat system, even though he's knowledgeable of Blizzard's quality.
I have a few friends on the flip side. They think Everquest II, WoW, LotRO, Ultima Online, etc. combat to be more strategic and investment-based (i.e. long-term repercussions), with a higher focus on coordination and execution. They don't find that in any online action RPGs. One of my friends even sold his TERA account and went back to WoW because he said the action-based combat ruins teamwork and demotes the importance of preparation.
ArenaNet wanted to make the game accessible to everybody, on both sides of the combat spectrum. Meeting halfway was how to do it. Sometimes, it won't satisfy a player of either extreme of the spectrum, but at least it's more tolerable to them. In fact, some GW1 players who play GW2 prefer GW1's combat (which is closer to traditional combat).
My opinion, I feel the combat is very polished.
It's nothing new, but it's definitely interesting in how it mixes in the two styles of RPG combat. Perhaps it's because I've played a fair share of both western and eastern MMORPGs, but this really does feel like taking the best of both worlds and putting them together in harmony. The result is something I'm still not tired of, even though I've played beta and the stress tests. I actually go out of my way to a strong mob just spend more time in combat. It just feels that good, feels just
right to me. It mixes my love of reaction-based attention and pressuring (insta-kill) danger of action combat, with the tactical management of cool downs and appropriate utilization of skill complexities of traditional combat.
The only real complaint I have is that the #1 skill can't be bound to Mouse 1 button. That's the only reason why I have auto-attack on.
Quote from Hitaki;942937:
Note to self : Automatically quit World vs World when one of the worlds I'm up against has a famous streamer who is leading an army of adoring fans. I switch servers for one moment to see what's going on in their WvWvW, and I automatically see Northern Shiverpeaks beating the shit out of every other server by a massive margin.
Gate of Madness unfortunately had the opportunity to be Northern Shiverpeaks's first WvW opponent.
Speaking of WvW, if we have enough interest in WvW, I may just do WvW guild upgrades earlier, rather than placing that at the bottom of the priority list. If you haven't tried PvP, I recommend it. Sure, there's still the usual PvP frustration of loss and making other people pissed off, but it's much easier and approachable than other MMORPG PvP system.
Structured PvP (The 8v8 control point gamemode) is great for quick PvP and getting the knack of GW2 PvP in general. WvW is perfect for people who's more wary of getting into PvP, as enemy players won't have their player names over their heads (or talk to you for that matter) and it's huge groups vs. groups (so your performance doesn't have as much severity as it does in sPvP), so it's much less personal PvP. There are player commanders to help you so you'll have an easier time of knowing what to do. You can advance your PvE progress (EXP, loot/rewards, currency, gathering/crafting) in WvW too, making it not much of a waste of your time if PvE progression matters to you. There's even PvE in WvW, with PvE objectives and events that, when completed by your side, can help your server. Finally, WvW points earned by your server will grant bonuses to stats in the PvE side of your server, so your effort benefits everybody there, including yourself.
And if we do have interest in sPvP, we can always team up (like in LoL) and earn/farm Glory (sPvP currency to buy cosmetic sPvP-only equipment) together.