All valid statements xD Especially true for both supporting a guild and engaging in open PvP. There are advantages to hitting cap sooner, but, eventually everyone will be at cap.
If you look though at the specialized role some paths will take we’ll see “waves” of characters hitting cap around the same time, for that respective roll. i.e. in general, and assuming equal play-time and effectiveness of time spent, the primary grinding paths will likely hit cap first. Then later, possibly much later, we’ll see the paths hitting cap that aren’t effective at grinding, which will likely be our one-hit-wonders and supports etc.
I guess what I mean is… as a whole, the ones that hit cap the soonest will be the effective grinders. Yet if you did not select a path that is effective at grinding (let’s say you’re going the “melt the boss asap” route) then you’ll likely be hitting cap around the same time that other “melt the boss asap” builds will be hitting cap. So as a collective group the caps will likely be hit in waves. So long as you’re effective with your time you may not hit cap with the earliest players but you will still hit cap with the group that shares the same role as yourself. If end-game content requires killing X boss in under 30 seconds or the party wipes because the boss hits stage 2 then, well, the grinders will have a hard time until the boss nukers can reach cap. And so on. Another example is that C3 Thaums will likely hit cap around the same time as other C3 Thaums will- other job elections may influence the climb to cap but as a group we’ll likely see most of the C3 Thaums hitting cap loosely as a group.
That doesn’t mean that the election is poor but that it will take longer to hit cap and fulfill its role. But when those roles hit cap they will likely be more viable in specific places than a grinder would.
Just as a closing example because I feel it hits the point- imagine back to the days of vanilla WoW or your other favorite trinity based mmorpg. Imagine if solo or small party grinding were the way to go in that. You’d have your dps hitting cap first, your tanks hitting cap sometime later, and your healers hitting cap last. But at end-game content it won’t matter if your party is all dps because you won’t have agro management, so to get the most out of the content you’ll have to wait for your tanks to cap as a group. Sure enough the tanks hit cap but you can’t sustain so you have to wait on those healers. Now that everyone is cap you can really plow through the end-game.
Grinding in ToS is almost a requirement but that doesn’t mean that paths that can’t grind won’t have a valuable spot saved for them come end-game when everyone is capped =P
