It depends what you're doing.
If you're grouping then a pure melee is simple. The only trying aspect is that you have to click a button over and over again. That requires a certain amount of tolerance for repetitive actions and twitch skill (response time). Rogues, for example, have to click Backstab over and over. I'm not sure if they can kick. They may have a hotkey for pickpocket too. They have to make sure they're behind the mob. Other than that, not much. Even a ranger, a class with many tools, is usually only doing melee in a group. They have to click kick and sometimes taunt. They may sometimes cast a dot, but dots aren't very effective in a group because the mob dies before they wear off. Even though it's relatively simple, it does require you to be at your keyboard.
I think most of the classes in a group situation will routinely do similar things but when things get hard some of them have an array of tools that keep things interesting and less simplistic. Other classes can only really run or die. Druids, for example, might be casting direct damage spells in-between medding. But if things get hard, they may need to be a secondary healer or do some crowd control activities. A warrior, on the other hand, may sacrifice himself to help a caster, but other than that, he only really can run for safety.
I think for hte most part that's how it's in groups. But I suppose it depends what you're doing. A chanter, for example, has to worry about keeping people buffed, slowing mobs, mezzing when necessary, watching where their pet goes, debuffing, and so on. On live, when I was doing the OMMs, I think the chanter probably had the broadest list of things to do. I found myself casting damage spells, mezzing and memblur, casting invis, slowing, buffing, and so on. The complexity is what really made it so entertaining but also the most challenging. But that was because we were constantly moving and never camped anything like we do on this server. I think the reason we end up doing similar things over and over is because we camp a lot - it's predictable.
Solooing, on the other hand, can force people to use every possible tool or trick available. I think this is where things get interesting. Even a warrior will start using their bow and paying more attention to aggro ranges and so on. They'll use bind wound and use the potions if htey have the moeny. But I think necromancers and druids and rangers and other soloers probably have the most complex roles in a solo setting. It's mainly simply a factor of having more tools available than more group-dependent classes. More tools means you need to know when to use them and where. All sorts of situations can confront you. More tools make it interesting.
I've always felt that a class isn't a class unless it has lots of tools. I don't think that specializing in one area and making a class dominate it will be interesting because when you do that you cut out a lot of the tools that're needed to make things interesting. In a skill-based game, how this works is a lot easier to understand. Essentiallly, if you have 10 skills and you have 300 skill points to distribute, then you can have 30 in each skill or you can max 3 of them, but not all of them. If you you limit yourself to just a few very good skills then you won't have as many things to do. That might make the game-play boring. That's how I look at it. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. But it depends on how complicated each skill is. Usually skills in games are fairly simple. You have to have a lot of them before things even get remotely interesting.
But I guess that depends on the game content. If content is balanced and thorough, then most any combination of skills will do the job. For example, if you put your skill points into rogue skills AND traditional combat skills then maybe you could assassinate the bodyguard outside and sneak inside the compound and steal the boss's loot without having to kill him (avoiding the requirement of needing high defense/offense). Or maybe you put your skills into charm and personality and you talk your way passed the bodyguard or show him a fabricated writ. Then slip a toxin into the boss's drink while the advisor is outside speaking with the counselor. Then when you're on your way out the guards are alerted and start arresting everyone. While entering an alleyway a guard stops you and says you must come in for questioning. You kill him with your meager combat skills then hide the body and hastily go to the sewers to get out of the city before they can catch you. There should be lots of ways to do a task, not just one based on tank + healer + dps. I'd prefer using 10 different skills with 30 in each and having to form complex answers over using only 3 over and over.
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