I've only been playing since March. That said, I'm bad at the game. Pretty bad. However, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this statement is false. I only do Flashpoints with maybe one or two operations every now and again. Because VM is role-agnostic, I get into those faster, and therefore, more often. I would argue that the role-agnostic nature of the encounters teaches you more about boss mechanics. The debuff on Athiss's last boss -will- kill you if not removed; and has an iffy survival rate depending on how long between getting the debuff and hitting a kolto station. For the sake of argument, let's not get into Umbara/Traitor/Nathema; as those are arguably outliers (despite how much I would -love- to talk about them). What I noticed is that, as I'm lower level and geared, I don't draw a lot of threat. But, once capped, and my understanding of my rotation and stuff grows, I pull more and more threat (as is a natural curve). Because I'm pulling more threat, and there's no tank, I'm getting hit. Without a healer, I'm not being topped off. As such, if I don't learn how to use my defensives and properly mitigate (or even properly CC), I am -going- to die.
My success rate in Master Mode Flashpoints is a lot higher. Why, I cannot say. But, I would argue it doesn't have much to do with mechanics. Master Mode is mechanically harder, yet I have an easier time in them than I do in Veteran Mode instances. I would argue Veteran Mode also teaches people how to function in a group....to a selfish extent. Not in the sense of communication/coordination/composition. Rather, they know someone with stealth can CC mobs so they can skip trash and make things go faster. They know who has combat resurrections so they shouldn't be dead for longer than a minute in the event they do die. The list goes on and on. But, yeah. On mass, I don't agree that role-agnostic = less emphasis on what is going on.
I've only been playing since March. That said, I'm bad at the game. Pretty bad. However, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this statement is false. I only do Flashpoints with maybe one or two operations every now and again. Because VM is role-agnostic, I get into those faster, and therefore, more often. I would argue that the role-agnostic nature of the encounters teaches you more about boss mechanics. The debuff on Athiss's last boss -will- kill you if not removed; and has an iffy survival rate depending on how long between getting the debuff and hitting a kolto station. For the sake of argument, let's not get into Umbara/Traitor/Nathema; as those are arguably outliers (despite how much I would -love- to talk about them). What I noticed is that, as I'm lower level and geared, I don't draw a lot of threat. But, once capped, and my understanding of my rotation and stuff grows, I pull more and more threat (as is a natural curve). Because I'm pulling more threat, and there's no tank, I'm getting hit. Without a healer, I'm not being topped off. As such, if I don't learn how to use my defensives and properly mitigate (or even properly CC), I am -going- to die. My success rate in Master Mode Flashpoints is a lot higher. Why, I cannot say. But, I would argue it doesn't have much to do with mechanics. Master Mode is mechanically harder, yet I have an easier time in them than I do in Veteran Mode instances. I would argue Veteran Mode also teaches people how to function in a group....to a selfish extent. Not in the sense of communication/coordination/composition. Rather, they know someone with stealth can CC mobs so they can skip trash and make things go faster. They know who has combat resurrections so they shouldn't be dead for longer than a minute in the event they do die. The list goes on and on. But, yeah. On mass, I don't agree that role-agnostic = less emphasis on what is going on.