Guild Wars 2

There’s a huge flaw with the current gameplay mechanic in this game. The lack of the “trinity” system ruins the group mechanic for things like dungeons.

This will seriously hamper the long term success of Guild Wars 2.

Every instance/dungeon in this game turns into a chaotic mess with no aggro system and everyone spamming dps. Full party wipes are frequent because there is no aggro system or roles such as healer, tank etc.

This is also why dragons are so boring. The dragon essentially just stands there for 10 minutes while every wails dps on him then he dies and a chest is dropped.

The only way I see of fixing this is by actually making each class capable of being. heals tank or dps by buffing certain weapon choices to suit those roles for each class.

This needs to be changed if this game is ever going to have any longevity.

While i wont argue that the open world dragon fights lack a bit of depth, at the same time i dont really expect them to BECAUSE of their status as an open world boss. Maybe make them a bit more interesting, but im not expecting dungeon-like craziness.

Theyre a spectacle fight more than anything.

Concerning lack of a holy trinity, i have to wonder if you knew what you were buying when you bought it.

Im guessing maybe not.

The longevity wont be hurt in the long run since in reality theres plenty to do and if by chance you get bored you can just put it down and come back later.

Complying with your request requires the creation of a brand new game that goes against everythin Anet has built and believes in and thats just dumb.

From the sound of it youre not taking the time to understsnd the combat and how complex it actually is.
Do that.

Or go play WoW.

Sounds harsh i know but read your post to yourself. You clearly want WoW.

I made a post in the suggestions forum regarding something similar to what your complaint is.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Make-class-abilities-more-unique-identifiable

Yeah, the issue is that there really aren’t any roles right now at all. All of the builds and weapons are too geared toward having no specific purpose or use.

The problem is this whole design mechanic of no trinity system. It simply just doesn’t make for a fun group mechanic in the long term.

While I’ll agree something does feel a little off about party composition (I can’t put my finger on what, and I think “no trinity” isn’t exactly it), I’d like to point out what I think their intention was.

Contrast GW2’s lax requirements in party make-up to other games where you need people in specific and dedicated roles: people end up competing for slots, and if you rolled a certain class for a flavor and aesthetic style you enjoy, you might have a hard time finding spots due to competition (i.e. the “DPS dime a dozen” problem). GW2, as far as I can tell, wants everyone to have a more equal shot – and as a result, at least parties/groups start up quicker and there’s no competition for specific roles. I think their words in their previews were “We want you spend time having fun, not preparing to have fun.”

Erm, no.

There’s still a trinity, you’re attacking a straw man. (Competent) Dungeon runners organize players into dps, control and support. Those categories are broken down into condition/flat dps, hard/soft ccs and boons/heal support in single and aoe variants. You can access a plethora of GW2Codex builds to help understand how these are organized and work in practice. Just because the ‘holy’ trinity is gone and the jack of all trades approach is viable does not mean a trinity is existent.

Zhaitan is indefensible but cherry picking isn’t making your argument valid.

Megido.5061:

Erm, no.

There’s still a trinity, you’re attacking a straw man. (Competent) Dungeon runners organize players into dps, control and support. Those categories are broken down into condition/flat dps, hard/soft ccs and boons/heal support in single and aoe variants. You can access a plethora of GW2Codex builds to help understand how these are organized and work in practice. Just because the ‘holy’ trinity is gone and the jack of all trades approach is viable does not mean a trinity is existent.

Zhaitan is indefensible but cherry picking isn’t making your argument valid.

So, what you are trying to say is that ArenaNet failed at getting rid of the trinity and it still exists in this game? I think not.

You’re saying there is no trinity or roles yet there is? I’ve been in many groups in instances as have my guildies and they all have the same thing to say. Instances in this game blow.. It’s just wipe after wipe after wipe, run back and try again.

It’s lame and just uncontrolled chaos with no strategy.

I agree and disagree. I agree that dragon fights lack interesting mechanics, I loved how epic they looked the first time but after doing them so much I am bored sick of them. Specially the claw of Jormag who seems to take forever to die. Then again this isn’t much different from games with a Holy trinity. I used to play a tank in every game i tried, from paid to play like WoW/Rift/Swtor to free to play like Grand fantasia and other probably unknown titles. The problem with the holy trinity is that most of the time if you are a healer everyone will want you, if you are a tank chances are for the same, DPS become the black sheep who can’t do anything unless you are a god at doing so or have a guild willing to take you, long range classes will always have a spot over melee so on it goes.

Personally I don’t like the way dungeons are as they are now. Not because of the lack of a trinity but because most of them feel like they lack mechanic designs. Some bosses are incredibly easy, while others are a torture. Classes can become very supportive and in most cases eliminate wipes, I run many dungeons with no wipes or only wiping in places you simply can’t go without dying. Such as CoF Explore.

Personally I would make the mechanics of each fight more dodge, CC and and hit on the run oriented, rather than here you go, this bunch of elites want to kill you, deal with em by dying and running back. Or hey is the final boss…how about you just press 1 on this cannon for 15 minutes until he dies?

The holy trinity doesn’t solve this, if anything it makes it worse, let’s take wow for example. Tank walks in, he uses some lame AoE some small cool down, stays there while healer spams him and dps targets whatever, he keeps spamming same AoE in a rotation and then repeats all over. The most deep mechanic you ever have is either taunting to take the boss off main tank or maybe turning the boss around. Over all is not challenging at all.

In reality the game only needs some extra working, for example, if Claw of Jormag is gonna breath, force people to GTFO or get frozen or killed from the breath, If he attacks with his claw, make people have to use a dodge in the right time to avoid it, make him swing his tail and make people have to jump to avoid it, you get what I mean. But a fight with hitting a wall of ice or protecting some sloooow moving incredibly lame golems isn’t fun as you are not the one fighting the fight most of the time, the npcs are.

As for dungeons, is true you can support each other but I say the combo system is what needs to be worked on. So far most combos are made with long range skills usually with the aid of an elementalist and the results are always a lame elemental projectile or an elemental shield. Sure you get the random condition remove or heal but those are also lame. What I purpose is to have more synergy between melee attacks and abilities, this would grant people the ability to support and deal greater damage while fighting rather placing aoes on the floor and hoping to trigger something.

If you’re wiping repeatedly while doing dungeons, you haven’t learned the game well enough to be saying that there is or isn’t any depth to party support mechanics.

There are a lot of ways to provide effective support and synergy to your party, with any class, and they strengthen your group to the point where wiping just doesn’t happen in the vast, vast majority of dungeon paths.
What party support doesn’t accomplish is doing all the work for you, the way that taunting and healing do in games with aggro systems.

Dragon fights are excruciatingly boring, but that’s got less to do with party mechanics and more to do with how many of them are based around mortars, bazookas, and other class-independent mechanics, how many of them have to be designed as Dynamic Events where there can be twenty players or there can be eighty, the fact that the sheer size of them makes letting them move around during combat somewhat problematic, etc etc. The dragons are neither the toughest nor the most interesting bosses in the game.

i think we can all agree that dragon fights are kinda lame, due almost to their very nature.

megido is right. the devs themselves have begrudgingly admitted that if forced to define “roles” it would split along DPS, suport, and control. the difference between GW and other MMO’s is that you are never minimizing your ability to perform any given “role.” Every single player can and should take reliable DPS, contribute general team support, and have some ability to maintain control (even if it’s just a stun break or a root). you’ve also got to be able to mitigate your own damage. what you’re changing is the degree to which you specialize in these.

i kind of think that this allows each player to be much more self reliant, and then for the team to become something a little greater than the sum of its parts. you never really have to worry about overall team composition by profession. just have a brief role discussion before going in to make sure everyone’s modified their horrible glass cannon leveling builds. i’ve run lots and lots of pugs as a level 35-45, and even more on my level 80. i’ve been with lots of different group compositions. and i will say you’re absolutely correct: if everyone goes in spamming DPS, things are going to be a chaotic mess where everyone dies violently (and expensively).

diabluz.2860:

There’s a huge flaw with the current gameplay mechanic in this game. The lack of the “trinity” system ruins the group mechanic for things like dungeons.

This will seriously hamper the long term success of Guild Wars 2.

Lets be honest here. Tossing the trinity in has nothing to do with long term success, you can even use SW:ToR as an example that Trinity + star Wars IP (which is huge) /=/ long term.

diabluz.2860:

Every instance/dungeon in this game turns into a chaotic mess with no aggro system and everyone spamming dps. Full party wipes are frequent because there is no aggro system or roles such as healer, tank etc.

All dungeons have been completed and specific ones that used to be stated as “worse dungeon experience ever” are now turned into speed clears. Some got nerfed (CoF path 1 for instance) and some still need to be revamped (HoTW all paths), but it is far from a utter failure as people run them every single day. Party wipes aren’t frequent anymore unless you run story mode which usually is a rougher ride than the EM counterpart (excluding Arah and maybe one or two others).

diabluz.2860:

This is also why dragons are so boring. The dragon essentially just stands there for 10 minutes while every wails dps on him then he dies and a chest is dropped.

Dragons are boring for the same reason Meta Events are boring, because the idea of Dynamic events doesn’t mesh with them.

DE’s do not have “spawn timers” that I can see. If something happens it might trigger off another, but it isn’t “clocked” like Jormag. Go to Frostgorge or even use an out of game App and you can quite literally TIME the dragon spawning. This isn’t what has touted. A few other notes:

The dragon ALWAYS attacks the same spot.
I have never seen the event fail so I can’t say for certain (I don’t even bother with him anymore as his loot vs time sucks), but if it is anything like other Meta Events (Shatterer/Swamp Dragon I forgot name of) it won’t change the zone in much major ways.

Thats why they are boring. Also a trinity system would be AWFUL in an open DE setting. You REALLY want 10 totally random tanks spamming agro abilities on a mob? It would be flip flopping like a fish on land. No healer would have any real target as people will random run up and change his target by hitting their agro button.

Edit: A better fix to these (and all) Meta events is to boost loot up to rare/exotic quality, but drastically increase the difficulty across ALL meta events (Even low level ones to increase players jumping to lower level zones). Reduce their timers so that they are far and few between and if you caught one up you actually go to LA and /map “Shadow Behemoth up need more players”. Right now aside from a couple Temples and Jormag’s there isn’t much you need to recruit for.

Another player posted a long time ago about an idea that Meta Events would get tough the more times he is killed: For example Jormag*** – Jormag difficulty 3 Stars. The event would get tougher and a leaderboard would be added to ALL servers to track who can kill the toughest Meta Event boss for example:
Borlis Pass – Jormag X4
Blackgate – Jormag X3

That would allow guilds and entire servers to compete.

diabluz.2860:

The only way I see of fixing this is by actually making each class capable of being. heals tank or dps by buffing certain weapon choices to suit those roles for each class.

This needs to be changed if this game is ever going to have any longevity.

That would kill any challenge this game has left. Which after you run dungeons in farm mode isn’t that much. For example go fight Kholer for the first time ever. I bet (Unless your good) that you will be pulled, sometime during the fight. Do that fight 5 more times and you will notice you never get pulled because you can see his insanely easy tell. I used to use range all the time in TA up path, now I barely equip a bow. Not even on the tree.

diabluz.2860:

Instances in this game blow.. It’s just wipe after wipe after wipe, run back and try again.

It’s lame and just uncontrolled chaos with no strategy.

It’s not the instances that blow. This game has more strategy involved in successful grouping than any MMO out there. The fact that you think it doesn’t exist simply means that you haven’t figured it out yet.

People constantly use the “GW2 has no Trinity” argument to justify their terrible glass cannon builds, with completely selfish utility slots and traits. Then 5 people specc’d and geared this way form a group in Map chat and expect to finish an Explorable Mode.

There are plenty of games with faceroll easy dungeons that 5 randoms with no strategy or communication can sleep through. This game is not one of them.

There have been a large number of threads on this very topic. I’m not suggesting that you dig them up and post in them instead. I am merely suggesting that you make use of the tools this game offers you to deal with the lack of professions that will heal you to full whenever you take damage or tank all the monsters so you don’t have to worry about them coming after you. Not to insult you or anything but there are groups that have successfully run all dungeons either without dying or dying very little. So the problem obviously isn’t with the dungeons.

There are just so many RPGs out there with co-op play that do not have the trinity and yet people don’t say that they are broken. Is Dark Souls a broken game? Is Fable broken? What about Diablo 3? Diablo 3 might not be the best example since for some reason there are a lot of people that hate that game. Now Diablo 2 is considered one of the best RPGs ever and guess what, it doesn’t have a trinity. That game must be broken. I mean, the monsters are running all over the place and it’s total chaos.

I think it would be easier for you to accept that Guild Wars 2 is a fundamentally different game with different mechanics than your standard MMORPG.

So what i get out of this and other threads on the same subject, in a nutshell, is SOME of you want your name up in lights.

To be honest, i doubt folks could handle the kind of hurt Anet could dish out with some of these events. With the amount of things i disagree mechanic wise with Anet, i fully believe Anet could make the events so random, so devastating that the challenge would be there…..and then the soapboxes would be placed on the ground after the devastation and pleas would be made for the bad things to go away. Dragons eating player characters, throwing them across the map, grabbing handfulls and flying up and dropping them…..etc, etc. No i dont think you want the full monty.

I like the chaos in dungeons, in DE’s, it makes them better than the standard rote action raid fare other mmo’s have. You want that, you want proper raiding or proper trinity, you know which games you can go back to.

Here’s how my group deals with dungeon mob groups:

1) Pull mob group together into one ball either by stacking (having a melee profession drag melee mobs onto caster/range), using an AoE pull, or using an AoE knockback to push the mobs against a wall. Repeat when you can if mobs start scattering again. (Control)

2) Snare/root (cripple, chill, immobilize, etc) the mobs in place, and apply damage boons or other conditions that help party DPS. Repeat as necessary. (Support)

3) Deal AoE damage as much as possible. You deal more DPS when you can hit multiple targets at once. Spike down key targets as necessary. (DPS)

^This is the new trinity that Anet was talking about. It’s not a chaotic mess if your team uses the proper skills to control, support, and DPS. Turn a scattered group into a single focal point for your damage.

If you do a dungeon long enough, you should know what each mob type is capable of. You should know which ones are melee, range, and casters. You should know which ones to prioritize.

Sometimes you have to stop using your favorite weapon or setup to adapt to the situation. As a guardian, I don’t really like using shield of the avenger, but when I know there will be plenty of projectiles, I will use it to negate 30 seconds of projectile damage to my team. This helps with the TA wurm fight, a lot of CM, against dredge in SE, negates knockback from AC rangers, etc. I don’t like using the staff either, but I can use that to clear TA blossoms, control mobs in detha’s trap room in AC, and trap enemies in small areas for quick kills.

There’s a lot of available options to make the dungeon experience easier, but it comes from a lot of trial and error. Sometimes you discover one of your less used skills become more useful in a given situation. Sometimes using one of your more frequently used skills in a different way will produce better results. It’s all there, so I don’t know what else to say to prove that the dungeon combat does not have to be chaotic as people claim it to be.

diabluz.2860:

There’s a huge flaw with the current gameplay mechanic in this game. The lack of the “trinity” system ruins the group mechanic for things like dungeons.

This will seriously hamper the long term success of Guild Wars 2.

Sure. What the world needs is another WoW-clone. As demonstrated by Rift, SW:TOR and countless others that are drawing in an audience of millions on a daily basis… that doesn’t work.

Also, if you care to think about it, what are the chances that ArenaNet will rework their entire game – all classes, all PvE content, all items, all abilities – to introduce a trinity? You’d have to toss out all except the artwork in order to do so. Think for yourself – how likely is that? So why call for it?

diabluz.2860:

Every instance/dungeon in this game turns into a chaotic mess with no aggro system and everyone spamming dps.

Is that so? As others have pointed out: if the dungeon run dissolves into chaos, it’s not the dungeon that’s to blame but the group that didn’t coordinate well. I run very well coordinated explorables with little problems and next to no “chaos” all the time with my guild. If you PUG, you need to invest that extra bit of communication so people coordinate well. Deal with it.

diabluz.2860:

Full party wipes are frequent because there is no aggro system or roles such as healer, tank etc.

There’s an aggro system. It’s just not your conventional aggro-table. There’s no “healer” role but there’s no need for such a role, either. unavoidable damage is tuned towards healerless groups. If you frequently die, you were probably hit with avoidable damage. Just don’t.

diabluz.2860:

This is also why dragons are so boring. The dragon essentially just stands there for 10 minutes while every wails dps on him then he dies and a chest is dropped.

Yes, dragons are underwhelming.

However, did you play Rift? Do you know the big bosses at the end of Rift-events? A dozend tanks chain-taunting the boss. Those who are grouped with healers surviving this. The other dozends of players standing at max range and hitting their DPS-rotation. Then the boss dies and a chest is dropped.

In which way exactly is this better due to the existance of a trinity?

diabluz.2860:

The only way I see of fixing this is by actually making each class capable of being. heals tank or dps by buffing certain weapon choices to suit those roles for each class.

This needs to be changed if this game is ever going to have any longevity.

See my first response. It would mean to toss out the entire game and write a new one. Fat chance.

Aside from this, we had this. Rift had the trinity, yet almost every class could fill almost every role. And you could switch between builds “in the field”. Look how well that went. Last I heared, it’s free to play because they couldn’t retain a large enough subscribed player base.
Anyway, of all the WoW-clones, I feel that Rift is still the best. Better than WoW, actually. Still, fewer players than GW2 by far.

Is it really that hard to let go of one boring old mechanic? Have you never played any other multiplayer video game in your life that had combat in it?!? Do these games have trinities? Can you imagine how ridiclous any great action game would be if you added a trinity to it? How would Dynasty warriors, Castle Crashers, Gauntlet, Baldurs Gate, and the hundreds of other aciton rpgs be with a trinty?

They would be crap. Guild wars 2 is trying to give us a fun, action packed MMO gamestyle, and you want to tear it down because it’s out of your comfort zone.

The reasons the party combat is a zerg fest is because of other reasons, not because of lack of trinity.

What is not good for the “longevity” of this game is close minded players that can’t let go of old mechanics in order to experience the new. Just because A-net did away with the traditional trinity, suddenly, everything is chaos. Do you have any idea what happens when everyone just stands and tries to all-out batter something in arah?

Most probably death.

Watch this:

Combo field setter – Sets the fields appropriate for the situation.
Mob Controllers. – Responsible for pulling mobs/separating from the heard, keeping melee mobs crippled, weakened and vulnerable.
Damage Dealer – Self Explanatory.
Add duty – At certain bosses, these are responsible for keeping adds down that would hinder self resurrection in the worst situations.
“Medic” – Yes, everyone can res, but certain players have the best setups to get in, heal up and get people out safely. (perfect example = Thief)
Projectile Defense – Guardians and their various bubbles and walls
Channel-Stopper – Example = Arah Risen Illusionists…Stoppers can focus on interrupting their beams in order to keep everyone alive and well.
Boon Support – Anyone Specced out to give useful boons when the team needs it.
Decoy/Dis-tractor – Takes aggro using various tricks and traps and summoned minions (Guild of thieves, fire elemental powder, ranger pets, stealth, cripple fields etc) so that that the rest of the team can safely escape or get to their destination.

See what i did there?

The list goes on…and on..and on..

Don’t you see what A-net has done? They have broken the walls down, and they are letting US decide the rules now. Its a much more active role assignment situation now. You can play without roles and have “chaos”, or you can create roles and win. You choose

Combo field + combo finisher.

Elementalist puts down a static field around a Ranger and Warrior instead on an enemy. Ranger shoots arrows and add vulnerability, Warrior jumps through the lightning field and does a dazing strike.

Ranger puts down a healing spring, party stacks around the warrior in the healing spring, Warrior uses whirling axe and heals every party member around him.

Great sword Guardian lays down a light field, Arcing Arrow gives everyone near the guardian retaliation.

Thief lays down a poison field, warrior leaps through it to give an aura of weakness. This will protect him more from enemies around him.

It is not there is no depth, it is because you need to learn2play.

Oreoz.2573:

Or go play WoW.

Sounds harsh i know but read your post to yourself. You clearly want WoW.

Let’s not go to that argument again. WoW is not the only MMO that has holy trinity, it’s not first and last MMO, and is surely not the best MMO atm.

At the same time I do agree with OP to some degree. Fights are too chaotic and PuGs are having hard time without voice coordination. While I welcome such challenge, I also recognize potential drop in PvE interest due to being unable successfully find group outside guild with TS (or anything similar).

lol typical response “go play WoW” I agree completely with the OP. “the reason a lot of people keep dying in dungeons is because they have a solo build on their toon” REALLY!? what other build is there to have lol. YOU avoid the pathetic red circles, YOU heal yourself, YOU know when to evade, the list goes on and on. and Runeblade…lol…just stop. yeah let’s do ALL of that while there’s mass chaos going on give me a break.

In this interview, Jon Peters states quite clearly,
“instead of DPS/heal/tank, we have our own trinity of damage, support, and control,”

For me, there is no way to control the encounters in dungeons. That pillar is barely there – we don’t have control tools. This problem is exacerbated when you consider that bosses remain immune or able to mitigate much of the little control you have over them.

Now, I have watched Jon Peters in videos of conventions and he comes across as an exceptionally bright fellow. I just feel that maybe he’s not got the balance of dps/support/control correct in most instances. I can understand why they are tweaked to be slightly (sometimes more than slightly) erring on the side of making encounters tougher – because to go the other way would get people with zillions of tokens and claiming to be bored of easy dungeons. I am hoping that by Robert’s comment about system failures (below), they are working on improving these aspects of the dungeons.

Robert Hrouda.1327 said:
we recognize failures not just in random occasions, but in total systems and dungeons in general. The great thing about an MMO/Live game, is that we can change it for the better. We have plans to change things based on feedback

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Be-careful-who-you-listen-to-regarding-difficulty/first#post290295

I don’t really understand why people claim that forcing one player to play a wack a mole mini game, while everyone else runs around dpsing “adds depth” to mmo combat.

I agree that no profession should be pigeonholed into 1 specific thing.. like a healer, a tank or dps for that matter. However the trinity is not gone. ArenaNet never claimed that. Instead, there is a new trinity put in place, Control-Support-Damage.. the big difference is, every profession can fill these roles. Granted, some are better at one role than others, but the point is that you can do all three.

At it’s current state however, there are a few issues:
- Some classes do seem to be quite pigeonholed → Guardian = support, etc.. (this might not be ArenaNet’s fault.. but annoying nonetheless)
- Control gets largely ignored in many boss situations.
- Switching roles is not flexible enough, traits should be easier to change out → going to town and back is stupid enough, the cost to reset traits just adds insult to injury.

I’m not asking for a tank or a healer in the party, but it would be nice to be able to get a monster off of my teammate when he’s downed. → this only works with trash, bosses largely ignore cc.

And also, the aggro system seems off. A bit too random, unless they sorted that out? Last time I tested it, my friend did no damage, stood back, while I tried to solo a monster. Yet, it kept chasing my friend who did no harm…. completely ignoring me, while I was doing all the damage from up close :S

diabluz.2860:

There’s a huge flaw with the current gameplay mechanic in this game. The lack of the “trinity” system ruins the group mechanic for things like dungeons.

This will seriously hamper the long term success of Guild Wars 2.

Every instance/dungeon in this game turns into a chaotic mess with no aggro system and everyone spamming dps. Full party wipes are frequent because there is no aggro system or roles such as healer, tank etc.

This is also why dragons are so boring. The dragon essentially just stands there for 10 minutes while every wails dps on him then he dies and a chest is dropped.

The only way I see of fixing this is by actually making each class capable of being. heals tank or dps by buffing certain weapon choices to suit those roles for each class.

This needs to be changed if this game is ever going to have any longevity.

first of all, how often you die has a lot to do with the skill of the players and the knowledge they have.
Second of all, if you want to play in a trinity style, you actually can, its just that its not particularly better than skilled play from other builds.

The amount of damage reduction from full on tank stats is noticeable, as is healing skills/traits/damage mitigation. Also classes can get a generous amount of healing if they want to. Your main issue will be holding agro, but playing well can mitigate their ability to damage other players.

you will still have to avoid some attacks, you will still have to adapt on the fly. You may have to use multiple control effects to get rid of stacks of indignant so that you can use control.

Its chaotic because you dont have the knowledge to deal with things

I think the issue is that the trinity sort of still exists because they really only took a hammer to the kneecaps of the legs of the triangle that are healing and tanking… Yes the stats invested in toughness and +healing are noticeable, but not quite the same as if those stats had been invested in power and precision (condition dmg kinda gets kittened a bit too). The mechanics of many fights as well don’t necessarily promote the need for a legit cooperation but rather just adding everyone’s dps together. Sure, cooperation can probably get you further than just winging it, but few challenges really require good execution on a real cooperative level. Subject Alpha and Giganticus require good execution on part of the individual players doing their job to save themselves, not necessarily doing their job to help others.

GW2 does have a fairly standard holy trinity-ish aggro system just with toughness and shields weighed in instead of explicit inflated threat for tanks, though some mobs deviate from it. Speaking of which, the holy trinity technically still exists if you want it to – I.E. Guardian for tanking, Elementalist (1 or 2) healing, rest DPS/Support. Only real difference is tank has to dodge roll every now and then.