Guild Wars 2

Sojou.2067:

Before launch, the whole talk about watching over yourself, dodging attacks, etc… It sounded amazing.

In practice though, it’s a miserable experience at times. Too many bosses/mobs get fixated on a single person for seemingly the ENTIRE encounter rendering them useless because all they can do is run away and try to live.

There’s nothing enjoyable about filling that role. Much like there’s a lack of enjoyment for basically EVERY melee character I’ve come across on this game because so few boss fights have mechanics that melee can deal with.

On top of that, you have no way of knowing if a ranged mob/boss is going to attack you because there is no “target of target” feature.

Maybe I’m burned out, maybe I’m just irritated after a 1 hour run of doing nothing but being the target dummy for every encounter in the place – but it’s just not fun anymore. On the rare occasions where mobs cycle targets, it’s fun, but more often than not you either run for your life the whole time, or sit there going through your rotation while someone else runs the entire fight.

Maybe you can help that friend running for his life by CCing the mob. You clearly are not ready for this game. Find a way to make it enjoyable.
Moreover, you wanna know what is mindless?
4 DPS cycling rotation mindlessly while the tank is working to keep agro and a haler is trying to keep everyone alive…here all have to be aware of what’s going on, you can use those utility slots to put on skills to help your group. Try to do something in the game then come to the forums. This is just one of those “I don’t want to try” threads… bye bye.

Let me give you one friendly advice OP. Just as i and many others did, quit and find the game u like.

GW2 won’t change no matter how many posts you or any one else make. There will always ppl that rly like the game as it is who will disagree and nothing will change.

GW2 is pvp based game with PVE content that sux for most of guys that likes traditionaly PVE in other MMOs.

Cheers o/

Infuser.9685:

Let me give you one friendly advice OP. Just as i and many others did, quit and find the game u like.

GW2 won’t change no matter how many posts you or any one else make. There will always ppl that rly like the game as it is who will disagree and nothing will change.

GW2 is pvp based game with PVE content that sux for most of guys that likes traditionaly PVE in other MMOs.

Cheers o/

Yup exactly, there are plenty of classic PVE games, why change guild wars into one of them?
Just find a game you guys like, stop posting this kind of messages please…

Yer so bad.

There’s nothing more mindless than the “holy trinity”. This is coming from someone who started MMOs as a healer and then switched to tank, mostly. However, I tanked and healed through WoW, Rift, Warhammer and SW:TOR at least.

So, some mobs that you got really kittened off by burning, hitting and stabbing them descided to rough you up and you’re afraid to get bruised, so you ran like a chicken? Tough luck. Enjoy the ride. Your group will be dealing damage and you will be enabling them to do so by using your survival skills.

You honestly say it’s more interesting to have the trinity? For whom? For the healer who’s only looking at health-bars playing whack-a-mole? For the tank who’s standing in place (most of the time) and hitting his max-threat rotation? Or for the DPS who are standing in place hitting their max-dps rotation while occasionally walking out of the fire?

In GW2, the mobs can descide to push you into any of those roles at any time. You may be forced to stay alife while having their attentio. In a sense, you’d be the “tank”. You may be forced to help other players by removing conditions or healing them (a bit). In a sense, you’d be the “healer”. You may have a moment to catch your breath because you don’t take damage and everyone’s fine. You’re always asked to do the things I mentioned while doing as much damage as possible.

And now you come and tell me that that’s less intersting than the trinity?

Thankfully, you also state that you have no clue about this game. Thanks for that. Melee is not viable in explorable mode dungeons? Well, too good that you told me and not my melee warrior about that. He might start to wonder what he’d been doing in the past. Which is doing melee damage in explorable mode dungeons. Granted, he’s not a glass-cannon. I may not have the most supportive build. I may not have a max-DPS build either. But I’m often the one who runs to the ranged DPS to res them. I stay in melee range as long as I can and when I lose too much life, I dodge to range and swap to my rifle for a while, until my health is up again. Then I jump in again. That makes fights interseting, too. There’s hardly a boss-fight where I’m not filling three roles at least: melee, ranged, tank and resser.

You obviously don’t know how to play your class or to spec your char. You think the fact that there’s no dedicated tank means that noone has to tank, ever. You think that there’s no dedicated healer means noone has to look out for others, ever. You’re wrong on both accounts.

Infuser.9685:

Let me give you one friendly advice OP. Just as i and many others did, quit and find the game u like.

GW2 won’t change no matter how many posts you or any one else make. There will always ppl that rly like the game as it is who will disagree and nothing will change.

GW2 is pvp based game with PVE content that sux for most of guys that likes traditionaly PVE in other MMOs.

Cheers o/

Learn to read. I didn’t say I hated the game, I even specifically said when the PvE section works as advertised it’s very fun. When I falls apart (the majority of the time) it’s a miserable experience.

I can’t of course discredit OP’s experiences, but mine have been enjoyable without the trinity. No worries about not getting taken to dungeons because I may have picked the wrong class and if you have a group who knows their skills, a dungeon is fun to tackle. You don’t need a trinity if people know that certains mobs need constant CC or kiting. Once you figure out the strategy of a boss fight, things become a lot easier.

I believe you’re not having fun because perhaps you’re not grouping with the right people. I would suggest finding a guild that runs dungeons often – there really is a world of difference between people who randomly mash numbers and those who know exactly what to expect and do.

I totally agree with the OP , either make encounters intresting for melee with bosses switching targets instead of chasing someone , killing them , ressed , then chase again . Or give us the trinity . I have to say dungeons are a massive let down and not to my anet expectations of gw1 , classy dungeon encounters there and rare loot drops ftw , And dont even get me started on the garbage loot drops for wiping for hours on end ….

Wow, there is so much fail in this post, mainly from the OP and others.

You do realize that to succeed in these dungeons, you will NEED to unlearn what you learned in other MMOs. Yes, we would like something familiar, but this is not WoW, this is not Rift, this is not SW:TOR.

I myself fell into the same rut when I first started dungeons, but now I can pass them all with ease, whether with my normal guild group, or with pugs.

You know what is awesome about these dungeons now? You have to use brain power to pass them now =). No more standing still mostly. You have to constantly be moving, and every fight requires planning, skill, and tactics.

OP, tell me a boss or bosses your failing at, and I will tell you how to pass them with no deaths =)

the lack of trinity is a breath of fresh air. Keeps the fight interesting, keeps you engaged in the combat. Makes you think, makes you want to improve your build. There are many melee friendly bosses and many ranged friendly bosses. The fact that you can swap to ranged during fights in order to heal up is awesome.

Complaining about drops…that’s the most awful thing ever dungeon rewards are tokens, learning dungeon mechanics is its own reward.

aleiro.8521:

the lack of trinity is a breath of fresh air. Keeps the fight interesting, keeps you engaged in the combat. Makes you think, makes you want to improve your build. There are many melee friendly bosses and many ranged friendly bosses. The fact that you can swap to ranged during fights in order to heal up is awesome.

Complaining about drops…that’s the most awful thing ever dungeon rewards are tokens, learning dungeon mechanics is its own reward.

Tokens are nice too =).

Been running AC and HotW most of the time, already have 4 pieces of the HotW gear, 1 AC EM headpiece gear, saving the rest for the cool ghostly looking sword from AC EM.

Also, looks like the tweaked HotW butcher path just the other day. 2nd to last boss used to be a cake walk… one of the few bosses where you could just mainly stand and spam DPS… now they made the fight interesting =)

Sojou.2067:

Infuser.9685:

Let me give you one friendly advice OP. Just as i and many others did, quit and find the game u like.

GW2 won’t change no matter how many posts you or any one else make. There will always ppl that rly like the game as it is who will disagree and nothing will change.

GW2 is pvp based game with PVE content that sux for most of guys that likes traditionaly PVE in other MMOs.

Cheers o/

Learn to read. I didn’t say I hated the game, I even specifically said when the PvE section works as advertised it’s very fun. When I falls apart (the majority of the time) it’s a miserable experience.

But it works as advertised…you are twisting your own post. You don’t have a trinity cos u don’t need it. And you basically are saying that when your group wipes your pve experience is miserable…that means you need to shape up and learn what you did wrong in order not to die.
If you enjoy the game then play it and get better at it don’t waste time on silly posts. If you don’t enjoy the game find a new one that you do enjoy and don’t waste time on these posts…The problem is that you have to adapt to the game…..the game does not have to adapt to you.

Work hard to have a deathless run and feel its reward. Much more satisfying than any loot.

I have very great healing, i can make my group complete the dungeon more ‘easy’, but i cant do nothing against INSTAKILL

• Weakness/Protection – Turn instakill into a not instakill.
• Blind – Cause the instakill to miss.
• Chill – Cause the instakill ability to recharge slower so people can waste less endurance on avoiding it.
• Slow/Immobilize – Cause that nasty melee mob from reaching its target in the first place.
• Knockdown/Stun – Prevent the instakill from being cast.
• Projectile reflection/destruction – Prevent a ranged instakill from hitting its destination.
• Swiftness – Enable your group member to run faster to escape instant kill abilities. (good vs melee range or ground targeted ones)
• Invulnerabilities – Absorb the instant kill ability yourself without dying. Or in case of earth shield, allow someone else to go invulnerable as well.
• Revive – When everything else for some reason fails.

And those are only the things you can do as an elementalist. Other professions can provide things like group vigor and aegis. Of course, if not everyone in the group helps out supporting and controlling, then you will fail.

Healing is a minor but important part of support and control. However you seem to think that you should be able to support a whole group by yourself just by equipping some healing power. And that is where your problem lies.

On top of that, you have no way of knowing if a ranged mob/boss is going to attack you because there is no “target of target” feature.

If he aims in my direction, then I get the hell out of the way. Fairly simple rule to follow.

In practice though, it’s a miserable experience at times. Too many bosses/mobs get fixated on a single person for seemingly the ENTIRE encounter rendering them useless because all they can do is run away and try to live.

Any mob that focuses on a single target is easy prey. The group should just slow the target, having those not focused burn down the target quickly (using melee weapons if possible for more damage). Meanwhile the focused target should have no problem dealing decent ranged damage while kiting.

If the mob in question has ranged attacks it is a bit more difficult, but against those you have anti-projectile skills that help a lot, and you can also use LoS and things like pillars to even the odds.

In fact, “rendering them useless because all they can do is run away and try to live” sounds very strange. Every single profession in the game can use skills while moving. So there is no such things as being useless just because you are targeted.

basically EVERY melee character

There is no such thing as a melee character. There are melee weapons and ranged weapons, and every profession has access to both.

I don’t get what the problem is here. For those of you who “miss the trinity”, IT’S NOT GONE! All you have to do is uninstall GW2 and go back to WoW, or whatever else it was you were playing.

This is like buying a car and then complaining that it doesn’t have the features you wanted WHILE the car that did have the features you wanted was sitting right next to it on the lot! Instead of picketing outside the factory for the manufacturer to make your car the way you want it…buy the other car.

People don’t miss the Trinity. They miss “teamwork”. You know, the second M in MMO.

GW2 is a single player game with other people who come in randomly.

ecthelion.6794:

People don’t miss the Trinity. They miss “teamwork”. You know, the second M in MMO.

GW2 is a single player game with other people who come in randomly.

LOL, how hugely ironic!

You NEED teamwork in this game moreso than any other to succeed in dungeons

Zindel.8673:

Nope, you’re 100% correct. There is no plan of attack, there are no roles, there is no strategy. This is just poor and mostly lazy design. Feels like AOC dungeons did… several monkeys and one football….

so ive now collected roughly a stack of tokens from almost all the dungeons expect Arah..so i come with some experience when i say that..just cause’ you have no trinity does not mean you have no strategy, i think people hate change especially the players who have been so used to a tank + healer style game-play..i know when i form groups i specifically look for certain classes that i know will have more of an affect. We then go over everyone’s role etc. .. i think having a traditional trinity in fact is an overused boring strategy..and your now filling in the mindless role of what you are supposed to do.

i find it completely awesome that my warrior can be a support in one dungeon or a DPS spec. in another.. you just need to think harder, and choose the right group of people for the right dungeons.

My .02

Having a lack of trinity sounds amazing in theory. In gw2 we get to see a version of this in practice. Im not sure it lives up to its theory based on the current designs.

There is the potential there
Chaotic fights that require greater levels of coordination
Changing roles means evolving responsibilities for players
No pigeon hole for classes
Fights can be designed more freely- dont have to watch for tank/healer problems.
etc etc etc its all been discussed.

Here is the problem, and i find these are made even worse for melee characters

The chaos means you spend more time running around or standing around doing nothing. My thief is useless to my friends.. a lot. Depending on how AOE goes down or weird timing with adds and special abilities of bosses I am finding that I spend a large amount of timing running around the “outside” of the action waiting for my next in. Maybe that is the intent of the design? I just feel useless. That isn’t fun.

It’s not about the trinity system. The main problem is the mobs/boss aggro is noobish design/coding. It aggro on one person and one person only until that person die.

Waiting for an hour to find a healer who decides to leave after a single wipe is not my idea of PvE enjoyment.

For all the problems the lack of trinity creates, to me it doesn’t even compare to the problems it solves. Anet will get better at making no trinity dungeons but the LF healer/tank woes will never come back.

Riaky.8965:

It’s not about the trinity system. The main problem is the mobs/boss aggro is noobish design/coding. It aggro on one person and one person only until that person die.

Sorry if i am so blatant, but that’s plain false.

I usually go first in the middle of trash and boss fights and, just believe me, they don’t fixate on me. They always change target, one way or the other.

Sure, there are particular mobs (Champion Risen Abomination, for example) that just fixate. But that’s not the norm, not in a long way sir.

If you need proof, just get one random youtube video of a dungeon run, and see if the mobs/boss follow that behaviour. Trust me…. they don’t.

Just for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Jh2lao4sU at 3:25 targets the warrior, based on your reasoning he should have hit him till he died, but that’s not the case… he changes target to the guardian after 10 seconds…

And this is consistent with what i have learnt about the game.

Guild Wars 2 is great with the soft trinity it has, people need to stop trying to play it as a straight tank/healer/dps. This game isn’t about knowing just your class like other mmos, you need to know how your class can interact with the other classes abilities as well. If that is too hard for you than there are many mmos that offer the hard trinity that you seek.

As coming from many MMOs since EVE and Starwars galaxies up to WoW, Swtor, and now this. I’ve played a tank. I like the ability to help the team by soaking up damage.

Now with that out of the way. I love tanking… oops sorry, ‘Tanking’ in this game. Yes a tank has a role and it could also be classified as support.

I support the team by soaking up a large attack with my vit/toughness
I support the team by shouting and removing debuffs, increasing damage, and healing
I support the team by being able to rally allies in aoes due to my high defense
I support the team by using a mace to keep weakness on the enemies
I support the team by selecting the right combo field to finish with my leap
I support the team by interrupting attacks with my daze skills (I have 3)
I support the team by dropping my elite banner to revive and grant swiftness, stability and might

I can also do damage. But I don’t just stand there, even with my high vit and toughness I will die if I stand still. Always paying attention and the willingness to change and react on the fly will help you win.

I like winning. I don’t like having something changed so that I can now win.

Learn to win.

- Xhaine, Warrior

I don’t understand why people complain about ‘lack of trinity’ in a game that clearly has a ‘trinity’ :P
the plus here is that you don’t have to fill out just 1 role and can switch at will

If you prefer the old system, that’s fine, but maybe this game isn’t for you.

Wildclaw.6073:

There is no such thing as a melee character. There are melee weapons and ranged weapons, and every profession has access to both.

my guardian would have a word with you :P

HellHound.5480:

Wow, there is so much fail in this post, mainly from the OP and others.

You do realize that to succeed in these dungeons, you will NEED to unlearn what you learned in other MMOs. Yes, we would like something familiar, but this is not WoW, this is not Rift, this is not SW:TOR.

I myself fell into the same rut when I first started dungeons, but now I can pass them all with ease, whether with my normal guild group, or with pugs.

You know what is awesome about these dungeons now? You have to use brain power to pass them now =). No more standing still mostly. You have to constantly be moving, and every fight requires planning, skill, and tactics.

OP, tell me a boss or bosses your failing at, and I will tell you how to pass them with no deaths =)

I haven’t failed at a single dungeon run. EVER. Nowhere in my post did I ever say I couldn’t kill a boss, or couldn’t complete a dungeon.

You are doing the typical internet routine of:
“I’m going to skim-read this post, see that you’re not happy about something and instantly assume you suck and can’t kill something even though you never said it.”

Re-read my post carefully and notice how I used the words “fun” and “enjoyment”. You won’t see anything about “too hard” or “can’t kill something”.

phooka.4295:

You obviously don’t know how to play your class or to spec your char. You think the fact that there’s no dedicated tank means that noone has to tank, ever. You think that there’s no dedicated healer means noone has to look out for others, ever. You’re wrong on both accounts.

LMAO … go troll another thread.

There is Healing, Tanking, and Damage. It’s just split up between multiple players. There is also support and control. These are all helpful to succeed but you don’t need all of them. Maybe for the toughest of bosses, but you usually don’t need all of them.

My group doesn’t have a true damage dealer, we kill things rather slowly, but we don’t die.

- Xhaine

aleiro.8521:

But it works as advertised…you are twisting your own post. You don’t have a trinity cos u don’t need it. And you basically are saying that when your group wipes your pve experience is miserable…that means you need to shape up and learn what you did wrong in order not to die.

No I didn’t. I said when bosses/mobs fixate on someone the entire course of a fight, forcing that individual to have to run around and be rendered useless except for trying to heal and run – it’s no longer fun or enjoyable.

Whether I’m doing the running or standing there casting while someone else is running from broken AI mechanics, it’s not what was advertised. Mobs were supposed to be more random. They weren’t supposed to randomly glitch out and pick 1 person and tunnel them, and if that person happens to die, they pick a new target until that person returns to the fight, then they fixate right back on them. It’s not fun.

If you enjoy the game then play it and get better at it don’t waste time on silly posts. If you don’t enjoy the game find a new one that you do enjoy and don’t waste time on these posts…The problem is that you have to adapt to the game…..the game does not have to adapt to you.

Without having ever seen you in a dungeon, I can promise you, I would run circles around you and whatever group you have around you. Don’t come into my thread when I’m discussing specific mechanics that aren’t working properly and try to tell me to get better, or adapt.

Work hard to have a deathless run and feel its reward. Much more satisfying than any loot.

We have tons of deathless runs through all varieties of explorable paths – that doesn’t change the fact that when bosses/mobs fixate on someone instead of bouncing around keeping everyone on their toes, it takes all the fun out of the encounters.

I always thought it was weird in trinity style games when the boss just sits on one player even though it’s disadvantageous for him/her/it. I come from playing many DnD campaigns as a dungeon master. Many monsters have a tactic, whether it be, kill the mage, kill the closet target, kill the most annoying player to the mob. Varying the intelligence of the creature fighting the party. I’ve recognized some similarities in this game.

I’ve had encounters where me and another guardian can switch aggro and the other pulls out of the fight to heal because he targeted the closest target. I’ve had encounters were it will switch to people ressurecting another. I’ve had a boss stick to one ranged character a whole fight. I’ve had different skills a boss did target different people.

There is probably more, you are speaking of one style of aggro. There are many. To change your tactic in the midst of battle can be a tricky thing if everybody isn’t paying attention.

Why should the super intelligent being have the same aggro tactics as a golem programmed to do one thing. The whole taunt/threat skills tank is not how it works in gw2, but a new tank is born by helping the group in other ways, ways I mentioned above.

- Xhaine, Warrior

People that say the Holy Trinity is a mindless way to play are totally off base. Having played both Tank or Healer role for years & years I find it an insult to say that it was mindless. Tanks have one of the hardest jobs and Healers have the most thankless job there is.

When I first did AC Storymode I was ready to up and quit this game – there is such a HUGE learning curve for people coming from “normal” trinity games that the culture shock is too much for some to handle. If I was in Beta, my feedback would have been to really tune down the Storymode dungeons (especially early in the game) as they are meant to be a foray into what the game has to offer.

After some practice and learning encounters, I like it – I adapt and change – but there are a lot of people who won’t and will want what they are used to… I’ve already had two guild mates leave due to this (guess what, they were a tank + healer in other games) and I’m sure there are many others who have or will follow suit.

Xhaine.4120:

I always thought it was weird in trinity style games when the boss just sits on one player even though it’s disadvantageous for him/her/it. I come from playing many DnD campaigns as a dungeon master. Many monsters have a tactic, whether it be, kill the mage, kill the closet target, kill the most annoying player to the mob. Varying the intelligence of the creature fighting the party. I’ve recognized some similarities in this game.

In D&D campaigns, a reasonable dungeon master is not going to have one person tunneled to death because the mechanics of that ruleset won’t allow it.

In games with the trinity system, mobs are allowed to tunnel a tank because the system allows for it. The game is designed for this type of combat structure, and as a result the fights can be better balanced.

As a developer you KNOW the tank is going to be dealing with damage from X, Y and Z. At that point you know the tank will be doing A, B and C to survive (getting healed is one of those metrics). As a developer you can then chose to make the rest of the encounter engaging for everyone else, in a balanced, fair, and enjoyable fashion.

You can then have tanks deal with aggro drops, debuffs, streaming adds, 1 shot mechanics, timing cooldowns and mob positioning.

You also have healers dealing with proper resource management, cycling cooldowns during high damage phases, healing multiple targets and possibly DPSing some if the fight allows.

At the same time, you have DPS dealing with resource management, taking as little damage as possible so healers aren’t over-taxed, switching targets, dealing with debuffs, moving to various locations based on fight mechanics, etc…

I’ve had encounters where me and another guardian can switch aggro and the other pulls out of the fight to heal because he targeted the closest target. I’ve had encounters were it will switch to people ressurecting another. I’ve had a boss stick to one ranged character a whole fight. I’ve had different skills a boss did target different people.

The majority of our fights have mobs or the boss pick someone and tunnel them for 90% of the fight, if not the entire fight. Occasionally we’ll have a run where the boss swaps targets, but it’s rare.

Lothair.8942:

If I was in Beta, my feedback would have been to really tune down the Storymode dungeons (especially early in the game) as they are meant to be a foray into what the game has to offer.

ANet’s biggest mistake was to make Story Mode 5 man. It was just wrong. They should have:

(If kept 5 man) 1: Keep It Simple Stupid! – Make Story Mode normal DE difficulty. Or into a classic diablo kill fest. People interested in story aren’t necessarily the same that are interested in wiping dungeons to learn to beat them. If bosses have unique attacks etc, make them EASY to kill.

2: Make them 100% solo friendly. For same reasons above (not everyone wants to group).

I Dont miss the trinity AT ALL.

Maybe because I’m playing WoW however. Just pop in the forums every now and again to see if there have been any miraculous changes. Moving on.

Sojou.2067:

In D&D campaigns, a reasonable dungeon master is not going to have one person tunneled to death because the mechanics of that ruleset won’t allow it.

If I don’t try and kill my party they won’t have fun. They know when I’m going easy on them, but I also don’t break the tactic of the monster to break immersion. Keeping intelligent being on one character breaks immersion.

Sojou.2067:

In games with the trinity system, mobs are allowed to tunnel a tank because the system allows for it. The game is designed for this type of combat structure, and as a result the fights can be better balanced.

It took years and an expansion before WoW got better at making trinities engaging and fun. Most bosses were tank and spank. There are a few exceptions. But compare old Motlen core bosses mechanics to ones in Wotlk or higher. It’s quite the difference.

No one has tried a system like GW2 has, it will take time to master. I already find it engaging and fun. I can’t wait for the future of this game.

Sojou.2067:

As a developer you KNOW the tank is going to be dealing with damage from X, Y and Z. At that point you know the tank will be doing A, B and C to survive (getting healed is one of those metrics). As a developer you can then chose to make the rest of the encounter engaging for everyone else, in a balanced, fair, and enjoyable fashion.

As a developer (as I am one, not for games though) you can also collect data and turn that data into fun. It does not matter what system you use.

Sojou.2067:

The majority of our fights have mobs or the boss pick someone and tunnel them for 90% of the fight, if not the entire fight. Occasionally we’ll have a run where the boss swaps targets, but it’s rare.

I’ve only seen a few like this, but most of the time I get it on me, which is a good thing. Since I’m the ‘Tank’.

- Xhaine

I think the OP has a point, I think what the developers need to realize is that without using the trinity they can’t use the same hate system as all MMOs. Right now before the fight begins there is no telling who will pull hate and by the time they do the only thing you can plan to do is kite…. not really any kind of a ‘new’ strategy that is being brought to a MMO.

I think in the case of boss situations there needs to be more of a ‘party’ hate system instead of a single target. Where the boss is not specifically targeting one person and instead focuses on changing targets often or blasting AoE’s around the room. When any one target is focused on by any NPC then the game does lose its fun factor.

So far I am really loving this game and haven’t missed the trinity until I started dungeons. Right now dungeons seem to be a mess right now, but I dont think they are beyond fixing. It’s just going to take some creative game design to make them work like everything else in the game so far.

So to sum it up..

The Holy Trinity – which consists of:
-Tank who’s job it is to absorb and direct spike damage away from the group, coordinate with other tanks, exchanging aggro to avoid taking too many of one type of de-buff. Taunting and redirecting wandering minions away from the group.
Healer – who plays a key part in the group’s survival by restoring health, patching wounds (hots), neutralizing poison, de-cursing, resurrecting the fallen… essentially taking on the huge responsibility of keeping the team alive.
Damage – This is a funny one, because it seems that people have forgotten that even with the Trinity, EVERYONE can damage… these guys just do it harder, better, faster stronger.

You can feel the synergy of your group, you trust in your friends abilities, you feel the flow of the fight and react. And if you do it well, it feels FUN.

GW2:
Insert Homogeneous Role – Run, run some more, run and shoot, evade, fall down and help a friend off the ground, die, re-spawn at nearest way-point, run and shoot some more.

I know I’m being cynical and biased. I play a thief… it sucks, it’s not fun at all.
Why do I stick around? the other aspects of the game are great.

majik.2035:

My .02

The chaos means you spend more time running around or standing around doing nothing. My thief is useless to my friends.. a lot.

You know, i had the same issue with my mesmer some time ago. I was thinking “so what am i supposed to do?? I cant do anything besides pew pew and remove some debuffs and reflect some proyectiles from time to time?” Then i started to realize all i did was helping, each clone i spam makes a safe zone from proyectiles, you see a clone? Go behind it! proyectile will break the clone and not touch you! Theres a paths full of traps ppl cant get passed?? Teleport and port them to the other end. Ppl die of proyectiles cos they didnt stand behind the clone? Go ress them and have a nice reflecting buble arround you. Took me several deads and fails to start learning my char but the thing is i was not my class fault i didt help others (or tink i didnt) it was exclusively my fault.
So basically all i can say its try new builds, try aproching battles diferent and you will probably find a nice build that can help everyone a lot in your own personal way

Just chiming in to say lack of trinity is amazing.

The problems you mention OP have nothing to do with a lack of trinity. I wouldn’t mind the difficulty being scaled down a bit to allow players more leeway in getting hit, and tanking mobs, or improvement of our PVE CC, but all these things are balance issues, and nothing inherently wrong with the game play of guild wars 2.

Mechanics are only as good as how creative they are. Early WoW fights were heavy in the tank and spank model, which in essence is the simplest design you can have for their combat system. And in the subsequent content introductions they added more ways mobs could behave within their model.

Right now I can spend most fights just letting the auto attack run, because as a mesmer enough of my abilities are situational enough that I’m better off saving them than using them. This is a mix of how much health most mobs in dungeons have and how little they do during that time. But if they’re too active you lack the tools to counter them effectively, and the entire experience becomes cheap.

My feeling about the lack of trinity went from “that’s SO cool” to “well, maybe not”. My biggest problem is that fights tend to feel like there 5 independent characters trying to kill a boss. I don’t feel the team work that I get from doing dungeons with the traditional trinity setup. Besides reviving downed people, it feels, to me, like a solo experience.

No, I’m not advocating any change in the system. I actually think it has potential, but boss mechanics should encourage and reward team work a little bit more.

And please, PLEASE, remove graveyard zerg from dungeons and either remove the useless trash mobs or give them some meaningful reason to exist/be killed.

I agree with the poster above me ‘Tetsuo’

It does seem more like 5 individual players (with the exception of downed) most of the time.
And people who think ‘Holy Trinity’ was brainless are ignorant.
It’s not just about:
- Grab Aggro and soak up dmg.
- Heal tank
- Kill boss.

The tank had many other tasks such as:
- Positioning the boss (Back towards group),
- Kiting the boss (Away from AoE for example),
- Switching aggro to different tanks,
- Keeping aggro (Which used to be an issue in PUGs but not now it seems).

And thats not to mention any unique boss mechanics that would involve timing, movement co-operation etc.
Healers would have to he the tank and the party which the right heal for the job whilst micromanaging his mana. Also watching his movements.
Even in ‘Holy Trinity’ games people moan when it’s just tank and spank.

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I’m not saying we should have a ‘Holy Trinity’ in this game though, but there’s no need to jump people who like that more stable / controllable mechanic.

I feel you could get similar results within this system if the bosses were designed with it in mind slightly better.

-

I’ll use Kasha from AC-Story as an example again:
Avoid rings and kill VERY weak adds before she steals health (Which seems so small anyway)

Instead they should have made the mobs silver so they’re hard to kill, and when she begins stealing their health with the beams, the mobs should walk around the room in a circle.
The beams should be deadly, even to dodge, and this would cause the beams to rotate and the players would have to kill the mobs whilst running around to avoid the beams.

My main point here is to bring GW2’s main mechanics into view (IE: running whilst fighting) in a controlled way that isn’t run away from mobs and CC them even if the bosses don’t like being CC’d due to their defiant buff. ( 1 in 5 CC gets through)

Sojou.2067:

Infuser.9685:

Let me give you one friendly advice OP. Just as i and many others did, quit and find the game u like.

GW2 won’t change no matter how many posts you or any one else make. There will always ppl that rly like the game as it is who will disagree and nothing will change.

GW2 is pvp based game with PVE content that sux for most of guys that likes traditionaly PVE in other MMOs.

Cheers o/

Learn to read. I didn’t say I hated the game, I even specifically said when the PvE section works as advertised it’s very fun. When I falls apart (the majority of the time) it’s a miserable experience.

Learn to read? I think your the one that should learn to read…when did i say u hate the game? I just advised you to find the game you like and that has holy trinity if u like it so much.

BlackToof.8710:

I agree with the poster above me ‘Tetsuo’
The tank had many other tasks such as:
- Positioning the boss (Back towards group),
- Kiting the boss (Away from AoE for example),
- Switching aggro to different tanks,
- Keeping aggro (Which used to be an issue in PUGs but not now it seems).

These are all used in GW2 as a tank as well.

I get so many conflicting stories here. People complain how hard these dungeons are, mainly because they lack a group co-ordination and cohesion. There may be no trinity but all the jobs are split up between the group members, couple tanks, couple healers, couple support, couple controllers, and of course the damage everybody does.

These are just as important in GW2. On chat i’m calling out events and adds just as much as any raid in the tough fights (hope there is more of these! looking at you lupicus).

- Xhaine

I find teamwork everytime I group up with my friends. Typically a Ranger, Engineer, Elementalist, Warrior and myself a Guardian.

Range heavy mobs get a Wall of Reflection to the face and my buddies get 10 seconds of free shots at them.
They rarely are ever suffering a condition shooting through my light fields I spawn all over the place.
Our Elementalist and Enginneer drop all kinds of fields for me to combo with… Fire fields for Might buffs all around or Water/Dark buffs for AoE healing and debuffs for harder mobs.
My Warrior buddy and I stay protected in the Symbols I lay down allowing us to take aggro/damage longer.
It it gets to hot for me, I duck out and the others knockback, cripple, or otherwise occupy the mob while I recover.
If aggro gets on someone else, I have Shouts, teleporting abilities, area denial and CC to buy them some time as well.

That’s teamwork in my book. Other trinity based MMOs my guardian would be doing one thing and one thing only…. holding aggro. That’d be all I do for any team I’d be a part of. Without the trinity I’m forced to change rolls and tactics based on what’s needed at the time, and thats also required of my teammates.

Personally I find it much more engaging and fun. YMMV of course.

@EverythingXen First off, love the name, second, nice post.

I can call out “I can’t dodge/block the next one, can someone slow/immob so I can get some time to regen.”

My team didn’t just throw out their slow/immob for the sake of using the skill cause it was off cooldown earlier. They waited to use their skill that would help me when I needed it as I was tanking Lupicus.

- Xhaine

Zindel.8673:

So to sum it up..

The Holy Trinity – which consists of:
-Tank who’s job it is to absorb and direct spike damage away from the group, coordinate with other tanks, exchanging aggro to avoid taking too many of one type of de-buff. Taunting and redirecting wandering minions away from the group.
Healer – who plays a key part in the group’s survival by restoring health, patching wounds (hots), neutralizing poison, de-cursing, resurrecting the fallen… essentially taking on the huge responsibility of keeping the team alive.
Damage – This is a funny one, because it seems that people have forgotten that even with the Trinity, EVERYONE can damage… these guys just do it harder, better, faster stronger.

You can feel the synergy of your group, you trust in your friends abilities, you feel the flow of the fight and react. And if you do it well, it feels FUN.

GW2:
Insert Homogeneous Role – Run, run some more, run and shoot, evade, fall down and help a friend off the ground, die, re-spawn at nearest way-point, run and shoot some more.

I know I’m being cynical and biased. I play a thief… it sucks, it’s not fun at all.
Why do I stick around? the other aspects of the game are great.

Played WoW for 5 years as an end game raider. Had 3 server firsts in a guild that was ranked at one point 198th in the world, pretty sure they disbanded now.

I started as a thief here and will stick with a thief, easy peasy lemon breezy. Take sometime to study your class and I guarantee you can have fun in dungeons. I bring D/D for my main DPS, then SB and P/P.

I haven’t found a single dungeon I haven’t found fun playing, maybe some paths are boring but as a whole every dungeon has been a blast for me. Yes, as a melee main thief.

Yes, you can enjoy the combat system if you adapt, because it’s a very good combat system. I personally love the combat system. I am usually a healer in games, but I am fine with not being able to heal. I would want to if they were to ever make it viable, but I respect their design decision.

In general, the dungeons, however, lack the polish found in the other parts of Guild Wars 2. They are poorly designed in the way that encounters are all over the place. There’s no fluidity, for lack of a better word on my part. You don’t feel anything while running them. They’re just instanced areas with monsters, boss, monsters. Some areas have dynamic events or things you have to do, which breaks up the monotony. But for the most part, the dungeons are very crudely designed.

Maybe I’m asking for too much, but I believe good dungeon design can make players feel excited or apprehensive or anything. As it stands, the Guild Wars 2 dungeons just have the feeling like you’re farming. Get past this. Kill this boss. Get reward. Next. It all feels generic.

There are some bosses and events and encounters that I do like. The last boss of Sorrow’s Embrace was a nice flashback for me of Sorrow’s Furnace. If they made more bosses like that and made them challenging, I would love dungeons. Right now, I feel like most bosses and dungeons are unmemorable.

To tie it in with the original topic, no-Trinity games have a harder time making interesting bosses or dungeons, because you have to balance and account for every group composition. This prevents you from doing certain things and implementing some interesting mechanics. It’s not impossible. You just have to be better at balancing bosses, monsters, and dungeons.

I’m sure Arena Net knew what they were getting into when they decided to not force players to be tanks, healers, or dps, but I feel like they did not put in the work to make dungeons their own and work well with their system.

There is a lot of potential for some interesting encounter design. The problem is that this is sort of uncharted territory for PvE in MMOs (as far as I know). There haven’t been many big titles that have offered “trinity-free” PvE encounters. I think that judging the entire premise of these dungeons based on Arenanets first tries does not give us as players the right to claim that the idea is inherently flawed. I still have faith that the concept of a trinity-free dungeon system can be just as entertaining as one with a trinity. One of these things has had the opportunity to be extensively iterated on over years and years and the other has just seen the light of day for the first time in a little over a month ago.

Even the dungeons in their current form have their strong points which illustrate the potential power of the system. Lt. Kohler comes to mind immediately for me. Having to dodge that scorpion wire was probably one of the most fun mechanics of a PvE encounter I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The immediacy of the danger (knowing that if you didn’t time it right you’d be pretty much boned) created an element of excitement that was lacking for me as a DPS character in encounters from other MMOs.

The system has potential, just like the rest of the game. If you give them time to iterate on these systems based off of feedback they gather from players in a live setting, I’m extremely confident that the system will start to show its benefits.

Aelelan.1639:

Even the dungeons in their current form have their strong points which illustrate the potential power of the system. Lt. Kohler comes to mind immediately for me. Having to dodge that scorpion wire was probably one of the most fun mechanics of a PvE encounter I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The immediacy of the danger (knowing that if you didn’t time it right you’d be pretty much boned) created an element of excitement that was lacking for me as a DPS character in encounters from other MMOs.

I think you hit something here I’ve been trying to explain. Those times where your entire group dodges the pull and you get a feeling of pride in yourself and your team mates. The difficulty is what is fun. The part where if you as a player or your group makes a mistake it will cost you more. That more is what draws me in. That’s what I liked about the souls games.

Without something on the line it’s just the ‘grind’. Remember when MMOs when you died it cost you experience points? even in FFXI you could down level. No one wanted to die, each encounter was edge of the seat. When you did die you said to yourself, “I’m not making that mistake again”.

Who cares about the arbitrary in-game currency that you have to pay in armor repairs if you fail. Failing is how you learn. Eventually those will go away. After many runs of SE it was normal for me to run to the anvil and get repaired before doing the next run. Eventually I was running up there and then noticing my armor wasn’t broken. Eventually I could do all 3 paths without dying a single time. Now i’m making that in-game money in dungeons and taking it to pay for repairs of the next one I try to accomplish.

- Xhaine

Most console games are trinity-free; some Action RPGs, some RPGs, and some MMOs (Vindictus) are, as well.

It comes down to balance. It’s much harder to balance eight classes with a large variety of abilities. The games in the list that I just made have the advantage of having fewer skill combinations and class combinations—most of the time—and the developers have a better grasp on the overall strength of the player(s) at the time of an encounter.

Guild Wars 2 has to balance around PvP, which makes PvE balance all over the place. Professions are, for the most part, in the same ballpark, but we have on way of knowing for sure without parses. And I have a distinct feeling that Arena Net did not do very extensive testing on group compositions and failed to gauge strengths and weaknesses before balancing their dungeons.

The result is players having very different experiences. Some find dungeons too hard. Some find them too easy. Individual player mindset makes a difference, but most players admit to balance being all over the place by relating their experiences. Many have recounted that they were doing a dungeon and found a boss or encounter impossible, wanting to report their experience as bugged. And then they switched things up and the boss or encounter became a breeze.

Impossibly difficult and cringe-worthily easy by changing a few skills around. I commend all of us for finding the correct skills to make Guild Wars 2 dungeons the cakewalks they can be, but that doesn’t say much about the dungeons’ balance.

I don’t want to run the risk of Arena Net watering down the encounters so that any skill combination can beat any boss, because the general response would be that that would be trivializing the content. No one wants that. Don’t do that. That’s the easy route to designing a no-Trinity game.

The much harder task you’ll want to take on is balancing and fine-tuning everything so that everything, despite all your possible variables, is perfect. Enjoy.

There are 8 dungeons. 8 Story mode runs, and 25 exp mode paths over 8 dungeons. I am a pure melee character specced about 40% defense and 60% offense between gear/traits/utilities. I have successfully completed, multiple times, every story mode and 21 exp paths at this point. I ALWAYS melee. Never range.

So to say you’re FORCED to range dungeons is a huge lie. If you understand fields, spec yourself correctly with the proper tools/traits, you can melee with extreme effectiveness.

As far as complaints about “no trinity”…. seriously? 1000 other MMORPGs out there that have the trinity combat model. Why are you upset that GW2 isn’t another 1 in the crowd? If you don’t like it, go play one of the other MMORPGs that are trinity based. Don’t want to? Then learn to play GW2. All dungeons are extremely doable once you learn how to play.