Guild Wars 2

Sarabande.8260:

DPS players are a dime-a-dozen and absolutely flood every MMO with a trinity. This is because DPS is the easiest role with the least amount of responsibility. GW2 is a game that caters to those DPS players and the last thing they want to see is a trinity where since they are as common as sand on a beach they’ll have to wait in some queue.

It’s much easier for them to say “ZOMG Zerg everything, oh wow my numb3rsz massive killed mobs ultra fast. pwned”

Actually GW2 is NOT catering to DPS players from other games. In other MMORPGs DPS just do their rotation and watch the “aggro meter”, while a healer spams heals on the tank, which holds aggro using the optimal aggro generating rotation.

In GW2 those DPS players don’t have the luxury of yawning in fights. Last I checked no amount of DPS provided aoe healing for the group, or protection, or stealth, or blindness, or condi removal, or might stacking or dodging.

People like to over-simplify things as if playing a Tank or Healer takes any kind of skill. “Look I watch those red bars move and when a bar goes below 50% I hit my healz” yawn fest.

I used to play a Minstrel in Lotro raid, yes the “Healer” of Lotro. It was the dumbest, dullest, most boring experience I’ve ever had in a video game. I only played that useless thing because my guild didn’t have any Minstrels (I wonder why? /sarcasm) and someone had to do it so we could do raids.

That kind of passive and boring playstyle of watching red bars (green in lotro) is NOT exciting, nor as awesome as trinity lovers make it out to be.

GameVeight.2745:

If you want to support the team as a healer or go full meat shield as a tank there is no viable option to do so.

Thank god for this. I guess all the things people do in the game are only DPS, like blinds, aegis, reflects, protection, condi removal, yes all that is only DPS. Just because the game doesn’t allow you to play something boring as watching red bars, doesn’t make it bad.

It is always better to run zerk or just cheese the mechanics. The AntiTrinity restricts freedom of play in much the same way the Trinity did, you don’t have a real choice. You can run zerker and the fight will be as easy as it can be for your skill level or you can run anything else and the fight will be torturous regardless of how good you are.

Are you actually playing this game? This is what anti-zerk people say and say and say. Go in one of those zerk groups just for ONCE and you will see that they are not only DPSing. Also, big lol at easy fights. I guess Soloing Lupicus in Arah without ever dodging is “torturous” for you, or soloing the Spider Queen in AC without dodging, Or doing CoE without dodging subject alpha, ever. You are completely wrong again. Zerkers need to avoid damage otherwise they die, zerkers need to support each other too. Notice how the most used professions (Warrior/Elementalist/Guardian) aren’t because they do the most damage but because of their SUPPORT and BUFFS.

Because GW2 encounters are designed for free for all parties, allowing real tank and healer builds into the game as options would only effect players IF they were vastly better than straight up dps. Even then it would only be in the form of LFG requests like the “EXP zErk” requests that we already see, and while those can be annoying they fall firmly under the community wisdom of “Make you own party if you don’t like it.”

“Real” tank and healer builds are an excuse for DPS players to afk the fights because someone else is doing all the work. In GW2 everyone is responsible for their own well being, no excuses to be lazy anymore.

i think the “specialization” system is going to let you focus more on a holy trinity role than a hybrid, for instance if you specialize your warrior into defence it will make you more of a traditional tank.

afaik the fastest dungeon runs atm posted on YT are much more than just zerk+skipping mobs actually all of them are teams with very well though builds to synergise together to defeat certain bosses inas fast manner as possible….

which traditional zerk team will be never able to do because they are on so nooby builds that they may have issues with even skipping those thrash mobs (and honestly there is very little dungeons I know where skipping trash is so significant)

about holy trinity – OP gave no valid arguments for that and even that guy with barely understandable text wall have done better to justify that crap which holy trinity of mmo is.

and now about his points – no Its not making game interesting in any more way when “tactics” are “standing in very specified spot”, “guy 1 takes aggro and keeps aggro on him”, “guy 2 keeps healing people”, and "all the rest dps boss.

that kind of gameplay is boring and repetive

and I don’t know which dungeons did you two run in GW2 but I can say very most of them requires team to do well timed dodges/dmg avoid from all the team to even think of succeding and there is bunch of them were boss mechanic requires very high teamwork to do

GameVeight.2745:

The dark side of the Trinity was always its mandatory nature, in order to do the content at all you needed a tank and a healer.

The problem in GW2 isn’t that we don’t have the Trinity it’s that we have an AntiTrinity.
If you want to support the team as a healer or go full meat shield as a tank there is no viable option to do so. It is always better to run zerk or just cheese the mechanics. The AntiTrinity restricts freedom of play in much the same way the Trinity did, you don’t have a real choice. You can run zerker and the fight will be as easy as it can be for your skill level or you can run anything else and the fight will be torturous regardless of how good you are.

Because GW2 encounters are designed for free for all parties, allowing real tank and healer builds into the game as options would only effect players IF they were vastly better than straight up dps. Even then it would only be in the form of LFG requests like the “EXP zErk” requests that we already see, and while those can be annoying they fall firmly under the community wisdom of “Make you own party if you don’t like it.”

You know what? The bad side of trinity is whatever class i am playing i need somebody to baby sit myself. Being a tank or a dps need a healer to watch over, being a healer and dps need a tank to take the damage, being a dps is even more pathetic, need both healer and tank otherwise is useless.

GW2 is a game that everybody responsible for themselves. I proud of my own character, i don’t need someone to take a hit for me, i don’t need that extra heal. What i can’t do is, i can’t do it alone.

A party is there to do things together, a little bit of offensive buff, a little bit of defensive buff, heal a little here and there, RES, a little CC, thats more than enough to make up good teamworks.

I love the nature that in GW2 any 5 players are good to beat a dungeon. This run we have more damage dealer, we can finish the run faster, tomorrow we have more support, the run is more forgiving, the next day we have some newbies, okay, bring some more support. We have this flexibility in party mixing and this is amazing experience over the never change 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps combination.

Came in here thinking OP was a troll, but you’ve all actually raised some excellent points. I feel that Guild Wars’ lack of a trinity has a number of strengths and weaknesses that, until the advent of GW2, we weren’t aware existed, because we’d never experienced it. On the plus side, it means every player can contribute to everything in their group – a ranger can heal as well as a guardian, and a guardian can lay the beatdown on the boss as hard as the warrior does. It also means that dungeon groups aren’t slowed down by waiting on less popular classes (Example: League of Legends team builder – we’ve all been in the ‘waiting for support’ group.)

Of course, the AntiTrinity has also been mentioned, and I feel that GW2 has fallen into this trap by trying too hard to avoid the trinity – with personal healing skills and buffing, we do away with the need for tanks and healers, so people end up going DPS on everything, and the restriction of builds posed by the trinity returns, but in a different way. ‘Bringing back’ the holy trinity will effect the way people build and play, but it won’t solve the problem, since we’d still be restricted – Guardians would always go Soldier’s, Eles would be either Zerker or Clerics, etc.

The problem isn’t that Zerker’s gear is too strong, it’s that everything else is just too weak. You can nerf zerkers all you want, people will still use it because everything else is flat out trash for damage in comparison. I feel that the solution to the issue is to create a middle ground by buffing other abilities, builds, and statuses in different ways.
- Vitality & Toughness? Taking a page from LoL’s book, perhaps we could have abilities that scale on health or resistances, or do more damage on low HP (thus rewarding toughness since you can survive better on low health). Of course, LoL isn’t an MMORPG, so I have no idea how well this would transfer, but it would reward players for being tanky.
- Conditions? Tricky, but I’d suggest splitting conditions from regular damage – a lot of popular berserker builds and skills apply conditions which ruin condition damage builds, for example your condition damage venoms thief is useless if your berserker warrior starts applying bleeds, or if the conditions cap out. By clearly splitting ‘skills that do CONDITION damage’ from skills that do ‘STRAIGHT damage’, the condition damage builds will be allowed to perform to the best of their ability without fear of their conditions being contaminated by berserker builds.
I can’t think of anything to do with Healing Power, other than reducing the flat health of healing skills and increasing the scaling, but that takes away the player’s control over their own character and increases reliance on another player.
Precision’s a simple one to fix IMO – drop the precision/crit chance ratio. Assassin’s gear is TOTALLY WORTHLESS right now, since full zerker with food+banner+spotter hits 100% crit chance. Why use major precision gear when minor precision gear hits the cap?

TL;DR: Guild Wars 2’s anti-trinity prevents unique builds from arising due to everything but berserker’s being a poor choice for DPS. In order to make other stats viable, damage bonuses and reworks could be applied to other stats, allowing them to contribute to damage in a unique way.

naiasonod.9265:

Lets make dungeons flight simulators and we can all ride charrcopters around and pewpewpew at enemies. They can use the Super Adventure Box graphic style!

…That might actually be fun. Nevermind.

+1 XD

Maximum Potato.5923:

Came in here thinking OP was a troll, but you’ve all actually raised some excellent points. I feel that Guild Wars’ lack of a trinity has a number of strengths and weaknesses that, until the advent of GW2, we weren’t aware existed, because we’d never experienced it. On the plus side, it means every player can contribute to everything in their group – a ranger can heal as well as a guardian, and a guardian can lay the beatdown on the boss as hard as the warrior does. It also means that dungeon groups aren’t slowed down by waiting on less popular classes (Example: League of Legends team builder – we’ve all been in the ‘waiting for support’ group.)

Of course, the AntiTrinity has also been mentioned, and I feel that GW2 has fallen into this trap by trying too hard to avoid the trinity – with personal healing skills and buffing, we do away with the need for tanks and healers, so people end up going DPS on everything, and the restriction of builds posed by the trinity returns, but in a different way. ‘Bringing back’ the holy trinity will effect the way people build and play, but it won’t solve the problem, since we’d still be restricted – Guardians would always go Soldier’s, Eles would be either Zerker or Clerics, etc.

The problem isn’t that Zerker’s gear is too strong, it’s that everything else is just too weak. You can nerf zerkers all you want, people will still use it because everything else is flat out trash for damage in comparison. I feel that the solution to the issue is to create a middle ground by buffing other abilities, builds, and statuses in different ways.
- Vitality & Toughness? Taking a page from LoL’s book, perhaps we could have abilities that scale on health or resistances, or do more damage on low HP (thus rewarding toughness since you can survive better on low health). Of course, LoL isn’t an MMORPG, so I have no idea how well this would transfer, but it would reward players for being tanky.
- Conditions? Tricky, but I’d suggest splitting conditions from regular damage – a lot of popular berserker builds and skills apply conditions which ruin condition damage builds, for example your condition damage venoms thief is useless if your berserker warrior starts applying bleeds, or if the conditions cap out. By clearly splitting ‘skills that do CONDITION damage’ from skills that do ‘STRAIGHT damage’, the condition damage builds will be allowed to perform to the best of their ability without fear of their conditions being contaminated by berserker builds.
I can’t think of anything to do with Healing Power, other than reducing the flat health of healing skills and increasing the scaling, but that takes away the player’s control over their own character and increases reliance on another player.
Precision’s a simple one to fix IMO – drop the precision/crit chance ratio. Assassin’s gear is TOTALLY WORTHLESS right now, since full zerker with food+banner+spotter hits 100% crit chance. Why use major precision gear when minor precision gear hits the cap?

TL;DR: Guild Wars 2’s anti-trinity prevents unique builds from arising due to everything but berserker’s being a poor choice for DPS. In order to make other stats viable, damage bonuses and reworks could be applied to other stats, allowing them to contribute to damage in a unique way.

You are missing the most important point. Your gear is NOT the only thing that affects your build. Sure Berserker is the most used gear stat, that doesn’t mean those using it are only doing DPS. If any of the anti-zerker have ever done a single run (with good team mates) they’d know that already. Those “Berserkers” do way more than what DPS characters do in other MMORPGs and I can go as far to say that they are doing more than Tank/Healer/DPS chars do in other games combined, because everyone needs to buff/support, heal (at least themselves), debuff mobs etc. There is no build problem in the game. Your build IS NOT your gear. Simple.

Defensive stats don’t need any kind of buffing either. You can pretty much do any kind of content with defensive stats and faceroll it. You can solo dungeon bosses without even moving, do entire paths of the hardest dungeon without using dodge ever etc Defensive stats give you extra survivability for when you run out of active defense.

Hi

I’m new to the forum and I’ll admit that I haven’t played the game a lot since I bought it at it’s release not because I dislike the game.
In fact I’ve been following the game from the forums since I’ve bought it because I really like a lot of what ANet is trying to do here.

Here’s my critizism or my personal (uninformed) player view if you will of this game. My issue with the combat system is not the lack of the Trinity but rather that the game mechanics doesn’t “reward” you to play in ways outside of an offensive approach to tackle an encounter.

The idea of Guild Wars 2 is that we have no “roles set in stone” and that you should more or less be able to play however you want then how come that a build like Staff only; Caster/Heal/Support Guardian that focuses entirely on support/off heal and protection is not viable in a group setting?

I think I’m asking the wrong questions; my real question is really not why that particular build is not “viable” but instead why is throwing damage at a problem the only true solution for every possible encounter in this game?

If the idea from ANet was to make away set roles that you decide by creating a character of a certain class then why does the game so aggresively “punishes” you for trying to play a class or a weapon skill set “not by the book” or by trying to “specialize” into one “role”?

Let’s compare to another game namely ESO which suffers from issues due to poor development, unbalanced classes and combat yadda yadda but if there’s one thing that game does right then it’s the freedom for players to choose whatever class they want because classes doesn’t define your role. Skill trees and weapons does.

Sure I will not disagree that picking some skills here and there and some weapons are more viable then other and if you are not going with a cookie cutter build and utilize weapon swap then you will be less efficent but still; it works in ESO!

Even if you were to play a “less efficent” build in ESO you can still be beneficial and helpful to your team and it’s instantly fun and rewarding.
You can probably not get into the hardest endgame content and expect to be of any use if you are playing with a “less efficent build” but during your whole leveling experience including dungeons and easier endgame activies you will still be of use and helpful to your team!

Isn’t that where GW2 is supposed to be superior? Isn’t GW2’s idea about bringing whatever you want to a group/team and have fun togheter?

So why then is this game favoring damage stats over defensive/support stats to beat every single thing that the developers throw at you? Why?

What if someone want to play a Elementalist Heal/Support and only stay in Water/Earth? Why shouldn’t that be beneficial and useful to the team and thus rewarding for the player who wants to play a Heal/Support Elementalist? Why?

Why have we removed Trinity if we are shoe-horned itno everyone being a DPS role with limited group buffs/support?

If we can’t utilize other ideas then ANet have failed and we are back at square one, we have removed Trinity and made it into a “One-ity” (lol) that only accepts DPS and DPS only!

That’s my issue with Guild Wars 2.

Feel free to critize me, discuss.

Harper.4173:

I’d rather have this “dps fest” in which each player is responsible for his own actions and one individual’s success or failure isn’t pivotal to the success of the group.

It’s better than your tank/healer failing halfway through a run and wiping everyone.

Also,
#NoDungeonQueues2015

Signed,
Every DPS class ever.

GreenZap.1352:

Why have we removed Trinity if we are shoe-horned itno everyone being a DPS role with limited group buffs/support?

Actually the best DPS builds in the game offer lots of support and the reason some profs are neglected from speed clears (like necromancers) is because they have limited support, not because their DPS is bad.

If we can’t utilize other ideas then ANet have failed and we are back at square one, we have removed Trinity and made it into a “One-ity” (lol) that only accepts DPS and DPS only!

If you take the time and read the rest of the thread you will realize that the players in GW2 do support/control/damage, they heal, they buff, they debuff and damage all in one package, they do what Healers, DPS and Tanks do in other MMORPGs at the same time.

maddoctor.2738:

GreenZap.1352:

Why have we removed Trinity if we are shoe-horned itno everyone being a DPS role with limited group buffs/support?

Actually the best DPS builds in the game offer lots of support and the reason some profs are neglected from speed clears (like necromancers) is because they have limited support, not because their DPS is bad.

If we can’t utilize other ideas then ANet have failed and we are back at square one, we have removed Trinity and made it into a “One-ity” (lol) that only accepts DPS and DPS only!

If you take the time and read the rest of the thread you will realize that the players in GW2 do support/control/damage, they heal, they buff, they debuff and damage all in one package, they do what Healers, DPS and Tanks do in other MMORPGs at the same time.

You didn’t understand what I wrote wich can very well have to do with that my bad English writing skills and that my post were so long that my point got lost.

What I was trying to say is that what GW2 fails at in my book is giving options. You mention that everyone can heal/buff/dps etcetera which is very true but is not what I’m having issue with.

My issue is that becuase of how content is designed, players who want to play a certain class in a certain way to their personal liking quickly get disregarded and thus the “play how you want and be benificial” becomes “play how you should to be benificial” which is not very different from being forced to adhere to a Trinity (that’s what I meant with a One-ity).

Guild Wars 2’s encounter design heavily favors DPS as your main responsibility while surviving by yourself is the second. Unless you adhere to playing your character like this you will often be a detriment to your team.

There is no space there to allow a player who want to play a Elementalist as a support while staying ony in Water/Earth to support or a Guardian to only pick skills like Save Yourselves, Projectile Wall, AOE condition cleansers (don’t remember name) and using staff.

The way you tackle content in this game is by having everyone in the team doing damage firstmost. There is simply no space for those who want to fill a more active “support role” and be the “flag carrier”.

You are shoe-horned into playing the game as a tri-spec thus the developer have removed the choices from the player and just like the Trinity forced them into playing their characters in a certain way and thus severerly hindered other playstyles that does not follow the tri-spec.

GreenZap.1352:

Here’s my critizism or my personal (uninformed) player view if you will of this game. My issue with the combat system is not the lack of the Trinity but rather that the game mechanics doesn’t “reward” you to play in ways outside of an offensive approach to tackle an encounter.

See that’s the main problem with GW2. The combat system have a really bad PR and Marketing.

Ppl only see the gear and don’t try to actually understand the game (sorry but even if its partially the game fault, its not totally…)

Support have a HUGE part in that game, equal to dps. If dps was the only thing in that game, then only Elementalist would run dungeon. But that’s not what we see. Even when you go in the meta, all profession bring something else than just dps. But that support is different than other MMO. It do not focus on tanking and healing. It focus on damage mitigation, active gameplay, buffs, etc.

Guardian for example bring damage mitigation, blind, aegis, reflect, condi removal, etc. He keep his team alive before they can hit, and don’t fix the dmg after by healing. That need more timing and knowledge of the game as you are proactive not just reactive. For me that’s a way better gameplay than an healer looking at his side bar and clicking all his skill in the perfect rotation.

The other aspect that ppl don’t understant because of the gear is diversity. They look at the gear and say kitten, this game have no diversity and everybody have zerker gear. But diversity don’t come from gear stats in GW2. It come from traits, skills, utilities, weapons, runes, sigils, etc.

GreenZap.1352:

maddoctor.2738:

GreenZap.1352:

Why have we removed Trinity if we are shoe-horned itno everyone being a DPS role with limited group buffs/support?

Actually the best DPS builds in the game offer lots of support and the reason some profs are neglected from speed clears (like necromancers) is because they have limited support, not because their DPS is bad.

If we can’t utilize other ideas then ANet have failed and we are back at square one, we have removed Trinity and made it into a “One-ity” (lol) that only accepts DPS and DPS only!

If you take the time and read the rest of the thread you will realize that the players in GW2 do support/control/damage, they heal, they buff, they debuff and damage all in one package, they do what Healers, DPS and Tanks do in other MMORPGs at the same time.

You didn’t understand what I wrote wich can very well have to do with that my bad English writing skills and that my post were so long that my point got lost.

What I was trying to say is that what GW2 fails at in my book is giving options. You mention that everyone can heal/buff/dps etcetera which is very true but is not what I’m having issue with.

My issue is that becuase of how content is designed, players who want to play a certain class in a certain way get disregarded and thus the “play how you want” quickly becomes “play how you should” which is not very different from being forced to adhere to a Trinity.

This games design heavily favors DPS as your “main” responsibility and unless you adhere to this you will often be a detriment to your team because focusing only on one or two “ways to play” whetheter it be staying in Water/Earth as a Elementalist or only pick skills like Save Yourselves, Projectile Wall (don’t remember name) and using staff as a Guardian is not viable because you beat content “mainly” (I use that word a lot I know) by doing DPS to your target.

Thus every other playstyle become unviable because there is simply too little room for certain group members to focus on one thing only if they so choose, thus you have removed the choice from the player and just like the Trinity forced them into playing a certain way.

I’m not talking about classes having the means to do a little of everything I’m talking about how the effect of making everyone into a “tri-spec” have severerly hindered other playstyles and we could also discuss the issue this have created with “Class Tiers” because some classes are simply better at the tri-spec in this game then others but that is another discussion.

That “playstyle” you say you want is watching red bars? Either the health bars of allies or the aggro meters as a tank? I think those kind of playstyles have no reason to exist in an action based game, where active defense plays an important role.

What’s next? Let’s add evade/block chances and attack rolls?

GreenZap.1352:

Hi

I’m new to the forum and I’ll admit that I haven’t played the game a lot since I bought it at it’s release not because I dislike the game.
In fact I’ve been following the game from the forums since I’ve bought it because I really like a lot of what ANet is trying to do here.

Here’s my critizism or my personal (uninformed) player view if you will of this game. My issue with the combat system is not the lack of the Trinity but rather that the game mechanics doesn’t “reward” you to play in ways outside of an offensive approach to tackle an encounter.

The idea of Guild Wars 2 is that we have no “roles set in stone” and that you should more or less be able to play however you want then how come that a build like Staff only; Caster/Heal/Support Guardian that focuses entirely on support/off heal and protection is not viable in a group setting?

I think I’m asking the wrong questions; my real question is really not why that particular build is not “viable” but instead why is throwing damage at a problem the only true solution for every possible encounter in this game?

If the idea from ANet was to make away set roles that you decide by creating a character of a certain class then why does the game so aggresively “punishes” you for trying to play a class or a weapon skill set “not by the book” or by trying to “specialize” into one “role”?

Let’s compare to another game namely ESO which suffers from issues due to poor development, unbalanced classes and combat yadda yadda but if there’s one thing that game does right then it’s the freedom for players to choose whatever class they want because classes doesn’t define your role. Skill trees and weapons does.

Sure I will not disagree that picking some skills here and there and some weapons are more viable then other and if you are not going with a cookie cutter build and utilize weapon swap then you will be less efficent but still; it works in ESO!

Even if you were to play a “less efficent” build in ESO you can still be beneficial and helpful to your team and it’s instantly fun and rewarding.
You can probably not get into the hardest endgame content and expect to be of any use if you are playing with a “less efficent build” but during your whole leveling experience including dungeons and easier endgame activies you will still be of use and helpful to your team!

Isn’t that where GW2 is supposed to be superior? Isn’t GW2’s idea about bringing whatever you want to a group/team and have fun togheter?

So why then is this game favoring damage stats over defensive/support stats to beat every single thing that the developers throw at you? Why?

What if someone want to play a Elementalist Heal/Support and only stay in Water/Earth? Why shouldn’t that be beneficial and useful to the team and thus rewarding for the player who wants to play a Heal/Support Elementalist? Why?

Why have we removed Trinity if we are shoe-horned itno everyone being a DPS role with limited group buffs/support?

If we can’t utilize other ideas then ANet have failed and we are back at square one, we have removed Trinity and made it into a “One-ity” (lol) that only accepts DPS and DPS only!

That’s my issue with Guild Wars 2.

Feel free to critize me, discuss.

One, no one should be criticizing you as a person, your ideas on the other hand are fair game. I would like to first state (in my opinion) that the nature of defensive stats in a bit of a odd place as they work quite well when compared within the stats available to players, it starts to break down with the tendency for the developers to design dodge or downed mechanics that reward twitch play/memorization.

One question a do have about you above mention elementalist why would they just sit in earth/water, when there are helpful option in all the attunement (fire field for combo when healing isn’t needed, blinds and other control in air)? I don’t play a lot of elementalist, but as I understand it making uses of all the attunments is crucial to the profession.

Liewec.2896:

i think the “specialization” system is going to let you focus more on a holy trinity role than a hybrid, for instance if you specialize your warrior into defence it will make you more of a traditional tank.

I think so too. The specialization system seems like it will cater to everyone in general without overhauling the system.

maddoctor.2738:

That “playstyle” you say you want is watching red bars? Either the health bars of allies or the aggro meters as a tank? I think those kind of playstyles have no reason to exist in an action based game, where active defense plays an important role.

What’s next? Let’s add evade/block chances and attack rolls?

That’s not what I meant; I’m trying to say that what I would want from the game is for ANet to design encounters differently that will promote and open up possibilites for players to for example only play a Elementalist as a Healer/Boon buffer or a Guardian as a Cleanser/Flag Carrier.

As it is currently every spec is supposed to do DPS firstmost and everything else secondly. If you don’t contribute to DPS then you are a detriment.

Again I’m not trying to bring Trinity into the game because I don’t want to have Trinity anymore.

The only thing I want is more then one game style to work in Guild Wars 2 and currently I personally feel that is not the case because you can’t be a “support” if you want, you are always a damage dealer with a jack of all trades setup which is fine but why can’t players choose to only “support”, “flag carry” if they so want?

GreenZap.1352:

The idea of Guild Wars 2 is that we have no “roles set in stone” and that you should more or less be able to play however you want then how come that a build like Staff only; Caster/Heal/Support Guardian that focuses entirely on support/off heal and protection is not viable in a group setting?

actually it is – I’ve run way to many events/wvw runs/dungeon runs on full support setup on guard and I have seen too much dungeon teambuilds where defensive/supportive guardian was a keypoint for everyone else being able to do the job in some certain way

the place where its not viable is in solo setting only

GreenZap.1352:

I think I’m asking the wrong questions; my real question is really not why that particular build is not “viable” but instead why is throwing damage at a problem the only true solution for every possible encounter in this game?

well maybe Its me weird here but you can’t kills stuff without dealing any damage
although just throwing damage is not enought against bosses dungs etc. it usually requires also some teamwork and synchronising between builds in team

GreenZap.1352:

If the idea from ANet was to make away set roles that you decide by creating a character of a certain class then why does the game so aggresively “punishes” you for trying to play a class or a weapon skill set “not by the book” or by trying to “specialize” into one “role”?

you are talking to a person who was always tinkering his build outside of meta and I have never felt punished for that :P
[actually it led me in some cases to very viable but unpopular builds that no one earlier even tried because “meta”]

GreenZap.1352:

Let’s compare to another game namely ESO which suffers from issues due to poor development, unbalanced classes and combat yadda yadda but if there’s one thing that game does right then it’s the freedom for players to choose whatever class they want because classes doesn’t define your role. Skill trees and weapons does.

explain only to me how “class” can be unbalanced if class was not defining anything – actually – did ESO had even class system? asking cause last time I checked on elder scrolls dropped class system at the point of skyrim

GreenZap.1352:

Sure I will not disagree that picking some skills here and there and some weapons are more viable then other and if you are not going with a cookie cutter build and utilize weapon swap then you will be less efficent but still; it works in ESO!

it works at GW2 as well – unless your build is EXTREMELY failed or your player skill does not let you use anything beyond “press x to win” tactic

GreenZap.1352:

Even if you were to play a “less efficent” build in ESO you can still be beneficial and helpful to your team and it’s instantly fun and rewarding.
You can probably not get into the hardest endgame content and expect to be of any use if you are playing with a “less efficent build” but during your whole leveling experience including dungeons and easier endgame activies you will still be of use and helpful to your team!

It sounds exacly like you were describing GW2 – at least to me

Thaddeus.4891:

GreenZap.1352:

Here’s my critizism or my personal (uninformed) player view if you will of this game. My issue with the combat system is not the lack of the Trinity but rather that the game mechanics doesn’t “reward” you to play in ways outside of an offensive approach to tackle an encounter.

See that’s the main problem with GW2. The combat system have a really bad PR and Marketing.

Ppl only see the gear and don’t try to actually understand the game (sorry but even if its partially the game fault, its not totally…)

Support have a HUGE part in that game, equal to dps. If dps was the only thing in that game, then only Elementalist would run dungeon. But that’s not what we see. Even when you go in the meta, all profession bring something else than just dps. But that support is different than other MMO. It do not focus on tanking and healing. It focus on damage mitigation, active gameplay, buffs, etc.

Guardian for example bring damage mitigation, blind, aegis, reflect, condi removal, etc. He keep his team alive before they can hit, and don’t fix the dmg after by healing. That need more timing and knowledge of the game as you are proactive not just reactive. For me that’s a way better gameplay than an healer looking at his side bar and clicking all his skill in the perfect rotation.

The other aspect that ppl don’t understant because of the gear is diversity. They look at the gear and say kitten, this game have no diversity and everybody have zerker gear. But diversity don’t come from gear stats in GW2. It come from traits, skills, utilities, weapons, runes, sigils, etc.

I agree totally but my point is about me having an issue (it’s only my opinion after all) with that the game expects everyone to do everything when some ppl might want to do a specific thing and contribute/be beneficial by doing that thing only.

Why can’t we have that option as well?

That’s what I mean.

Firstmost damage dealing then you also help out with condition cleansing, control… you name it but why can’t a player focus on one “way to play” if they so want and still be helpful?

GreenZap.1352:

Isn’t that where GW2 is supposed to be superior? Isn’t GW2’s idea about bringing whatever you want to a group/team and have fun togheter?

So why then is this game favoring damage stats over defensive/support stats to beat every single thing that the developers throw at you? Why?

imo its not game favoring its playerbase – I have big bunch on defensive builds that works in their area quite well…. heck I even saved phew dungeon runs back in the days just because I was on more defensive setup than rest of group and when they just died I was able to not only survive but also poke quite good damage to a boss and using stuff that nearrly none considered usefull I was capable of resurrect whole team while nearly soloing the boss (I’ve dealt sth like 50% damage to him alone back then)

GreenZap.1352:

What if someone want to play a Elementalist Heal/Support and only stay in Water/Earth? Why shouldn’t that be beneficial and useful to the team and thus rewarding for the player who wants to play a Heal/Support Elementalist? Why?

I’ve seen (and run) big bunch of runs when water elementalist was the key to succesfully finish a run

GreenZap.1352:

Why have we removed Trinity if we are shoe-horned itno everyone being a DPS role with limited group buffs/support?

If we can’t utilize other ideas then ANet have failed and we are back at square one, we have removed Trinity and made it into a “One-ity” (lol) that only accepts DPS and DPS only!

That’s my issue with Guild Wars 2.

Feel free to critize me, discuss.

I don’t agree that we are shoe-horned into dps role and let me remind you that ANet did not replaced old trinity with “One-ity” but with their own trinity – of control damage and support instead of dps-tank healer

Lord Trejgon.2809:

explain only to me how “class” can be unbalanced if class was not defining anything – actually – did ESO had even class system? asking cause last time I checked on elder scrolls dropped class system at the point of skyrim

ESO do have classes. 4 classes. However the classes are not definite to the role you will be playing in the Trinity even though some classes coupled with some races excels at some things better then others.

Regarding balance one of the many issues that ESO suffer from is that one particular class namely the Dragon Knight is more or less better than all other classes combined at tanking and DPSING because of their superior skill numbers, superior class design, superior Ultimates and passives and superior skill loadouts

The issue is not so much that they are better but more that they are VERY MUCH better than other classes. Regarding armor in ESO light armor beats medium and heavy in ESO in all roles unless you are going to Tank where you still want some light armor pieces because of how “OP” the stats are you get from light armor

You can also forget to play melee outside of being a Tank as melee is not really viable due to encounter design and because ranged weapons have much better damage, skills and doesn’t suffer from a terrible resource system (stamina).

GW2 does not need the trinity to be reinstated but there absolutely must be something done about the current Meta or else it’ll never change.

I really really like what everquest next is doing. From everything I’ve read they are doing away with stats entirely.

Instead every piece of gear you get upgrades an ability for a class and links some abilities to others.

If they did that here it would be amazing. It’s like if your chest piece augmented one of your talents making it work better with a certain slot skill or adding an additional effect. Or if your ring made your heal have additional effects.

That would add way more diversity to every profession. It would be closer to GW1 style of character building without changing the current gameplay. Without stats everyone would be able to build the way they want to and not what others dictate to them is the best. Sure there would be “this ability is better than this one” but with so many potential options it would take a very long time to determine what is best.

Just my two cents.

GreenZap.1352:

snip

ah I see – anyway check up cause I had to break my response into two posts cause o characters limit :/

People are approaching dungeons or whatever it is in the game with the wrong mindset.

As a player you are suppose to adapt, each class can do everything at once, there is no reason to be a dedicated healer or a tank because every player is expected to do those things while still providing dps. This is a good thing because it shows how good of a player you are. In any other MMO anyone can be a good healer if they look at their party members health bar and press healing whenever their life drops, anyone can be a good tank, all they need to do is round up a bunch of mobs and taunt them. If you die?.. then just blame the healer.

In this game, most (not all) of the “tanking”, “healing” and “dps” responsibility fall on every player in the party. The ability to adapt, perform proper dps rotation while timing defenses when necessary is what separates this game from all other MMO.

The only issue is Anet is refusing to update and introduce dungeons that are extremely difficult to the point where players have to fully utilize all that to the maximum capability just to finish it. Inexperienced players waltz into a disorganized pug where they use inefficient strategies to tackle the content and see it work and proclaim that the dungeon meta is bad when in truth all this “stacking” nonsense are actually not “meta”, real meta parties hardly stack for anything.

“Bring back holy trinity”? It was never in the game so it can’t be “brought back”.

Anet was very clear that there was going to be no holy trinity. Nobody going into this game had any reason to believe otherwise. Some of us like it this way, like me. We have one game available to us that does not have the holy trinity, and we are playing it.

Changes need to be made but introducing the holy trinity is not one of them.

Since you are so attached to it, go play a game with it.

I guess a lot of you don’t realize how hard it is for many people just to learn how to dodge… It still amazes me to this day how many people I see just either refuse to dodge, refuse to learn to dodge, or just can’t learn to dodge.

Setay.2135:

GW2 does not need the trinity to be reinstated but there absolutely must be something done about the current Meta or else it’ll never change.

I really really like what everquest next is doing. From everything I’ve read they are doing away with stats entirely.

Instead every piece of gear you get upgrades an ability for a class and links some abilities to others.

If they did that here it would be amazing. It’s like if your chest piece augmented one of your talents making it work better with a certain slot skill or adding an additional effect. Or if your ring made your heal have additional effects.

That would add way more diversity to every profession. It would be closer to GW1 style of character building without changing the current gameplay. Without stats everyone would be able to build the way they want to and not what others dictate to them is the best. Sure there would be “this ability is better than this one” but with so many potential options it would take a very long time to determine what is best.

Just my two cents.

Haven’t followed EQNext that much but it kinda sounds like they are adopting Path of Exiles system where gems in your item slots are linked to do different things like adding AOE to one skill for example or lowering it’s resource cost.

The only issue I can see from this is that in Path of Exile a majority of the builds required a certain setup and every armor/weapon piece had a different amount of slots that could be linked and thus link abilites and effects togheter.

That meant that a item that had 6 slots that were also linked to each other were BIS because you could fit a skill + every effect you wanted to have. The issue with this was that you needed to play some other build until you found an item with 6 slots and when you finally found one, because of how hard it was to get one/expensive to buy from players it could be very hard to upgrade the item without losing slots.

Now I don’t know how it’ll work in EQNext I can only attest to PoE which was a Play to Win game (those who had a good network of ppl to trade with and also had all of the time in the world to play were the only ones to be able to play the builds how they wanted).

All others had to play “less expensive” builds because they were never ever going to get a 6 slotted chest that were linked and were never going to be able to play the more fun specs because they required so many effect linked to one skill that you needed a 6 slot chest which like I said is not something you just find.

GreenZap.1352:

Haven’t followed EQNext that much but it kinda sounds like they are adopting Path of Exiles system where gems in your item slots are linked to do different things like adding AOE to one skill for example or lowering it’s resource cost.

The only issue I can see from this is that in Path of Exile a majority of the builds required a certain setup and every armor/weapon piece had a different amount of slots that could be linked and thus link abilites and effects togheter.

That meant that a item that had 6 slots that were also linked to each other were BIS because you could fit a skill + every effect you wanted to have. The issue with this was that you needed to play some other build until you found an item with 6 slots and when you finally found one, because of how hard it was to get one/expensive to buy from players it could be very hard to upgrade the item without losing slots.

Now I don’t know how it’ll work in EQNext I can only attest to PoE which was a Play to Win game (those who had a good network of ppl to trade with and also had all of the time in the world to play were the only ones to be able to play the builds how they wanted).

All others had to play “less expensive” builds because they were never ever going to get a 6 slotted chest that were linked and were never going to be able to play the more fun specs because they required so many effect linked to one skill that you needed a 6 slot chest which like I said is not something you just find.

I’ve never played Path of Exile so I cant really speak on that one. I do think the idea is sound though. It’s possible that it may work the same way.

I did see that yes you are correct that you will have to play around with different builds until you get the item that fits your playstyle which could be annoying but GW could always offset this by allowing you to choose the ability set up that you want. Maybe Blue ties to the 2 pt talents and tier one skills. Green to 4 pt and tier two skills, Yellow to 6 pt and tier three skills and finally Gold to all tiers and and all skills even elites.

Finally ascended could just be stronger Gold.

Have a cost associated with amending your choice of talent tie in. Either gold cost or gem cost instead of having to make a new set of gear for each playstyle or if desired have a second set of gear which would really be no different than now.

That way it’s less grindy as is GW2’s philosophy and still works the same way.

No the game seems more balanced by having each class having the ability to be self-sufficient. Why would you want to go back to we don’t have ‘x’ class this is pointless. No thanks.

I think Greenzap and Max Potato make good points. Ask yourself, why did GW2 remove Holy Trinity? I believe it is because it is boring waiting 15 minutes to get a DPS, Tank, and Healer to group for a quest/dungeon. But does GW2’s “solution” work? It seems like they just traded 30 minutes waiting for a healer for 30 minutes of waiting for a Zerk warrior.

I really think ArenaNet didn’t want to remove “the trinity.” They just wanted to remove the “Holy” trinity. It is great that a group of 5 zerks can do dungeons well. I think a group with a defensive guardian and healer elementalist should also do well…but I get kicked if I play staff ele and just use water magic. Enemies are dead before the giant icicle lands, and the 1 skill is so weak I don’t get xp credit.

We should still have tanks, healers, and damagers because different people like the different styles. Variety is good! I believe GW2 accomplishes the goal that no class/build is required, but failed to make every build relatively equal. It should just be they are all equally fun and rewarding. Right now I feel like I sacrifice damage VERY heavily to get +300 healing, and the effect of it is not satisfying. Power and critical apply to almost every skill on your bar while you attack (roughly 100% beneficial during a fight), but in most cases healing power just affects skill 6 (about once every 30 seconds). Toughness/Vitality only apply when an enemy attacks you, and they only attack about 1 time per 5 seconds. Power/Precision/Ferocity will quadruple your damage, full healing/toughness/vitality just increases your healing like 20%, and that charging mordrem will still kill you in one hit.

I don’t mind that with the GW2 design, dungeon runners will gravitate towards berserk armor to kill things faster. It’s awesome that the skill and dodge system let’s them play fast and risky like that. I just want the other stats that exist on the other 80% of armors to feel worthwhile and fun. I like playing healers, and I can load up on healing stats and traits, but it just doesn’t seem to work very well. I think zerker armor is balanced very well, but some changes need to be made to skills or the benefit of toughness/vitality to make them more useful. I’m not very familiar with league of legends, but Max Potato makes it sound like those stats could be fit into your normal attacks in some way to give them an active benefit besides just a passive effect. That could be fun. Because basically, offensive stats will benefit you 100% of the time with your active playstyle so it is fun and noticeable, while the rest are a kind of boring thing that also only has a benefit when you miss a dodge.

Sorry for the long post. Basically, don’t bring “Holy” trinity back required for every group/event/dungeon, but we could sure use some more build variety than just DPS! It’s a complex problem, but I’m hoping ArenaNet can handle it.

Elder Angelus.6298:

I think Greenzap and Max Potato make good points. Ask yourself, why did GW2 remove Holy Trinity? I believe it is because it is boring waiting 15 minutes to get a DPS, Tank, and Healer to group for a quest/dungeon. But does GW2’s “solution” work? It seems like they just traded 30 minutes waiting for a healer for 30 minutes of waiting for a Zerk warrior.

Only that’s not true, instead of waiting for a healer you wait for nobody. Make a LFG ad yourself and it will fill in seconds. Also, any groups that is worth something won’t stack many Warriors, one is enough, so from looking for a specific role/class we went to looking for all classes, its’ a win-win really.

We should still have tanks, healers, and damagers because different people like the different styles. Variety is good!

No, that kind of variety is not good. If the playstyle you are looking for is watching red bars (health or aggro meters) then you are in the wrong game. This one is all about player skill and action where you can’t be carried by your gear/build.

You getting kicked if you stay in Water Attunement is because of your choice not to use your skills to their full potential. If you want to see how OP staying only Water is, solo a dungeon path using Water and just afk it, there are videos around that can show you how.

ODB.6891:

Wetpaw.3487:

xarallei.4279:

No. Not sure why you want that back. It’s awful. Especially as dps sitting in a queue waiting and waiting for a tank or healer. It’s miserable. I mean part of me really misses being a healer. But in the end, it’s probably for the best to do away with that.

Not speaking for dungeons, but LS, open world events, Raids?, I would Like to see more of an emphasis on healing. Not in the trinity form as a player sits in the back healbotting w/a tank holding threat, but in the GW2 fashion. Fights and situations where dodge, cleanse, area avoidance, and block are just not enough, and bringing a few healing/support builds is actually beneficial.

Certain satisfaction helping out friends and players in that role.

So what you are saying is that you want your healing to be required (mandatory)? That’s what it means for “dodge, cleanse, area avoidance, and block are just not enough, and bringing a few healing/support builds is actually beneficial”. That means healing is required if professions cannot survive without it “not enough”. No thank you on your back door trinity inroads. Why is it so hard to either play the game as it was designed or play a game that is designed that way instead? Is it really so important to ruin this game and make it a clone of every other game on the market….just so you don’t have to adapt to this one?

No, I didn’t say at all I wanted healing/support build required, or mandatory. Maybe it was my wording, introduced in way where zerk meta is not enough to bring to future events, and if Anet implements raiding of the sort.

We don’t have to think the WoW holy trinity is the way to go, nor do we need to continue with the same boring zerka meta of standing in a blob blowing up imaginary dps addons. Yes, a lil more goes into it I know, press a key for stability, cleanse, heal yourself if needed, and don’t stand in red, but the lack of growth in the dungeon department over last 2yrs plus should give you good inclination maybe Anet doesn’t think the result was up to their standard?

Try thinking out of the box instead of holding down GW2 to its beta form, your point sounds similar to the cries of no hand gliders (go play Archeage!), gear treadmill (go play WoW, ascended!), etc…of the past.

We also don’t know what kind of mastery abilities we will learn in this new environment of HoT to help us through the challenges we face, we also shouldn’t assume that professional, or zone mastery’s will follow the tired zerker meta we see now.

all I’m saying is try having an open mind, it’s doesn’t have to be always black and white Holy Trinity & Anti Trinity.

@ElderAngelus said what I was trying to say but so much better.

Also I don’t disagree entirely with @maddoctor because you bring up several great points but I still feel as you and I are discussing two different topics.

Like you say; if an Elementalist choose to only weave between two elements you will (and I agree with you) not play the class to it’s full ability but why does that need to punish the group and you?

Why can’t the attunement synergize better with the trait so say that you for example want to focus on Water/Earth for healing and control you would dump your points in the trait system to enhance those two attunements or you could create synergize between Air/Lightning.. Insert whatever synergy you want here.

Why can’t a Guardian build be completely about clearing/transferring conditions and turning them into boons for your party by you focusing on certain skills and dumping points in certain trait lines? Why can’t this be benificial?

My issue is not that GW2’s classes is “jack of all trades”, I welcome our “jack of all trades” overlords because I agree with you; having to wait for a Tank or a Healer is an outdated RPG design that doesn’t belong in 2015 however that doesn’t mean that everything else have to be sacrificed in the progress.

You can still aim to have a system that allows for variety where you are not shoe-horned into being “Jack of all trades” if you don’t want to play that way. Everything else doesn’t have to be unrewarding and useless in the process.

People come into this game from different reasons, personally I come from a EverQuest formula background and I’m here because I want to get away from “shoe-horning” but that’s what this game does just like EverQuest; it shoe-horns everyone into being Jack of all trades and everything else becomes unviable, useless and a detriment to other players.

Having a forced Jack of all trades is the same as having a trinity; eg; a specific setup whether it’s with more then one members or simply a skill build choice is the “correct” way to play that giving class/character.

I welcome the Jack of all trades but I simply don’t agree with that it have to be the be all and end all. Options is what makes a RPG fun.

No game have perfected the “non trinity” system yet. Guild Wars 2 is a step on the way but personally for me it’s a long way from being considering a good replacement because it just like the Trinity is restricting and limits choice for the player.

GreenZap.1352:

Like you say; if an Elementalist choose to only weave between two elements you will (and I agree with you) not play the class to it’s full ability but why does that need to punish the group and you?

Why can’t the attunement also work in the way that it can be effective to trait in a certain way that makes 2 attunements “better” and thus the character synergy that way.

Why can’t a Guardian build be completely about clearing/transferring conditions and turning them into boons for your party?

Because that kind of passive gameplay is “watching red bars” and Anet wanted to avoid that with this game. They want all players to be active and fulfill a variety of roles on the fly, good/skilled players adapt to any situation. That’s why they gave everyone a heal skill and even more ways to heal, to avoid the need for a specialized healer for the party.

Pure Healers are needed in other games, because the other roles don’t have healing abilities, pure Tanks are needed in other games, because other roles can’t survive boss hits.

Active gameplay is more engaging than passive gameplay.

maddoctor.2738:

GreenZap.1352:

Like you say; if an Elementalist choose to only weave between two elements you will (and I agree with you) not play the class to it’s full ability but why does that need to punish the group and you?

Why can’t the attunement also work in the way that it can be effective to trait in a certain way that makes 2 attunements “better” and thus the character synergy that way.

Why can’t a Guardian build be completely about clearing/transferring conditions and turning them into boons for your party?

Because that kind of passive gameplay is “watching red bars” and Anet wanted to avoid that with this game. They want all players to be active and fulfill a variety of roles on the fly, good/skilled players adapt to any situation. That’s why they gave everyone a heal skill and even more ways to heal, to avoid the need for a specialized healer for the party.

Pure Healers are needed in other games, because the other roles don’t have healing abilities, pure Tanks are needed in other games, because other roles can’t survive boss hits.

Active gameplay is more engaging than passive gameplay.

Why does it have to be “passive”? There’s a lot of MMORPGs where I can assure you that the supporting role doesn’t have a passive gameplay style. When you are busy buffing/debuffing, removing shields from target, adding shields to your team etcetera etcetera you don’t have time to space out

I guess you are talking about EQ/WoW and if so I completely agree with you but they are not the only “Theme Park MMORPGs” that exist and they are especially not how every MMORPG whether it be theme park or “sandbox” handles group encounters and classes.
EverQuest healers and WoW healers is nothing alike (not even close) so there’s not even a point to compare those two games on classes alone.

Look at Guild Wars 1. Sure it was a lobby style MMORPG but it had a Trinity. Do you feel that GW1 have a similar style to WoW? Does Anarchy Online have a similar combat system to WoW?

You’re still arguing about that either we have the Trinity or Jack of all Trades while I’m talking about ditching both of them and actually try to innovate a little bit.

I’m not talking about pure healers you are the one talking about “pure classes” I’ve in fact never said anything about pure classes in any of my post. I don’t want pure classes I want options and I’m talking about making other ways to play a class viable, ways that are currently not working because of how the trait system interacts with character equip and weapon skills.

I’m getting tired so I have to go to bed but the point is; you are arguing for Jack of all Trades or Trinity while I say that we shouldn’t have either Jack or Trinity; we should try to take the good things from both systems and combine them which GW2 already HAVE the foundation for in it’s Trait/Skill system but it requires ANet to follow up upon and look through the Trait system and figure out if they can possible tweak some numbers and effects here and there.

I’m not going to be rude but if you ssly believe that every other MMORPG where healers exist is games where healers stay afk just throwing out heals when needed then you have not played many GOOD MMORPGs in your life.

Also I ssly don’t believe that zerker builds were something that ANet intended. In fact I do believe that ANET originally aimed for a variety of different playstyles; there was not supposed to be " if you pick axe + sword Warrior you have to pick these traits".

I think ANET intended for the game to make various of loadouts and classes synergize and work more freely but unfortunately the current state of the game doesn’t support this kinda variety and there’s only one way to fix; by working on the game.

Look at Dota 2. I started playing WC3 Dota when it was new and look how different Dota 2 is and what long way it have come since Dota 2 was released as open beta. You can’t just go out and say “ok the game is good now” you make a game good by constantly working and trying to improve on it.
Recently Valve changed pathways on the map in Dota 2 which COMPLETELY changed the whole game and opened up for options that noone else had thought about before.

.When I read ANET’s manifesto I read it as they wanted the player to be in power, to have choices, to be able to play in a variety of ways. Maybe that was just me projecting what I thought they were saying I dunno.

What I do know is what I’m discussing is already in the game it just haven’t been developed yet and I would love to see it worked more on.

I don’t want Jack of all Trades and I don’t want Trinity ONLY. I want the game to allow for a variety of playstyles where everyone doesn’t have to funnel to DPS or healer or whatever or GTFO.

Short answer:
NO!

naiasonod.9265:

Lets make dungeons flight simulators and we can all ride charrcopters around and pewpewpew at enemies. They can use the Super Adventure Box graphic style!

…That might actually be fun. Nevermind.

Anet need make this happen!!

What defines tank or healer?

Is a tank defined as aggro control? Well that probably isn’t going to happen in this game – HOWEVER, I’ve seen many a class that can sit there and get beat on repeatedly without any issue.

I’ve also seen many “healing” specs in this game. Staff guardians, water elementalists, elixir gun engineers. Why not roll one and be a “healer”?

Why would they bring back the trinity? It was NEVER here in the 1st place?

It wouldn’t help. I have 4 dedicated healers (S/F&GS zealot guard, zealot staff ele(or celestial ele), zealot transfusion necro, zealot shout heal warrior.) on my 15 characters, and they run builds I like. Mostly with full DPS gear. I have 1 (heal)tank purely for trolling or commander group WvW…. it will stay alive in an enemy zerg while immo-ed, at least for 10-12 seconds… which tends to be enough.

IMHO my war w. PVT Hammer/Mace build counts as a CC tank, but it’s just the feel… I know it really holds it’s own vs igniters in COF 2, but other then that it has few uses , due to “Defiant” which make the game boring, at least regarding CC, I still wonder why arenanet made a lockout for CC’s vs all champions and higher… Maybe they are afreaid if all warriors would go hammer instead of GS. It would probably improve boss uptime considerably… but would allow people to enjoy playing the game the way they want to play.

And they are viable builds in the end all. p

I notice I have run 75K+ AP speedruns with ALL the buffs, and done AC 123 in >40 minutes, done cof in so short a time it was rediculous. And I’ve run with everybody welcome paths, which tend to take forever, nobody is geared, and nowadays it’s even worse as noone is traited.

Leaving me to run zerker quite often or zealot zerk healer…or in rare cases sinister, if I know condi’s are good…

karakurt.8690:

Gw2 was my second mmo after Lotro (I was playing lore master there,support/crowd control/debuff you can understand what is my play style) and I experienced worse dungeon system here which are skip trash and push boss to a corner,dodge zerk,dodge zerk,dodge zerk… really no strategy…etc Whatever it is called “Holy Trinity” We need more roles out of just zerk.

to be perfectly honest skip trash, push boss to corner would not change with a trinity. The encounters themselves are weakly designed, has nothing at all to do with trinity, and the addition of a trinity would only further cement those issues.

karakurt.8690:

Gw2 was my second mmo after Lotro (I was playing lore master there,support/crowd control/debuff you can understand what is my play style) and I experienced worse dungeon system here which are skip trash and push boss to a corner,dodge zerk,dodge zerk,dodge zerk… really no strategy…etc Whatever it is called “Holy Trinity” We need more roles out of just zerk.

NO! JUST NO. Zerk is not the problem, it’s the mechanics of many instances and bosses that can be modified. Tequatl is a good example, when zerk isn’t necessarily the best. However, Teq is also a good example of how much time is needed to change these instances. It’s been discussed times and time before, and those who like Trinity can go to other games to satisfy their needs. Those who stayed, we embraced (or at least tolerated) and others even applaud the lack of trinity.

I can’t imagine I’ll be going back to the same mindless waiting for a healer/tank/dps. Now, any player can make their own game. You want zerk only in a group? Make your own group and run your own dungeon. Want condi only? Works the same. Want a full one-class group, works too. Not all of them are optimal, but meh, changing the game to be optimal for Trinity isn’t the solution.

Elder Angelus.6298:

We should still have tanks, healers, and damagers because different people like the different styles. Variety is good!

Again…

Jon Peters; ArenaNet; MMO Champion Interview; 2/2012

We built this game so that the professions act as play styles, not as roles. Each profession can support, control, and do damage. We believe that this creates more dynamic combat and more distinct professions because there are more play styles than roles.

That was what was intended. It’s exactly what we have. Not 3 roles, 8 professions. Within those professions, there is a also versatility in traits and utility skills, which can be switched out from encounter to encounter.

You want to play tanks n’ healers? Wooden Potatoes has videos showing a 22K-group-healing-every-15-seconds build and a high armor, high sustain warrior build. Slot those, grab three ranged DPS and have at it. This game system gives the freedom for both that and high efficiency play. You can play trinity right now.

Yet, you want to throw away that freedom and make everyone play trinity. That’s what you’re really asking for. Why? So you can get into the PuG versions of speed runs with those builds. These complaints are essentially asking ANet to throw away one of the game’s core design features so you don’t have to type anything in the LFG and don’t have to make any effort to find the like-minded.

No, thanks.

On one point and one point only, I think the OP is correct. I don’t agree with his assessment of what’s wrong, and I certainly don’t agree with the proposed solution, but I do think that a problem exists and that it’s worth fixing. The question is what, and dismissing every trinity thread and every nerfzerker thread out of hand doesn’t help.

The trinity does bring some baggage with it that I think is well worth doing without. But that doesn’t mean that it was always pointless. The trick is to find ways to get the benefits of the traditional holy trinity without the attendant baggage. And to do that, there needs to be some agreement that there were ever benefits, and on what those benefits were.

The other thing I’ll add is that healing in “the traditional sense” might not be that difficult — you’ll still be saddled with extra roles like extra DPS and prodding stuff with your use key — but it is still significantly more involved — and proactive, for that matter — than it’s made out to be by certain individuals. You need to be keeping an eye on the field, watching for tells and telegraphs, researching and memorising fights, and also paying attention to what everyone else in the group is doing. Good healers anticipate damage and are ready to heal it before it even happens. A healer tunnel-visioned on the party list just filling bars up is a struggling healer, whether that’s because they’re bad, there’s something wrong with other players in the group, both, or neither.

evilunderling.9265:

On one point and one point only, I think the OP is correct. I don’t agree with his assessment of what’s wrong, and I certainly don’t agree with the proposed solution, but I do think that a problem exists and that it’s worth fixing. The question is what, and dismissing every trinity thread and every nerfzerker thread out of hand doesn’t help.

The trinity does bring some baggage with it that I think is well worth doing without. But that doesn’t mean that it was always pointless. The trick is to find ways to get the benefits of the traditional holy trinity without the attendant baggage. And to do that, there needs to be some agreement that there were ever benefits, and on what those benefits were.

The other thing I’ll add is that healing in “the traditional sense” might not be that difficult — you’ll still be saddled with extra roles like extra DPS and prodding stuff with your use key — but it is still significantly more involved — and proactive, for that matter — than it’s made out to be by certain individuals. You need to be keeping an eye on the field, watching for tells and telegraphs, researching and memorising fights, and also paying attention to what everyone else in the group is doing. Good healers anticipate damage and are ready to heal it before it even happens. A healer tunnel-visioned on the party list just filling bars up is a struggling healer, whether that’s because they’re bad, there’s something wrong with other players in the group, both, or neither.

once again, you are mixing in healing with more complex fight design. Most of the fights in the game dont require you to pay attention to what others are doing, watch for telegraphs, or anticipate. It is not a lack of trinity that is the issue, it is fights/encounters that were not designed with much in mind

IndigoSundown.5419:

Elder Angelus.6298:

We should still have tanks, healers, and damagers because different people like the different styles. Variety is good!

Again…

Jon Peters; ArenaNet; MMO Champion Interview; 2/2012

We built this game so that the professions act as play styles, not as roles. Each profession can support, control, and do damage. We believe that this creates more dynamic combat and more distinct professions because there are more play styles than roles.

That was what was intended. It’s exactly what we have. Not 3 roles, 8 professions. Within those professions, there is a also versatility in traits and utility skills, which can be switched out from encounter to encounter.

You want to play tanks n’ healers? Wooden Potatoes has videos showing a 22K-group-healing-every-15-seconds build and a high armor, high sustain warrior build. Slot those, grab three ranged DPS and have at it. This game system gives the freedom for both that and high efficiency play. You can play trinity right now.

Yet, you want to throw away that freedom and make everyone play trinity. That’s what you’re really asking for. Why? So you can get into the PuG versions of speed runs with those builds. These complaints are essentially asking ANet to throw away one of the game’s core design features so you don’t have to type anything in the LFG and don’t have to make any effort to find the like-minded.

No, thanks.

Quoted for truth and this thread really could have been closed after this post because this post really just pointed out why these threads are made. As a matter of fact, if the Mods could just set it up a macro to auto close any thread topic that contains the words “Holy Trinity” and put this post in the end, that would be great.

phys.7689:

once again, you are mixing in healing with more complex fight design. Most of the fights in the game dont require you to pay attention to what others are doing, watch for telegraphs, or anticipate. It is not a lack of trinity that is the issue, it is fights/encounters that were not designed with much in mind

“once again”? That was the first time I’ve posted in this thread, and the paragraph I wrote about healing was just an aside, not a major part of what I was saying.

thefantasticg.3984:

Quoted for truth and this thread really could have been closed after this post because this post really just pointed out why these threads are made. As a matter of fact, if the Mods could just set it up a macro to auto close any thread topic that contains the words “Holy Trinity” and put this post in the end, that would be great.

As I just said, despite what the OP said, this thread isn’t really about bringing back the holy trinity and likewise, the nerfzerker threads aren’t really about nerfing zerker.

Your post is like saying that someone with mesothelioma must be just fine because some random dude off the street with no medical training said that it was emphysema.

evilunderling.9265:

phys.7689:

once again, you are mixing in healing with more complex fight design. Most of the fights in the game dont require you to pay attention to what others are doing, watch for telegraphs, or anticipate. It is not a lack of trinity that is the issue, it is fights/encounters that were not designed with much in mind

“once again”? That was the first time I’ve posted in this thread, and the paragraph I wrote about healing was just an aside, not a major part of what I was saying.

i meant once again in terms of many people linking healing to more complex fights. sorry for that misunderstanding.
and i was specifically commenting on what you were saying about healing being complex because of these variables, which are missing regardless to healing existing or not.
what im trying to say is, the trinity isnt what leads to these poor fights, its just poorly designed fights in general.

IndigoSundown.5419:

That was what was intended. It’s exactly what we have. Not 3 roles, 8 professions. Within those professions, there is a also versatility in traits and utility skills, which can be switched out from encounter to encounter.

You want to play tanks n’ healers? Wooden Potatoes has videos showing a 22K-group-healing-every-15-seconds build and a high armor, high sustain warrior build. Slot those, grab three ranged DPS and have at it. This game system gives the freedom for both that and high efficiency play. You can play trinity right now.

Yet, you want to throw away that freedom and make everyone play trinity. That’s what you’re really asking for. Why? So you can get into the PuG versions of speed runs with those builds. These complaints are essentially asking ANet to throw away one of the game’s core design features so you don’t have to type anything in the LFG and don’t have to make any effort to find the like-minded.

No, thanks.

Well said.

phys.7689:

and i was specifically commenting on what you were saying about healing being complex because of these variables, which are missing regardless to healing existing or not.
what im trying to say is, the trinity isnt what leads to these poor fights, its just poorly designed fights in general.

I mostly agree. I was specifically responding to the people who regard healing as just a pointless exercise in watching red bars.

Consider this sort of thing:

• Twintania marks the dragoon for a fireball. The white mage knows who’s going to take the hit, so she targets and stacks on the dragoon (fireball does split damage, so this prevents her teammate from being one-shotted), pops Surecast (otherwise, the fireball would interrupt her heal), and begins casting Cure III (a big, expensive TAoE heal) when Twintania turns to cast the fireball.
• Twintania’s Death Sentence attack is up. The off-tank anticipates it, and provokes her, causing her to change targets and hit him with the incoming heal debuff instead of placing it on the main tank. The white mage sees what’s happening, and casts regen on the off-tank as Twintania begins her death sentence cast, circumventing the debuff.

Now compare it to this:

• The guardian, ranging a boss, sees a tell for something like Dagger Storm. She runs towards the boss and pops shield of absorption. The rest of the group realises what’s happening and stacks on her for defence from the projectiles.

The thought process isn’t actually different, is it? One thing we definitely didn’t gain from abandoning the trinity is some new, proactive combat paradigm.

Note that none of these examples are strictly how groups do things.

As an avid fan of healing I would love to see this happen, however I think the game and community is too entrenched in “Anti-Trinity” to do it. What Anet can do however is make more interesting fights within the game and more interesting dungeons that require coordinated effort and possibly even punish uncoordinated high DPS. The current dungeons are truly a sad affair where no real teamwork is required…that is what has to change and suddenly you will find uses for the non-zerker builds.

I wouldnt necessarily say trinity back, but more diversity, definitely.