Guild Wars 2

What I don’t understand is they made a big song and dance about “no trinity”…..but then go and make certain classes that give more healing to others…..and tanks.
When I started the game I was under the impression we would all simply have our own healing and thats it, or perhaps all could heal team mates the same at least.
“Look no trinity…..kinda”

its not the “holy trinity” ,
holy “trinity” was made by blizzard by eliminating specifc roles for buffer, debuffer and CC that were in the original everquest and different older games. they just gave these roles to other roles, now DPS could also CC, tanks could debuff and healers could buff.

GW2 thought they are making the next step when they allow all classes to heal, to tank, to CC, to buff and to debuff,
which is an awesome idea by itself, but they forgot to make healing and bunkering useful for players, and the introduction of defiant made CC and debuffs useless on bosses.
so we left with DPS and DPS that can buff.
which is what cause the boring game….

Yes and no.

Was the Trinity bad? I wouldn’t say it’s bad or ever was, and was very meritable at the very least in conception if nothing else. However Anet’s decision to remove that trinity was whilst unnecessary, a nice attempt at revolutionizing the MMO gaming style.

The problem is what has replaced the trinity. CC is useless on bosses. Conditions don’t work at all. Every class can support themselves to the point where they don’t need anyone else. What you have is an MMO, where no player needs another player in a sense, which is contradictory in a game which requires teamwork on a fundamental level. The only time where this is different is in the case of fights like Tequatl, but that’s mechanical teamwork i.e. you need x amount of people on this and that. There’s no roles per say in terms of player-player interaction, but rather, roles in the functionality of what takes place in the fight.

I think they’re trying to change the way things work but.. Eh. The game is already so far what it is. And without doing MAJOR overhauls, which would have to be done independent of LS or the like with lots of resources, I doubt they’ll ultimately finish it.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Yes and no.

Was the Trinity bad? I wouldn’t say it’s bad or ever was, and was very meritable at the very least in conception if nothing else. However Anet’s decision to remove that trinity was whilst unnecessary, a nice attempt at revolutionizing the MMO gaming style.

The problem is what has replaced the trinity. CC is useless on bosses. Conditions don’t work at all. Every class can support themselves to the point where they don’t need anyone else. What you have is an MMO, where no player needs another player in a sense, which is contradictory in a game which requires teamwork on a fundamental level. The only time where this is different is in the case of fights like Tequatl, but that’s mechanical teamwork i.e. you need x amount of people on this and that. There’s no roles per say in terms of player-player interaction, but rather, roles in the functionality of what takes place in the fight.

I think they’re trying to change the way things work but.. Eh. The game is already so far what it is. And without doing MAJOR overhauls, which would have to be done independent of LS or the like with lots of resources, I doubt they’ll ultimately finish it.

I have bolded, underlined and italisized a portion of your statement and agree with this 100%, which brings me to say/repeat what I have said several times before in that being you can do everything yourself(there are many who has soloed things that really shouldnt be soloable, like lupicous for instance) not needing teamwork/help is akin to nothing more than a GLORIFIED SINGLE-PLAYER GAME in an MMO setting.

ApplePearOrange.9281:

Removing the trinity was the first step in the right direction, ArenaNet just lacked the imagination to make it happen.

Very well said.
PVE is stale not because GW2 lacks a trinity, but because the trinity was removed and nothing meaningful was added to compensate.

Something meaningful was added, but it was subtle enough that people expecting to be hit over the head with role differences missed it. There’s also the issue that many of the bosses’ mechanics only consist of an attack rotation. Once you’ve seen a rotation a few times, it can’t help but get stale. The other issue is that team play mechanics almost universally proc in a very small area, about the size of a capture point.

Why did OP buy the game? They advertised no healers/tanks.

Have you played an action game? It’s advertised as one.

Don’t tell me you’re one of those “(dumb voice) ooh im an mmo vet and mmos need to be this way)”. Just because most mmos are spank and tank no-reflex games doesn’t make it the go-to method of making one.

FYI: Anyone calling him/herself an “mmo vet”, gamers laugh at the idea.

Calling mmo a genre is like calling 2-player or co-op games a genre.

I don’t understand why people are trying to push for the trinity mechanic.

There’s a lot of MMOs out there with the mechanic, is it really so bad to have a game for us who hates trinity?

Whoever said that there’s freedom in trinity, just to cite an example, I remember in AION whenever I tell my party I’m a DPS-spec Cleric, I get booted 85% of the time.

This post is people wanting something that was never promised in this game. By this logic next time I buy GTA game I should be able to flood its fourms demanding it be made a Final Fantasy clone.

ladybutter.5280:

snip… I remember in AION whenever I tell my party I’m a DPS-spec Cleric, I get booted 85% of the time.

whenever I say that i am apothecary warrior or cleric elementalist I get booted 85% of the time.

also, this game was not advertised as an action FPS. it was advertised as a revolutionary MMO where each class can be anything ( healing rogue, tanking ranger etc..)

what we got is that every class must be DPS instead.

Lalangamena.3694:

ladybutter.5280:

snip… I remember in AION whenever I tell my party I’m a DPS-spec Cleric, I get booted 85% of the time.

whenever I say that i am apothecary warrior or cleric elementalist I get booted 85% of the time.

also, this game was not advertised as an action FPS. it was advertised as a revolutionary MMO where each class can be anything ( healing rogue, tanking ranger etc..)

what we got is that every class must be DPS instead.

It’s NOT mmofps, far from it. Not even mmo action/fps mix.

btw, majority of the parties in LFG don’t care about your build.

“Hey look, there is an mmo with action combat and no “holy” trinity. Let’s buy it and then spend time complaining about the lack of “holy” trinity!".

The holy trinity is more restrictive, just as boring (more so imo) and trying to whack a version of it into this game would be a major, major step backwards.

ANets approach to break the “Holy Trinity” mantra in MMOs:

- Remove tanks
- Remove healers
- Remove mob AI
- Remove mob control
- ???
- Profit

I am deeply surprised this didn’t work out.

Fenrir.3609:

“Hey look, there is an mmo with action combat and no “holy” trinity. Let’s buy it and then spend time complaining about the lack of “holy” trinity!".

The holy trinity is more restrictive, just as boring (more so imo) and trying to whack a version of it into this game would be a major, major step backwards.

Next thing they’ll be asking for that Loot Master kitten so one guy controls who gets loot in the group. Ugh.

Hawke.9013:

Crossaber.8934:

It is called “Holy Trinity” for a reason, you need to worship her and follow her rules tight to works. It is a MMO religion, a faith.

To make it work, by the cost of freedom. Freedom to build your class, freedom to create better combat mechanics.

I am not a believer, and GW2 is not a religion, so NO, this game is a minority out there for non-believer, are you suggesting to kitten away our freedom with your believe?

Cross

No, there is freedom in the trinity. You can specialize your dps as in condi/crit whatever you like. If anything theres less freedom with out it, as you have to take into account that you’re going to get hit, so you need toughness, that takes out of your damage, you have to heal yourself and others, so that takes out of other things you might want to build yourself into.

You have an opinion, but its wrong. Allow us to diversify ourselves within the trinity, rather than making everyone a tank/dps/healer.

Yea freedom to wait for 2 hrs for healer and tank! GG!

The moment they implement trinity system i’m outa here.

I played enough of that kitten in the last 10 years to get seriously sick of it.

If you so desire a trinity system MMO go play another mmo there’s plenty to choose from. Don’t try to change the ONLY non trinity mainstream mmo into just another MMO.

Bread.7516:

Lalangamena.3694:

ladybutter.5280:

snip… I remember in AION whenever I tell my party I’m a DPS-spec Cleric, I get booted 85% of the time.

whenever I say that i am apothecary warrior or cleric elementalist I get booted 85% of the time.

btw, majority of the parties in LFG don’t care about your build.

^ When was the last time parties care what build you run in dungeons? With pugs, it’s usually this:

“Hello!”
“p1 right?”
“Thanks for the party! Bye”

No one is even stopping you from running zerk in WvW, just the usual ridicule of being a rally bait.

For Fractals, not sure, haven’t tried it.

Flaw of the “Holy Trinity” is that some classes WILL get excluded from teams.’
That would be thieves propably, since they’re mainly 1 target burst-DPS class which doesn’t work in places where AoE is favored.
Also Healers would then be mandatory, you can’t go anywhere else without a healer.

Give GW2 time, it’s still young. There will be content that would be impossible with the old “Holy Trinity”.

GW2 is set on stone, it will not change, unless anet closes the servers and starts a new project.

ApplePearOrange.9281:

Removing the trinity was the first step in the right direction, ArenaNet just lacked the imagination to make it happen.

Very well said.
PVE is stale not because GW2 lacks a trinity, but because the trinity was removed and nothing meaningful was added to compensate.

More like the merit is subjective and the average gamer is too set in their ways to try new things out.

I’d much rather have 3 distinctly different roles than just 1 – DPS.
Support and Heal doesn’t matter in this game, the best support is DPS and Heal is not needed if your DPS is high and you can kill the mobs faster than they can inflict damage to you.

Good riddance I say, less whining about misuderstood gameplay mechanics that Anet will never change.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Algreg.3629:

every week the same thing. I think I am done arguing, so allow me to adopt the general disrespectful answer: Go play WoW.

Many people I met on my journey through GW2 actually returned to WoW.

Now tell me please how this will help this game exactly? Losing players is probably the last thing ANet wants.

battling the King on his own turf sure would help, eh?

all this complains here are going to lead to more nerfs, by the time you learned how to play, the advantages and tools are gone because of complains.

first thing you notice here is that imo, people dont want to learn to play something different, they want to play what they had in mind instead of what is available and understanding things and mechanics.

because you dont know, doesnt mean other people must not know. if you dont know, find out and learn. there will be no progress in wanting what you want all the time. instead go out and look around, take some advices and work with it or evolve it.

maybe im wrong but, most people only complain about things because they dont feel superior in what they do or want or play etc.

dont really understand why people like to cut off their own legs or arms before they even learn how to use them, later on when u regret it, will be too late and nothing can be done to solve it.

that feeling of… meh….. when you see a scepter guardian doing pve….

and also the feeling of meh…. at wvw being rally baits…

ANet thinking about making the gameplay less shallow than a baby pool would help. I do not think people want THE trinity back, but they want something that will make them feel as if the fellowship they are in matters.

Everyone feels so replaceable, so arbitrary. And so does it feel when you play the encounters themselves. God fobid, people would want a bit more depth in PvE than we have right now.

eso doesnt have trinity either

:/

The main reason it’s called ‘holy’ is because some players seem to worship it as the ultimate answer to game balancing. But it doesn’t have to be. I for one prefer the current setup.

marvelous, the only thing defending this game is earning you are infractions. I think I am done with this forum, cya.

Boyd.5438:

all this complains here are going to lead to more nerfs, by the time you learned how to play, the advantages and tools are gone because of complains.

first thing you notice here is that imo, people dont want to learn to play something different, they want to play what they had in mind instead of what is available and understanding things and mechanics.

because you dont know, doesnt mean other people must not know. if you dont know, find out and learn. there will be no progress in wanting what you want all the time. instead go out and look around, take some advices and work with it or evolve it.

maybe im wrong but, most people only complain about things because they dont feel superior in what they do or want or play etc.

dont really understand why people like to cut off their own legs or arms before they even learn how to use them, later on when u regret it, will be too late and nothing can be done to solve it.

that feeling of… meh….. when you see a scepter guardian doing pve….

and also the feeling of meh…. at wvw being rally baits…

I felt pretty much the same way reading the OP and the OPs replies… seems like a pretty standard case of “I am bad at thief, make it so someone else melees and takes all of the attention so I dont have to bother with actually playing well and just in case have a designated healer waiting to keep me alive” kinda thing we see weekly.

ive played rift and wow and this game doesn’t need a holy trinity, ive had no problems
taking dwn bosses on the queensdale train and in dungeons. if this what you guys want then go to another game that has it cause im sure Anet isn’t gonna implement it no matter how much you guys cry. im glad this game doesn’t have it and doesn’t need it so plz stop trying to up set the this game cos it will not happen:)

Nick.6972:

I’d much rather have 3 distinctly different roles than just 1 – DPS.
Support and Heal doesn’t matter in this game, the best support is DPS and Heal is not needed if your DPS is high and you can kill the mobs faster than they can inflict damage to you.

Except support does matter and it is used a great deal.

The trouble is some people seem to be under the impression that unless you have crud damage and are facetanking or heal spamming, that you can’t possibly be providing support.

I think the real issue is not so much the removal of the holy trinity, but them not replacing it with other balanced roles instead.

You kind of need roles in your roleplaying game. That’s because variety among the classes it nice, but ultimately pointless if they don’t have a role. Without a role, it becomes easy for some classes to outshine others. Without roles, every class is essentially the same, except for the numbers. And then it just becomes a matter of, who has the highest numbers.

Roles in DnD

The classic Dungeons and Dragons system works, because each class has a part to play. They have unique things only they can do, which makes them necessary for their party. A warrior does excellent damage, but is less effective when faced with magic. And while it is fun to have a warrior and a wizard loot a dungeon, they really want to have someone around to check for traps, and open locked doors. Which is why they bring a thief. And if they want to survive those massive battles, they’ll be burning through those healing potions pretty fast, unless they have a cleric to heal them. DnD has some classes that have overlap with others, such as the Paladin who can also heal, or the bard that can also cast spells. The point is, all classes have their part to play.

Look at it from the point of view of a necromancer:

Minions

When I play my necromancer, I know that my minions are useless in a dungeon. They used to be great in GW1, due to a lot of enemies leaving corpses that could be used to make new minions, and the minions themselves were quite durable. But in GW2, I can leave them at home. Plus, most of the time they just stand around doing nothing, or get caught on the terrain.

Life stealing

Life stealing is not going to do much either, since mobs in dungeons hit really hard, and I’m not going to out heal them. The last thing I want to do, is get into close combat. Unless I go full zerker.

Fear

Does anyone still think fear is any good? All bosses are immune to it, and you’ll most likely annoy your party by fearing enemies away. And unlike a lot of enemies that use fear, the fear a player casts is only a few seconds. Not long enough to get any notable distance between you and an enemy. Besides, half the time they just freeze, or get caught on some terrain.

Wells

The only thing that seems to be some what useful to me lately. At least I can buff my party a little. But the guardian already does that way better than anyone else.

Conditions

Are broken. It’s all about direct damage. Who cares if you can put stacks of bleeding or stacks of vulnerability on the enemy, if your party can beat most mobs to death in mere seconds by just stacking in a corner. That damage over time is not that important.

Blind

This is the one thing where I seem to make some what of a difference. But when everybody is stacking, it doesn’t really seem important to blind enemies.

So what is my role as a necro?

I honestly don’t know. I think Anet doesn’t know either. I think they’d rather not ask themselves that question. It seems the necromancer is entirely without a role. Yes, good riddens of that holy trinity, I’m glad it’s gone… but what are we left with?

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I’m glad that my guardian can be a DPS truck and a cleric

Playing how anyone wants is awesome.

I would say this sentimental appeal would be stronger if people could do clerics or support better. Not that a person can’t, per se, run a support/tanky build but in Guild Wars 2, these options just aren’t that great. They are certainly viable and I would never remove someone from a dungeon party just because they aren’t maximizing DPS but these builds will never be efficient.

Fenrir.3609:

Nick.6972:

I’d much rather have 3 distinctly different roles than just 1 – DPS.
Support and Heal doesn’t matter in this game, the best support is DPS and Heal is not needed if your DPS is high and you can kill the mobs faster than they can inflict damage to you.

Except support does matter and it is used a great deal.

The trouble is some people seem to be under the impression that unless you have crud damage and are facetanking or heal spamming, that you can’t possibly be providing support.

I’m running Guardian.

1200+ Healing and “Hold The Line” still heals for insignificant amount -33% and it does absolutely nothing to awfully designed one shot bosses and you’re dead regardless of all the boons you have if you fail to dodge.

What’s support in PvE? Reflects?

Sometimes I wish taunts existed, because other players are terrible. Take warden 2 on the Marionette for example. If it ever dropped more than 2-5 mines, you were doing it wrong.

Did you know that with a proper “tank” (not the face tanking guardian kind) players can melee Scarlet’s knights without any risk? If you could somehow guarantee aggro, the knights have a very basic attack pattern. If you face tank it, they do a 3 chain attack that goes front, +side, +back. If however you take a step back, being out of range of the first attack, the chain stops. Unfortunately, without guaranteed aggro, the odds of doing this outside of having a team of professionals is none.

Nick.6972:

I’m running Guardian.

1200+ Healing and “Hold The Line” still heals for insignificant amount -33% and it does absolutely nothing to awfully designed one shot bosses and you’re dead regardless of all the boons you have if you fail to dodge.

What’s support in PvE? Reflects?

The amount of one shots in this game is much lower than it appears from reading this forum, especially if you have protection active.

The Holy Trinity should be left in Church. That’s the only place it has any meaning at all.

In an MMO, it existed for years because it was the only way the developers made games. So, we all learned how to play using the trinity and we got used to it.

Along comes GW2 with no trinity, and the players’ answer to the lack of a trinity is to complain that there’s no trinity because they are so used to the roles they can’t learn how to play without it.

I like being responsible for myself in a game and not having to hang out in town for hours looking for a healer/tank/support player. I like being able to help set up fields for my fellow players to use against mobs. I also like being able to run DPS on pretty much any character (yes, I know some are better than others.)

Just because the OP (and others) are so very used to a system that should have been lost years ago has been around for years doesn’t mean it was a good system.

Ashabhi.1365:

Just because the OP (and others) are so very used to a system that should have been lost years ago has been around for years doesn’t mean it was a good system.

An old system, is still better than having no system.

The problem with GW2 is they took out the trinity and then didn’t replace it with anything. The result was in order to make the content playable they then had to remove strategy, and then mob AI, and then all semblance of difficulty. What we were left with was: stack in a corner and spam 1.

There is no challenge to it, no excitement, you just hit a single button, stand there and then collect your reward. But this is exactly what this generation of gamers wants. Hit button, get reward. They don’t want to think, or organize, or be challenged. They want to buy their shinies with real money and then go stand in a corner and hit 1. That is what the majority wants and it is not going away.

Games that challenge you and make you figure things out and think are mostly P2P because that is how they make their money, by keeping players around trying to challenge themselves and figure things out.

The reason to remove trinity is to eliminate the NEEDs of a specific class for party contents. GW2 break down tank and healing role into every class and let the player decide how much team support to provide with his created build. This is the actual meaning of “play whatever we want”, if again, any PvE contents is created under the impression of specific role is needed, what is the different between trinity and GW2?

I never able to drop shout heal as a warrior, my role is a combat medic, not a healer. But i do know what my role can offer, my shout does a little heal, condition removal and provide buff. I am able to withstand some damage while reviving, i can shout heal myself without interrupt my revive. I know my heal is weak but in large scale epic fight, my shout is giving a little help to the guy next to me, it could be a life saver already. I can dive into the heat of fights or support the allies next to me.

The advantage of GW2 is any 5 players can party up and do party contents, different combination need different strategic. Yes, can’t deny that full dps party is by far the most efficient setup but it is encounter issue that Anet is well aware of so far. It is a matter of time when encounter is well developed and allow support and control build to shine.

Nick.6972:

Fenrir.3609:

Nick.6972:

I’d much rather have 3 distinctly different roles than just 1 – DPS.
Support and Heal doesn’t matter in this game, the best support is DPS and Heal is not needed if your DPS is high and you can kill the mobs faster than they can inflict damage to you.

Except support does matter and it is used a great deal.

The trouble is some people seem to be under the impression that unless you have crud damage and are facetanking or heal spamming, that you can’t possibly be providing support.

I’m running Guardian.

1200+ Healing and “Hold The Line” still heals for insignificant amount -33% and it does absolutely nothing to awfully designed one shot bosses and you’re dead regardless of all the boons you have if you fail to dodge.

What’s support in PvE? Reflects?

CC, buffs, debuffs, swiftness, fields, blinds, reflects, blocks, prot, stability, warps, ports, regen etc.

“Support” is not purely the domain of someone facetanking or spamming heals and guardians are in such demand because they can provide that support and damage (when built well).

Moreoever the number of instagib one shot kills in this game is somewhat overblown by players on here.

Last time I checked, the forumz said the dps made any and all support obsolete, but perhaps things have indeed changed for the better, and the game isn’t just a glorified version of a single player fps game with the option to zoom out!

KarlaGrey.5903:

Last time I checked, the forumz said the dps made any and all support obsolete, but perhaps things have indeed changed for the better, and the game isn’t just a glorified version of a single player fps game with the option to zoom out!

Nah, when people talk of support, they mean slot skills that do not necessarily increase only ones own damage, but the damage of the group.

This game is still a mindless DPS fest.

Fenrir.3609:

Nick.6972:

Fenrir.3609:

Nick.6972:

I’d much rather have 3 distinctly different roles than just 1 – DPS.
Support and Heal doesn’t matter in this game, the best support is DPS and Heal is not needed if your DPS is high and you can kill the mobs faster than they can inflict damage to you.

Except support does matter and it is used a great deal.

The trouble is some people seem to be under the impression that unless you have crud damage and are facetanking or heal spamming, that you can’t possibly be providing support.

I’m running Guardian.

1200+ Healing and “Hold The Line” still heals for insignificant amount -33% and it does absolutely nothing to awfully designed one shot bosses and you’re dead regardless of all the boons you have if you fail to dodge.

What’s support in PvE? Reflects?

CC, buffs, debuffs, swiftness, fields, blinds, reflects, blocks, prot, stability, warps, ports, regen etc.

“Support” is not purely the domain of someone facetanking or spamming heals and guardians are in such demand because they can provide that support and damage (when built well).

Moreoever the number of instagib one shot kills in this game is somewhat overblown by players on here.

When was the last time you saw someone posting “LFG SUPPORT GUARD” in Party Search?

Nick.6972:

Fenrir.3609:

Nick.6972:

Fenrir.3609:

Nick.6972:

I’d much rather have 3 distinctly different roles than just 1 – DPS.
Support and Heal doesn’t matter in this game, the best support is DPS and Heal is not needed if your DPS is high and you can kill the mobs faster than they can inflict damage to you.

Except support does matter and it is used a great deal.

The trouble is some people seem to be under the impression that unless you have crud damage and are facetanking or heal spamming, that you can’t possibly be providing support.

I’m running Guardian.

1200+ Healing and “Hold The Line” still heals for insignificant amount -33% and it does absolutely nothing to awfully designed one shot bosses and you’re dead regardless of all the boons you have if you fail to dodge.

What’s support in PvE? Reflects?

CC, buffs, debuffs, swiftness, fields, blinds, reflects, blocks, prot, stability, warps, ports, regen etc.

“Support” is not purely the domain of someone facetanking or spamming heals and guardians are in such demand because they can provide that support and damage (when built well).

Moreoever the number of instagib one shot kills in this game is somewhat overblown by players on here.

When was the last time you saw someone posting “LFG SUPPORT GUARD” in Party Search?

People don’t post that because they would end up with a PVT/clerics staff spamming guard who confuses “support” with doing no damage and spamming heals/Empower..

CC, Condition damage, and Healing builds all need a huge boost and a huge rework. Also, they could actually make some builds to allow some to be more defensive without breaking their system. The game was actually well balanced at launch and then they made some major errors in an effort to keep esports going at the cost of PVE that they’ve never recovered from.

As far as trinity is concerned they could easily turn this game into Trinity Lite which would allow for people to make trinity threat control groups without breaking it. It wouldn’t take much but a few tweaks.

It kinda makes me smile to think about it. MMOs are the only games that people will demand complete changes and make overs. When was the last time you purchased a FPS, Driving game or Football game, played it for six months or more, then went back to the maker of said game and was like. “You know, I would rather you had made Mass Effect more like this. Could you completely redo the entire game and give it to me for free cause I already bought it once.” Talk about a sense of entitlement.

The logic stands. You have a working bug free (most of the time game) It is what you paid for. If you wanted a WoW clone. (Or something else.) Its out there.

I do not miss the Restrictive Un-holy Trinity. Not one bit. Given the choice I would take this format. And When we look at games like ESO we see that its being copied. Perhaps not in its completely but its there.

So rather then spending time here complaining, perhaps you might go and play a game you like, that has the system you want. I know we will both be happier if you did.

The Holy Trinity is called Holy because people are irrationally devoted to it and obsessed by it, not because it has any special value.

That is what the OP and a lot of other posters don’t seem to understand. It’s holy in the same way many things are – they are subject of unquestioning, unthinking faith and devotion. The term was always rather derogatory.

Just thought that that could do with clearing up. It was never called the “Holy Trinity” because it worked or was best or whatever, just because people were obsessed with it. It only worked because gamer designers designed the game so that it did, and initially it wasn’t even a trinity, but contained a fourth role too – that of CC. WoW removed that fourth role (semi-intentionally) which lead to the Holy Trinity as we know it.

It’s certainly not necessary for an interesting endgame. It’s only necessary if you want a very specific style of endgame, one that dozens of games on the market today (and in the near future) already provide. Furthermore, they will always be better at it, because they were designed with it in mind, and in some cases have been doing it for most of a decade (or more!). The OP is basically complaining that basketball isn’t American Football, and demanding that it be changed so that it is.

Nick.6972:

When was the last time you saw someone posting “LFG SUPPORT GUARD” in Party Search?

Yesterday. However I digress:

I’ve never played a game with a “holy trinity”. The closest I’ve come to this was City of Heroes, and in CoH there were 4 roles:

Damage
Support
Control
Tank

And in these four roles, support and control were king. There was no need for dedicated damage when you could debuff enemies into wet paper. There was no need for a tank when you could disable large groups of enemies for extended periods of time. Fact is, paragon had to put in enemies specifically to be hard to control and debuff, and even then those two still reigned supreme.

So whenever I hear someone say that Tank/Heal/DPS is the way to go, I keep thinking “But what about the red mage? I love the red mage! Why are you excluding the red mage?”.

The way that builds work in GW2 is just fine. I love that there are many skills that work independent of stats. This gives players a way to customize a class to their playstyle, and not to their role. This also adds flexibility, allowing players to change up their weapons, utilities, and gear depending on circumstance, instead of being rigidly locked into a premade build.

The roles are also more nuanced and variable, since classes can fulfill more than one role. For example, my primary dungeon runner and arguably strongest character is my thief. It is a thief not because of “lol 25k backstab combo”, but because of how potent my defensive utilities are. With all of my evades, blinds, weakness, stuns, boon and stealth, the thief is arguably the best defesive debuffer/tank combo in PVE. The high damage is just a bonus to this.

This is how pretty much every class I play goes down. Sometimes you need boon removal. Sometimes you need cleansing. Sometimes you need cripple or swiftness. Sometimes you need big knockbacks and pulls. Sometimes you need projectile stopping. Sometimes you need blinks and teleports. Sometimes you need endurance regen. Sometimes you really can use heals and rezzes. Sometimes you need stability. Sometimes you need to engage at range, and sometimes you can just melee. All of the classes in the game offer these abilities at different capacities, and this is what makes all of the classes useful.

If, while playing the game, the only way you can describe yourself is that you “do damage”, then you aren’t doing it right. You can do a lot of things. Why is it that you should have to sacrifice damage for utility, or vice versa? So many people insist that this must be the case, but I can’t think of a good reason why.

The game doesn’t need the trinity. (TL;DR at bottom)
It wasn’t designed to have it, and that is very apparent in top level gameplay. Groups don’t need healers or tanks, just DPS. It’s been proven true since release. Smooth dungeon runs require a different type of coordination, all of it focusing on positioning mobs and stacking might/blinds/reflects. If someone screws up, it’s a huge DPS loss somehow. Which is all that matters. A coordinated group that has a fight down doesn’t need anyone specced for anything other than Berserker armor, Cleric guardians/engineers/elementalists can maybe get a pug through a dungeon but no one needs them in real coordinated runs. Healing in this game is considered a crutch.

We don’t need the trinity, it’s not that type of game. Everyone is self-sufficient, and in most cases you can duo/solo a lot of the dungeons without ‘exploiting’ fights you also wouldn’t with a group.

I like tanks and healers and all that, but I like being able to be exactly what I want whenever I want as long as it’s beneficial even more. If the rest of my party dies, it’s not game over unless they want me to reset unless the boss/trash mobs are low HP. It’s nice having the tools to solo group content if you have the knowledge/skills/gear for it.

That’s what the trinity takes away, it forces you to rely on others because it’s just a number crunch. In here, when something says ‘5 man content’ it actually varies based on the skill of the players you have.

In conclusion (TL;DR)
I don’t want a trinity because it heavily limits my freedom by forcing me to wait for others when I could easily duo the first half of the dungeon with a skilled friend. It’s not exactly poor dungeon design, as people who haven’t played as long can’t do it simply because of experience/skill and not gear/inflated HP/unavoidable damage that usually comes with the trinity.

P.S.
To anyone that thinks that everyone -needs- a guardian/tank/healer for the content in this game, we don’t. It’s just your group make-ups causing issues, which is fine. Everyone plays differently, but there is a ton of us that don’t need anything of that sort.

Hawke.9013:

-snip-

I would say that it is called the “Holy trinity” because it has been the supreme power for a long period of time.. kinda like religion, and just like with religion when it was at its absolute peak in regards to power, we saw little to no advancements being made as any effort to break the norm was met with extreme reluctance..

Yes, dps,tnak,heelz does work. That is not an argument for not attempting something different. It is neither an explanation as for why certain things are the way they are in an enviroment where these 3 are not present in their regular form.

Oh and also if what you said about dungeons always needing a tank were true and thieves never being the ones who tank, then thiefs should just not have been able to solo dungeons as they’re not tanks nor able to do so

Let’s also not forget that with the trinity, the entire loot system would need to change, because right now you need to hit a mob to get loot. If the system stayed the same, Healers would never be played.

And personally, I would hate it if it became a loot system like WoW and other games. I don’t want other people determining what i get and what i don’t. I trust RNG over pugs, every time.