Guild Wars 2

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

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.

Please dont take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.
Having said that, necro has no place at the moment in meta groups. Thats a class balance issue, not a mechanics issue.

Roles in DnD
Roles in dnd 3.x are tank (with dps) as seen i warriors, dps (With utility) as seen in thief and control (with util and dps on the side) as seen in magic users. Divine casters are imba, bringing supreme ammounts of tankability, dps second to backstabbing classes only and enough control and utils to make them unstoppable.

Minions
Minions in gw2 are situational, atm they are nice to have on lupis 2nd phase (embers, ogre whistle, hounds of balthazar etc)

Life stealing
Thief has some nice LS on signet of malice that works on s/p (stacking weapons). Theres not much use to ls on dungeons altoghether.

The last thing I want to do, is get into close combat. Unless I go full zerker.

If you are not close to the party you are not buffing them, and you are not getting buffs yourself. Also it makes ot a pain to revive you in case you die, leaving the rest of the party 4 maning the boss.

Fear
Does anyone still think fear is any good?

Many people do.

All bosses are immune to it, and you’ll most likely annoy your party by fearing enemies away.

As a warrior i fear malrona, se1 1st golem and subject alpha to great effect, in order to control their position and thus maximizing my partys dps and defense.

Wells

Are those combo fields? Only fire (and water) work, with shadow for specific situations the rest are terribad.

The guardian buffs better than anyone else

Not true. As a warrior i bring extra power with empower allies + banner of strength, extra prec and crit dam with banner of disc. That gives more buffs than guards (quality if not quantity).

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.

You are terribly wrong, vuln is an amazing -AMAZING- DPS increase. Thats why we keep vuln up wih thieves fgs spin and warr helps with axe2 mace4 and if he encounter allows it on my mark.

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.*

Wrong again, blinds are very important and contributes a lot in several encounters

So what is my role as a necro?

None. Necro is not dungeon meta but if u go play how you want groups ur role is dps and control

I

Wharrgarbl.9263:

Please dont take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.
Having said that, necro has no place at the moment in meta groups. Thats a class balance issue, not a mechanics issue.

No it isn’t. Class balance is directly related to the mechanics of that class. If a class is designed around a mechanic, but that mechanic under performs, the entire class suffers from it.

Case in point: The ranger pet, or necromancer’s Death Shroud.

The issue to me is that I seem to lack identity. I have never been an alt- aholik, until this game. I think that really stems from the fact that everything is a hybrid in this game. Every class has damage, every class has supports, every class control, etc. Obviously some do it better than others, but not by such a large margin that it’s necessary to play one class for that specific ability.

It’s obvious that a lot of people enjoy this. I even enjoyed it at first. But the game has definitely lost a lot of the luster it once had for me, which is why I find myself playing less and less, with little desire to play even though they shove laurels and daily cooldowns in my face.

the day they put in the “holy” trinity here is the day I leave the game for good

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?

Sadly your build is for wvw not dungeons. But guardian does bring a lot of support: aegis rotation, f1 and focus4 blind, f2 cleanse (and some heal/regen) and in some cases f3 stability. Also hallowed ground and wall of reflect (and their small brothers syg and soa) is used in many of the fights you bring a guardian for. In addition gs5 is used on some fights when scorpion wire is not available / practical. Besides all that guardian Brings the best dps for mid tier (or lowest for top tier, after ele and thief)

i don’t think the trinity is the answer. The game just needs a more predictable measure of aggro. No one really knows how aggro works and there is no certain way to determine who a boss decides to focus his attention on.

It would be nice if you could actually build your character beefy, and then command the attention of the boss your fighting.

Since the boss goes after everyone, either everyone builds tanky to soak up the damage or everyone builds glass cannon to reduce the amount of time the boss can spend going after everyone. The glass cannon option seems to be the best option.

I see this game as closer to an ARPG in terms of character builds and combat mechanics. We don’t need a trinity, we just need content that plays to what we have. Right now everything just plays to berserker. If they reworked defiant, boon sharing, and healing power I think they could alter the meta enough without having a trinity.

Wharrgarbl.9263:

Please dont take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.

-snip-

Please don’t take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.

All of your points reinforce the problem that DD and supporting DD (via blind, prot, reflects, vuln and location) is the most efficient strategy in this game and has a leg up on the rest of build options.

“Play how you want” whittles down to “Play how you want…but you might not be able to perform.” Sure, realistically in every game there are going to be methods that work better than others but the key point is that there is usually some diversification. Necromancers, ranger pets and engineers are perfect examples of people being unable to fulfill roles they want (minion mastery/support/turret/beastmaster) because the AI is broken to compensate for the trinity’s removal.

One point in particular though is it’s not necessarily the lack of a trinity that makes the system so bad. GW1 really didn’t have a trinity (not in the typical sense of a trinity, anyway, if you were playing in the metagame) but their solution to that lack of combat design was with the unique implementation of skills. By allowing enemies to have skill bars similar to player skill bars and developing AI to use the skills rather intuitively, they created a range of diversity in PvE enemies. Instead of making every difficult combat situation a giant healthpool that dealt massive damage, they were able to change up the skills – give enemies more attribute points than normal players could gain and give some minor buffs to bosses.

In GW2, with its open world design, there’s not much chance of anything that inventive to ever work because it would just end up being this.

Loki.8793:

There are no such thing as tanks in GW1, as there is no hate mechanic to grab the attention of mobs.

what.

I think people should stop think about the trinity as a rigid role system. There is no doubt that traditional MMOs implemented the trinity in a manner that lacks flexibility. GW2 wanted to break free from this and for a while I bought into the whole “no trinity” hype.

To me the trinity should have been kept but evolved into a dynamic form. Every class should have the ability to shift between tank, damage and healer during battles. This avoids needing classes but takes advantage of dynamic combat that GW2 aims to achieve.

defrule.7236:

I think people should stop think about the trinity as a rigid role system. There is no doubt that traditional MMOs implemented the trinity in a manner that lacks flexibility. GW2 wanted to break free from this and for a while I bought into the whole “no trinity” hype.

To me the trinity should have been kept but evolved into a dynamic form. Every class should have the ability to shift between tank, damage and healer during battles. This avoids needing classes but takes advantage of dynamic combat that GW2 aims to achieve.

Actually…

That’s a really cool idea. I like it.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Wharrgarbl.9263:

Please dont take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.
Having said that, necro has no place at the moment in meta groups. Thats a class balance issue, not a mechanics issue.

No it isn’t. Class balance is directly related to the mechanics of that class. If a class is designed around a mechanic, but that mechanic under performs, the entire class suffers from it.

Case in point: The ranger pet, or necromancer’s Death Shroud.

So in your oppinion if 1 or 2 classes out of 8 under performs in a subset of 1 of 3 game modes your fix is to change the whole game instead of reworking a class… Seems like a sound strategy!

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Fear
All bosses are immune to it

This isn’t true. With no Defiant they should run away in Fear. When in a dungeon on my Necro I use Fear to either remove Defiant, or reposition the boss if no Defiant exists at the time. Or, if on Thief, I will Head Shot to remove Defiant, then use Skull Fear if I’m in AC, for a 3 second disable. It works, but Defiant makes it require timing and coordination.

hannah mee.7925:

Wharrgarbl.9263:

Please dont take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.

-snip-

Please don’t take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.

All of your points reinforce the problem that DD and supporting DD (via blind, prot, reflects, vuln and location) is the most efficient strategy in this game and has a leg up on the rest of build options.

“Play how you want” whittles down to “Play how you want…but you might not be able to perform.” Sure, realistically in every game there are going to be methods that work better than others but the key point is that there is usually some diversification. Necromancers, ranger pets and engineers are perfect examples of people being unable to fulfill roles they want (minion mastery/support/turret/beastmaster) because the AI is broken to compensate for the trinity’s removal.

No. As some1 said above you, the gane plays like an arpg mmo (closer to diablo than dark souls). There is no problem on everyone being DD, it was actually one of the games selling points. And again all your complains apply o ly to a small subset of game modes (NOT valid for spvp, wvw, nor some open world events). The other builds are MUCH better performing than zerker in the other modes.

Moss.5371:

Loki.8793:

There are no such thing as tanks in GW1, as there is no hate mechanic to grab the attention of mobs.

what.

Minions say hi.

The just spam 1 argument.

Is that against gw2 or tanking in the holy trinity. Tanking has become a joke in MMOs where it is just spamming 1, holding aggro is not an issue and you have 2-3 utility skills that help prevent/absorb damage.

Wharrgarbl.9263:

hannah mee.7925:

Wharrgarbl.9263:

Please dont take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.

-snip-

Please don’t take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.

All of your points reinforce the problem that DD and supporting DD (via blind, prot, reflects, vuln and location) is the most efficient strategy in this game and has a leg up on the rest of build options.

“Play how you want” whittles down to “Play how you want…but you might not be able to perform.” Sure, realistically in every game there are going to be methods that work better than others but the key point is that there is usually some diversification. Necromancers, ranger pets and engineers are perfect examples of people being unable to fulfill roles they want (minion mastery/support/turret/beastmaster) because the AI is broken to compensate for the trinity’s removal.

No. As some1 said above you, the gane plays like an arpg mmo (closer to diablo than dark souls). There is no problem on everyone being DD, it was actually one of the games selling points. And again all your complains apply o ly to a small subset of game modes (NOT valid for spvp, wvw, nor some open world events). The other builds are MUCH better performing than zerker in the other modes.

Going to have to disagree. The only real place where DD and DPS don’t outperform support is in WvW, zerg on zerg fights or PvDoor tend to make use of support though more than bunking/roaming/solo fights due to not needing the DPS – zerg needs to stay alive, rams hit doors, don’t forget the Swiftness so stuff dies even faster! Yet that’s all support to maximize the DPS. There’s no need/ability to counter the enemy’s DPS in any way.

It’s not about some inability to perform support tasks. It’s just that they’re not efficient.

hannah mee.7925:

All of your points reinforce the problem that DD and supporting DD (via blind, prot, reflects, vuln and location) is the most efficient strategy in this game and has a leg up on the rest of build options.

Hannah, I don’t think our strategy is the most efficient. Check the speed records; those guilds are currently the most efficient. This changes with experimentation of what works and what doesn’t. I don’t believe Wharr is saying that one team comp is the only way. He’s saying that Queen Malefide’s post betrays her ignorance.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I know that my minions are useless in a dungeon.

In GW1 “Charge” was useless in dungeons too but it had uses elsewhere. ‘I want to play one build everywhere’ hasn’t worked and still doesn’t work.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Does anyone still think fear is any good? All bosses are immune to it…not long enough to get any notable distance between you and an enemy.

Yes. Fear is good. It can be used in a number of ways though. Should read up onDefiance.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

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.

Vulnerability is not a DOT. It is very usefull.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

So what is my role as a necro? I honestly don’t know.

Read up :P I’m certain there are some great Necromancers in the community.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

But when everybody is stacking, it doesn’t really seem important to blind enemies.

It still is. That’s how how stacking works. It isn’t invulnerability. Not sure why folks still assume stacking is ‘press 1, stay invulnerable’.

hannah mee.7925:

“Play how you want” whittles down to “Play how you want…but you might not be able to perform.” Sure, realistically in every game there are going to be methods that work better than others but the key point is that there is usually some diversification. Necromancers, ranger pets and engineers are perfect examples of people being unable to fulfill roles they want (minion mastery/support/turret/beastmaster) because the AI is broken to compensate for the trinity’s removal.

There is diversification. This is how runs get better and faster! Trait loadouts are not individual. They’re not like GW1 attributes but rather like the GW1 skill bar. In GW1 the skill bar was a group puzzle. This is the same in GW2 with trait loadouts and utilities. The reason we don’t take Engineers is that we already cap vulnerability with Elementalists and Thieves. This doesn’t mean Engineer is useless. Rangers, for instance, do have a place in some dungeons. Some folks use them more, some less, and some not at all.

It all depends on how you build as a team, not as an individual. Five players all running yolo builds without coordinating can never be optimal. My bet is that people just trait up for w/e and then just roll parties. It is a give and take. You sacrifice some trait points for group benefits. You give up utilities for group benefits.

hannah mee.7925:

In GW2, with its open world design, there’s not much chance of anything that inventive to ever work…

Oh I’m certain that if the open world required more coordination, the outcry would be legendary.

I buy this game because of “no grind”, no “holy trinity” and no “gear based” pvp.
Some aspects I bought this game for has been damaged by ascended yet I still play because I enjoy the combat. Please please if anyone want “holy trinity”, go play one of many such games out in the market. Don’t try to change what this game left as good.

Saint.5647:

Oh I’m certain that if the open world required more coordination, the outcry would be legendary.

Already is.

Saint.5647:

There is diversification. This is how runs get better and faster! Trait loadouts are not individual. They’re not like GW1 attributes but rather like the GW1 skill bar. In GW1 the skill bar was a group puzzle. This is the same in GW2 with trait loadouts and utilities. The reason we don’t take Engineers is that we already cap vulnerability with Elementalists and Thieves. This doesn’t mean Engineer is useless. Rangers, for instance, do have a place in some dungeons. Some folks use them more, some less, and some not at all.

It all depends on how you build as a team, not as an individual. Five players all running yolo builds without coordinating can never be optimal. My bet is that people just trait up for w/e and then just roll parties. It is a give and take. You sacrifice some trait points for group benefits. You give up utilities for group benefits.

I would say the puzzle is far less innovative, though. If you want redeeming examples of how skills in GW1 worked well to mold players more effectively than trait/skill combinations mold teams in GW2, look up Khometway. It’s just one example, of many, that utilizes strengths of classes and class combinations to maximize efficiency. That kind of mold-less efficiency can’t be obtained in GW2.

There are plenty of other examples of GW1s skills being able to outshine GW2’s diversification while maintaining efficiency: Discordway, Necroway, Mesway, Smiteway, Melee Support, SFway — The biggest obstacle in whether or not these builds would work was the player’s own skill bar. The fact that a player could run anything – from support with Imbagon to Curses to DD to Shutdown and still be as efficient as anyone else was a good thing.

When we consider traits in GW2 though, there really isn’t much room for diversification. Well, there is a huge room for diversification, but the ranger who wants to maximize their bearbow has no truck with the warrior who will optimize shouts and banners. There’s just no equal grounds where a class can excel.

Hah yes. I blows me away how many people chose to just whine instead of optimizing their builds for the content. I only wish we had a build save feature like in GW1. I would be willing to bet that there is a huge portion of players who googled “Best X Build” and run it 24/7 through all content; no trait swap, no weapon changes, no utility changes.

Saint.5647:

Hah yes. I blows me away how many people chose to just whine instead of optimizing their builds for the content. I only wish we had a build save feature like in GW1. I would be willing to bet that there is a huge portion of players who googled “Best X Build” and run it 24/7 through all content; no trait swap, no weapon changes, no utility changes.

Edited my original post to express my views about the GW1 skills vs. GW2 attributes/skills. I hope it clarifies my disinterest with GW2’s system or perhaps opens some doors for revelation. I just find that the lack of the diversity in GW2 is a lot larger than people give credit for. That’s not to say I’m up-in-arms for efficiency, I’m not trying to convince everyone to switch to Zerker gear and learn to dodge and spec themselves. I just think that coordination leading to the same result becomes dull, while in GW1 you could have several different builds and teams that all accomplished the same thing just as effectively, entirely dependent on the player and the player’s ability to craft builds around what they wanted.

I guess to me, in so many ways, GW2 feels like Skyrim felt to Elder Scrolls. Many tools can be disregarded as useless and make little to no impact on performance. Such as almost no need to use stealth or magic in Skyrim (other than the Stealth line was pretty awesome, although stealthing itself was useless).

Saint.5647:

Hah yes. I blows me away how many people chose to just whine instead of optimizing their builds for the content. I only wish we had a build save feature like in GW1. I would be willing to bet that there is a huge portion of players who googled “Best X Build” and run it 24/7 through all content; no trait swap, no weapon changes, no utility changes.

Agree 100% on the player mentality and the save build feature.

Even with the world bosses who can’t be crit, the zerk gear units are in full force. I think a lot of that is from the HT MMOs. One DPS/Tank build to handle all content.

Ah, I too look back to GW1 with my rose tinted shades. But if you do recall, there was a Meta in GW1 as well. There were absolutely Meta groups with optimal compositions depending on what dungeon you were running. Optimal runs farmed different areas with precise builds and certain classes. If you don’t remember “LFG X, Ping build”, then we certainly were not playing the same game :P

GW1 was by no stretch of the imagination a ‘play how you want game’. Ran a Necro? Better run SS or MM…or Orders. Don’t want to/cant? Kick. I think there is the illusion of more choice in GW1 because they added so much to that game since launch. What GW1 had that GW2 doesn’t is more skills (and by extension, more traits). More skills and more traits will allow for new and perhaps more efficient party compositions.

Another “i can’t play so i need a tank who manages to keep mobs off of me” thread?
I just read the first few post, sorry if i misunderstood something.

@OP
Look up videos how stuff can work without tanks. Using chill / cripple to slow down the enemy and hit it from max melee range or simply rotate reflects / blocks to avoid damage. Of course, maximising the damage output of your group is needed to (if we talk about zerkers) both as an individual and as a group. I mean you should trait and gear for the most optimal dps, while bringing the required utility skills, such as Smoke screen, Shadow refuge as a thief, meanwhile help out your teammates in might and vulnerability stacking.
If you don’t run a full zerker “optimal” build, get full PTV and facetank the whole game without a dodge.
Also, Signet of Malice has such a great synergy with SW/P, that heal is stupidly op if you can cleave 3 mob.
Blinding powder is op too. While it lasts you regenerate 4-5 ini back and your whole ini pool is at least 12 ini anyway and steal can give you back 2 if needed. If you can’t burst the mobs down in that time, something is wrong with group composition and / or with the dps.

There ARE roles in this game, just not as distinct as games with a holy trinity. Like it? Play it. Don’t like it? Leave or give constructive feedback.

There are many avenues to take to avoid having that “tank” specific role or “heal” specific role that some feel is necessary.

“imo” The best way to have that more “organized” fight would be a cast bar on bosses. They would of course need improved abilities to counter against melee and ranged. Also they need to improve on that “light blob” so we could see what’s going on in a fight to avoid certain attacks.

— to the op, tell me how much thought is involved rolling dungeons in WoW…… NONE!

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

And in these four roles, support and control were king.

Brutes and scrappers would have had something to say about that.

/e pours another 40 for my SJ/SD scrap, she was so much fun.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

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.

This. As for why, the DPS boat race meta is – from what I have seen – all about facerolling dungeon speedruns.

Wharrgarbl.9263:

So in your oppinion if 1 or 2 classes out of 8 under performs in a subset of 1 of 3 game modes your fix is to change the whole game instead of reworking a class… Seems like a sound strategy!

If you’re going to build strawman arguments, I see no reason to engage in discussion with you.

Saint.5647:

In GW1 “Charge” was useless in dungeons too but it had uses elsewhere. ‘I want to play one build everywhere’ hasn’t worked and still doesn’t work.

That wasn’t my original argument at all. My argument, was that minions aren’t the only mechanic that the necromancer uses, that is rendered useless by the way dungeons are designed.

Saint.5647:

Yes. Fear is good. It can be used in a number of ways though. Should read up onDefiance.

I know how defiance works, and its completely broken. In the time that you’re taking down stacks of Defiant, you could have bursted the boss to death already. All that effort just for measly Fear, is a waste of time. The entire Defiance system makes it nearly impossible to reliably interrupt/control bosses when you need to. One of the main aspects of fear, is that it’s a defensive measure. It’s not only an interrupt, but a way to create a gap between you an an enemy. Defiance makes it completely unfeasible as such. When ever you need to create a gap, Defiance just goes down a stack, and nothing happens.

It’s equally useless against trashmobs, since ultimately it’s easier if they stay where they are in a big pile (so they receive the full effect of aoe attacks), than to scare them away, and split them up. If you want to get your party angry with you, use fear on trash mobs.

Saint.5647:

Read up :P I’m certain there are some great Necromancers in the community.

You mean there’s many necromancers in the community that also do not know what their role is. Why do you think we see topics popping up constantly with titles such as “Necromancer, I lack an identity”?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Wharrgarbl.9263:

So in your oppinion if 1 or 2 classes out of 8 under performs in a subset of 1 of 3 game modes your fix is to change the whole game instead of reworking a class… Seems like a sound strategy!

If you’re going to build strawman arguments, I see no reason to engage in discussion with you.

Sorry, his argument is by no means a straw man argument (why has that phrase been coming up so much lately?) dungeons are a minor part of pve. Pve is 1/3 of the game modes. So… He’s right.

I fail to see how thats a strawman. I the current dungeon meta only necro has no place.
This is irrelevant for non dungeon speedruns, open world exploration, open world events, wvw, wvw roaming, spvp, tpvp… yet, based on a tiny fraction of the game mode (that truly affects like… 1-2% of the player base, you think the entire core of the game needs a complete redesign. If thats NOT what you said, would you be so kind to explain again? Maybe i missed something.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Sorry, his argument is by no means a straw man argument (why has that phrase been coming up so much lately?) dungeons are a minor part of pve. Pve is 1/3 of the game modes. So… He’s right.

Yes it is a strawman, since I never ever advocated a fix involving changing the whole game. That is a strawman argument. If he/she is just going to misrepresent what I said, and then beat up on that, then that discussion is over. Discussions are impossible without both parties being reasonable, and willing to see each other’s side. If one of the two just goes down the alley of childishly beating up on something the other clearly didn’t say, then that is a strawman.

Inter-class-interdependence

The problem with the lack of a trinity, is that there is no inter-class-interdependence. If there WAS inter-class-dependence, then even unbalanced classes would still be desired to some agree, since they had a niche use. But once you remove inter-class-dependence, every class can fulfill the same shoes.

That sounds nice on paper, until you realize that not every class fills those shoes equally well, and some of the shoes have holes in them, due to design errors (see: ranger pets).

That is how we have arrived at the current Meta, where warriors dominate the PVE game, along with guardians. Because they are the best at mechanics that are most important in PVE. All other mechanics seem neglected in comparison.

Why would you want to bring a ranger along, when their pet is dead most of the time, and they don’t really provide any meaningful support? Meanwhile you can bring a warrior and guardian along, who provided massive support for the whole party, and really good DPS on top of that. This is why we arrived at the current Meta.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I know how defiance works, and its completely broken. In the time that you’re taking down stacks of Defiant, you could have bursted the boss to death already. All that effort just for measly Fear, is a waste of time. The entire Defiance system makes it nearly impossible to reliably interrupt/control bosses when you need to. One of the main aspects of fear, is that it’s a defensive measure. It’s not only an interrupt, but a way to create a gap between you an an enemy. Defiance makes it completely unfeasible as such. When ever you need to create a gap, Defiance just goes down a stack, and nothing (… )

In our runs for coe golem boss the warrior interrupts the spin with mace5 then thief gets rid of defiant stacks (sometimes we fail because i dont pay enough attention / im under the influence of -legal in my country- substances and/or i suck at this game), but ot does work. It just requires teamwork

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Sorry, his argument is by no means a straw man argument (why has that phrase been coming up so much lately?) dungeons are a minor part of pve. Pve is 1/3 of the game modes. So… He’s right.

Yes it is a strawman, since I never ever advocated a fix involving changing the whole game. That is a strawman argument. If he/she is just going to misrepresent what I said, and then beat up on that, then that discussion is over. Discussions are impossible without both parties being reasonable, and willing to see each other’s side. If one of the two just goes down the alley of childishly beating up on something the other clearly didn’t say, then that is a strawman.

AND

Why would you want to bring a ranger along, when their pet is dead most of the time, and they don’t really provide any meaningful support?.

I don’t feel like you are being reasonable personally. It is very silly of you to think that they should change the entire game around and flip it on it’s head because of an extremely small aspect of the game that anet does not even care about (is it pvp? No. Is it wvw? No.). Your arguments are closer to straw man than his, because you just keep yelling the same thing without even thinking about the consequences of these proposed changes might be. It’s essentially covering your ears and trying to out yell everyone.

As for your second bit, a good player can keep their pet alive. It’s ridiculous to say that a pet is always dead. It isn’t the case and maybe you should play with better rangers.

Saint.5647:

Ah, I too look back to GW1 with my rose tinted shades. But if you do recall, there was a Meta in GW1 as well. There were absolutely Meta groups with optimal compositions depending on what dungeon you were running. Optimal runs farmed different areas with precise builds and certain classes. If you don’t remember “LFG X, Ping build”, then we certainly were not playing the same game :P

GW1 was by no stretch of the imagination a ‘play how you want game’. Ran a Necro? Better run SS or MM…or Orders. Don’t want to/cant? Kick. I think there is the illusion of more choice in GW1 because they added so much to that game since launch. What GW1 had that GW2 doesn’t is more skills (and by extension, more traits). More skills and more traits will allow for new and perhaps more efficient party compositions.

The primary difference there was the coordination of solo-ing speedruns (speedruns were basically doing 5-8 different things at the same time, mind, not actually speeding through content). Secondly, with many dungeons (unless it was, say, SoO and somebody was bringing minions) there wasn’t a hindrance in applicability that was anything more serious than a lack of understanding how to build teams around a player. I’ve done 35-40 minute Urgoz runs simply by understanding that fire damage is useful so you basically take a runner, 2-3 necros, and fire damage where there are no other players present. The players don’t have to be any more efficient than they want to be, because that core design is all that is needed. People could play how they want and complete things. Several dungeons, such as SoO and Oola’s, could also be ran in about 20-25 minutes solo with the right understanding of classes. The rose-tinted glasses aren’t making anything look better because the game was actually that diversified.

Of course, you had the PvX junkies who couldn’t change their build in order to save 5 minutes on a run. PvX was a cancer to GW1’s community. The only time PvX actually got the SC right, by any means, was for UWSC, FoWSC, MTSC and MQSC (and that was mostly because these speedclears revolved around multitasking). Otherwise, speedclears were accomplished just by knowing what a class could do. Using 4 paragons was just as effective as Frostway or Trenchway in DoA, people just refused to accept it because it wasn’t on PvX.

By the same standard, look at Fractals or WvW in GW2, you can’t have 2 competent players that understand their class mechanics well to be all that’s needed – you need to have a full team of competent players. People can’t take some newbies into Fractals and finish the Cliffside fractal in 25 minutes.

While there is a leap between GW1 and GW2 because GW1 has been out for nearly 9 years, that should be 9 years of experience in balancing that ANet can apply to GW2.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Sorry, his argument is by no means a straw man argument (why has that phrase been coming up so much lately?) dungeons are a minor part of pve. Pve is 1/3 of the game modes. So… He’s right.

Yes it is a strawman, since I never ever advocated a fix involving changing the whole game. That is a strawman argument. If he/she is just going to misrepresent what I said, and then beat up on that, then that discussion is over. Discussions are impossible without both parties being reasonable, and willing to see each other’s side. If one of the two just goes down the alley of childishly beating up on something the other clearly didn’t say, then that is a strawman.

Inter-class-interdependence

The problem with the lack of a trinity, is that there is no inter-class-interdependence. If there WAS inter-class-dependence, then even unbalanced classes would still be desired to some agree, since they had a niche use. But once you remove inter-class-dependence, every class can fulfill the same shoes.

That sounds nice on paper, until you realize that not every class fills those shoes equally well, and some of the shoes have holes in them, due to design errors (see: ranger pets).

That is how we have arrived at the current Meta, where warriors dominate the PVE game, along with guardians. Because they are the best at mechanics that are most important in PVE. All other mechanics seem neglected in comparison.

Why would you want to bring a ranger along, when their pet is dead most of the time, and they don’t really provide any meaningful support? Meanwhile you can bring a warrior and guardian along, who provided massive support for the whole party, and really good DPS on top of that. This is why we arrived at the current Meta.

Again you show lack of knowledge. Ranger brings medium tier personal dps (about the same as warrior, probably more depending on circumstances). He brings 10% dps with frost spirit and 150 precision with spotter, which is on par AND STACKS WITH warriors ea and an str banner.

Guardians are not that good on many dungeon paths, and i would gladly take a ranger instead since it gives more party dps and an awesome heal.

As for class interdependece it is totally there. We depend on each other for 25 might 25 vuln damage buffs defensive skills interrupts pulls etc. What you state is simply not true and 1 youtube video away of irrefutable proof

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I don’t feel like you are being reasonable personally. It is very silly of you to think that they should change the entire game

STOP right there. Stop saying that. I never said that, ever. That is the strawman right there.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

you just keep yelling the same thing without even thinking about the consequences of these proposed changes might be. It’s essentially covering your ears and trying to out yell everyone.

No. Pointing out what the flaws in the game are, is not the same as proposing a change. I never did propose a change for this in any of my posts. So you can stop pretending that I did, and arguing that point. That is a strawman.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

As for your second bit, a good player can keep their pet alive. It’s ridiculous to say that a pet is always dead. It isn’t the case and maybe you should play with better rangers.

With all of the rangers I team up with, the pet is dead during every boss fight. That’s because when the ranger dodges an attack, the pet does not.

Wharrgarbl.9263:

As for class interdependece it is totally there. We depend on each other for 25 might 25 vuln damage buffs defensive skills interrupts pulls etc. What you state is simply not true and 1 youtube video away of irrefutable proof

You seem to have a misunderstanding of what inter-class-dependence is. Relying on ‘someone’ to provide 25 might and ‘someone’ to provide 25 invulnerability, does not make you reliant on any class specifically. Why is this a big deal? Because obviously you’ll want to bring the class that is the best at those things to do that job. By removing any actual inter-class-dependence, you remove the need for a player to bring one class over another.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I don’t feel like you are being reasonable personally. It is very silly of you to think that they should change the entire game

STOP right there. Stop saying that. I never said that, ever. That is the strawman right there.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

you just keep yelling the same thing without even thinking about the consequences of these proposed changes might be. It’s essentially covering your ears and trying to out yell everyone.

No. Pointing out what the flaws in the game are, is not the same as proposing a change. I never did propose a change for this in any of my posts. So you can stop pretending that I did, and arguing that point. That is a strawman.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

As for your second bit, a good player can keep their pet alive. It’s ridiculous to say that a pet is always dead. It isn’t the case and maybe you should play with better rangers.

With all of the rangers I team up with, the pet is dead during every boss fight. That’s because when the ranger dodges an attack, the pet does not.

My ranger is my 4th alt and it’s pet doesn’t die because I know how to manage it.

But whatever. You can’t have the trinity placed into this game without heavy consequences and a major overhaul of the entire game. So every argument you have is invalid, if you refuse to accept that truth.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

But whatever. You can’t have the trinity placed into this game without heavy consequences and a major overhaul of the entire game. So every argument you have is invalid, if you refuse to accept that truth.

No, no, no, you still fail to understand the actual argument.

I never said that the trinity should be added back in the game. I never said that. But you refuse to see that point and understand it. That is why you beat up on this topic over and over, and never really address the point I was making.

My point, was that they removed the trinity, and didn’t replace it with anything else. What is left because of it, is a void, in which several classes feel they lack an identity, and lack a role. That is a big problem.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

But whatever. You can’t have the trinity placed into this game without heavy consequences and a major overhaul of the entire game. So every argument you have is invalid, if you refuse to accept that truth.

No, no, no, you still fail to understand the actual argument.

I never said that the trinity should be added back in the game. I never said that. But you refuse to see that point and understand it. That is why you beat up on this topic over and over, and never really address the point I was making.

looks at my previous posts on this topic

One post on liking the way it is, another post on how the loot system would need to be changed and I would dislike that…. I hardly see any of that as “beating up on this topic over and over”.

My opinions are my opinions. I think yours are wrong. You think mine are wrong. You are very sensitive to anyone disagreeing with you. That’s okay. No need to freak out.

Edit to combat your stealth edit: I like that all of my characters have their choice of roles. I’m glad I’m not confined. I’m sorry you disagree.

We dont dodge. We just stack in a corner and press 1. Any summon (banner spirit weapon), might stack, vuln stack, block, cleanse, heal, dodge roll, interrupt, reflect, pull and dps rotations we do are just for shows when ppl stream; otherwise we just press 1 while we watch series on our other screen and we get 30g in 3hrs that way. Sorry guys, i couldnt hold the charade any longer, i know ull send assasssins after me but i cant live with this speedrun meta lie anymore.

(Yes im a jerk i know but you seem to lack the basic knowledge to discuss what you are discussing)

Lilith Ajit.6173:

My opinions are my opinions. I think yours are wrong. You think mine are wrong. You are very sensitive to anyone disagreeing with you. That’s okay. No need to freak out.

No, I am sensitive to people misrepresenting and misquoting what I said. I want people to understand the actual argument. Rather than just blasting me for something I never said. And I feel that is a very fair thing to get worked up about.

[quote=3769504;Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

You seem to have a misunderstanding of what inter-class-dependence is. Relying on ‘someone’ to provide 25 might and ‘someone’ to provide 25 invulnerability, does not make you reliant on any class specifically. Why is this a big deal? Because obviously you’ll want to bring the class that is the best at those things to do that job. By removing any actual inter-class-dependence, you remove the need for a player to bring one class over another.[/quote]

Its a core feature of the game. We dont need any specific class thats can give 25 might we just need A class that can do that (actually its pretty inefficient having a single person using ff and blasting). Dare i say you can speedrun with almost any class composition, just bring a guardian / mesmer when you need to, then fill as needed (warr and ranger give awesome offensive support, ele is a dps BEAST and thief is 2nd best at that)

I’ll say it again. There are roles in GW2 group combat. It seems people ignore this because the roles are not tied to gear, and are only somewhat tied to profession. As to why is the trinity “holy” … I think it’s because the mechanic is a sacred cow.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

My opinions are my opinions. I think yours are wrong. You think mine are wrong. You are very sensitive to anyone disagreeing with you. That’s okay. No need to freak out.

No, I am sensitive to people misrepresenting and misquoting what I said. I want people to understand the actual argument. Rather than just blasting me for something I never said. And I feel that is a very fair thing to get worked up about.

You get worked up about everything. All anyone needs to see is your post history and they can see you are very volatile.

I think you are wrong that arena net failed to place anything to replace the trinity. I think the freedom we have to build and play how we want is marvelous. You can say “only x is viable and blah blah” but that just isn’t true. It’s true for speedruns, sure, but as a hardcore player turned casual by real life, I’m finding I prefer to play my chars how I want. I think anet replaced something old and stale with something fun and new. That’s my opinion. You can go on disagreeing, but at the end of the day I’m enjoying myself in the game, and if you’re hung up about not having a role, you’re missing out on what the game actually offers.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’ll say it again. There are roles in GW2 group combat. It seems people ignore this because the roles are not tied to gear, and are only somewhat tied to profession.

Exactly. There are roles. But here is the core problem: What are those roles?

I think many people would agree on DPS being a role. In which case a logical question would be, which class provides the best DPS? Some classes will be better at this than others.

Then there’s support. We don’t have dedicated healers, so it becomes more about damage mitigation. But as has been discussed countless times before, support is not as viable a mechanic right now as it should be. Which is why we see so many zerkers.

And then there’s control, which is the red-headed stepchild in PVE. It is pretty flat out broken in it’s current situation.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

You can go on disagreeing, but at the end of the day I’m enjoying myself in the game, and if you’re hung up about not having a role, you’re missing out on what the game actually offers.

Which is very little. Certainly in terms of combat depth, strategy, and build combinations. You have to understand I am an ex-GW1 player. So I compare this sequel (because that’s what it is) to the original game.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Sorry, his argument is by no means a straw man argument (why has that phrase been coming up so much lately?) dungeons are a minor part of pve. Pve is 1/3 of the game modes. So… He’s right.

Yes it is a strawman, since I never ever advocated a fix involving changing the whole game. That is a strawman argument. If he/she is just going to misrepresent what I said, and then beat up on that, then that discussion is over. Discussions are impossible without both parties being reasonable, and willing to see each other’s side. If one of the two just goes down the alley of childishly beating up on something the other clearly didn’t say, then that is a strawman.

Inter-class-interdependence

The problem with the lack of a trinity, is that there is no inter-class-interdependence. If there WAS inter-class-dependence, then even unbalanced classes would still be desired to some agree, since they had a niche use. But once you remove inter-class-dependence, every class can fulfill the same shoes.

That sounds nice on paper, until you realize that not every class fills those shoes equally well, and some of the shoes have holes in them, due to design errors (see: ranger pets).

That is how we have arrived at the current Meta, where warriors dominate the PVE game, along with guardians. Because they are the best at mechanics that are most important in PVE. All other mechanics seem neglected in comparison.

Why would you want to bring a ranger along, when their pet is dead most of the time, and they don’t really provide any meaningful support? Meanwhile you can bring a warrior and guardian along, who provided massive support for the whole party, and really good DPS on top of that. This is why we arrived at the current Meta.

Unfortunately, inter-class-interdependence is something ANet explicitly trying to get away with. All the suggestions of falling back to the Holy Trinity paradigm is not going to convince ANet (and people should realize this by now).

ANet should stick to its “soft trinity” of dps/support/cc, without overwhelming emphasis in dps. Also, it should be viable for players to specialize in different roles within their class without a huge performance hit, otherwise it would be homogenizing (like how it is now).

Also, someone mentioned elementalist can do tank, dps, and heal… I think that’s cool in GW1 (done it on my ele myself), and looking back to GW1’s ele, the class is a marvelous example of freedom. Basically one class that can fulfill 3 roles in a specialized way. GW2 removed this kind of specialization (everybody can be dps/cc/support), the cost would be aforementioned homogenization and actually loss of freedom (to choose).

Lilith Ajit.6173:

-snip-

My ranger is my 4th alt and it’s pet doesn’t die because I know how to manage it.

But whatever. You can’t have the trinity placed into this game without heavy consequences and a major overhaul of the entire game. So every argument you have is invalid, if you refuse to accept that truth.[/quote]

First of all I consider the trinity a good system that has proven itself, and a lot of people on these forums have a misconception of what kind of gameplay can be achieved with the trinity.
But the trinity is not needed to create a great combat gameplay, my problem with gw2 is that the actual combat is simply no good not even as an “action mmo”, every aspect of the game could be made much more important and in fact in some exceptional encounters for example sc80 embued shaman 2 players show well a lot of reflect but also use of control and even “tanking” with the guardian being mainly focused, but no need for soldier gears(even if i am pretty sure the guard invested in toughness) or melandru runes just a institutional build, and a near perfect execution. All the devs have to do is to create good encounters they don’t even need good AI just some decent scripting of the encounter. But are they even trying to?

kgptzac.8419:

ANet should stick to its “soft trinity” of dps/support/cc, without overwhelming emphasis in dps. Also, it should be viable for players to specialize in different roles within their class without a huge performance hit, otherwise it would be homogenizing (like how it is now).

Also, someone mentioned elementalist can do tank, dps, and heal… I think that’s cool in GW1 (done it on my ele myself), and looking back to GW1’s ele, the class is a marvelous example of freedom. Basically one class that can fulfill 3 roles in a specialized way. GW2 removed this kind of specialization (everybody can be dps/cc/support), the cost would be aforementioned homogenization and actually loss of freedom (to choose).

I agree entirely. And thanks for being the first to actually understand what I was saying.

See, the idea of a soft trinity (ps/support/cc) is not a bad one. For one, it gets around the problem of having to stand in TOA all day and spam (lfg monks). But I feel one of the three now dominates the game, due to the other two not being quite as well thought out. And I agree that it really does feel like a lot of freedom was removed by us, by removing specialization.

Teckos.1305:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

-snip-

My ranger is my 4th alt and it’s pet doesn’t die because I know how to manage it.

But whatever. You can’t have the trinity placed into this game without heavy consequences and a major overhaul of the entire game. So every argument you have is invalid, if you refuse to accept that truth.

First of all I consider the trinity a good system that has proven itself, and a lot of people on these forums have a misconception of what kind of gameplay can be achieved with the trinity.
But the trinity is not needed to create a great combat gameplay, my problem with gw2 is that the actual combat is simply no good not even as an “action mmo”, every aspect of the game could be made much more important and in fact in some exceptional encounters for example sc80 embued shaman 2 players show well a lot of reflect but also use of control and even “tanking” with the guardian being mainly focused, but no need for soldier gears(even if i am pretty sure the guard invested in toughness) or melandru runes just a institutional build, and a near perfect execution. All the devs have to do is to create good encounters they don’t even need good AI just some decent scripting of the encounter. But are they even trying to?

The issue with the developers increasing the difficulty of anything in this game is that casuals will cry about it. I’m not saying that I would not prefer a more challenging AI, but that the mass population of gw2 struggles to even do things like the Marionette without having their hand held. And it has been made quite clear that the developers are trying to tailor the most of their content toward casual players. Heck, they won’t even implement a combo field priority system because they only think 1% of the players would even know what it means.

I dislike the trinity. That’s why I play gw2. There are plenty of trinity games out there.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

My opinions are my opinions. I think yours are wrong. You think mine are wrong. You are very sensitive to anyone disagreeing with you. That’s okay. No need to freak out.

No, I am sensitive to people misrepresenting and misquoting what I said. I want people to understand the actual argument. Rather than just blasting me for something I never said. And I feel that is a very fair thing to get worked up about.

You get worked up about everything. All anyone needs to see is your post history and they can see you are very volatile.

I think you are wrong that arena net failed to place anything to replace the trinity. I think the freedom we have to build and play how we want is marvelous. You can say “only x is viable and blah blah” but that just isn’t true.

I tend to agree that “Only X is Viable” mentality isn’t true, although there’s a growing gap between being able to run something viable and being able to run something efficient. This is what eventually happens when a game has been out for several years, the endgame moves to the endgame and the paths to the endgame become cluttered with insurmountable bullkitten that nobody wants to put up with. I’m extremely lucky to have found a great guild that doesn’t pass efficiency and elitism as viability, because I still find a spot in Fractals and dungeons with a spirit-greatsword-bearbow combo Ranger. However, these accepting groups are diminishing, or moving too high up in Fractals where new or casual players can’t play.

With the current combat design being endgame, there’s not a single reason why any new player should stick around in GW2 at this point instead of reserving ESO or any other new game coming out soon.

With that said, minions and heals (at least the scaling) are still broken and you’re always going to have a rough quarter of the population (myself included) tired because some mechanics are completely gone.

Yes, GW2 still has more content that can be put out – but it’s time for something to be done. Can only hope that the March 18th patch might actually include some fixes to Necro minions.