Guild Wars 2

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

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.

Some classes/professions are always going to be better than others at DPS in any game. There’s nothing new there. Support consists of healing, buffing and defensive procs. Some professions are better than others at that too. Control is possible in GW2, it is however not a viable option in any situation where there are random players.

Roles in GW2 have two characteristics that make it hard for traditional MMO players to credit them.

1. Roles in GW2 are not tied to gear, only tied indirectly to build, and only somewhat tied to profession.
2. Roles in GW2 are fluid. Groups in most games will have someone whose only job is tanking and healing. Control is often limited to certain classes, and being a buffbot is often a specific role seen as necessary (usually in a raid, as a dungeon is likely going to be too small a group for the buff benefits to outweigh the buffbot’s lower dps — see the Archon in Rift for an example. In GW2, everyone is DPSing, support can come from multiple players and perhaps at different times. Control requires the most coordination (i.e., stripping stacks) rather than control being the province of a single player.

Where the DPS issue comes in is that neither support nor control preclude DPS, as is the case in other games. This is why we have certain professions excluded in the dungeon meta. Engineer DPS is reduced because of their versatility, so even though they have both support and control, the lack of optimal DPS makes them inferior to Guardians.

Oh, and what is the role of the Necro? To be complained about in PvP threads.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

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.

And this is my principal problem with the devs and the community people think that they should be able to do anything and to get everything by doing anything. And there i take the wow example they have some extremely “casual” content but on the other hand they have a lot of polished and challenging content for those seeking it. In gw2 we have reached the point where players cripple themselves to get challenged and this is a huge issue.

Teckos.1305:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

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.

And this is my principal problem with the devs and the community people think that they should be able to do anything and to get everything by doing anything. And there i take the wow example they have some extremely “casual” content but on the other hand they have a lot of polished and challenging content for those seeking it. In gw2 we have reached the point where players cripple themselves to get challenged and this is a huge issue.

100% agree.

Naked solo runs are the only things we can do. Also I think I saw a level40 warrior soloing Lupicus once. So being basically trait less is impressive to me.

The role of necro, at the moment, is not in coordinated speedrun dungeons. Im pretty sure a necro can perform at least as well as a 3rd or 4th warrior (anything over a warrior, or 2 if you have a non optimal composition is a wasted slot for meta). But thats fine, therer are plenty of builds of all classes that do not fit on dungeon speedrunning. Its still better than say aion, where meta (used to be its been a while) is warrior cleric then all sorcs (maybe a chanter there) and if you played guard you were sol (since warrior tanks good enough and has more dps) and gl getting parties ranger/sin that could only dps but did less dps than sorc…

Deliph.4798:

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”

This is my discovery after a couple months of playing… the Trinity still somewhat exists, it’s just not as in-your-face… and it creates confusion among the average MMO player as a result. They are trained to the Trinity, so they build to it.

I am not a fan of the Trinity per se, but everyone arguing it causes a migration to a unified build isn’t paying attention – so’s Anet’s strategy. There’s still build-of-the-month club going on among the MMO crowd.

Then there’s the rest of us who are weird… AND the inevitable drive to mediocrity that comes from Anet’s ideas. I built my elementalist to my own specs focused on a mix of survivability and DPS because I solo a lot and stay above-ground vs. dungeon content.

I like the fact my ele can take hits from a champ long enough for her moderate DPS to take effect. However, in those rare instances where I have to party with folks (dungeons, more than anything), I noticed a few things:

Her survivability is nullified at the dungeon bosses after the second dodge is done (i.e. I gotta back off from my normal moderately-in-the-boss’-face) tactics.

Because the majority of heavy MMO players still think Trinity, they also know every build-of-the-month and assume I’m one of them. And they get surprised when I ask in party chat “what skills do you all expect me to have in this path?” They also get surprised when I start using skills I’ve actually buffed via traits that “noone else ever uses”.

She’s painfully locked into pseudo-mediocrity – this is due to MY choice in trying to build the balance the way Anet described early on (i.e. one character can do everything), but that also builds characters into “no one character can do ANYTHING (in particular)”.

Conceptually, my character is prolly (and this isn’t measurable – just a “feel” thing): RELATIVE to all other characteristics we could outline for her performance – 5% better at DPS, 5% more effective at survivability/mobility. Those are noticeable, but barely. I could shift her to average survivability/mobility and she’d be at 10% better at DPS than everything else.

As a contrast, my necro is probably 7% better at survivability than everything else she can do, and 3% better at DPS (I like frakkin’ condi, but pay for it).

I hope that explanation made sense.

What I’d like to see is Anet bump those numbers up a bit so where her increase exists is more than just slightly noticeable.

I’d suggest Tera for people who want a GW2 similar combat system + holy trinity.
This game has the best healing system I’ve ever seen. No tab targeting, no bar to feel. Every heal/buff/debuff is based on direct targeting. You can’t select an allie with its icon on the group tab.
You can’t tank and spank in this game either, which make tank/dps roles a lot more active than in any traditionnal MMO.
GW2 with this system would be amazing.

Holy trinity is the only way to go for mmo’s, keep the dodge system though it is good. GW2 had the right idea, but should have incorporated the holy trinity. Also mmo’s need expansions no way around it to be successful. Micro updates are not expansion!!!! Guild Wars 2 will not grow until changes are made, but may sustain itself if it stays the same. Legendaries will never be considered end game content…. Off topic a bit!!!!

I want the ability to play the game in a trinity style if I want to. I want to be able to have a character that can take hits all day long… another that destroys targets in the blink of an eye… another that buffs other players stats to absurd levels… another that keeps our energy and HP up… and even another that simply locks enemies down for imminent doom.

I want ALL the varying playstyles that a more rigid class structure facilitates.

And I want it without content that forces the tank+healer+DPS group structure.

GW2 has the content in spades… I’m waiting for a new way to play it.

EverythingXen.1835:

I want the ability to play the game in a trinity style if I want to. I want to be able to have a character that can take hits all day long… another that destroys targets in the blink of an eye… another that buffs other players stats to absurd levels… another that keeps our energy and HP up… and even another that simply locks enemies down for imminent doom.

I want ALL the varying playstyles that a more rigid class structure facilitates.

And I want it without content that forces the tank+healer+DPS group structure.

GW2 has the content in spades… I’m waiting for a new way to play it.

This.

GW2 lacks variation in gameplay: either you play the OP build of your class or you feel useless. If you dare to make your own build, you’ll probably end up with the same skills as everyone, as most of each class’ skills are useless. GW1 had this idea of “each class is important for the others to survive”, while in GW2 everyone could play the game from A to Z without requiring any help. Too bad, it’s an MMO…

The game doesn’t need that “holy trinity”, but it sure needs some variation on gameplay…

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

EverythingXen.1835:

I want the ability to play the game in a trinity style if I want to. I want to be able to have a character that can take hits all day long… another that destroys targets in the blink of an eye… another that buffs other players stats to absurd levels… another that keeps our energy and HP up… and even another that simply locks enemies down for imminent doom.

I want ALL the varying playstyles that a more rigid class structure facilitates.

And I want it without content that forces the tank+healer+DPS group structure.

GW2 has the content in spades… I’m waiting for a new way to play it.

This.

GW2 lacks variation in gameplay: either you play the OP build of your class or you feel useless. If you dare to make your own build, you’ll probably end up with the same skills as everyone, as most of each class’ skills are useless. GW1 had this idea of “each class is important for the others to survive”, while in GW2 everyone could play the game from A to Z without requiring any help. Too bad, it’s an MMO…

The game doesn’t need that “holy trinity”, but it sure needs some variation on gameplay…

Agreed. I roll my Zerker warrior for everything. Why would I roll something else?
The interdependence in a party is what made GW1 so good and the devs seem to have forgotten that.
GW2 is like Ursan from GW1, where it doesn’t matter what class you roll just as long as you doing pure dmg and attack as a group(zerg).
Unless Anet decides to rework support, healing and AI we will never get the game that GW2 should have been.
So, just keep playing your zerker, forget there are other roles and keep grinding folks

So Mad Queen is complaining because it isn’t necessary to take a certain class for dungeons (the point on inter-class interdependence) and that supposedly CC isn’t relevant.

Okay.

To put the CC argument completely to rest:

Watch 6:20 through to 7:15 and 10:55 to 12:20.

The whole video.

There are more examples I can dig up, but I think these two get the point across. If it isn’t clear to you on the COE golem, whenever he does the wind-up to spin around and knock everyone back, he gets interrupted every single time so the party can maintain DPS as it works through its defiant except at the end when they run out of interrupts.

Regarding classes.

If you want it to be necessary to take certain classes through content, you end up with “lf healer” and “lf tank” all over again. Nobody wants that. GW2 is good because specific classes aren’t required to beat content. You can do Fractal 49 with five warriors (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqtvXsJU_lY). You don’t need guardians. Guardian makes it 1000x less painful, but they’re not even close to necessary.

You also claimed warriors and guardians dominate the PvE metagame, and if you’d literally spent two seconds looking up the meta, or even looking up youtube videos from rT, DnT, SC, Kr (etc.) you’d see they aren’t. For a meta comp, basically the only requirement is one warrior for banners. Beyond that, you try as close as you can to reach the utmost in DPS (triple ele, ranger and warrior) without compromising the efficiency of the group. So for Arah this may mean a single warrior, a ranger a mesmer and then double ele. It could just mean a warrior, ranger, mesmer, ele and a thief. That way you have dps utilities/traits covered (empower allies, banners, frost spirit, spotter), reflects covered, you have elementalists stacking fury with blasts on their fire fields which means a warrior doesn’t even need to use for great justice and then you have thief to stealth on skipping sections and they can pick up fiery greatswords since they have a damage modifier when using bundles. The thief and and mesmer also have further relevance against Lupicus since the three phantasms and two allies from thieves guild makes Lupicus fire more AoE projectiles on the party which allows for more reflections.

Engineers aren’t so good in meta comps but if you are pugging and the group isn’t very competent they’re a very good carry class, able to stack might and vulnerability very efficienctly in addition to a bunch of other conditions in their dps rotations – and a number of classes have an “if enemy has conditions” or “if enemy has [x] condition” damage modifier, so it will proc that too. Quite literally the only class which has no place in the meta is necromancer, and if that is something that upsets you – then you have the backing of the whole dungeon subforum because we all think it would be great if all classes were able to fit in to dungeon groups. 7 classes out of 8 having a use though I still consider a win, and despite having basically zero utility, power necromancers do have DPS on par with warriors so it’s good if you just want a DPS.

Basically – what makes the Guild Wars 2 system great is that in order to excel at the game you need to practice active damage mitigation so as opposed to stacking defensive stats – this promotes skill and, skillful players are rewarded by blazing through content. For people who argue “you just stack in a corner and press 1”, and I open this challenge to everyone – go in to a dungeon, stack in a corner (LoS or pull the boss or whatever) and just press 1. No dodges, no utilities, no other weapon skills. If you are in berserker gear you will wipe every single time. If you are in cleric gear however, you can solo the spider queen – I issued that challenge and someone on the forum pulled it off. Bonus points if you record fractals or arah because they actually have a level of challenge to them, minus points for COF p1.

If people want a trinity, there are a lot of other MMOs where I assume instanced gameplay just involves players executing skill rotations and watching boss/ally bars, but GW2 is not that game. You need to execute your skill rotations within the confines of the encounter mechanics (e.g. you aren’t going to pull of flawless rotations on Mossman, you seriously just won’t), and while doing this you need to be supporting your team with damage mitigation, positioning, offensive boon stacking, etc. etc.

I would quit this game if ANet introduced trinity.

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

EverythingXen.1835:

I want the ability to play the game in a trinity style if I want to. I want to be able to have a character that can take hits all day long… another that destroys targets in the blink of an eye… another that buffs other players stats to absurd levels… another that keeps our energy and HP up… and even another that simply locks enemies down for imminent doom.

I want ALL the varying playstyles that a more rigid class structure facilitates.

And I want it without content that forces the tank+healer+DPS group structure.

GW2 has the content in spades… I’m waiting for a new way to play it.

…while in GW2 everyone could play the game from A to Z without requiring any help. Too bad, it’s an MMO…

The game doesn’t need that “holy trinity”, but it sure needs some variation on gameplay…

Tad overstated – there are places in this game totally inaccessible to those of us who solo a lot. But to have required grouping in order to play the entire game would have precluded some of us from buying to play.

Before the game came out, I used to celebrate the idea of no “holy trinity.” Now, I don’t see how it could be all that bad compared to everyone running full zerker and DPSing their way through all the content. At least it would be more fun than that.

No “classical” holy trinity needed but its like with many things in gw2 (taking a big ovious guess here) half the way into the project the money was gone and the whole thing went down south.

Since it seems they are unable to run a gem store probably we can only hope for a wonder or a gw2 clone that finishes the job.

ThanatosAngel.8024:

Before the game came out, I used to celebrate the idea of no “holy trinity.” Now, I don’t see how it could be all that bad compared to everyone running full zerker and DPSing their way through all the content. At least it would be more fun than that.

It amounts to the same really, you had one person to group and control the mobs while the others simply did damage and the healer compensate for the damage dealer’s and tank’s mistakes and gets all the blame when you wipe.

Now you have everyone DPSing, everyone healing and everyone using control abilities. Instead of each player doing a single role in the trinity you have everyone doing them each their turn depending on the situation. Unless your in a mindless group that just wants to stand there and deal damage… or don’t use stability, reflects and chills or any blast finishers.

The problem isn’t with the game, its the community… they can’t even handle a marionette without begging for nerfs so its hard seeing anet implementing more difficult or more technical content.

Xia.3485:

ThanatosAngel.8024:

Before the game came out, I used to celebrate the idea of no “holy trinity.” Now, I don’t see how it could be all that bad compared to everyone running full zerker and DPSing their way through all the content. At least it would be more fun than that.

It amounts to the same really, except you need one person to group and control the mobs whille the others simply DPS and the healers compensate for the DPS and tank’s mistakes and gets all the blame when you wipe.

Now you have everyone DPSing, everyone healing and everyone using control abilities. Oh wait, you run with groups that don’t use stability, reflects and chill? The problem isn’t with the game, its the community… they can’t even handle a marionette without begging for nerfs.

Having varied required roles not only makes the game more interesting but adds significant depth to the overall experience.
There is a reason everyone rolls DPS.
It has been explained in a myriad of other posts.
You cannot blame the community for rolling the most efficient build.
It is the responsibility of the developers to promote and even require diversity, not the player to embrace a lesser build.
I beg for the day when my mace/shield guardian becomes more viable, but I know that will never happen with the current mechanics of the game
Marionette was fun and didnt need a nerf, in fact I wish it was back in the game….like many things. It is gone forever.

hendo.1940:

So Mad Queen is complaining because it isn’t necessary to take a certain class for dungeons (the point on inter-class interdependence) and that supposedly CC isn’t relevant.

Okay.

To put the CC argument completely to rest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfLHcyA9Cgc

Watch 6:20 through to 7:15 and 10:55 to 12:20.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBtFWy-ccTk

The whole video.

There are more examples I can dig up, but I think these two get the point across. If it isn’t clear to you on the COE golem, whenever he does the wind-up to spin around and knock everyone back, he gets interrupted every single time so the party can maintain DPS as it works through its defiant except at the end when they run out of interrupts.

Regarding classes.

If you want it to be necessary to take certain classes through content, you end up with “lf healer” and “lf tank” all over again. Nobody wants that. GW2 is good because specific classes aren’t required to beat content. You can do Fractal 49 with five warriors (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqtvXsJU_lY). You don’t need guardians. Guardian makes it 1000x less painful, but they’re not even close to necessary.

You also claimed warriors and guardians dominate the PvE metagame, and if you’d literally spent two seconds looking up the meta, or even looking up youtube videos from rT, DnT, SC, Kr (etc.) you’d see they aren’t. For a meta comp, basically the only requirement is one warrior for banners. Beyond that, you try as close as you can to reach the utmost in DPS (triple ele, ranger and warrior) without compromising the efficiency of the group. So for Arah this may mean a single warrior, a ranger a mesmer and then double ele. It could just mean a warrior, ranger, mesmer, ele and a thief. That way you have dps utilities/traits covered (empower allies, banners, frost spirit, spotter), reflects covered, you have elementalists stacking fury with blasts on their fire fields which means a warrior doesn’t even need to use for great justice and then you have thief to stealth on skipping sections and they can pick up fiery greatswords since they have a damage modifier when using bundles. The thief and and mesmer also have further relevance against Lupicus since the three phantasms and two allies from thieves guild makes Lupicus fire more AoE projectiles on the party which allows for more reflections.

Engineers aren’t so good in meta comps but if you are pugging and the group isn’t very competent they’re a very good carry class, able to stack might and vulnerability very efficienctly in addition to a bunch of other conditions in their dps rotations – and a number of classes have an “if enemy has conditions” or “if enemy has [x] condition” damage modifier, so it will proc that too. Quite literally the only class which has no place in the meta is necromancer, and if that is something that upsets you – then you have the backing of the whole dungeon subforum because we all think it would be great if all classes were able to fit in to dungeon groups. 7 classes out of 8 having a use though I still consider a win, and despite having basically zero utility, power necromancers do have DPS on par with warriors so it’s good if you just want a DPS.

Basically – what makes the Guild Wars 2 system great is that in order to excel at the game you need to practice active damage mitigation so as opposed to stacking defensive stats – this promotes skill and, skillful players are rewarded by blazing through content. For people who argue “you just stack in a corner and press 1”, and I open this challenge to everyone – go in to a dungeon, stack in a corner (LoS or pull the boss or whatever) and just press 1. No dodges, no utilities, no other weapon skills. If you are in berserker gear you will wipe every single time. If you are in cleric gear however, you can solo the spider queen – I issued that challenge and someone on the forum pulled it off. Bonus points if you record fractals or arah because they actually have a level of challenge to them, minus points for COF p1.

If people want a trinity, there are a lot of other MMOs where I assume instanced gameplay just involves players executing skill rotations and watching boss/ally bars, but GW2 is not that game. You need to execute your skill rotations within the confines of the encounter mechanics (e.g. you aren’t going to pull of flawless rotations on Mossman, you seriously just won’t), and while doing this you need to be supporting your team with damage mitigation, positioning, offensive boon stacking, etc. etc.

I would quit this game if ANet introduced trinity.

100 % with you. +10000

Hawke.9013:

It works. I don’t mean to burst A-Net’s bubble with the whole, “ground shaking” idea of removing the trinity, but there’s a reason why every MMO uses it. It’s not as frustrating as every mob being uncontrollable; since, with no tank I guess that’s what A-Net wants. As a thief, it is very frustrating to have a boss turn around and one shot you in a split second. Everything PvE oriented is uncontrolled, and very badly structured.

This lack of holy trinity accounts for the reason why the endgame of GW2 is so bad. Raids for example are not feasible since it would be too hectic, and not very fun. Dungeons are the farthest you get, even then as a melee you’d be constantly hopping back to dodge a backswing, that you might as well re-roll Mesmer.

I don’t know about others, but while forming groups for dungeons there is always a need of a tank, A-Net will never officially take away the trinity anyways, guardians will always be there for tanking. As a thief, will always NOT tank.

With the holy trinity everything is controlled and theres no “WTF” unless it’s your fault because you didn’t move out of the bad. WoW’s endgame is very much so superior to GW2’s, and will forever be, unless some sort of trinity is occurring. And GW2 will always be inferior for this reason.

Well I disagree ^^
The ’’holy’’ trinity you speak of, comes from an age of ‘’oldstyle MMOs’’ such as WoW being the prime example. Older games ones upon a time introduced this system and because it’s human to copy each other, the trinity became the ’’standard’’. MMO designers/developers stopped experimenting with the combat system and by default for a long period of time (years) any new MMO introduced had this trinity you speak of.

It became very dull after a while and all the games started looking like each other with only minor differences. This caused a lot of MMO players to be scattered out over a lot of games, rather than focus on a top 5 and heavily populate those games.

GW2 decided to break the trinity and start experimenting again. They are pioneers on the area of MMOs, introducing some groundbreaking elements. They did a lot of things ’’right’’.

In conclusion… there are a lot of players able to ’’adapt’’ and let go of the old trinity system and there are some who somehow cannot. I think you are part of that last group, and I also think eventually the trinity will completely die. The thought of it is quite ridiculous… that with your class/weapon you are -forced- to play a certain role in a party throughout the ENTIRE game…

I really wish the people who have just now said DPS is the only thing that matters actually read my post, it would help dispel the notion of GW2 just being a pure DPS game, but it feels like people actually want the game to just be DPS rather than educating themselves on how the game actually isn’t just pure damage and that you can make strong use of control and support at the same time.

Playing both styles I enjoy GW2 dungeons more so than a holy trinity due to the combat mechanics. Yes everyone is just a dps. From someone who tanked +7 years in various MMOs, I am glad I can do this and not just have to use aggro generation moves and stand it front of a mob.

It is easy to dumb down the experience on both sides. Are people using blast finishes on certain aoe fields for might, heal, weakness on packs of mobs etc? Does your tank now when to pop defensive cooldowns and healers know when to get ready for a big heal, etc etc.

I think if GW2 wants to win people over is to make some new dungeons with tough boss mechanics that are for 5 mans. I think they did an amazing job with the world bosses but Anet gets attacked due to the amount of players required and how it is only for big guilds. If they had a challenging boss fight in dungeons that was just 5 man I think there would be a more positive spin.

Fractals have a great challenge come +30 but I think the majority of people who are unhappy have yet to get to that level…but that is only a guess.

I just started playing GW2, the reason why I left my other game was because I was rolling a support class(healer) and guess what… the new meta in dungeons is like GW2. Everyone rolls 5 burst damage classes in a party. No one wants a healer, tank or any kind of support build as it only makes dungeon runs 3x slower.

The only way I could play as a healer was if I played with new players who were inexperienced and always had to PuG. No serious PvE guild will want you as they need more room for DPS classes, you’ll never be able to PuG with experienced players as they always want 5 dps.

So yeah all that’s left for us is PVP… which i got bored of…

If GW2 had a cleirc class I’m sure it would be able to adapt to any meta whether it be condi, burst damage, sustained damage or they actually need a pure support character in the party. Unlike my other game, meta changes to pure dps you’re locked out as a support character.

I’m tired of the holy trinity.

However, I would take a deeper holy trinity game any day over Defiant, melee stacking, random one-hit kills, and poor incentives to directly support a team or fighting at range.

Stormcrow.7513:

Having varied required roles not only makes the game more interesting but adds significant depth to the overall experience.

I disagree.

The problem:

In the current design you have mobs with very high health pools, slow telegraphed attacks that are very powerful and defiance to limit your control abilities. The way
dodge and block mechanics work you can completely negate their attacks so passive defenses are mostly useless. Because of defiance most control abilities are also useless (except chill). Because of this damage is king (beserker stats, damage based traits) but you still need some control and utilities like stability, reflection and chill… but you don’t need to sacrifice DPS to trait for them. In fact, your self heal is so powerful you shouldn’t feel the need to wear any +healing gear either.

Add open world content and large number of people.. and the rally mechanic, and suddenly the best way to support your fellow players is to deal more damage. Killing an enemy rallies a friend and lowers incoming pressure.

That design is rather poor. (polite)

A different perspective:

Its rather different in PvP and WvW. The fight mechanics work a lot better there and you see more gear and trait variety as well .. Why? Your opponents attack faster than the AI, deal less damage per attack than the AI and generally are smarter too.

Possible solution:

For PvE, the AI should learn how to dodge, counter and block. It should apply pressure with conditions, it should stun and it should push back. The AI should know how hide from ranged players or close the gap to range players. It should kite melee players. At the very least the AI should walk out of hostile fields.

With a proper AI, and an adjustment to their health pools, the combat can get very intense and interesting. You can remove defiance as a mechanic and suddenly control oriented builds become more interesting. Suddenly some passive defenses (like armor) is worthwhile as more hits are being given by the mobs, much like in PvP.

The system at a base has potential. Lots. And unlike the holy trinity it keeps the players on their tows and promotes a more dynamic playstyle. Players can react to issues, while with the holy trinity they aren’t as flexible (think the death of the tank or healer). I’m not saying its stellar. But the holy trinity isn’t the answer.

hendo.1940:

I really wish the people who have just now said DPS is the only thing that matters actually read my post, it would help dispel the notion of GW2 just being a pure DPS game, but it feels like people actually want the game to just be DPS rather than educating themselves on how the game actually isn’t just pure damage and that you can make strong use of control and support at the same time.

Well this is were I am not totally agreeing with you gw2 is pure dps, the only forms of support we see are here only for one thing make dpsing easier ,why does a guardian used is reflect in melee range of a boss, why does a thief uses pistol 5 on mob pulls why does a warrior only brings banners of discipline and strength, a ranger spirit of nature and spotter all of this is to increase the dps, even when a guard uses an aoe aegis on the group it is to avoid interrupting the group dps(by dodging), in the current meta offensive support is the way to go, a decent group does not use its utility to survive but as a mean to increase the overall group dps.

I don’t really think there is a problem removing the holy-trinity, there are always alternatives for how players can cooperate with each other to beat a certain boss. I think combos are an ingenius step in this direction which Anet have sadly not expanded on. The thing is though, Anet had this mindset in the beginning of the game that “you can play the game you want” which means they want you to run into a dungeon as whatever class in whatever spec doing whatever. This is and will always be a fantasy, an unhealthy fantasy. Because even if you could have this, it doesn’t encourage players to use teamwork and strategy to kill a boss. Thats why so many bosses in the beginning of this game had 1 silly mechanic that they do, while the other 90% of the time they just sit in one place waiting to be killed. I think they are slowly leaning to make other builds viable after they realized that the other build to use that makes sense for dungeons is berserker. Because getting through every fight requires nothing but dps. There are really no fight mechanics that counter this.

, a decent group does not use its utility to survive but as a mean to increase the overall group dps.

That is precisely what you do in a trinity game.

Why does the tank hold aggro? To allow the DPS’ers to do their rotations. Why does the healer heal? To keep players up so they can keep up DPS and the tank can keep holding aggro.

It’s all to make DPS easier.

My mind is literally blown at seeing basically every single person below my post (I even provided two links of control being relevant) completely ignoring it by saying damage is the only thing that matters when I have demonstrated that is completely incorrect.

It’s completely mind blowing.

If you want it to be necessary to take certain classes through content, you end up with “lf healer” and “lf tank” all over again. Nobody wants that.

Sure we don’t want “lf healer”, “lf tank”. We currently have “No necro”, “No ranger”, “heavies only” (lol), and the most controversial “zerk only”. I argue it isn’t inherently better than your hypothetical case.

hendo.1940:

, a decent group does not use its utility to survive but as a mean to increase the overall group dps.

That is precisely what you do in a trinity game.

Why does the tank hold aggro? To allow the DPS’ers to do their rotations. Why does the healer heal? To keep players up so they can keep up DPS and the tank can keep holding aggro.

It’s all to make DPS easier.

My mind is literally blown at seeing basically every single person below my post (I even provided two links of control being relevant) completely ignoring it by saying damage is the only thing that matters when I have demonstrated that is completely incorrect.

It’s completely mind blowing.

what have you demonstrated? CC would have a meaning by itself if i was for it was used to interrupt for example a party wiping attack from a boss, but in pretty much all case it is as anecdotic as an aegis popped by a guardian again in a decent group, it just made use avoid losing dps by dodging, it is all to maintain the dps as high as possible.

hendo.1940:

, a decent group does not use its utility to survive but as a mean to increase the overall group dps.

That is precisely what you do in a trinity game.

Why does the tank hold aggro? To allow the DPS’ers to do their rotations. Why does the healer heal? To keep players up so they can keep up DPS and the tank can keep holding aggro.

It’s all to make DPS easier.

My mind is literally blown at seeing basically every single person below my post (I even provided two links of control being relevant) completely ignoring it by saying damage is the only thing that matters when I have demonstrated that is completely incorrect.

It’s completely mind blowing.

Even in WoW, as you write above, everything is about how to increase overall dps and survival to keep up dps. To make thing worse, they implemented enrage timers.
Good that this game don’t have this thing. -wink wink-

Teckos.1305:

hendo.1940:

, a decent group does not use its utility to survive but as a mean to increase the overall group dps.

That is precisely what you do in a trinity game.

Why does the tank hold aggro? To allow the DPS’ers to do their rotations. Why does the healer heal? To keep players up so they can keep up DPS and the tank can keep holding aggro.

It’s all to make DPS easier.

My mind is literally blown at seeing basically every single person below my post (I even provided two links of control being relevant) completely ignoring it by saying damage is the only thing that matters when I have demonstrated that is completely incorrect.

It’s completely mind blowing.

what have you demonstrated? CC would have a meaning by itself if i was for it was used to interrupt for example a party wiping attack from a boss, but in pretty much all case it is as anecdotic ad an aegis popped by a guardian again in a decent group, it just made use avoid losing dps by dodging, it is all to maintain the dps as high as possible.

He demonstrated that offensive support matters. So there is “support” in this game. However it comes nowhere near the support that is, I presume, what most people mean by support. Like doubling armor rating, shutdowns (like daze, but making it more useful), minion walls, etc. The game is DPS-oriented and DPS-support and that’s always going to alienate and isolate the clerics/monks of any game because they’re backline defense – their job is to keep the DPS alive, not improve it.

With the defensive side of this game as being nothing more than an improvised offense, ANet’s bound to drive away at least 1/3 of any target customers because people enjoy being the monk. People enjoy being monks. It’s what they like. It’s the reason they play MMOs. And that’s really all this will ever be, is the inability to play the way you like because the way you like isn’t actually in the game.

Teckos.1305:

what have you demonstrated? CC would have a meaning by itself if i was for it was used to interrupt for example a party wiping attack from a boss, but in pretty much all case it is as anecdotic ad an aegis popped by a guardian again in a decent group, it just made use avoid losing dps by dodging, it is all to maintain the dps as high as possible.

So you want casuals like me to constantly wipe? That’s not what was promised.

hannah mee.7925:

Teckos.1305:

hendo.1940:

, a decent group does not use its utility to survive but as a mean to increase the overall group dps.

That is precisely what you do in a trinity game.

Why does the tank hold aggro? To allow the DPS’ers to do their rotations. Why does the healer heal? To keep players up so they can keep up DPS and the tank can keep holding aggro.

It’s all to make DPS easier.

My mind is literally blown at seeing basically every single person below my post (I even provided two links of control being relevant) completely ignoring it by saying damage is the only thing that matters when I have demonstrated that is completely incorrect.

It’s completely mind blowing.

what have you demonstrated? CC would have a meaning by itself if i was for it was used to interrupt for example a party wiping attack from a boss, but in pretty much all case it is as anecdotic ad an aegis popped by a guardian again in a decent group, it just made use avoid losing dps by dodging, it is all to maintain the dps as high as possible.

He demonstrated that offensive support matters. So there is “support” in this game. However it comes nowhere near the support that is, I presume, what most people mean by support. Like doubling armor rating, shutdowns (like daze, but making it more useful), minion walls, etc. The game is DPS-oriented and DPS-support and that’s always going to alienate and isolate the clerics/monks of any game because they’re backline defense – their job is to keep the DPS alive, not improve it.

With the defensive side of this game as being nothing more than an improvised offense, ANet’s bound to drive away at least 1/3 of any target customers because people enjoy being the monk. People enjoy being monks. It’s what they like. It’s the reason they play MMOs. And that’s really all this will ever be, is the inability to play the way you like because the way you like isn’t actually in the game.

Those “1/3” of the customers can play a game where a monk is needed then. (I emphasize 1/3 in quotations because I highly doubt that 1/3 of the player base a. Wants there to be a trinity and b. Wants to be a healer on the sidelines, tagging zero mobs and getting zero loot.)

I would love to play monk again. My main was Monk in GW1.
I remember a time when I didn’t have to “tag” mobs in order to be useful and get loot.
I would just have to help keep the TEAM alive…oh ya we dont have TEAMS for most of the open world content in GW2 really, just self sufficient nameless zergs autoattacking anything that is in red font for loot. It does require tons of skill and thoughtful gameplay lol. GW2 is Ursanway zerg style.
I agree that defiant is a bigtime issue that needs to be looked at.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

hannah mee.7925:

Teckos.1305:

hendo.1940:

, a decent group does not use its utility to survive but as a mean to increase the overall group dps.

That is precisely what you do in a trinity game.

Why does the tank hold aggro? To allow the DPS’ers to do their rotations. Why does the healer heal? To keep players up so they can keep up DPS and the tank can keep holding aggro.

It’s all to make DPS easier.

My mind is literally blown at seeing basically every single person below my post (I even provided two links of control being relevant) completely ignoring it by saying damage is the only thing that matters when I have demonstrated that is completely incorrect.

It’s completely mind blowing.

what have you demonstrated? CC would have a meaning by itself if i was for it was used to interrupt for example a party wiping attack from a boss, but in pretty much all case it is as anecdotic ad an aegis popped by a guardian again in a decent group, it just made use avoid losing dps by dodging, it is all to maintain the dps as high as possible.

He demonstrated that offensive support matters. So there is “support” in this game. However it comes nowhere near the support that is, I presume, what most people mean by support. Like doubling armor rating, shutdowns (like daze, but making it more useful), minion walls, etc. The game is DPS-oriented and DPS-support and that’s always going to alienate and isolate the clerics/monks of any game because they’re backline defense – their job is to keep the DPS alive, not improve it.

With the defensive side of this game as being nothing more than an improvised offense, ANet’s bound to drive away at least 1/3 of any target customers because people enjoy being the monk. People enjoy being monks. It’s what they like. It’s the reason they play MMOs. And that’s really all this will ever be, is the inability to play the way you like because the way you like isn’t actually in the game.

Those “1/3” of the customers can play a game where a monk is needed then. (I emphasize 1/3 in quotations because I highly doubt that 1/3 of the player base a. Wants there to be a trinity and b. Wants to be a healer on the sidelines, tagging zero mobs and getting zero loot.)

You know in GW2 that chests are shared by everyone in a group, right? Or does not fit well with the belief that GW2 must be superior to every game ever because it lacks the trinity? Monster tagging, like you’ll see in WoW or even RO isn’t half as griefing in GW2 and would incite players to use healing and support classes. GW1 and WoW (pre-MoP) have both shown the large crowds that flock to support roles.

I doubt 1/3 of the playerbase wants a trinity either because most of that 1/3 never started or stopped playing after they realized GW2 was actually poorly designed for people who enjoyed more defensive/supportive roles.

Sure we don’t want “lf healer”, “lf tank”. We currently have “No necro”, “No ranger”, “heavies only” (lol), and the most controversial “zerk only”. I argue it isn’t inherently better than your hypothetical case.

“No necro” is because they lack group utility, “no ranger” is said by people who either don’t understand that ranger is extremely solid or because they feel that if they allow rangers to come in they’ll get a bearbow. “Heavies only” is said by people who don’t understand that heavy classes are completely average in DPS and blown out the water by thieves and eles. In regards to zerk only – well I don’t see how “need a healer/tank” is any better to be honest. And if you don’t want to run zerk – don’t. I just did an Arah p2 run with two rangers (using bears!), an engineer, and an ele. I didn’t gear check any of them. We just did the path. Also, the group filled extremely quickly. Sure, I had to solo the abomination, solo Lupicus, switch to guardian to Alphard for reflects and then switch to thief to help them with the final skip – but to be honest if I wanted quality players I’d just play in guild.

what have you demonstrated? CC would have a meaning by itself if i was for it was used to interrupt for example a party wiping attack from a boss, but in pretty much all case it is as anecdotic ad an aegis popped by a guardian again in a decent group, it just made use avoid losing dps by dodging, it is all to maintain the dps as high as possible.

You CC the golem so that it doesn’t one-shot your squishies. You CC the tar to stop it burrowing underground, spawning all of the adds and inflicting a minute of burning on your team. And like I said, your tanks and healers in trinity games are intended to maximise DPS by allowing the DPS to maximise their uptime in doing their rotations. CC and support in this game to exactly the same thing.

With the defensive side of this game as being nothing more than an improvised offense, ANet’s bound to drive away at least 1/3 of any target customers because people enjoy being the monk. People enjoy being monks. It’s what they like. It’s the reason they play MMOs. And that’s really all this will ever be, is the inability to play the way you like because the way you like isn’t actually in the game.

If people enjoyed being monks, then if I recall correctly, the designers of FFXIV wouldn’t have needed to incentivise people rolling healer classes. The fact of the matter is, most players like playing DPS and tanks and healers are scarce in trinity games. More importantly, this game was advertised as having no trinity, so if people wanted to play monks … then they shouldn’t be playing this game in the first place.

I’ll use the word coordination to describe what I’m trying to say.

In other games they don’t have CC that last forever with virtual little to no cooldown. So people need to actually coordinate their CC and support.

In this game every class have AOE CC with little or no cooldown, that’s why every monster have defiant, or cutdown CC by like 90% in dungeon.

Not to mention, AOE etc. Every class have AOE. So if every class can do everything, there is no need to rely on each other etc.

To sum up my frustration with this, I am having to agree with one half of the players in this thread by saying Holy trinity is by far more superior than what we have right now. It is currently a free for all, no roll, kill-kill-kill type of game which is much less fun then set rolls, and everyone having to excel to achieve a common goal.

I believe that with this instance of gameplay that GW2 has created, it has crippled its ability to create any sort of difficult endgame, as obviously you cannot just burn raid bosses until they are dead, you have to pay attention to mechanics and work around that rather than going all out.

As it has been said before I believe that GW2 is a fantastic game, just the combat is hindering its appeal to not only me, but many others, as endgame is terrible, and a bad endgame leads to a bad game.

If you want to get rid of the holy trinity, you must come out with something superior, not inferior than it.

hendo.1940:

If people enjoyed being monks, then if I recall correctly, the designers of FFXIV wouldn’t have needed to incentivise people rolling healer classes. The fact of the matter is, most players like playing DPS and tanks and healers are scarce in trinity games. More importantly, this game was advertised as having no trinity, so if people wanted to play monks … then they shouldn’t be playing this game in the first place.

You mean the White Mage class that was relatively popular in a game that lost vast support from the failure that FF13 ended up being? Seems like a wild juxtaposition. Healers are far from being scarce in trinity games if you drift toward the endgame – of course the road to the endgame isn’t going to be riddled with them because it’s filled with nothing but the remnants of everyone who only plays the endgame, in most trinity games you won’t find many tanks or DPS players either until you hit the endgame – so your point is moot. Players do tend to see less of support classes, though, because support classes always find themselves to be useful.

I can’t honestly imagine anyone believing that Cleric and other defensive support roles are not desirable in MMOs. If you consider that a gamefaqs poll issued about a year ago showed that about 25% of the community that actually plays GW2 prefers the guardian profession. Sure, it’s 425 players instead of the hundreds of thousands that play the game, but it’s a fairly moderate sample. I’d say that speaks something about people’s desire to lean toward defensive positions. Sure, guardian can also be offensive – but there’s a reason people love them so kitten much and that’s because it has the defensive support that people actually look for in a game.

Actually, now that I’ve said it, I think I can understand why some people wouldn’t want the trinity to return. It would be a shame if GW2 ended like every other MMO where tanks and DPS were largely undercut by superior defensive management.

I’ll use the word coordination to describe what I’m trying to say.
In other games they don’t have CC that last forever with virtual little to no cooldown. So people need to actually coordinate their CC and support.
In this game every class have AOE CC with little or no cooldown, that’s why every monster have defiant, or cutdown CC by like 90% in dungeon.

Most CC skills are on long cooldown. Tremor on off-hand mace for warrior is 25 seconds, staggering blow on their hammer is 20 seconds, backbreaker is 30 seconds. Earthshaker is 8.75s but requires adrenaline to build up first. Mesmer magic bullet is I believe 25 seconds. Unless you include cripple, chill and immobilise under the CC umbrella – skills which apply those have faster cooldowns, yes, but chilling a static boss doesn’t do much whereas knocking them down before a major attack does. If CC had low cooldowns then if you watched the video I linked of COE, we would have been able to have just spammed it endlessly but it took people co-ordinating CCs to get it to be as consistent as that.

Not to mention, AOE etc. Every class have AOE. So if every class can do everything, there is no need to rely on each other etc.

Except … there is. Every class can’t do everything. Only warriors have banners, only rangers have frost spirit/spotter, only guardians and mesmers have ample access to group condition cleanse and reflect, only elementalists have access to fiery greatsword and fury stacking through blast finishers, only thieves have spammable access to stealth.

The reason why you see the group compositions in meta groups is because all of the classes synergise with each other. You have ranger and warriors for stat buffs, elementalist for might and fury stacking (enabling warriors to even drop for great justice since it just isn’t needed, plus they can switch to signet of might since they are getting extra precision via spotter). Mesmers, guards for reflects, aegis for prolonged fights, condition cleanse, and so forth. The reason these classes are chosen is for their great synergy with each other (and even then, it depends on the instance).

To sum up my frustration with this, I am having to agree with one half of the players in this thread by saying Holy trinity is by far more superior than what we have right now. It is currently a free for all, no roll, kill-kill-kill type of game which is much less fun then set rolls, and everyone having to excel to achieve a common goal.

But they’re not trying to achieve a common goal? The tank is trying to tank, the healer is trying to heal, the DPSers are trying to DPS. They all have three separate goals and are just trying to maximise their own rotation efficiency.

I believe that with this instance of gameplay that GW2 has created, it has crippled its ability to create any sort of difficult endgame, as obviously you cannot just burn raid bosses until they are dead, you have to pay attention to mechanics and work around that rather than going all out.

Guess what happens when you don’t pay attention to boss mechanics in this game? You die. Try Lupicus without paying attention. Alphard. What about full melee magecrusher while ignoring the mechanics? Melee hunter/crusher and ignore the mechanics? What about Nokk and Tazza? The first golem in SE p1? Kholer? Ghost Eater?

Try all of those without paying attention, they’ll smear your remains over the walls.

. Healers are far from being scarce in trinity games if you drift toward the endgam

And how many of those are playing healers because the content demands it rather than they enjoy it? I’ve seen a number of times people being frustrated because they had to make a healer so that their guild could raid.

I can’t honestly imagine anyone believing that Cleric and other defensive support roles are not desirable in MMOs.

Desirable to have but not desirable to play.

haviz.1340:

Teckos.1305:

what have you demonstrated? CC would have a meaning by itself if i was for it was used to interrupt for example a party wiping attack from a boss, but in pretty much all case it is as anecdotic ad an aegis popped by a guardian again in a decent group, it just made use avoid losing dps by dodging, it is all to maintain the dps as high as possible.

So you want casuals like me to constantly wipe? That’s not what was promised.

yes /15 char

Im Mudbone.1437:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

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

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.

I take great joy in creating home-grown builds that are overpowered so I can solo things that I’m not supposed to. It’s fun.

I like that GW2 lets you feel less like a cog in the machine and more like an empowered individual who can contribute more than simply enacting a prescribed set of instructions.

If somebody has a really crappy build in sPVP or a dungeon, the team really feels it. It puts more onus on the player to improve themselves. People still copy & paste builds they find online, of course, but that’s irrelevant. If they play a meta poorly they will still let down the group, because in this game you can’t simply rely on your skillbar to save you – You actually have to be able to use all the elements of your build together effectively. You need skill and practice.

None of what I just wrote applies to huge open-world zergfests or bosses though; there’s no way Arenanet can fix those events due to their very nature. All you have to do is gather enough people, spam 1 and rez. Replacing the trinity won’t help.

@hendo

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pistol_Whip
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Headshot

Great way to strip defiant stacks.

I understand the oh, there isn’t that much CC, the cooldown is 25 second. I’m so wrong etc etc.

But by comparison. GW2 have far more CC with far less cooldown. You can pretty much have 2 thief that can spam blind forever. That’s why you have to have defiant or reducing cc effective in dungeon.

This games combat is precisely designed for soloing. Hey at least it’s fun soloing boss. I have a blast on queen’s gauntlet too.

hendo.1940:

And how many of those are playing healers because the content demands it rather than they enjoy it? I’ve seen a number of times people being frustrated because they had to make a healer so that their guild could raid.

Desirable to have but not desirable to play.

I’d like to see even one instance of someone grudgingly making a healer class so their guild could raid. Either it’s a weak guild without a strong membership or it’s casual content that people should expect. I will also challenge that second statement with several examples.

hendo.1940:

You CC the golem so that it doesn’t one-shot your squishies. You CC the tar to stop it burrowing underground, spawning all of the adds and inflicting a minute of burning on your team. And like I said, your tanks and healers in trinity games are intended to maximise DPS by allowing the DPS to maximise their uptime in doing their rotations. CC and support in this game to exactly the same thing.

Ok correct me if I am wrong. Your argument is that interrupting an attack is relevant cause it can protect the group from heavy damages.
I say that it is not that relevant ‘cause first of all a simple dodge can nullify the damage.
But since we are in gw2 and we want to maximize the dps interupting the boss is much more appealing, but in this environment an instant cast aoe aegis is much more efficient, the warrior does not stop his rotation to use mace 5, the thief does not switch to s/p to use pistol 4, they do not even have to care about the stacks of defiant to come. This is why i consider cc irrelevant. Except in some rare cases where the incoming damage is not concentrated on one hit (ac’s howling king, well if it was not hard countered by a pillar).

NB:we are still talking about a decent group.

Do u have freedom in GW2 PvE?

I like the dogderoll and active migition/most of the skills are useable while moving. I like to dogde if i know what i have to dogde. But that´s not all we get.

Range combat is useless in PvE, u can play it but on cost of any meleeplayer.

Healing Builds are useless, if the group doesn´t need u. How can u call it freedom?

Most of the weapons are bad/useless, CC is not needed, supporty weapons are usually not needed or bad designded.

If u enjoy to play a “tanky” guy who is controlling the fight (CC and so on) u can´t do it here. U will become useless.

If u want to play a glassy high dps toon, but u aren´t good enough to surive rly long fights. U can join high dps gruops, but u will die if the group is bad (especially if they use ranged weapons) do u have a choice now?
A PVT guardian is useless in a Zerkgroup too.

In other games the player choice what they want to play. Some want to play a healer, others not. This is much more freedom then we have in GW2.
Even trinity classes should have build varity and diffrent styles of gameplay.

U think stacking in a corner is boring? I think that too, but do u know why most people are using it? Because there is no tank who is controlling mobs movement.

But by comparison. GW2 have far more CC with far less cooldown. You can pretty much have 2 thief that can spam blind forever. That’s why you have to have defiant or reducing cc effective in dungeon.

Blind is not CC, and running two thieves is basically never a good idea.

This games combat is precisely designed for soloing. Hey at least it’s fun soloing boss. I have a blast on queen’s gauntlet too.

It’s not designed for soloing. The fact that skills provide boons either to oneself or in AOE is evidence of that.

Ok correct me if I am wrong. Your argument is that interrupting an attack is relevant cause it can protect the group from heavy damages.
I say that it is not that relevant ‘cause first of all a simple dodge can nullify the damage.

Warrior axe damage, hundred blades, guardian sword and greatsword, mesmer sword all have backloaded damage. If you interrupt these skills with a dodge, you reduce your DPS. If that golem spins, it basically makes a PbAoE no-go zone for the next few seconds, crippling group DPS. And it’s relevant because there’s been times where I’ve been doing COE, the golem has static field down, nobody interrupts the spin and I literally just get one-shotted from the spin and the static damage hitting me at the same time.

but in this environment an instant cast aoe aegis is much more efficient, the warrior does not stop his rotation to use mace 5,

Incorrect. When I run COE we organise our knockdowns and if the golem is about to spin I’ll interrupt my rotation and mace 5 it. Sure, aegis is more efficient for one-hit attacks, but if you can CC it instead, it’s easier to just do that.

the thief does not switch to s/p to use pistol 4, they do not even have to care about the stacks of defiant to come.

Except they do. Try the Arah p2 abomination while co-ordinating CC. It’ll basically never transform because you’ll knock it down before it enrages and you’ll remove the defiant for its next transformation to CC it again. Now try not using CC – you’ll all get knocked back (without stability), you all have to disengage (or you take 2k damage burning ticks for 4 seconds I believe) and then use a tranquiliser gun. That is why CC is good in dungeons.

This is why i consider cc irrelevant. Except in some rare cases where the incoming damage is not concentrated on one hit (ac’s howling king, well if it was not hard countered by a pillar)

You consider CC irrelevant because of your misconceptions of what experienced groups do with their CC skills. It sounds to me like you don’t even want it to be relevant despite me demonstrating examples otherwise. If you don’t want it to be relevant, just say so. All I’m saying is that CC can make boss kills extremely efficient and can be the difference between a wipe.

NB:we are still talking about a decent group.

This is more so why CC is important, organised groups can co-ordinate it.

CC is not needed

I’ve provided two youtube videos offering three examples. Can you please actually watch the videos before coming out with things like this? Just for your convenience:

Watch 6:20 to 7:15, and 10:55 to 12:20.

The whole video.

In other games the player choice what they want to play. Some want to play a healer, others not. This is much more freedom then we have in GW2.
Even trinity classes should have build varity and diffrent styles of gameplay.

No, some people play tanks or healers because their groups force them to. If you can choose to queue in LFG for an hour as DPS or get a group instantly as a healer … it kind of pushes you to play healer.

In Guild Wars 2 you play whatever the hell class you want for dungeons, excluding necro – which, I need to emphasise again, it would be nice if ANet were able to give them useful support skills which literally every single other class has.

U think stacking in a corner is boring? I think that too, but do u know why most people are using it? Because there is no tank who is controlling mobs movement.

Actually, most people don’t even know why they’re stacking. They just get told to do it and it happens to work because most likely an experienced player was carrying them through the fight while everyone else downed every now and then because they had no idea what the boss mechanics were.

The reason you stack is to LoS and ball up mobs so that they can be cleaved down. It also enables things like whirlwind attack and fiery rush to function as massive damage spikes since all of their hits will connect on a boss if it’s stacked in a corner.

Overall, the big problem is that professions have a severe lack of options and play styles. The main roles for classes are damage with a bit of control and support and that is not enough to sustain player interest or retention for the long run.

Just play with WvW players who use suboptimal builds and can’t dodge. Great, now you have found the challange. -wink wink-

The problem isn’t the lack of a trinity but the lack of creativity on Anets part on making pve and different weapon/class setups equally desirable. Almost everything pve wise is poor mechanics and mob scripts which promotes berserker builds that revolve around a single weapon because when a boss just one shots you anyways unless you move behind a pillar or dodge why get toughness or vitality. Even if the boss does steady damage and almost no special mechanics beserker is still considered best because the boss will typically pick only one character and stick to them anyways.

Probably the best solution mentioned here is the one where dungeons scale based on the overall stats of the group and AI mechanics being redone to be more interesting. Classes need a redesign as well tho, just look at the demo videos for classes that Anet advertised and ask yourself how often you see those weapons or skills used or you use them yourself. Condition damage and group support roles need fixing so that they aren’t being shafted in either dungeons or large scale world events. Game play needs to expand beyond its current form or else the trinity is better simply because of the current form of game play being so restrictive and the trinity offering less restrictions.

Of course this all requires work and with the living story model I don’t expect it being fixed anytime soon. The only way I see anything changing is with expansions since drastic promises of change seem to be much easier to accomplish during expansions then with small updates every few weeks. But who knows when that will happen or if it will.