Guild Wars 2

Irony

Anet wanted to move away from the Trinity, but they wind up making the game centered on playing 1 role (DPS)….

DPS DPS DPS

This game would be better with defined roles that had equal value in the game.

The Community in general agrees that the game is centered around DPS and how fast you can kill kill kill. Most groups will kick you if dont spec for the most damage, unless grouped with friends…

the fight mechanics in dungeons dont even require people specing differently from just pure damage potential… thats a shame.

Such a cool game to play, with only 1 role to play to be of any use.
There really is no point playing any other way. its a waste. Damage beats all.

When the Raid Dungeons come, i seriously hope Anet considers expanding the group roles, because I am tired of the DPS fest.

Dont get me wrong, I liked the DPS role in the trinity as well, but I also liked to play other roles in the game. Thats what makes it fun, is the ability to play more roles.

PvE sure, you are MOSTLY right.

PvP and WvW also exist however. Try going full DPS… I dare you…

Novuake.2691:

PvE sure, you are MOSTLY right.

PvP and WvW also exist however. Try going full DPS… I dare you…

Going full dps is still viable in both pvp and WvW….. idk what you are on about.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Going full dps is still viable in both pvp and WvW….. idk what you are on about.

Its viable sure, but not PURE damage potential, you usually end up getting some damage mitigation, like Engi Shield or Ele Arcane Shield.

Viable yes to go MOSTLY damage (as you are still forced to get some sort of damage mitigation), optimal, no.

And only viable if you are very good at what you doing.

Novuake.2691:

PvE sure, you are MOSTLY right.

PvP and WvW also exist however. Try going full DPS… I dare you…

Zerker medi guard… zerker thief…

Its easy to spot when someone doesn’t know what they are talking about when they say everything is about dps, even for dungeons.

Facts: the reason people can go full glass is due to support abilities being extremely powerful.

For the most part anet got it right, every class fulfills dps/support/heal all in one build, thus there is no trinity.

Eh, not entirely. It’s more of a ‘soft trinity’ or ‘5 trait line’ build. you got DPS and support, and support is done in a myriad of ways.

Eles can heal, guardians stack might, mesmers crowd control, thieves blind, etc. Each class DPS and supports their own way. Yeah, the main goal is to ‘max out dps’ but don’t all games do that with the trinity anyway? You can’t DPS anything if you don’t have a healer or tank. In GW2, you can’t DPS anything if all you got is damage. IF a guard scoffs the idea of running reflects because it somehow means he does less damage, he’s out of the party.

I wonder how well this whole DPS DPS DPS role would work without the Support ability of Might (and Fury).
Or the Protection and healing.
Or the control used against certain mobs such as reflects, stuns and immobilize.

lordkrall.7241:

I wonder how well this whole DPS DPS DPS role would work without the Support ability of Might (and Fury).
Or the Protection and healing.
Or the control used against certain mobs such as reflects, stuns and immobilize.

Seeing how a glass cannon will go down in 2-3 hits if the damage isn’t mitigated in some way?

Well…I think that’s why I see a few pug groups wipe before the first boss, even if they’re in full zerker gear.

The holy trinity in GW2 pve

Might / Fury stacking (DPS)
Wall of Reflect / Feedback (support)
Black Powder / Deep Freeze (control)

system is working as designed.

Knighthonor.4061:

Irony

Anet wanted to move away from the Trinity, but they wind up making the game centered on playing 1 role (DPS)….

DPS DPS DPS

This game would be better with defined roles that had equal value in the game.

The Community in general agrees that the game is centered around DPS and how fast you can kill kill kill. Most groups will kick you if dont spec for the most damage, unless grouped with friends…

the fight mechanics in dungeons dont even require people specing differently from just pure damage potential… thats a shame.

Such a cool game to play, with only 1 role to play to be of any use.
There really is no point playing any other way. its a waste. Damage beats all.

When the Raid Dungeons come, i seriously hope Anet considers expanding the group roles, because I am tired of the DPS fest.

Dont get me wrong, I liked the DPS role in the trinity as well, but I also liked to play other roles in the game. Thats what makes it fun, is the ability to play more roles.

There’s no Irony. Its natural. most of the PvE in every game resolves around killing. What you want when killing stuff is naturally DPS. In other games you see tanking and support simply because the game makes sure that if you dont have someone tanking and someone supporting everyone dies. Simply speaking the game is forcing some players to go into the tanking and the support role. Remove that gun to people’s head and you’ll have most people going DPS.

Now the most important question in the universe is if you want to go say support do you want to go support because you have no other choice or because you enjoy it? if its because you’re forced into it then you dont really want to go support do you? congrats you now have freedom of choice. If you want to go support because you enjoy it, support is viable in Gw2 just as much as in any other game just go for it.

Seriously people why is it that in every Trinity game in existence you find a truckload of dps but its always an endless wait to get just 1 tank and 1 support to form a 5 person dungeon party? its because in those games like this one DPS is the most efficient class to play. Its always been the case this is not something Arenanet did. Just look at the leveling experience with a DPS its a breeze with a support character it takes a lot longer. Arenanet didnt remove support / tanking role per-se they removed forcing people to play that role like they said they would.

I disagree.

I was usually DPS in games with the Holy Trinity. If we had a good healer, and I didn’t do something stupid, I usually didn’t have to worry about keeping myself alive. If we had a good tank, they absorbed most of the damage.

Here, while I am deepsing along with the rest of the group, I have to manage my own health, CC, I take equal damage to the rest, and I have to keep track of my part of group buffs and heals. That last bit means I have to know when to pop my heals and buffs, which ones to trait for to help the group, what skills to help the group and when, where to stand in relation to the group, etc.

I prefer this to the Holy Trinity.

Yes, PVE dungeons are easy but, with all of the above, they could, and should, be more challenging.

OP if you ignore all of the support and control abilities required in the game how about to drop the tanky training wheels and start to introduce the mechanics to yourself? You’ll see how much the game can offer unless you continously ignore the facts for whatever reason.

ps: Based on his previous replies OP is simply not satisfied with the game which can be understand if he don’t even recognize half of the mechanics, so i would suggest to leave the game and come back when you are up to date.

Lifestealer.4910:

Its easy to spot when someone doesn’t know what they are talking about when they say everything is about dps, even for dungeons.

Facts: the reason people can go full glass is due to support abilities being extremely powerful.

For the most part anet got it right, every class fulfills dps/support/heal all in one build, thus there is no trinity.

True.
And complementing, a big issue is that support skills aren’t tied to support stats or scales very badly.
For example, aegis, protection, blind, etc … works exactly the same if you cast it in full glass build or in full support build, at best the duration will change and still it is an insignificant amount.

Roles would be “better” sure, so that players who suck could always blame their lack of skill on an healer.
The game couldn’t get better than it is on that mode, there is no game as great for what concerns combat, thus, if you all are so absurdly bothered by the lack of a healer to blame, feel free to go play every other game having that system.

Typhus.3502:

Novuake.2691:

PvE sure, you are MOSTLY right.

PvP and WvW also exist however. Try going full DPS… I dare you…

You’re clueless. If you aren’t going full glass on a caster in wvw, you’re doing it wrong.

Casters that go full glass while roaming die pretty easily in my experience. I like the bags so go for it.

Belzebu.3912:

Lifestealer.4910:

Its easy to spot when someone doesn’t know what they are talking about when they say everything is about dps, even for dungeons.

Facts: the reason people can go full glass is due to support abilities being extremely powerful.

For the most part anet got it right, every class fulfills dps/support/heal all in one build, thus there is no trinity.

True.
And complementing, a big issue is that support skills aren’t tied to support stats or scales very badly.
For example, aegis, protection, blind, etc … works exactly the same if you cast it in full glass build or in full support build, at best the duration will change and still it is an insignificant amount.

This “issue” is actually not an issue. It is a good thing. It’s what makes the game well designed.

Actualy Anet never wants get rid of trinity they simply want be able to play all roles with single class and you can do that. Content is easily doable just with dps focus but thats not problem of class design

hybrid.5027:

This “issue” is actually not an issue. It is a good thing. It’s what makes the game well designed.

Till a certain point, I agree.
If support skills doesn’t scale with support-like stats, then what is the point of support stats?
I think those skills should scale better and some skills change the mechanic a bit, for example:
Protection: it would by default reduce around 15% damage and would scale with healing power up to about 40% damage reduction.
Aegis: would block the damage 80% of the time and would scale up to 100%

Something along this line, I agree that any gear set should be able to fill any role, but currently support role can be done with damage gear, but damage role can’t be done with support gear.

Just because I run Berserker on my Guardian doesn’t mean all I bring is DPS… I also bring Wall of Reflection.

Horse. Dead. Beat.

Not in that order.

Yeah, this topic’s been parroted too many times. There’s also no reason to dissuade action mechanics for trinity gameplay. Rather, I’d like to see just more elaborate fights in the future so condition damage and ranged damage have their roles. The zerker highlights only happen because enemies don’t really have successful retaliation against the in-your-face crowd. Would love to see a fight inspired by Shiro or something where a master warrior just wrecks people at close range and the more damage you do to him, the more damage he does to you. Would make it interesting to push design changes. Not only that, but there could fights that do revolve around zerker deeps.

It would just be interesting, in general, if they introduce raids that they simultaneously expand the horizons of how enemies are to be fought – giving rise to several useful DPS roles. Heavy armors where condition damage is more efficient because they can soak up physical attacks like sponges, etc. You might not be as useful during, say, the one boss, but one or two others you’ll find a good place.

Sadly though, ANet doesn’t seem to be interested in designing more dungeons where they could implement this sort of thing and I beg everyone to not ask for something as insensible as an overhaul to already existing dungeons. Just let what is already there be, it’s super easy enough to not actually have requirements – and let’s focus on asking for changes in the future of enemy design.

Belzebu.3912:

hybrid.5027:

This “issue” is actually not an issue. It is a good thing. It’s what makes the game well designed.

Till a certain point, I agree.
If support skills doesn’t scale with support-like stats, then what is the point of support stats?
I think those skills should scale better and some skills change the mechanic a bit, for example:
Protection: it would by default reduce around 15% damage and would scale with healing power up to about 40% damage reduction.
Aegis: would block the damage 80% of the time and would scale up to 100%

Something along this line, I agree that any gear set should be able to fill any role, but currently support role can be done with damage gear, but damage role can’t be done with support gear.

This is dumb for the following reason: there are no “support stats.”

Boon duration is just as powerful an offensive bonus as defensive. Vitality, Toughness and Healing Power are personal passive defensive boosts. Healing Power contributes to team support in a few corner case scenarios, but since the game was specifically and intentionally designed to NOT have a pure healer class it would be foolish to argue that HP was designed to facilitate one.

There are no support stats. There are only offensive stats and defensive stats. Boon duration is “both.”

Knighthonor.4061:

Irony

Anet wanted to move away from the Trinity, but they wind up making the game centered on playing 1 role (DPS)….

DPS DPS DPS

This game would be better with defined roles that had equal value in the game.

The Community in general agrees that the game is centered around DPS and how fast you can kill kill kill. Most groups will kick you if dont spec for the most damage, unless grouped with friends…

the fight mechanics in dungeons dont even require people specing differently from just pure damage potential… thats a shame.

Such a cool game to play, with only 1 role to play to be of any use.
There really is no point playing any other way. its a waste. Damage beats all.

When the Raid Dungeons come, i seriously hope Anet considers expanding the group roles, because I am tired of the DPS fest.

Dont get me wrong, I liked the DPS role in the trinity as well, but I also liked to play other roles in the game. Thats what makes it fun, is the ability to play more roles.

Come again… How is doing something completly different irony?

I’ve no idea how people can even defend this system that was supposed to replace trinity.
Even GW1, a supposedly trinity based game had much more builds and viable play styles.
Even FPS games have more roles available than GW2.

Nick.6972:

I’ve no idea how people can even defend this system that was supposed to replace trinity.
Even GW1, a supposedly trinity based game had much more builds and viable play styles.
Even FPS games have more roles available than GW2.

In GW2 almost any build is viable. Almost any playstyle is viable.

Oh you’re talking about “optimal” meta builds?

Guild Wars 1 had meta builds for speed runs too that were just as strict and defined as gw2. Only if all you did was Heroway PvE you never encountered them. Livia was too nice to tell you your build sucks.

Don’t be ridiculous.
Go to http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki and count all Meta/Great/Good working builds for each profession, PvE, and PvP.
Then come back.
Thanks.

Nick.6972:

Don’t be ridiculous.
Go to http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki and count all Meta/Great/Good working builds for each profession, PvE, and PvP.
Then come back.
Thanks.

I could make just as long a list for gw2. Thanks.

Nick.6972:

Don’t be ridiculous.
Go to http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki and count all Meta/Great/Good working builds for each profession, PvE, and PvP.
Then come back.
Thanks.

Out of the 11 meta SC builds, 8 rely on having at least 2 people (tanks) using shadow form as an elite, if not 3 to 6 people using it. Just by that it is clear that tank builds were not so diverse….

No you couldn’t.
My main is Guardian.
Over 1500 hours on it.
Make me a PvE Greatsword build that is drastically different from this one http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQFARlsApXolCxfH8DBA-TBBXgAA7PK/C1B0r+zjSQA-e
which completely changes my play style.
It’s the same build I’ve been running since the open beta.
Utilities don’t change the way you play.

Ranael.6423:

Nick.6972:

Don’t be ridiculous.
Go to http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki and count all Meta/Great/Good working builds for each profession, PvE, and PvP.
Then come back.
Thanks.

Out of the 11 meta SC builds, 8 rely on having at least 2 people (tanks) using shadow form as an elite, if not 3 to 6 people using it. Just by that it is clear that tank builds were not so diverse….

Those are SC builds, count ALL viable and working individual PROFESSION builds.

i would like to see professions with specific roles instead of this DPS-only crap, i am talking purely PvE however.
a guardian is way to powerful, they should not do as much damage as an ele or warrior, they should be more focused on support and defense.
same with necro’s, they should have better CC and their minions should be more powerful then this one-hit-kill crap we have now the moment we get anywhere close to an elite, let alone a champion or legendary.

they tried to give everyone the chance on having more then one role but fail horribly in this, if they truly succeeded in doing so then a necro can do just as much damage as an ele or a mesmer just as much healing as a guardian.
but allas, none of that is true, they messed up big time and now you have half the GW2 community discriminating profs for their lack of X ability.

Nick.6972:

Those are SC builds, count ALL viable and working individual PROFESSION builds.

Well we are talking about SC here too. For solo PVE, world boss and non speedy dungeons you can perfectly run healer builds which make less damages but help others life… I do it when I want to play differently (I even did with a staff mantra healer mesmer, fun but repetitive). I checked metabattle for example and nowhere it is advised to play venom thief in dungeon, hence not meta. Is it viable? Well since it is my main build with my thief (with condi gear, blasphemy !) I can tell you that you can complete the content without sweating a lot. It gives a bit of life to others and some might, which is always welcomed if you have no might stacker in the team, and I don’t talk about the stun through defiance.

Now for your build you haven’t sloted any traits, so at least 50% of your build is missing. But why couldn’t you play a signet build with GS? Or medi?

Nick.6972:

No you couldn’t.
My main is Guardian.
Over 1500 hours on it.

I guess that makes you an authority?

Make me a PvE Greatsword build that is drastically different from this one http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQFARlsApXolCxfH8DBA-TBBXgAA7PK/C1B0r+zjSQA-e
which completely changes my play style.

You didn’t pick traits. I could make a Strength rune based Empowering Might build, since I’m sure that isn’t what you’re using now.

It’s the same build I’ve been running since the open beta.

You used berserker gear and scholar runes on a guardian in open beta? Doubt it.

Utilities don’t change the way you play.

Fact: they do. If I am in a party where nobody can or will use reflect utilties my playstyle and tactics for an encounter will be drastically different.

Fact #2: Your gear prefix doesn’t determine your playstyle. Your weapon choices, traits and utility skills determine “what you do.” Your gear determines how much DPS you can dish out and how much damage you can soak.

Nick.6972:

No you couldn’t.
My main is Guardian.
Over 1500 hours on it.
Make me a PvE Greatsword build that is drastically different from this one http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQFARlsApXolCxfH8DBA-TBBXgAA7PK/C1B0r+zjSQA-e
which completely changes my play style.
It’s the same build I’ve been running since the open beta.
Utilities don’t change the way you play.

Why does it have to be greatsword?.. if you look up the meta build for guardian, you would see many variations of the “zerk” build depending on the type of dungeon. Hell you can even play a hammer guardian in fractal which has a completely different playstyle than a standard dungeon build. The diversity is there in the form of traits, unless of course you are one of those people that only stick to one trait setup, if thats the case then the problem is with you and not the game design

Oh look, this thread again… let me just get my list…

1. All builds are viable in PvE if you know what you’re doing
2. Not all builds are optimal because that’s how reality works
3. DPS will always be king in PvE in any MMO that follows standard combat patterns

Not even any suggestions from OP about how he/she would do it differently… classic

A few things people forget:

There is no grand council of players/devs/etc sitting behind the scenes determining which build is better than the next.

The word “meta” doesn’t mean what you think it means. As it is used on the forums, it’s a contrived concept that has no basis in factual research or even in establish English.

At the most basic level, the primary goal in GW2 combat is survival – period. Without artificial enrage timers, if you don’t die, you will defeat the boss. A secondary goal, created by a subset of players, revolves around speed kills (but those are player-defined goals, not game-defined goals). In PvP and WvW, secondary goals revolve around more even competitive goals that have nothing to do with speed.

People enforcing or preaching about the “meta” need to just get over it. It is a fabricated term that has nothing to do with how the game is actually played unless the individual player (you) agrees that it does.

Wait…what? How is having DPS, “trinity”, again? I don’t understand this thread, so replacing every instance of the letters “DPS” with “HUGS” and laughing uncontrollably thereafter.

Lazaar.9123:

Novuake.2691:

PvE sure, you are MOSTLY right.

PvP and WvW also exist however. Try going full DPS… I dare you…

Zerker medi guard… zerker thief…

Both can be trampled by their condi counterpart..

I disagree. I like the fact that a group can be independent and not relay on other players to be able to perform is a positive factor in this game. I don’t miss the days of oh we don’t have a ‘x’ type of player so this is pointless. People also can still play support in this game, just not to the point in other games where that is there only role.

hybrid.5027:

Nick.6972:

Don’t be ridiculous.
Go to http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki and count all Meta/Great/Good working builds for each profession, PvE, and PvP.
Then come back.
Thanks.

I could make just as long a list for gw2. Thanks.

Not even.

GW1 had a lot more meta-builds because different content was approached radically differently. You didn’t take the UWSC team and expect to do DoASC or vice-versa.

Also, team synchronization was extremely important (at least, moreso than in GW2). Arguably a good and a bad thing. Limits variation, but frees up your part. No more rolling a mesmer just so you can DoASC.

Also, PvX had a kittenty collection of meta builds. They don’t even include XM builds.

So are we talking about gear being the only thing related to a build or are you talking about ppl building arone zerk in the way they want to play. That the big thing about GW2 your gear is not the full build of how you play a lot of ppl do like high power armor BUT they build into high def traits and that not a dps roll. If all you can see is dps from the chose of weapons and builds and ability your looking at the game way too shallow and you will more then likely see DPS being the only build for even trinity games.

0/0/2/6/6 Full Cleric plays exactly like 6/6/2/0/0 Full Zerker except the damage is x5 lower.
You still make and use the same attacks, you’re no different from the guardian next to you.

Nick.6972:

0/0/2/6/6 Full Cleric plays exactly like 6/6/2/0/0 Full Zerker except the damage is x5 lower.
You still make and use the same attacks, you’re no different from the guardian next to you.

You leave out runes, sigil, food, added food, weapons (unless you mean the cleric player using sword GS mix not sure why lol), the builds them self have different boons they can give there team mates, different debuffs, different passive effects over all, different ways of dealing with taking dmg, and different utility and how though utility work.

So no they do not play the same at all in a lot of ways though two builds are so different that you may not even call them the same class. (Side note it would be cool if they would changes the name bast off of how you have your points set up like the 0 0 2 6 6 would be a cleric and 6 6 2 0 0 would be a zelot or something i am bad with naming things.)

I don’t see why people even argue about this….both sides are right.

Yes, almost any build is viable in GW2 in that you can go most places and be able to kill stuff. Does that mean you will see most any build? No. Why? Because there are only a few optimal builds with maybe a few other iterations and majority seem to rely on DPS (power and precision stats). You can add in a bunch of other little things like consumable buffs and a few utility skills to keep you from dying, but majority of the build will rely on how much damage you can put out in a short amount of time.

This is excluding PvP and WvW where condition builds may work well.

How often are you going to be looking for a support ele, support guard, tank engi, tank ele, condi ranger, condi necro for pve content. Try rolling a water support ele.

And also, GW1 had a much larger variety of optimal builds because they had a lot more variety of combat scenarios than GW2 does. Only in the most recent release, while playing to try to get the achievements, does the combat diversity come close to GW1 standards and build diversity come into play. Why? Because you just don’t whack away at the enemy and have multiple different types of hazards that you have to deal with.

TLDR;

GW2: many many viable builds, very few optimal builds and most revolve around how fast you can dps the mob

GW1 had many more optimal builds because it had a larger diversity of battle conditions/scenarios

Nick.6972:

0/0/2/6/6 Full Cleric plays exactly like 6/6/2/0/0 Full Zerker except the damage is x5 lower.
You still make and use the same attacks, you’re no different from the guardian next to you.

That’s maybe because this game doesn’t have any new skills and very few ones to begin with?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-Meta-has-to-end

Please… not again.

You do realise even in trinity games the focus is all about DPS? After all it is required to kill things.

Nothing new here, but it would be nice for a change. Still think the best solution, but yet the hardest to implement is changing NPC AI. However it would go against their casual and easy to play game philosophy. So IoW never ever expect them to change this. Their target audience has, is and will always be the casual player base. Requiring a trinity or any other specialized roles would just make things too hard for their intended audience.

Guardian Of Tyria.6397:

TLDR;

GW2: many many viable builds, very few optimal builds and most revolve around how fast you can dps the mob

GW1 had many more optimal builds because it had a larger diversity of battle conditions/scenarios

True but GW1 had also way more non viable builds than GW2. In that case the game was totally unplayable and there was nothing teaching you what to do… how many minion master warrior did we see?
So yes reduction of the total number of builds reduces diversity but reduces by at least the same amount the non viable ones.

If the trinity for gw2 is dps, control, support then it is hardly surprising that PvE dictates full zerk. There aren’t any stat combos for support or control. The real trinity is dps+support / dps + control / DPS + support & control. By support I would personally include any buff going to other players, including might stacking.

This is why necros have a hard time in dungeons. They have minimal support capability and their control skills tend to fear, which is the opposite of what you want unless you are skipping.

spoj.9672:

You do realise even in trinity games the focus is all about DPS? After all it is required to kill things.

Actually that depends. The tank and healer are mean to minimize the amount of damage spread across the group so that the DPSs doesn’t die while they are destroying the enemy. If it were purely DPS in a trinity-based game the DPS would all die if not have a high chance of wipe before they can do their job.

Otherwise tank and healer have no point to them.