Guild Wars 2

Healing is there but its just as you said, the fights are not deep enough to warrant a fully specced and geared healer, you would only slow yourself and the group down because zerker is everything you need. Dodging, self heal and blocking may contribute to the problem but the boss system is so lousy that it makes those things look in cahoots with it. If the boss system was better all the gear other than zerker would shine right next to it and we would have a much more vibrant build selection for PvE.

What we need is simply the ability to tank and heal better. Instead of the Damage/Dodge mechanic that exists now.

no to 3nity, been there, done that, no more, ever

My opinion.

Removing the trinity entails much more to be done with the game mechanics than simply tweaking individual class skills to appear to remove dedicated DPS, Tank and Heal roles.

I feel that the removal of the trinity in GW2 was only partially done. At launch it did seem to be enough to give an appearance of being a different type of game, but without also re-configuring or removing the elements of the game that were tied to the trinity (or even being groundbreaking and re-imagining them), they’ve only succeeded in creating a hybrid and incomplete system that only barely functions on the surface of only the most basic of combat situations. I’m an Open World PvE only player, though, so this suits me just fine.

Unfortunately, there are still many elements that remain in the game that are directly linked to the trinity system whose only purpose for being were due to the existence of the defined trinity roles. Armor weight types is one such element that has no justification without the trinity.

If ArenaNet really wanted to break the RPG mold and do away with the trinity system, they should have gone all the way and removed the other RPG elements that are directly tied to them as well. Without the trinity there is no logical reason or justification for different classes to still be forced to remain restricted in what armor weights they are ‘permitted’ to wear.

Some may say, “But, stats!” Well, armor stats in GW2 may seem to be tied to the armor weight type, but that facet of functionality in itself is also tied to the trinity system. Due to the lack of vertical progression (which I love), stats should not have been placed on armor in GW2 in the first place without also retaining the trinity. There is no reason for classes to have such widely varied base stats without the trinity system. Without the trinity, base stat values should have been the same across all classes. Slight tweaks to a character’s base stats should be defined based on the selections made during character creation (upbringing, focus, training, etc). After creation, stats should then be defined by the experience multiplier that comes from, well, more experience (aka leveling), but not just an increase in stats based on your ‘level’.

Without the armor weight restriction on classes, coupled with the fantastic level scaling that GW2 has, character “level” also becomes irrelevant. Stats should then increase dynamically based on what skills you use. Using skills from specific skill categories would boost certain stats based on frequency of their use (experience using them). You would really be leveling up your character’s experience with individual skills and not some overall stat modifier (character level). If you use one that focuses on honing your perception, then perception gradually increases with more use. Use a skill frequently that is defined as boosting your power, it’ll start boosting your power. It could also function similar to how the not-really-implemented aspect of your character personality on your Hero Panel seems to function where boosting one will slightly decrease an opposite stat. These personality stages would then actually serve a purpose for describing your character. When another player sees your name tag, they’ll also see your personality/training name and they can associate certain skill ratings with those personality titles (high power/low toughness, high this/low that, etc.).

This means that stats would not be associated with the armor worn by that class, and armor would actually only really serve an aesthetic purpose, as GW2’s horizontal progression touted the game as focusing on. This would also mean skin closet implementation from the very start…which is still not in the game 14 months later. It would also mean more focus on designing and releasing more appearance items more frequently. The appearances of armors would then not be restricted to being cloth/leather/plate as those three descriptors are directly related to the trinity and not so much on the caster/melee combat dynamic. Armor would not need to be designed to fit those three types. Players could wear a combination of clothing materials. Some leather boots with plate coverings, cloth leggings, a leather pirate shirt with some metal elements, some hand tattoos of magical symbols stretching up one arm with a full plate covering on the other, shoulders that blend in with the back items, and a helm…oh the helms, they could be so fantastic with a mixture of cloth/leather and metal elements.

I got pretty sidetracked on some of what I was trying to get across, but my main point is what I stated in my first sentence. GW2 did not get rid of the holy trinity. Removing the trinity entails much more to be done with the game mechanics than simply tweaking individual class skills to appear to remove dedicated DPS, Tank and Heal roles.

Only problem with it is. If only DPS matters then the professions with highest dps will always be best. The trinity in gw1 was more than just dps/tank/healer.
Professions had roles not just they are all dps but once every 1 min or 2 they could interrupt.

I’m happy with the game design in this area. It’s one of the main reasons I play GW2 and not one of the other games out there.

DeWolfe.2174:

What we need is simply the ability to tank and heal better. Instead of the Damage/Dodge mechanic that exists now.

Tanking has the problem with the agro table of GW2. Healing on the other hand is not as bad even though you cannot target heal allies. It can work as long as the people being healed can mitigate enough damage through dodging, block and their own healing. The current setup can work as I have stated if the encounters are done correctly.

The other half of the problem is Anet. They give excuses like instanced raids split the community when they have already done that themselves with zerker gear. Everyone yay or nay on zerker says find people on your side to play with… there’s your split. They also want everyone to be able to complete content which keeps them from making content that requires skill. Tequatl may have been a step in the right direction but theres so many things wrong with the fight that make my skin crawl when I think about future hard content. They are also afraid to do any drastic changes because of a backlash from people who don’t think the system is broken or do and don’t want it to change at all.

Not having the trinity can be good, but it depends on how you replace it.
What we’ve got here is basically “just dps enemies down”, cause any non-attack stat has extremely reduced benefits. I could be healing if i wanted to do that, and i have skills to do that…but why even bother when the effects are so negligible, especially when compared to the damage received from enemies?
Same for control. I can spec for it, then i go in a dungeon and every relevant enemy has got defiant stacks – and all my usefulness goes down the drain.

Frankly, there is a shocking disparity on the effectiveness of the statistics. And thus people just go for the most effective ones – that are, the ones for the straight dps/berserker.

Imho, either they improve the weak statistics, or they treat them as the minor ones they are and put other more useful statistics along with them in gear.

I’m talking about PvE, obviously.

It’s a good change IMHO.
It allow lfg queues to be shorter without really losing any depth because the trinity doesn’t really promote any kind of teamplay by itself.

While classic MMOs might seem a great teamwork show for someone unfamiliar with them, the truth is that each player is only concerned by his role/job.
Some kind of coordination might be required in order to avoid certain issues, like several healers overlapping heals and wasting mana or a DPS overaggroing a tank, but nothing really different from what we can have here with several guardians popping aegis.
The real teamwork usually comes from encounter specific mechanics, and those are fairly independant from combat basics and can be implemented in both trinity and non-trinity games.

In the end, the complexity depends on the population the game is aimed for.

Imagine a no-trinity game where most bosses hit like a truck, have an insane run speed and are pretty resilient to movement impairment effects. Also imagine that proximity is the main aggro trigger and that, in order to disengage and swap aggro, the current tank needs to outrun the boss.
In this scenario, one party member should aggro the boss and keep it busy burning evades andblocks (that should be less affordable than what we have in GW2), maybe enduring a couple of hits if using defensive gear and/or aided by ally protection/weakness. Once out of resources, a speed difference should be created (timing swiftness and chill, for example) in order to disengage, and another player should become the new aggro bearer.
You can have this, and you still can have as much big AoEs, adds and encounter specific mechanics as you want on top of it. It would be obviously more complex that
what we currently have, but it would also be a nightmare for PUGs / without VOIP.

In the same way, you can have a trinity MMO where some healing tasks are more mana demanding than others and healers have to swap during the fight and/or where the tank aggroes with spike abilities (like “for the next X seconds you deal 200% more aggro, your allies deal 50% les aggro and you take 50% more damage”) and players need to sync both burst Healing and DPS with it in order to beat the enrage timer. Complex, beautiful, but fairly unPUGable.

If you aim content for PUGs and fairly casual players, mechanics just need to be simple. It has nothing to do with having or no a trinity.

Neither good or bad, it depends what you prefer.
However, that being said, even though Arena Ner removed trinity (Warrior/Guardian/Mesmer still exists) they failed in creating 8 distinctively different classes.
Each profession should be unique and offer something completely different no other class can, unfortunately this aspect in GW2 is rather weak.

Humor.5763:

To each man his own I’ll say.

It all depends on the player, Guild Wars 2 was fun while I had played it, just came back to see how “Alive” it actually was, and it still seems pretty much dead.

In “My Opinion”, Guild Wars 2 had an incredibly unique system going for it. But, coming from the old Guild Wars, too much had changed, some for the better, and some for the worst. The Trinity Removal for me, “Seemed” like a wicked idea at first, but then after countless of deaths, wipes, etc, etc. The whole idea of not having a “Main” healer, nor tank, seemed to be more or less frustrating than an interesting idea. Of course that’s my opinion.

I’m now drawing my attention towards FF 14, and in no way am I promoting it, as I’m pretty much already bored of that game as well having done everything you can until further expansions. But the trinity system felt so “Good” after playing Guild Wars 2. Everything seemed more controlled no unwanted deaths, or wipes, and it kind of gave “meaning” as to what it was like to be a “Tank” or “Healer” again.

Eliminating the Trinity is an awesome idea, and no others have done it before (not to my knowledge), but it seems like it doesn’t really promote the whole idea of “Teamwork”, and “Cooperation”, where as it more or less became about “keeping yourself” alive.

Again my opinion. Don’t take anything from me too seriously though, I’m still debating whether or not I should get back into GW 2, but recalling the last time I tried, and seeing dead area’s everywhere, where as FF 14 is literally full in most area’s, doesn’t sound too tempting. To each man his own though.

Guess your right don’t take anything seriously from you. Try to go to BG and see your definition of dead. And teamwork? Try to participate in one of Teq fights or maybe try a higher fractals cause I’ll take more than not just keeping yourself alive.

Einlanzer.1627:

The Trinity is mostly bad. Of course, Guild Wars 2 so far has mostly failed to realize the potential of a trinity-less system. I’m sure they will incrementally improve it though.

Indeed, and i hope they know what to do, but so far everything shows the otherwise, lets wait for the next update.

As a general statement I would say:

I prefer a good trinity game over a bad non-trinity one.

Trinity has never been a smart system or a coherent one.

To begin for, just keep in mind than trinity was originaly a glitch, a fail, just a biased way to use specific class for doing things easier. At his start trinity was ugly as hell and gamebreaking.
Then recently (10 years ago), MMos have started to build their game mechanics around trinity, in the purpose of become more accessible to mainstrain gamer.

GW2 combat system is smart and coherent, and is actually the closest system to good old rpg. And there is no other MMOs atm with a combat system as decent as gw2 for pvp and rvr.

PvE is still fun, just more easy than at release, when we were all with bad gear and had no clue about boss tactics. Today Anet is trying to push it deeper with event like Tequalt, or just remenber Queen’s Arena.

So after one year, their combat system is more refined and mastered by players, and Anet is adding new challenges. On the other hand, take a look at WoW or stuff similar : Trinity is still a kittenty system unable to achieve something else than Dungeons.

When GW2 released, I was very much against the trinity. I was so excited for a game where you can play any spec. And you still can, but people still gravitate toward zerker specs, at least in PVE, because Arenanet either refuses to or has no solution to condition builds, or has not propped up support builds.

Regardless, I have missed being a straight up healer…or a tank.

Since this thread was merged, I don’t know if it’s been mentioned previously but, the one thing the Trinity had was a greater role play capacity. May I ask, does anyone feel truly immersed in their profession? The only profession I don’t have yet, is a necro. Already have the name, just never got around to it. Int he end though, they all feel awfully similar to the point of being a bit tedious. Especially in WvW, there really isn’t a lot of depth to a character and a role. Which is why I say don’t even bother with roles in WvW Dev’s. cough account bound WxP Now in PvE though, there we can do more with our roles since there isn’t such high expectations of ones performance.

The other issue I find is that the game mechanics, our skills and utilities, even combat itself, is all very frenetic. It just doesn’t lead oneself to have a soulful bond with their role as the trinity used to have. At least for me, that’s been my experience. I’ve always been the healer or then a tank. So I do miss them being an option. If you always played a damage dealer, then the Zerker meta in Gw2 is why you haven’t felt like something was missing.

Hope that made sense?!?!?!? As Chopps knows, I put a lot into my Characters So it’s an important aspect to me.

haviz.1340:

Galtrix.7369:

Until bosses are improved so that builds besides berserker are viable, the Trinity still rules all. The Trinity is the best system at the moment, and Anet is proving that with their non-trinity system. When conditions/bunker/support builds become viable in PvE, only then will Anet’s combat system truly shine. As it stands now though, the combat system is the worst combat I’ve seen in a very long time.

One of two things will happen if Anet ever decides to do something about this.

1.) Anet will improve bosses so that berserkers alone cannot defeat it. They need support/bunker/condition builds in the group.

2.) Anet will add the trinity. (This is a lot less likely). (.0000008% chance less likely).

It’s just a matter of when Anet will improve the bosses, because time is ticking, and people that don’t use berserker gear are leaving or have already left.

You seem to be completely confused because support does not mean you cannot play with berserker gear. Only viable supporting stat is boon duration which is tied to runes not your gear.

Combat system is bad when you play with other 100 people.

Nick.6972:

HA was intense with Infuse RC/Infuse Monks reuired 1/4 , 1/2 second reaction time.
It required good reflexes, mana management, weapon switching etc, it sure as hell wasn’t just standing in one place casting 2-3 heal skills again and again.

I thought tombs were pvp but I might have been mistaken. How many people were managing their energy in pve?

Im for or against trinity, there should be an evolution, sadly GW2 didn’t create one.
Holy Trinity was replaced with holy Zerging/DPS spam, occasional dodge and #5.

Zergs happen not because of lack of trinity but because of “everyone is rewarded for the participation”. DPS spam is the next logical step of zerging. You can get very active and engaging combat if you avoid zergs. I myself tried to do temple events in Orr (those that are being constantly zerged by the mindless 1-spamming drones) with just 2 people. Result can be watched here.

First of all, any action-MMO can be summarized as DPSing and dodging sometimes. Also, the DPS spam is basically inevitable. You can’t make open world content challenging, you can only make them epic, as proven by Tequatl, a boss which can probably be done through the use of 80 macros can’t be done by 80 people in a PUG.

Also, there’s plenty of content which certainly isn’t DPS/dodge, its just that the players found a way to completely exploit spawn timers to play the game in a way it wasn’t designed to be played/harder content not being rewarding enough so everyone just spams all the faceroll dungeons.

Try going into a very high level fractal/Arah P4/TA Aetherpath etc with full zerker gear whilst facerolling and see what happens.

Also, next time anyone wants the trinity back, stare at your monitor for a hour straight. Bored? That’s the experience I always get in every game trying to do anything as a DPS.

Vayne.8563:

My objection to the trinity, and I’ve said this before, is how artificial it is. How exciting would Lord of the Rings been if anyone only ever attacked Boromir while Gandalf healed him. I’m thinking not very. It’s a completely artificial construct that kills the drama in games.

I get what you’re saying and don’t entirely disagree, but not having dedicated healers on the battlefield seems more artificial to me than having them, because “Medic!” Granted, a medic probably isn’t going to hook up an IV and pump antibiotics into someone who’s actively drawing enemy fire, but still…

See also: Cleric!

My favorite take on the ‘trinity’ was in City of Heroes, where it wasn’t necessarily ‘healer’/tanker/DPS. Defenders and Controllers had some pretty cool (and fun, IMO) alternatives to being healbots. And as for tanking, well, I sure do miss me some CoH-style tanking.

First pic: That’s right! It was me! I ate all the Frusen Glädjé!

Second pic: Say, I had this, like, wacky dream, ya know, where the heroes were rolling around on the ground trying to avoid all these wacky red circles of doom, or whatever!

To be honest, I’d be actually very much fine if everyone was just DPS. As long as they DPS in their unique ways.

I don’t think trinity os bad but I also don’t think it’s bad to try something else. When GW2 was talking about having no trinity that seemed like a good idea. Having all those different roles in stead of just those 3.

Then it turned out that they did not really have a lot of roles but thye just took out the trinity and that was is. In a way there where no roles whatsoever. And that just is a little boring, is also means that you now see that a few classes are really wanted while other are really unwanted while in trinity every class whas because the trinity was important so as long as you had a healer, a tank and DPS you where basically fine. Yeah small differences but I never saw such a focus on a few classes like in GW2.

When did removed the trinity they should not just have taken that out but given new roles. One still being the tank role and one still being the heal role but you could also have companion role (classes with controllable mobs like pets) and so on and then also make the bosses so smart and build the dungeons in such ways that you really need many of those roles.

Those more roles would have make it much more interesting. But no roles made fights in a way less interesting.

The problem with a trinity system other than it how it makes combat so rigid is that most people don’t like being the tank, and especially hate being the healer, but because they;re both necessary, you have a million DPSers sitting in a queue waiting for enough healers and tanks to take them all. Basically, DPSers are not wanted.

There are roles in the game, in a very non-strict situation, each class brings something to the table. There’s also some very strict role-based encounters in the game.

There’s actually an encounter which is basically a ‘trinity’ if you break it down: the Clockheart. If you look at it, there’s 3 roles in the fight: a tank who aggroes the clockheart (the boss seems to aggro the first person who aggroed it throughout the fight), positions it in place and direct its huge frontal AoE. Then you got the lurer who lures the holo that spawns to bring down the boss’s shield. Then you got your standard DPSers.

The difference is that in the above case, most classes can fulfill all of those roles so you don’t get huge lists of rejected DPSers waiting in a line for hours on end.

Vayne.8563:

My objection to the trinity, and I’ve said this before, is how artificial it is. How exciting would Lord of the Rings been if anyone only ever attacked Boromir while Gandalf healed him. I’m thinking not very. It’s a completely artificial construct that kills the drama in games. It adds a completely different game-like challenge, but for immersion or story telling, or just feeling like you’re actually part of an epic battle, it fails for me personally.

The idea that some super powerful megafoe is too stupid to attack the healer and he’s allowing himself to be taunted so he ignores everything but one guy just doesn’t feel right to me.

That has more to do with AI. And thats still a problem in GW2, that powerful megafoe is still jsut attacking somebody and then suddenly somebody else but no good tactic in it.

If you say, tanks should not automatically be the attention of the boss I am very agreeable with you on that. However as tank you want him to fight you so you can give a tank abilities to help him with that. In combination with a good AI the AI might indeed beside to go for the tank.

So I am then not talking about a skill to get agro but for example a skill to pull enemies to you (thats already in GW2, if you would have a tank class give that to the tank). If a smart AI gets pulled to one guy all the time then he would start attacking that guy or at least not the person standing very far away else he is only running towards the healer, getting pulled back to the tank, running to the healer again and so on not doing any damage.

In addition you can have a specific ‘controller’ class who is mainly good at controlling. Like I said before removing the trinity I don’t see as a problem but I would rather then have seen more roles been put in place then just remove what there is and thats it. A controller can also help the tank getting agro.

So with a good AI and the correct skills and or of course good tactics from the players you can have many roles like tank without it even being a little bit artificial. And it would make fight much more interesting.

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem with a trinity system other than it how it makes combat so rigid is that most people don’t like being the tank, and especially hate being the healer, but because they;re both necessary, you have a million DPSers sitting in a queue waiting for enough healers and tanks to take them all. Basically, DPSers are not wanted.

There are roles in the game, in a very non-strict situation, each class brings something to the table. There’s also some very strict role-based encounters in the game.

There’s actually an encounter which is basically a ‘trinity’ if you break it down: the Clockheart. If you look at it, there’s 3 roles in the fight: a tank who aggroes the clockheart (the boss seems to aggro the first person who aggroed it throughout the fight), positions it in place and direct its huge frontal AoE. Then you got the lurer who lures the holo that spawns to bring down the boss’s shield. Then you got your standard DPSers.

The difference is that in the above case, most classes can fulfill all of those roles so you don’t get huge lists of rejected DPSers waiting in a line for hours on end.

But some classes can do it much better then other classes. So you do get a list with preferred classes an not preferred classes.

Devata.6589:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem with a trinity system other than it how it makes combat so rigid is that most people don’t like being the tank, and especially hate being the healer, but because they;re both necessary, you have a million DPSers sitting in a queue waiting for enough healers and tanks to take them all. Basically, DPSers are not wanted.

There are roles in the game, in a very non-strict situation, each class brings something to the table. There’s also some very strict role-based encounters in the game.

There’s actually an encounter which is basically a ‘trinity’ if you break it down: the Clockheart. If you look at it, there’s 3 roles in the fight: a tank who aggroes the clockheart (the boss seems to aggro the first person who aggroed it throughout the fight), positions it in place and direct its huge frontal AoE. Then you got the lurer who lures the holo that spawns to bring down the boss’s shield. Then you got your standard DPSers.

The difference is that in the above case, most classes can fulfill all of those roles so you don’t get huge lists of rejected DPSers waiting in a line for hours on end.

But some classes can do it much better then other classes. So you do get a list with preferred classes an not preferred classes.

The idea is to design content which doesn’t require specific classes to suceed (such as the slime pulling in TA), or make it it so that each class can contribute differently (e.g. having a Guardian will let you survive an onslaught of mobs better, having a thief will allow you to skip past bits of them). Or make it like FotM, where you don’t know what you might need so you just bring everyone.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Devata.6589:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem with a trinity system other than it how it makes combat so rigid is that most people don’t like being the tank, and especially hate being the healer, but because they;re both necessary, you have a million DPSers sitting in a queue waiting for enough healers and tanks to take them all. Basically, DPSers are not wanted.

There are roles in the game, in a very non-strict situation, each class brings something to the table. There’s also some very strict role-based encounters in the game.

There’s actually an encounter which is basically a ‘trinity’ if you break it down: the Clockheart. If you look at it, there’s 3 roles in the fight: a tank who aggroes the clockheart (the boss seems to aggro the first person who aggroed it throughout the fight), positions it in place and direct its huge frontal AoE. Then you got the lurer who lures the holo that spawns to bring down the boss’s shield. Then you got your standard DPSers.

The difference is that in the above case, most classes can fulfill all of those roles so you don’t get huge lists of rejected DPSers waiting in a line for hours on end.

But some classes can do it much better then other classes. So you do get a list with preferred classes an not preferred classes.

The idea is to design content which doesn’t require specific classes to suceed (such as the slime pulling in TA), or make it it so that each class can contribute differently (e.g. having a Guardian will let you survive an onslaught of mobs better, having a thief will allow you to skip past bits of them). Or make it like FotM, where you don’t know what you might need so you just bring everyone.

Yeah thats still fine. You can have still multiple ways to do thinks and one role might be possible to be done by 2 classes and the other way around. One class might even be able to fulfill 2 roles.

My comment on the other hand was about the way it now works. Because while in theory you don’t need any classes specifically, in reality there are some classes much more preferred. Like guardians and warriors.

I think we both want the same but the way it is now it’s less then we both want then it would or could be with the trinity imho.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

My objection to the trinity, and I’ve said this before, is how artificial it is. How exciting would Lord of the Rings been if anyone only ever attacked Boromir while Gandalf healed him. I’m thinking not very. It’s a completely artificial construct that kills the drama in games.

I get what you’re saying and don’t entirely disagree, but not having dedicated healers on the battlefield seems more artificial to me than having them, because “Medic!” Granted, a medic probably isn’t going to hook up an IV and pump antibiotics into someone who’s actively drawing enemy fire, but still…

See also: Cleric!

My favorite take on the ‘trinity’ was in City of Heroes, where it wasn’t necessarily ‘healer’/tanker/DPS. Defenders and Controllers had some pretty cool (and fun, IMO) alternatives to being healbots. And as for tanking, well, I sure do miss me some CoH-style tanking.

First pic: That’s right! It was me! I ate all the Frusen Glädjé!

Second pic: Say, I had this, like, wacky dream, ya know, where the heroes were rolling around on the ground trying to avoid all these wacky red circles of doom, or whatever!

I have a lot less against healers than I do against tanks. To me it’s tanks that make the trinity artificial, not healers.

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

My objection to the trinity, and I’ve said this before, is how artificial it is. How exciting would Lord of the Rings been if anyone only ever attacked Boromir while Gandalf healed him. I’m thinking not very. It’s a completely artificial construct that kills the drama in games.

I get what you’re saying and don’t entirely disagree, but not having dedicated healers on the battlefield seems more artificial to me than having them, because “Medic!” Granted, a medic probably isn’t going to hook up an IV and pump antibiotics into someone who’s actively drawing enemy fire, but still…

See also: Cleric!

My favorite take on the ‘trinity’ was in City of Heroes, where it wasn’t necessarily ‘healer’/tanker/DPS. Defenders and Controllers had some pretty cool (and fun, IMO) alternatives to being healbots. And as for tanking, well, I sure do miss me some CoH-style tanking.

First pic: That’s right! It was me! I ate all the Frusen Glädjé!

Second pic: Say, I had this, like, wacky dream, ya know, where the heroes were rolling around on the ground trying to avoid all these wacky red circles of doom, or whatever!

I have a lot less against healers than I do against tanks. To me it’s tanks that make the trinity artificial, not healers.

Thats because the way tanks now work in most MMO’s. They just have a skill to get agro. But like I showed in my other post. You can easily make a tank class but don’t make it so artificial. Tank then meaning 2 thinks. Being able to take a lot of damage and having skills then help him to get the attacks attention (like the pulling I gave as an example) without it being artificial skills.

Devata.6589:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Devata.6589:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem with a trinity system other than it how it makes combat so rigid is that most people don’t like being the tank, and especially hate being the healer, but because they;re both necessary, you have a million DPSers sitting in a queue waiting for enough healers and tanks to take them all. Basically, DPSers are not wanted.

There are roles in the game, in a very non-strict situation, each class brings something to the table. There’s also some very strict role-based encounters in the game.

There’s actually an encounter which is basically a ‘trinity’ if you break it down: the Clockheart. If you look at it, there’s 3 roles in the fight: a tank who aggroes the clockheart (the boss seems to aggro the first person who aggroed it throughout the fight), positions it in place and direct its huge frontal AoE. Then you got the lurer who lures the holo that spawns to bring down the boss’s shield. Then you got your standard DPSers.

The difference is that in the above case, most classes can fulfill all of those roles so you don’t get huge lists of rejected DPSers waiting in a line for hours on end.

But some classes can do it much better then other classes. So you do get a list with preferred classes an not preferred classes.

The idea is to design content which doesn’t require specific classes to suceed (such as the slime pulling in TA), or make it it so that each class can contribute differently (e.g. having a Guardian will let you survive an onslaught of mobs better, having a thief will allow you to skip past bits of them). Or make it like FotM, where you don’t know what you might need so you just bring everyone.

Yeah thats still fine. You can have still multiple ways to do thinks and one role might be possible to be done by 2 classes and the other way around. One class might even be able to fulfill 2 roles.

My comment on the other hand was about the way it now works. Because while in theory you don’t need any classes specifically, in reality there are some classes much more preferred. Like guardians and warriors.

I think we both want the same but the way it is now it’s less then we both want then it would or could be with the trinity imho.

The problem is, what do you actually want? Classes are far from ‘fair’ in the trinity system, like I was saying before, everyone wants healers and tanks, no one wants DPSs. Yes, its fair in theory but in practice you got a problem which is impossible to fix.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Devata.6589:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Devata.6589:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem with a trinity system other than it how it makes combat so rigid is that most people don’t like being the tank, and especially hate being the healer, but because they;re both necessary, you have a million DPSers sitting in a queue waiting for enough healers and tanks to take them all. Basically, DPSers are not wanted.

There are roles in the game, in a very non-strict situation, each class brings something to the table. There’s also some very strict role-based encounters in the game.

There’s actually an encounter which is basically a ‘trinity’ if you break it down: the Clockheart. If you look at it, there’s 3 roles in the fight: a tank who aggroes the clockheart (the boss seems to aggro the first person who aggroed it throughout the fight), positions it in place and direct its huge frontal AoE. Then you got the lurer who lures the holo that spawns to bring down the boss’s shield. Then you got your standard DPSers.

The difference is that in the above case, most classes can fulfill all of those roles so you don’t get huge lists of rejected DPSers waiting in a line for hours on end.

But some classes can do it much better then other classes. So you do get a list with preferred classes an not preferred classes.

The idea is to design content which doesn’t require specific classes to suceed (such as the slime pulling in TA), or make it it so that each class can contribute differently (e.g. having a Guardian will let you survive an onslaught of mobs better, having a thief will allow you to skip past bits of them). Or make it like FotM, where you don’t know what you might need so you just bring everyone.

Yeah thats still fine. You can have still multiple ways to do thinks and one role might be possible to be done by 2 classes and the other way around. One class might even be able to fulfill 2 roles.

My comment on the other hand was about the way it now works. Because while in theory you don’t need any classes specifically, in reality there are some classes much more preferred. Like guardians and warriors.

I think we both want the same but the way it is now it’s less then we both want then it would or could be with the trinity imho.

The problem is, what do you actually want? Classes are far from ‘fair’ in the trinity system, like I was saying before, everyone wants healers and tanks, no one wants DPSs. Yes, its fair in theory but in practice you got a problem which is impossible to fix.

Thats not in all games. But usually you have more DPSers. So require more roles, not less. Now everybody wants guardians and warriors.

for everyone played DPS class, its suck to have trinity.
ever wander why queue into dungeon takes 30minute – 1hour ?
cause everyone playing dps.

holy trinity will only get love by minority

SchuMidas.4782:

for everyone played DPS class, its suck to have trinity.
ever wander why queue into dungeon takes 30minute – 1hour ?
cause everyone playing dps.

holy trinity will only get love by minority

Nope. My main has always been a ranger but never mind a Que for a few min. Never had 30 min – 1 hour Que but then again mostly you made your own teams or at least start with a partial team and then searched for other people.

But anyway. Not having the trinity is no problem if they would replace it with something else. But having really no specific roles makes fights a little more dull and thats to bad.

Devata.6589:

SchuMidas.4782:

for everyone played DPS class, its suck to have trinity.
ever wander why queue into dungeon takes 30minute – 1hour ?
cause everyone playing dps.

holy trinity will only get love by minority

Nope. My main has always been a ranger but never mind a Que for a few min. Never had 30 min – 1 hour Que but then again mostly you made your own teams or at least start with a partial team and then searched for other people.

But anyway. Not having the trinity is no problem if they would replace it with something else. But having really no specific roles makes fights a little more dull and thats to bad.

And what if you didn’t have friends who wanted to do the same stuff? That’s right, into the PUG board and wait to get picked.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Devata.6589:

SchuMidas.4782:

for everyone played DPS class, its suck to have trinity.
ever wander why queue into dungeon takes 30minute – 1hour ?
cause everyone playing dps.

holy trinity will only get love by minority

Nope. My main has always been a ranger but never mind a Que for a few min. Never had 30 min – 1 hour Que but then again mostly you made your own teams or at least start with a partial team and then searched for other people.

But anyway. Not having the trinity is no problem if they would replace it with something else. But having really no specific roles makes fights a little more dull and thats to bad.

And what if you didn’t have friends who wanted to do the same stuff? That’s right, into the PUG board and wait to get picked.

You find friends? You don’t need a full group, if you start with 2 or 3 and pug the rest that already go’s pretty fast. Anyway, it’s still so that some classes are much more wanted then other classes so that has not really changed in GW2.

Devata.6589:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Devata.6589:

SchuMidas.4782:

for everyone played DPS class, its suck to have trinity.
ever wander why queue into dungeon takes 30minute – 1hour ?
cause everyone playing dps.

holy trinity will only get love by minority

Nope. My main has always been a ranger but never mind a Que for a few min. Never had 30 min – 1 hour Que but then again mostly you made your own teams or at least start with a partial team and then searched for other people.

But anyway. Not having the trinity is no problem if they would replace it with something else. But having really no specific roles makes fights a little more dull and thats to bad.

And what if you didn’t have friends who wanted to do the same stuff? That’s right, into the PUG board and wait to get picked.

You find friends? You don’t need a full group, if you start with 2 or 3 and pug the rest that already go’s pretty fast. Anyway, it’s still so that some classes are much more wanted then other classes so that has not really changed in GW2.

They’re prefered over but they aren’t unwanted. People won’t kick you for being a ranger or a necro (most of the time) and you won’t need to wait in line until a Guardian shows up.

Your friends aren’t always doing what you want to be doing, they dont want to tank/heal either, and frankly a lot of players play MMOs ‘solo’ anyways. I’ve been playing MMOs for 12 years and this is the only gane where getting into a party as a DPS isn’t a pain in the kitten .

DeWolfe.2174:

What we need is simply the ability to tank and heal better. Instead of the Damage/Dodge mechanic that exists now.

No. That’s what a very small portion of the playerbase feel they need. This is not that game that you’re thinking about.

RyuDragnier.9476:

woofdang.6397:

What does trinity mean? I keep hearing about this but have no clue what it means.

Healer/Tank/DPS

Healers heal everybody, tanks keep all the enemy’s aggro, DPS just kills the enemies.

That’s the trinity.

In other words, Bilbert the tank doesn’t respond to any questions about why he is wearing leather gear as a plate class and why most of it is caster stats. The healer, S3xbelflol134 cusses out the DPS for not ‘attacking what the tank attacks’, even after Bilbert specifically states that they should kill the adds in the fight. The DPS, Donovan and Jack are new to the game and are immediately kicked for defending themselves from S3xbelflol134’s cussing, being labelled as “f____ts”. Jen, the other DPS, says nothing the entire dungeon, simply spamming her autoattack. While managing to do less damage than the healer, S3xbelflol134 uses her as a reference tool to further his argument as to why Donovan and Jack are so terrible. Eventually Bilbert says he needs to get a drink and afks for six hours. S3xbelflol134 leaves shortly after kicking Donovan and Jack. Two new DPS are shuffled in instantly, both having claimed to have waited over an hour for their queue. These two DPS are John and Ticktok34. They are experienced, but arrive too late to save Jen as she aggroes the final boss and is summarily killed. The two of them kill the boss and rev Jen without the assistance of a healer. Bilbert comes back and needs on everything, including the caster gear. He wins almost everything, and what he doesn’t win is healer gear. Everyone but Bilbert walks away sorely disappointed.

That’s the holy trinity in my experience. I am John. My best friend is Ticktok34. These are neither our actual account names, nor are they our real names. They are merely tools of witness protection as S3xbelflol134 has given us several death threats when we whispered to ask why he left, as Jen’s only word in the dungeon mentioned ‘heler’ and a long string of expletives regarding the name.

GW2 is… You could say, refreshing.

Xae Isareth.1364:

First of all, any action-MMO can be summarized as DPSing and dodging sometimes. Also, the DPS spam is basically inevitable. You can’t make open world content challenging, you can only make them epic, as proven by Tequatl, a boss which can probably be done through the use of 80 macros can’t be done by 80 people in a PUG.

Also, there’s plenty of content which certainly isn’t DPS/dodge, its just that the players found a way to completely exploit spawn timers to play the game in a way it wasn’t designed to be played/harder content not being rewarding enough so everyone just spams all the faceroll dungeons.

Try going into a very high level fractal/Arah P4/TA Aetherpath etc with full zerker gear whilst facerolling and see what happens.

Also, next time anyone wants the trinity back, stare at your monitor for a hour straight. Bored? That’s the experience I always get in every game trying to do anything as a DPS.

I’m pretty certain you are responding to the wrong person.

I am a huge fan of GW2’s combat system!

The main reason is the combat is FUN!

Fun is different for everyone and this is what I consider fun:

The knowledge that the group I’m with (open world or dungeon) complete any event or dungeon with whatever gear or trait set we want. Everyone in the group is contributing through damage and any buffs they decide to throw out for themselves or the other players.

Not being forced into stat/gear grind 101. I don’t have to use a specific build, armor/weapon set to be effective.

Interactive gameplay, being able to effectively heal myself or others if I choose while also dealing damage and avoiding it through dodging. I dislike the idea of one player standing there absorbing damage while everyone else makes split-second decisions (skill timer watching) which can result in the entire party failing because a skill activation was too early or late.

I know some players enjoying number crunching in regards to stats and favor the challenge (which IMO leads to a large amount of elitism) that comes from traditional MMO concepts. I hate it, I loathe it and the lack of it in the game is the best thing about GW2 (aside from the “no grind” mentality, which needs less grind).

Being a player that’s in WvW most of his time, I must say, all these comments about there not being enough challenge in fights is hilarious.

I believe ANet set up WvW to be the true endgame for GW2. The place where various armor builds can be useful and where teamwork and roles are more important than your stats.

Support? Mesmers, Guardians, Elementalists, Rangers, Engineers. Frontline damage absorption? Warriors, Guardians, Necromancers. Ranged damage? Mesmers, Elementalists, Engineers.

There’s also more arbitrary roles such as scouts and dolyak walkers.

Just seems to me that all the builds were revolved around World vs World, only to be broken by PvE players wanting more damage (Perplexity runes anyone?).

I don’t miss the trinity, but ANet failed to fill the void left by its absence with any meaningful mechanics.

PvE is mostly a rush-down focused on skipping mobs and maximizing efficiency. Mos of the time it simply doesn’t matter what classes you take because there’s no class interdependencey.

That’s why there’s so little player interaction during dungeon runs. There’s nothing to communicate about because DPS is the only purpose. There’s no need for tactics.

I remember someone posted a post here somewhere got a link to poll about trinity.

The poster is a believer in trinity but the result is over 50% in support of trinity gone. This tells something. I for one hope trinity gone for good. What needs to be done, is increase encounter role, which any class any player can fill. No more demanding on specific class or build the ONLY way to play.

I don’t like speed run asking for dpser but i can choose not to join speed run group. I can make my own team welcome any class any build. In trinity i have no choice because i need a tank and healer, the is a very obvious reason i prefer GW2 over any trinity RPG.

there is actually no problem with the trinity the real problem we have In most trinity based mmorpg is the great number of awful strats, and there we have gw2 with no trinity (in fact with nothing) and with the same awful strats so we didn’t go anywhere.

no trinity is good but if you go full tank you will still get kitten d just as fast. Toughness needs to matter more.

The Holy Trinity? (DPS/Tank/Heal)
Or the new trinity? (DPS/DPS/DPS)

In GW 2 PvE there is no need for control, support, or anything else besides damage. You will find more roles than just DPS in SPvP or WvW. The Holy Trinity was supposed to be replaced by DPS/Control/Support , but the implementation went wrong somewhere. I think AI mechanics need to be far more advanced to make Control and Support type play styles viable. There is no need when you have AI as dumb as every other MMO that has the Holy Trinity.

I don’t miss the trinity, but I would love to see other builds than DPS shine in PvE. ANET mentioned before the game was release, that they want to replace trinity (tank, healer, dps) with (support, control, dps)

Every of those three roles has problems:

• DPS:
  Only direct damage is viable in PvE, Conditions are to much restricted by the dps-cap. 2 condi-builds hitting one enemy, reduce their damage dealt. And there is not one high toughness boss in the game, ok there are some, but they are structures, where no conditions are applied anyway, …
• control:
  Unfortunately they made it impossible to control anything in PvE, because of the two buffs every champs gets (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiant and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unshakable) making them immune to any form of control effects. And additionally I think chill does not have any effect on NPCs skills.
• support:
  Buffs are to easy to get. It doesn’t matter if you play DPS (full zerker) or use a specific support build (+boon duration, healing power) your boons will always grant the same bonus. The boon duration can be ignored, because you can spam most boons anyway. and you get a 100% uptime. There is no effect multiplier, that would make your boons stronger then others, so it is worth using support specs. i.e. might grants 10-40 Damage depending on a new stat (boon efficiency), protection grands 20-50% damage reduction and so on. It just needs something, that makes support viable, something, that makes your boons stronger than any others, … Right now no one takes a support into a dungeon, because a warrior can apply the same effects and deal 2-3 times the damage.

But because direct damage seems to be the only non castrated build in this game, every one is running full Zerker gear in PvE.

No roles, bad AI and AOE cap equals Zerging meta.

The lack of trinity has severely limited what classes are “accepted” at the top end. Yes there are exceptions but the implementation has left a lot of the classes behind.

Personally I think the lack of trinity has more to do with the size of the player base than anything before. This game had great potential but has been limited by Anets decisions towards Non Heavy classes.
If you are not going to have trinity then ALL classes need to have skills and damage that would make them wanted and or needed, rather than concentrating on their favourite class.

Copenhagen.7015:

The Holy Trinity? (DPS/Tank/Heal)
Or the new trinity? (DPS/DPS/DPS)

In GW 2 PvE there is no need for control, support, or anything else besides damage. You will find more roles than just DPS in SPvP or WvW. The Holy Trinity was supposed to be replaced by DPS/Control/Support , but the implementation went wrong somewhere. I think AI mechanics need to be far more advanced to make Control and Support type play styles viable. There is no need when you have AI as dumb as every other MMO that has the Holy Trinity.

Yeah. If I would have to chose, I’d pick DPS/HEAL/TANK over DPS/DPS/DPS.
Even modern FPS games like Battlefield 4 have roles.

Nick.6972:

Copenhagen.7015:

The Holy Trinity? (DPS/Tank/Heal)
Or the new trinity? (DPS/DPS/DPS)

In GW 2 PvE there is no need for control, support, or anything else besides damage. You will find more roles than just DPS in SPvP or WvW. The Holy Trinity was supposed to be replaced by DPS/Control/Support , but the implementation went wrong somewhere. I think AI mechanics need to be far more advanced to make Control and Support type play styles viable. There is no need when you have AI as dumb as every other MMO that has the Holy Trinity.

Yeah. If I would have to chose, I’d pick DPS/HEAL/TANK over DPS/DPS/DPS.
Even modern FPS games like Battlefield 4 have roles.

Funny you mention that. I’ve been playing BF 4 instead of GW 2, and I notice it as well. Even though the mechanics are much simpler, the strategy is very real, and every role can be extremely important. Especially in a semi-competitive scene. I really want to come back to GW 2 but I feel there is no reason until they make other roles viable, or until sPvP grows some more.

Nick.6972:

Copenhagen.7015:

The Holy Trinity? (DPS/Tank/Heal)
Or the new trinity? (DPS/DPS/DPS)

In GW 2 PvE there is no need for control, support, or anything else besides damage. You will find more roles than just DPS in SPvP or WvW. The Holy Trinity was supposed to be replaced by DPS/Control/Support , but the implementation went wrong somewhere. I think AI mechanics need to be far more advanced to make Control and Support type play styles viable. There is no need when you have AI as dumb as every other MMO that has the Holy Trinity.

Yeah. If I would have to chose, I’d pick DPS/HEAL/TANK over DPS/DPS/DPS.
Even modern FPS games like Battlefield 4 have roles.

BF4 is a shooter game when everyone can kill everyone. so dont mix it with mmo trinity games.

trinity is stupid.
hard contents are always made with specific party setup (healer, dps, support, tank) so lacking of 1 makes u fail almost any such designed content.
the horror of lfp or lf healer/tank/dps/suport makes u shout even for few hours while in that time many disconnect, leave party and the worst thing is ppl going afk. or “i will join if u have this or that class” kittennes.
solo scenario:
healers – mostly healing, slow lvl, slow grind, low income, etc.
support – lots of buffs, some heal. slow lvl, slow grind, low income, etc.
dps – no heal, some buffs, fast lvl, fast grind, ima profit, etc.
tank – imba survivebilty, some buffs, some heals, slow kill, mid income, etc.
any balance? no… any dynamic setups for ur chars? no…

ofc many have 2 or more dif chars with dif classes. who will play what? here u go the main issue in any clan/guild/party.

and much more…