Guild Wars 2

Sylosi.6503:

Because there are more games than WoW:

1 – In many other trinity based games you have to move more than WoW (Rift for instance), though obvioulsy not as much as you move in GW2. Then there is also PvP, which again requires much more movement in these sort of games than PvE.

2 – Not all games have mods like threat meters, healbots, boss mods, cooldown warnings, etc that bascially play the game for you like in WoW, so the more complex classes are not offset to an extent by mods. (this is a very good thig about GW2, no mods playing the game for you)

3 – Lastly not everyone plays a faceroll DPS in these games, which means the GW2 classes are relatively simple and have a lack of multitasking, much less need for awareness of your teammates than many support/healer classses in trinity games. For example in LOTRO I used to play a loremaster and in raids had to :

- Keep up stun immunity on tank(sometimes tank healer)
- Keep up numerous debuffs on multiple mobs.
- Often perma CC one, sometimes two mobs.
- Cleanse team mates.
- Off heal.
- Drain power from boss, and keep constantly aware of tank/healer & key support like captain of their power needs and feed them power.
- Deal with (CC, debuff, put pet on) rogue mobs that go after a DPS / healer
- Occasionally have to rez if healers/cappy out of rezzes
- Deal DPS, especially AOE DPS as the class had very good burst AOE.
- and whilst doing all that manage a pet.

The amount of multitasking / awarenesss / target switching is on a completely different level to GW2, dodging, and more movemtent does not make up that, nor does it make up for teh more simplistic class design (faceroll DPS types excepted)

I find that a GW2 dungeon team with synergy and team awareness rolls along far better than one that doesn’t. While GW2 class options are somewhat simplistic, the game play is often more dynamic.

It’s certainly true that Loremaster brought a lot to the table. I can see why you found the gameplay engaging. Is it not exception to the rule, however? I don’t by any means have vast experience in MMO’s, but in the ones I have played, no other class had that kind of complexity. The closest was the Archon build in Rift. However, in instanced content short of raids, it was preferred the mage run a more dps-oriented build.

Shootsfoot.9276:

Phoenix.3416:

You misread what I put, some classes are just BETTER at tanking than others. Since Armour is fixed to classes it gives some classes a weakness when tanking, although they might be great tanks they wont be as effective as a heavy armour class with the same skills since heavy can take more hits.

Armour should be made free between the classes with a speed/regen buff for lighter and higher health but slower for the tankier armours.

Everybody would just pick plate/heavy armor, then.

I just think there still should be a frontline, midline, and backline casters setup like GW1 had.

I liked that a lot.

The thought that somebody in cloth/light armor should be expected to tank/take hits as much as a heavy/plate wearer is a bit unrealistic, IMO.

but that’s not true, thieves would probably move to light armour and focus on speed and dodging, mesmers don’t need to be tanky either so could do the same. depending on the players skills you could have warriors in light and elementalists in heavy

its all about what the benefit of lighter is, if you say had a slight faster cool down on skills most players who want to deal damage would go for lighter, while players who are melee focused or likely to take hits like d/d ele would go heavy at the cost of a small cooldown debuff

If heavy armours currently didn’t have ranged weapons I would say fine give them heavy but when any player can be melee or ranged but is fixed in armour it changes everything. You can have rifle warriors in the heavy armour never using melee and elementalists in light armour forced into melee d/d etc

Phoenix.3416:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Phoenix.3416:

You misread what I put, some classes are just BETTER at tanking than others. Since Armour is fixed to classes it gives some classes a weakness when tanking, although they might be great tanks they wont be as effective as a heavy armour class with the same skills since heavy can take more hits.

Armour should be made free between the classes with a speed/regen buff for lighter and higher health but slower for the tankier armours.

Everybody would just pick plate/heavy armor, then.

I just think there still should be a frontline, midline, and backline casters setup like GW1 had.

I liked that a lot.

The thought that somebody in cloth/light armor should be expected to tank/take hits as much as a heavy/plate wearer is a bit unrealistic, IMO.

but that’s not true, thieves would probably move to light armour and focus on speed and dodging, mesmers don’t need to be tanky either so could do the same. depending on the players skills you could have warriors in light and elementalists in heavy

its all about what the benefit of lighter is, if you say had a slight faster cool down on skills most players who want to deal damage would go for lighter, while players who are melee focused or likely to take hits like d/d ele would go heavy at the cost of a small cooldown debuff

Why would I give up the forgiveness of heavy armor for light armor? One wrong move and…with the bosses in this game….“rez plz.”

I see what you’re getting at, but why not just bring back front, mid, and back lines?

Shootsfoot.9276:

Phoenix.3416:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Phoenix.3416:

You misread what I put, some classes are just BETTER at tanking than others. Since Armour is fixed to classes it gives some classes a weakness when tanking, although they might be great tanks they wont be as effective as a heavy armour class with the same skills since heavy can take more hits.

Armour should be made free between the classes with a speed/regen buff for lighter and higher health but slower for the tankier armours.

Everybody would just pick plate/heavy armor, then.

I just think there still should be a frontline, midline, and backline casters setup like GW1 had.

I liked that a lot.

The thought that somebody in cloth/light armor should be expected to tank/take hits as much as a heavy/plate wearer is a bit unrealistic, IMO.

but that’s not true, thieves would probably move to light armour and focus on speed and dodging, mesmers don’t need to be tanky either so could do the same. depending on the players skills you could have warriors in light and elementalists in heavy

its all about what the benefit of lighter is, if you say had a slight faster cool down on skills most players who want to deal damage would go for lighter, while players who are melee focused or likely to take hits like d/d ele would go heavy at the cost of a small cooldown debuff

Why would I give up the forgiveness of heavy armor for light armor? One wrong move and…with the bosses in this game….“rez plz.”

I see what you’re getting at, but why not just bring back front, mid, and back lines?

If you have a class that relies on speed and dodging such as a thief lighter armour would benefit that.

if you are a ranged character having medium or lighter armour and having a slightly faster attack makes more sense if you don’t generally play on the front.

The thing is those lines cant exist in guildwars, armour and weapons are fixed to classes so because of this some classes are forced into a line and cant move out easily.

Elementalists who go d/d will always be squishier than a guardian with the same kind of stat armour because guardians get heavy. It makes guardians always better classes thank elementalists in the same situation if they both have the same 3 stats on their armour.

Remove the fixed armour and add buffs for choosing lighter and you remove the trinity problem since each class can be built as a tank equally in terms of armour with the difference been the skills of that class only

I guess I’m just having a hard time swallowing the idea of casters wearing plate armor.

Why? many games do it that way because it makes no sense for them not to be able to.

The assumption was that heavier armour requires more strength to use, but from that logic what stops a warrior wearing light leather armour?

Does metal make casting backfire in the lore? no? so why cant a elementalist wear metal while casting?

I guess lighter armor could bright a benefit in terms of endurance recharge, meaning that you could use different armor to trade between active and passive defenses.

digiowl.9620:

I guess lighter armor could bright a benefit in terms of endurance recharge, meaning that you could use different armor to trade between active and passive defenses.

Thats what I figured it would be, lighter armour would give faster stamina regen, a very small faster skill cooldown bonus and faster movement speed at the cost of taking more damage

While heavies would be slower moving an dodge less to the light but take less damage

The medium being the base which gets no bonuses but no reductions

Ranged characters could focus on light armour so they are more mobile but if a group of heavies got in close range with them they would take a beating. etc

Phoenix.3416:

Why? many games do it that way because it makes no sense for them not to be able to.

The assumption was that heavier armour requires more strength to use, but from that logic what stops a warrior wearing light leather armour?

Does metal make casting backfire in the lore? no? so why cant a elementalist wear metal while casting?

Because you don’t look at an elementalist as some big brawny dude who can carry plate.

It drives me crazy seeing a mesmer walking around with a broadsword.

Shootsfoot.9276:

Phoenix.3416:

Why? many games do it that way because it makes no sense for them not to be able to.

The assumption was that heavier armour requires more strength to use, but from that logic what stops a warrior wearing light leather armour?

Does metal make casting backfire in the lore? no? so why cant a elementalist wear metal while casting?

Because you don’t look at an elementalist as some big brawny dude who can carry plate.

It drives me crazy seeing a mesmer walking around with a broadsword.

By that logic Asurans shouldn’t get plate since they are far to small in size to have the muscle mass required to carry plate.

Whats the difference between a Human model in heavy and light? nothing ,you can have a skinny human in heavy armour and you can have a large human in light.

The characters muscles are chosen by the player not the class he has after all. Its safe to say wearing plate would make those players stronger anyway so by level 20 :P you would be strong enough to wear it.

I agree and disagree.

I do not think that the Trinity is needed in this game.

However, I do like the Trinity. My preferred class is healer. I like keeping my team alive, making hard judgement calls (i.e. sacrifice the almost dead caster to make sure the tank survives or w/e) and healing people randomly out in the world. It provides a feeling of need/value/importance that I do not get anymore. I always feel expendable, and that I could easily not be there and it’d make no difference.

LunaNosCustodit.1458:

I disagree, rather strongly, actually. I think that removing the fixed roles that a Trinity would force onto everyone is one of this this game’s best selling points. You can play your class in a lot of different ways, instead of “Oh, your a healer? Heal. You’re a tank? Sit there and soak up damage.” It allows for more freedom in each class, and makes it so that there’s more than one way of playing it. Bland classes have ruined a lot of MMOs for me, and it’s always because your forced to play every class in one specific way or you die.

While I understand that it sort of makes all the classes “Good at everything; great at nothing” that’s not really a big problem for me. But, I can see why people who like being told exactly what they have to do could be disappointed.

I rather strongly disagree with what you said. It’s not that I enjoy being told exactly what I should do but I hate the fact that I can’t play a healer as this is what I enjoy the most. In GW2 I am forced to play DPS cause that’s what most classes’s main role is really. All classes dps and throw in some support here and there. That pretty much sums it up.

snappy.1248:

LunaNosCustodit.1458:

I disagree, rather strongly, actually. I think that removing the fixed roles that a Trinity would force onto everyone is one of this this game’s best selling points. You can play your class in a lot of different ways, instead of “Oh, your a healer? Heal. You’re a tank? Sit there and soak up damage.” It allows for more freedom in each class, and makes it so that there’s more than one way of playing it. Bland classes have ruined a lot of MMOs for me, and it’s always because your forced to play every class in one specific way or you die.

While I understand that it sort of makes all the classes “Good at everything; great at nothing” that’s not really a big problem for me. But, I can see why people who like being told exactly what they have to do could be disappointed.

I rather strongly disagree with what you said. It’s not that I enjoy being told exactly what I should do but I hate the fact that I can’t play a healer as this is what I enjoy the most. In GW2 I am forced to play DPS cause that’s what most classes’s main role is really. All classes dps and throw in some support here and there. That pretty much sums it up.

Yes.

It’s not that everyone can do everything.

It’s that everyone can’t do 2/3 of play styles.

Phoenix.3416:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Phoenix.3416:

Why? many games do it that way because it makes no sense for them not to be able to.

The assumption was that heavier armour requires more strength to use, but from that logic what stops a warrior wearing light leather armour?

Does metal make casting backfire in the lore? no? so why cant a elementalist wear metal while casting?

Because you don’t look at an elementalist as some big brawny dude who can carry plate.

It drives me crazy seeing a mesmer walking around with a broadsword.

By that logic Asurans shouldn’t get plate since they are far to small in size to have the muscle mass required to carry plate.

Yep.

Asurans being melee is ridiculous. The entire premise of the Asuran race is their superior intellect. They should be mostly a casting class, at most Engineers.

Gotta say I think the OP expected more support, but I’m like 90% of the people here, I do not want the trinity. It made the game stale, cuz you did the exact same thing every single time you played.

“Shadow Priest LFG”…“can you go healz instead?” Ugh…hated that. Now it’s just “I’m LFG”…“ok, we need a 5th.”

And like Leablo mentioned, it’s fun learning the strengths/weaknesses of a group to devise a strategy. Rangers aren’t just damage anymore. They can be damage, support, or tanky. Just like everyone else. And I love it.

No more cringing at the character creation screen thinking about whether you’ll be wasting your time leveling a mage cuz it’s dps only and you won’t get into groups or a warrior cuz everyone will want you to go tank even if you hate it.

knives.6345:

Yes it does.. But you may want to play a different game if you are looking for the Trinity… GW2 is not designed to be like most MMO..

It is designed to be boring repetetive game where you abilities are useless except in few encounters that you rarely do? Every game is designed to be enjoyed by players. If the majority doesn’t enjoy it, its time to change some things.

There is no need for trinity, but they have to make battles more complicated than just zerging through them. Do you enjoy staying in one place and watching ur character auto attack? Because thats what I do 99% of times, I just press f1,2,3 on every cd and watch the autoattack. I dont even need to look at screen.

Phoenix.3416:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Phoenix.3416:

You misread what I put, some classes are just BETTER at tanking than others. Since Armour is fixed to classes it gives some classes a weakness when tanking, although they might be great tanks they wont be as effective as a heavy armour class with the same skills since heavy can take more hits.

Armour should be made free between the classes with a speed/regen buff for lighter and higher health but slower for the tankier armours.

Everybody would just pick plate/heavy armor, then.

I just think there still should be a frontline, midline, and backline casters setup like GW1 had.

I liked that a lot.

The thought that somebody in cloth/light armor should be expected to tank/take hits as much as a heavy/plate wearer is a bit unrealistic, IMO.

but that’s not true, thieves would probably move to light armour and focus on speed and dodging, mesmers don’t need to be tanky either so could do the same. depending on the players skills you could have warriors in light and elementalists in heavy

its all about what the benefit of lighter is, if you say had a slight faster cool down on skills most players who want to deal damage would go for lighter, while players who are melee focused or likely to take hits like d/d ele would go heavy at the cost of a small cooldown debuff

If heavy armours currently didn’t have ranged weapons I would say fine give them heavy but when any player can be melee or ranged but is fixed in armour it changes everything. You can have rifle warriors in the heavy armour never using melee and elementalists in light armour forced into melee d/d etc

Which emphasizes choice, over “heavy is just more protective cos it’s heavy”

Good way of explaining what you meant, + 1

Jemmi.6058:

I agree and disagree.

I do not think that the Trinity is needed in this game.

However, I do like the Trinity. My preferred class is healer. I like keeping my team alive, making hard judgement calls (i.e. sacrifice the almost dead caster to make sure the tank survives or w/e) and healing people randomly out in the world. It provides a feeling of need/value/importance that I do not get anymore. I always feel expendable, and that I could easily not be there and it’d make no difference.

Try a full support Guardian and you’ll have that feeling back.
I played my Guard full support and it heals for bazillions while providing protection to everyone and making a team almost invincible just like old school healers.

To me, it makes this game a lot more fun than others. Preference, I believe.

Levistis.8356:

To me, it makes this game a lot more fun than others. Preference, I believe.

Yup and that’s why we have many games instead of just one.
Each offer different things.
This one was made for people tired with traditional combat mechanics so no point in asking for a trinity.
It’s like asking an Italian restaurant to make McDonald food because you are used to it and you like it more.

TBH, altough I don’t believe this game needs the trinity, I’d love if this game included classic tanks. Yes without the healer support. A lot of fights are far too chaotic without proper “tanking” and the “keeping the boss in place” service it provides.

Red Falcon.8257:

Jemmi.6058:

I agree and disagree.

I do not think that the Trinity is needed in this game.

However, I do like the Trinity. My preferred class is healer. I like keeping my team alive, making hard judgement calls (i.e. sacrifice the almost dead caster to make sure the tank survives or w/e) and healing people randomly out in the world. It provides a feeling of need/value/importance that I do not get anymore. I always feel expendable, and that I could easily not be there and it’d make no difference.

Try a full support Guardian and you’ll have that feeling back.
I played my Guard full support and it heals for bazillions while providing protection to everyone and making a team almost invincible just like old school healers.

Can you provide a link or information for this build? I have a low level guardian alt and haven’t seen anything which provides something similar to a healer build.

knives.6345:

Yes it does.. But you may want to play a different game if you are looking for the Trinity… GW2 is not designed to be like most MMO..

The problem is GW2 is just like most mmos, it just has far less variety and variation in it’s characters.

The result is rather dull. Classes and character building was a strength in GW1, it’s a weakness in GW2. I still have no idea why they gutted the classes the way they did. Such a shame.

I somewhat agree.

The only major disadvantage of the trinity system is that you’re stuck in queues for a very long time but otherwise trinity is a very well thought out system. During my break from GW2 i played Tera Online. Dungeons there way more fun than dungeons here.

However, aside from zerker snobbism , all classes in gw2 can be a part of a 5 man team. As long as they are trying their best, they will clear a dungeon, eventually.

Red Falcon.8257:

Jemmi.6058:

I agree and disagree.

I do not think that the Trinity is needed in this game.

However, I do like the Trinity. My preferred class is healer. I like keeping my team alive, making hard judgement calls (i.e. sacrifice the almost dead caster to make sure the tank survives or w/e) and healing people randomly out in the world. It provides a feeling of need/value/importance that I do not get anymore. I always feel expendable, and that I could easily not be there and it’d make no difference.

Try a full support Guardian and you’ll have that feeling back.
I played my Guard full support and it heals for bazillions while providing protection to everyone and making a team almost invincible just like old school healers.

Actually I agree with this, the buffs added up with a coherent team from a buff orientated guardian are amazing, once you realize that the classes whilst somewhat limited aren’t as horribly limited as people make out, there’s a definite quality in how they interact.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Combat-Depth-where-is-it/first#post1606362

Many people think trinity is less engaging and deep, but they probably haven’t played GW. The decision to marginalize trinity roles in this game is solely a marketing demographic decision to pull in WoW players and people on the fringes of mmo gaming looking for something new.

So with a healer class in GW1, i had to prot with guardian, remove hexes, rely on the warrior to backline for me, all kinds of things…here, i zerg, mash my cooldowns, if i die, i get picked back up again through down state revive( which is a terribly shallow system and needs to be gutted altogether) all the while i’m dodging red circles. There were no red circles in GW1, you truly had to watch the field to be a good player.

The problem is two fold:

1. Encounters and instances don’t encourage or require much strategy, have much mechanical depth, or really accent any clever usage of skills or technique in the combat system. They design around gimmicks like the ghost buster fight in AC, which only serves to marginalize the depth of the combat system. No content really encourages mechanical depth in certain team specs and in the end, there are flavor of the month balance issues like Mesmer and Warrior teams stomping content when at the same time, Engineers and Rangers are booted from runs. The combat is imbalanced, bosses have too much hp but not enough real challenge.

2. The roles that we do have are extremely homogenized. There are no healers that save you from death, no tangible way to control aggro with melee characters, no deep synergy between classes. What we have is revive, mash cooldowns, throw out DPS and homogeneous buffs while you dodge. If you’re in trouble, click your insta-heal button, no team play required beyond revive. You all just DPS. No class or role is individually effective or integral because the system is inherently homogeneous.

lothefallen.7081:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Combat-Depth-where-is-it/first#post1606362

Many people think trinity is less engaging and deep, but they probably haven’t played GW. The decision to marginalize trinity roles in this game is solely a marketing demographic decision to pull in WoW players and people on the fringes of mmo gaming looking for something new.

So with a healer class in GW1, i had to prot with guardian, remove hexes, rely on the warrior to backline for me, all kinds of things…here, i zerg, mash my cooldowns, if i die, i get picked back up again through down state revive( which is a terribly shallow system and needs to be gutted altogether) all the while i’m dodging red circles. There were no red circles in GW1, you truly had to watch the field to be a good player.

The problem is two fold:

1. Encounters and instances don’t encourage or require much strategy, have much mechanical depth, or really accent any clever usage of skills or technique in the combat system. They design around gimmicks like the ghost buster fight in AC, which only serves to marginalize the depth of the combat system. No content really encourages mechanical depth in certain team specs and in the end, there are flavor of the month balance issues like Mesmer and Warrior teams stomping content when at the same time, Engineers and Rangers are booted from runs. The combat is imbalanced, bosses have too much hp but not enough real challenge.

2. The roles that we do have are extremely homogenized. There are no healers that save you from death, no tangible way to control aggro with melee characters, no deep synergy between classes. What we have is revive, mash cooldowns, throw out DPS and homogeneous buffs while you dodge. If you’re in trouble, click your insta-heal button, no team play required beyond revive. You all just DPS. No class or role is individually effective or integral because the system is inherently homogeneous.

maybe I romanticize GW1 now, but as far as I remember, it was never tank ´n´ spank-heavy. What set it apart though compared to its heir were interesting mission mechanics, you really had to be on your toes in a lot of those story missions at least. And of cause the build flexibility you mentioned – the various parts of the game actually forced you to come up with new build ideas as things that worked in area A failed miserabely in area B. Still, I think GW2´s system could pull that off, but, quite naturally, neither is the company the same it was 7 years ago, nor are computer players. Complex games do not fare well today with casual and accessibily written all over the industry – that is not inherently bad, but really unfortunate for players who liked old school challenging games. It is not the lack of trinity that is disappointing for GW1 players, but the overall design choices.

lothefallen.7081:

The decision to marginalize trinity roles in this game is solely a marketing demographic decision to pull in WoW players…

Gotta admit, I’m a bit confused of your logic here.

lothefallen.7081:

No content really encourages mechanical depth in certain team specs and in the end, there are flavor of the month balance issues like Mesmer and Warrior teams stomping content when at the same time, Engineers and Rangers are booted from runs.

So how are the two bolded parts any different?

If you require certain team specs and compositions, some people are going to get left out anyway.

lothefallen.7081:

…There are no healers that save you from death…

No. Instead, anyone can help each other prevent death. I’m not seeing how the two are different in terms of mechanics, to be honest.

You say everyone is DPS, but at the same time, depending on how you build, you can become more efficient at mitigating damage, clearing conditions, interrupting techniques, reviving and healing, buffing, other forms of support (i.e. Protecting from projectiles, stealthing to give people respite).

I really don’t understand the logic of pigeon-holing and requiring certain specs adds depth. To me, it’s just creating a artificial gate to content in which you can’t do the content if you don’t have a specific group composition.

And before you say it, yes, I did play GW. Our team didn’t run specs depending on the content, and we done it fine.

I don’t believe the Trinity inherently adds depth or teamwork. Even though their all required, each person is still in their own little bubble, performing their own role:

• The Tank is there, keeping aggro, and not really caring on what the DPS are doing. As long as the healer is healing them, they don’t really care about them either.
• The DPS are going through their rotation, not really caring what the Healer and Tank are doing (unless one of them messes up, of course).
• The Healer is focusing on health bars (which is kind of a DPS race where you’re trying to heal faster than damage is coming in), not caring what the DPS and Tank are doing (unless the DPS keep standing in the fire, or the Tank isn’t keeping Aggro).

In short, it’s a pseudo-teamwork where you don’t care what the others are doing until they mess up. Kind of like a script, really.

Fight mechanics that require you to know what your team is doing is what adds the real depth to the fights.

Rukia.4802:

Algreg.3629:

Trinity will not come to this game, it would take an enormous effort to rebuild characters and classes from scratch. Why do trinity addicts need to start a thread about this every week. All arguments have been exchanged many times over anyway. Yes, GW2 combat can be extremely boring, but that has quite different reasons than a lack of trinity – which would make the battles even more boring. And stop selling that concept as “strategy”. It is cookie cutter builds, rotating cookie cutter abilities in a cookie cutter order, all memorized from doing the same raid many times over. There is rarely strategy in the trinity approach, knowing what to do beforehand to counter rigid AI behaviour is simply memorizaiton, nothing else.

You just explained the current state of GW2… no strategy.

The lack of trinity wouldn’t even bother me if I wasn’t pigeon holed into using 2 skills on my thief constantly and oh switch to shortbow for AoE to spam 1 button how exciting.

ANet didn’t just remove trinity, they removed ‘build wars’ which was what kept GW1 alive for so many years and still interesting to this day. They made these 2 major decisions without replacing them with anything of value.

Can you honestly tell me you’ll be enjoying your character in a few years with the same exact skills, same rotation, same everything? Hell I’m already bored of it… was bored on the first week. Then again, I DO come from GW1… a truly unique game.

This is however not a trinity issue but more of the lack of skill choice issue. Anet needs to implement a wider selection of skills for each weapon so everyone can select what they want to use. E.G greatsword will have 10 skills to choose of 5 instead of 5 fixed skills. I do agree I could use some rotation in terms of skill choice after awhile, then and again, even if they did give us more skills, how long before we find the perfect combo and stick to it. Ultimately, everything is repetitive regardless of any game.

What the trinity did was give depth to 3 core aspects of mmo combat by fleshing them out and giving them meaningful variations. What GW2 did was give everyone everything on the assumption that it would solve the problems inherent in the role-heavy system; it did, but the design choices that followed reduced combat to rotations independent of party members. In doing this, the game takes for granted the depth available in each mechanism that contributes to combat, and instead focuses on dps. Everything revolves around dps and efficiency of dps.

What I think ANet could do is re-assess each and every mechanic that contributes to combat and then find ways to impose meaningful variations on them. These shouldn’t be limited to the trinity mechanics but also to action mechanics, such as hitbox and animations, as well as mechanics unique to gw2 like the down state, etc. They then need to make more distinct paths for each profession based on these roles. The problem with the current system is that the variations aren’t meaningful outside of dps or sustain. The result is one or two paths of least resistance for each profession. All others are simply less efficient.

Its literally the complete opposite…

we need overlords doing seals to the enemies, buffing whole alliances and healing cp/hp
yeah what a fun class…oh wait we are just talking about the almighty trinity from wow

. . . has the original poster replied at all in this thread beyond the first few posts?

I’m fine with trinity gameplay but I like that this game doesn’t have it for something different. I’ve pretty well worn trinity out in so many other MMOs.

I hopped in a lfg for HoTW the other night with my Necro. And lo and behold I was in a group of 4 mez’s and me. I have to say that was the most fun in a dungeon I have ever had. Ive played wow for years as a healing class and I do not miss that role. It’s so much more fun to see the many different combinations of roles that can complete dungeons. It makes things way more exciting imo

I am all for having non specific roles to each class (i.e. doing a dungeon with 4 mesmers and 1 necro), I just wish that each class had a better ability to take on each role.

More specifically, I’d like if each class had the ability to hold agro and had the ability to properly heal a group. The current healing has long cooldowns and doesn’t heal for very much. Therefore, I cannot assign myself the role of a dedicated healer – I am primarily DPS, secondary support and I have no choice on the matter.

I think what GW2 needs is greater stress on the roles of Initiators and finishers for cross profession combos (CPCs). There needs to be a bigger and more vital reason to do CPCs. The benefits must be greatly improved and repercussions for not executing them in timely fashion against Champions need to have a greater impact.

This would create a greater depth to the roles without resorting to the trinity.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Sylosi.6503:

Because there are more games than WoW:

1 – In many other trinity based games you have to move more than WoW (Rift for instance), though obvioulsy not as much as you move in GW2. Then there is also PvP, which again requires much more movement in these sort of games than PvE.

2 – Not all games have mods like threat meters, healbots, boss mods, cooldown warnings, etc that bascially play the game for you like in WoW, so the more complex classes are not offset to an extent by mods. (this is a very good thig about GW2, no mods playing the game for you)

3 – Lastly not everyone plays a faceroll DPS in these games, which means the GW2 classes are relatively simple and have a lack of multitasking, much less need for awareness of your teammates than many support/healer classses in trinity games. For example in LOTRO I used to play a loremaster and in raids had to :

- Keep up stun immunity on tank(sometimes tank healer)
- Keep up numerous debuffs on multiple mobs.
- Often perma CC one, sometimes two mobs.
- Cleanse team mates.
- Off heal.
- Drain power from boss, and keep constantly aware of tank/healer & key support like captain of their power needs and feed them power.
- Deal with (CC, debuff, put pet on) rogue mobs that go after a DPS / healer
- Occasionally have to rez if healers/cappy out of rezzes
- Deal DPS, especially AOE DPS as the class had very good burst AOE.
- and whilst doing all that manage a pet.

The amount of multitasking / awarenesss / target switching is on a completely different level to GW2, dodging, and more movemtent does not make up that, nor does it make up for teh more simplistic class design (faceroll DPS types excepted)

I find that a GW2 dungeon team with synergy and team awareness rolls along far better than one that doesn’t. While GW2 class options are somewhat simplistic, the game play is often more dynamic.

It’s certainly true that Loremaster brought a lot to the table. I can see why you found the gameplay engaging. Is it not exception to the rule, however? I don’t by any means have vast experience in MMO’s, but in the ones I have played, no other class had that kind of complexity. The closest was the Archon build in Rift. However, in instanced content short of raids, it was preferred the mage run a more dps-oriented build.

In the beginning Rift also promised people they can build their classes however they want and play with them however they wanted, but because of how encounters were designed this was just not possible, but imo Rift had the best class building ever giving you an option to change from tank to dps to healing to support with a click of a button. In Rift you were never stuck in one role, and you could queue as multiple roles in the LFG finder.
What i am really trying to say is that in every game you can play “how you want to” if you are not doing group content, but the community is the one who puts you in a playstyle. Just look at GW2. Now if you aren’t a full zerker warrior, and you play some strange build that wasn’t recommended in the latest flavor of the month, you’re probably gonna get a few weird looks. No one likes a signet warrior in a party. Maybe that person rocks that build, but most people just say “he doesn’t benefit the party, get banners or shouts”.

And as we slowly get more and more challenging content, its apparent that certain and specific builds work best on these, and people will insist that you roll with them for the best results.
GW2 isn’t very much different from any other games out there. I’d play Rift but i can’t afford a sub right now. The only comforting thing about gw2 for me is that it has no sub and i enjoy it somewhat. I like to play alone and i like how gw2 allows me to do that, and it also allows me to play other games when i’m not completing a daily. I’m not missing anything by not playing.

diabluz.2860:

In the long term the lack of the trinity makes instances and any other group play boring and shallow to say the least.

People aren’t forced to co operate and work together or strategize like in other mmo’s that we’ve all played in the past.

If you want people to continue playing this game for any length of time you need to bring back the trinity Anet.

trinity is the dumbest thing ive ever played in a game. it shows an overall lack of imagination and laziness. gw2 is great in this sense. the only issue is they havent been doing enough to balance the game.

If GW2 ever goes to the trinity, I’m done. I’ve had the trinity up to here.

I’m guessing there are a couple posters in this thread who no longer play the game (if they ever did), yet feel the need to tell those of us that still play and enjoy it, how wrong and stupid and simplistic we are. Why are you here?

I still play the game, and I still love the game.

And I still love playing a healer in every other game.