Guild Wars 2

Since the release of GW2, the Dev is targeted to take away the holy trinity in traditional MMO. Personally I like this idea a lot, but many player found losing their identity in the team. Do we really missed all the ROLES within a party? This concept is targeting PvE only, please do not bring PvP into concideration, thank you!

Here is my idea:
DFA system for GW2

Drawer – the player who is currently being targeted by npc, the key of being drawer is to stay alive. Tanking / Kiting / Dodging with all the tricks in your sleeve.

Flanker – player who focused on dealing damage while not being targeted, either direct damage / condition damage / debuff with everything you got.

Aidman – player who focused on supporting your allies, healing / protecting / buffing / remove condition while still able to deal damage.

But are we done here? What so different to holy trinity?

Here we go! The answer is role switching. Since we don’t have ability to hold aggro, and the hate system is different, we do experienced switching aggro a lot. And also tanky build are not able to stand still and absorb damage, neither do healer can out heal the tank. So we don’t actually have Tank. Therefore anyone who gain current aggro become the Drawer role. And any player who do not have aggro will become Flanker or Aidman (depends you give support or not).

DRAWER compare to TANK – Anet gave all classes different tricks to become a Drawer: CC, invulnerably, teleport, high hp or high armor and MOVEMENT. Because a drawer targeted to stay alive doesn’t mean absorb damage or being out healed anyway, so this role don’t make itself a tank, but of course tanky is a way to do a Drawer. And movement is your best friend.

FLANKER compare to DPS – Anet gave all classes different ways to deal damage: direct damage, condition damage, boon, CC, AoE etc. Different class excels in their own way of dealing damage. Helping Drawer to stay alive is also a viable choice of being a Flanker. So it is not always how much damage you can do, instead, it is how fast / easy you can make the battle become. Also Flanker got high chance being the target with high damage, they must have tricks to stay alive when they become Drawers, otherwise DPS is no meaning if you downed. Therefore FLANKER are not DPS only.

AIDMAN compare to HEALER – GW2 healing is weak. Therefore it is harder to out heal a Tank. What an Aidman do is similar to healer, watch out allies hp, condition removal and revive. But if the team Drawer and Flanker are indeed low in hp, Aidman should able to CC, block or even Draw aggro so the team Drawer and Flanker can retreat and heal.

For example my warrior:
My main is a greatsword shout heal warrior, able to absorb some damage but the build is towards Flanker, if there is someone more tanky, i will do my Flanking job but i can step in when the Drawer is retreating, and in order to let the Drawer do his job, i can shout buff, heal, condition remove to make him more durable. My role is F-D-A.

Please feel free to discuss and thank you for reading!

Good hunting in GW2

Problem is most players just spec for dps. In dungeons, some even do not bring condition removal.

gadenp.7586:

Problem is most players just spec for dps. In dungeons, some even do not bring condition removal.

Those are the players that get kicked if the refuse to respec after a few wipes.

gadenp.7586:

Problem is most players just spec for dps. In dungeons, some even do not bring condition removal.

Thats my concept is going to tell based on my experience in GW2, the holy trinity is not working in GW2. This idea is inspirited by nowadays military. Assault team storm the front and make suppressing fire, keep foes busy while flanking team strafe around and kill. But both team can switch role in different situation.

lol I don’t use condition removal and outlive pretty much everyone else. What they need to do is just make it more of an action combat game where dodging and positioning are what matters most for survival.

No new trinity, no old trinity; no trinity period.

I think this is a wonderful concept. But one that means that people need to be flexible.
Current I think Anet Dungeons, already promote flexibility, and the amount of crash and burn I see is sad.

I find it funny, that most people do not even dodge when the red circle appears around them. That makes for alot of wipes. You can dodge all, but the really painful ones give you a few seconds to do so.

So hehehe a huge education is needed to advance the idea of fluid changing of roles, based on battle conditions.

To Sollith,

This is how GW2 works, but my concept didn’t eliminate a single role build. A dps build can be great help on making big damage for party but when a DPS get aggro, without survival skill is harder to stay alive. I aggree player skill do matters and congrads to you if your DPS build is able to stay alive when you become the target.

Since there are lots of players from the holy trinity are not adapting to this new system and can’t find their holy trinity role in GW2. Especially original ranged DPS class suffered a lot where they were used to throw dps at range and let the tank and healer deal with aggro problem. In GW2, tanks cannot absorb damage forever, they need to flee and heal, therefore every class got some tricks to “tank” a bit, it is where GW2 teamwork lays.

People speccing pure dps are doing it wrong imho. OK it’s good to have raw dps but as far as I see the moar dots nao approach is far more effective. My engi is completely condition specced and I feel it makes me the most flexible. Actually gives me room to have some control skills depending on situation. That makes me about .7 damage and .3 control. Add a defensive necro and we have 1.1 damage, .3 control and .6 support

As far as forcing trinities … no game. But your concept is no different from the current damage-control-support idea which works just fine. A team in gw2 works just fine as long as it has at least one of each instead of exactly one of each and dps fillers.

marnick.4305:

People speccing pure dps are doing it wrong imho. OK it’s good to have raw dps but as far as I see the moar dots nao approach is far more effective. My engi is completely condition specced and I feel it makes me the most flexible. Actually gives me room to have some control skills depending on situation. That makes me about .7 damage and .3 control. Add a defensive necro and we have 1.1 damage, .3 control and .6 support

As far as forcing trinities … no game. But your concept is no different from the current damage-control-support idea which works just fine. A team in gw2 works just fine as long as it has at least one of each instead of exactly one of each and dps fillers.

You are reading my concept correctly, thats why you found my idea is exactly the same to the current damage-control-support… But there are more in my idea, especially the role switching idea.

Since playing a MMO, most player do wish to have a role, but the old traditional holy trinity is not suitable for GW2. Damage-Control-Support was a good system but it doesn’t appreciate the multi-task role. Its just my 2cents.

It does appreciate the multi-tasking more than your role system. Putting people in rigid roles is what’d make gw2 fail. I’m primarily dps through conditions, although some conditions are actually support (vuln) or control (blind, weakness). I have 3 blasts on my bar which makes for control. All in all that’s what makes for flexibility.

The rigid trinity is for people without ability to adapt, an no changing of systems will change that. I remember in first beta people tried their best to make pure healers without realizing they were actually kittening their team by not using the damage skills on their bar. Most ridiculous were the calls for “water eles” completely ignoring the fact that kittening out 75% of your weapon skills is a bad thing, not a good one.

Players will change, but paradigm shifts invariably take a while. Come back with your suggestion in 3 months.

marnick.4305:

It does appreciate the multi-tasking more than your role system. Putting people in rigid roles is what’d make gw2 fail. I’m primarily dps through conditions, although some conditions are actually support (vuln) or control (blind, weakness). I have 3 blasts on my bar which makes for control. All in all that’s what makes for flexibility.

The rigid trinity is for people without ability to adapt, an no changing of systems will change that. I remember in first beta people tried their best to make pure healers without realizing they were actually kittening their team by not using the damage skills on their bar. Most ridiculous were the calls for “water eles” completely ignoring the fact that kittening out 75% of your weapon skills is a bad thing, not a good one.

Players will change, but paradigm shifts invariably take a while. Come back with your suggestion in 3 months.

Please will you read my OP? My suggestion is telling why rigid role is fail in GW2.

The DFA system is a situational based role system.
For my warrior, i am F-D-A, means i am mainly a Flanker > secondary as Drawer > thirdly as Aidman, means i am able to do all role but in an order F>D>A, therefore somebody with a more tanky build without support skill, he will be D-F. An Ele not a bunker build is either F-A or A-F as they by default always have support weapon skills.

Theoretically, Drawer, Flanker, Aidman is a rigid role, but they cannot let alone. Can’t a Drawer turns Flanker? Can’t an Aidman turns Flanker? yes, they can, therefore the role is not rigid. This system is to encourage and educate players to build towards versitilty.

I do not understand your categorizing. Your fluid role concept is just inventing labels within the well known idea of everyone can do a bit of everything. What is the purpose? Do we need those labels so people can imagine to fill special roles because “Since playing a MMO, most player do wish to have a role” – which I highly doubt btw. The term roleplaying has a totally different origin than filling roles like “tank” etc., if that is what you are alluding to.

If the weapons are so easily switched for a given situation I think the spec should be switchable as well. I have a damage build on my necromancer for questing and hate having to respec each time I go into a group for something. Let us have another preset spec that can be switched to quickly, in combat or at least without having to go to a trainer and I’d be happy. Having more then one spec to switch between and the idea would be much more palatable.

Algreg.3629:

I do not understand your categorizing. Your fluid role concept is just inventing labels within the well known idea of everyone can do a bit of everything. What is the purpose? Do we need those labels so people can imagine to fill special roles because “Since playing a MMO, most player do wish to have a role” – which I highly doubt btw. The term roleplaying has a totally different origin than filling roles like “tank” etc., if that is what you are alluding to.

For someone fully understand the GW2 combat system, this is just a label, yes.

For someone who get used to “roles” like tank/dps/healer, this is a new concept about “roles”. If you don’t need identify on your role, you are free to move along. My concept is mainly focused on building up a different “role system” because tank/dps/healer is failed in GW2.

For example, in holy trinity we got Tank / healer / dps x 3, but it is not working in GW2, as no Tank + healer can absorb damage forever. Therefore damage better spread between multiple players, and healing and condition removal job is also shared between multiple players. In my system, roles could be like below:

D-F / F-D-A / F-D-A / F-A / A-F

So D-F go in and draw attention while other 4 members deal damage and CC, when D-F is not able to absorb anymore damage, he should retreat, and let F-D-A to do the job, while F-A CC help D-F to retreat, A-F do the healing.

A F-D-A is not necessary aggro and absorb damage, they could catch aggo and kite or to stay alive until D-F is recovered. D-F is not necessary absorb damage to tank, he/she could be a bunker ele, just whoever build for drawing attention and stay alive.

God I hope they never introduce a trinity into this game… I love how it is right now and could honestly see myself never doing another instance if they introduced one.

The major draw for instancing in this game vs others is that it is so difficult, so challenging… every player has to be on their best game. All these players who claimed to be so “skilled” are suddenly dragged kicking and screaming from their ability to rely on other people to carry them through the instances. It’s so easy to DPS when you can stand still just hit a rotation. There’s no skill in that- no effort is required. Just hit the same number combos over and over, while randomly having to play “Simon Says” with some dungeon mechanic (jump on this square, now back to this. Avoid the fire. Etc). Suddenly, if they suck it shows. That’s where a lot of the rage on forums is coming from.

I love the every man for himself concept, and it’s been a lot of fun to play with so far. I only hope they keep this, as it’s what defines GW2 instancing.

The whole point of removing the roles was to also remove the players expectations of them. Creating labels like this means you reintroduce the mindset of self-limitation and discriminating group play.

You don’t create labels to accomodate people that are used to roles. You show them how it’s more fun to play the game without roles.

Any good dungeon group already do these things just not labeled currently. For the record I do prefer the trinity system but I can live with the current structure.

What killed dungeon runs for my ex-guild (no longer playing but reading the forums still) was how utterly boring and unrewarding they are. True we were a “raiding” guild but when I compare dungeon mechanics to recent games like The Secret World even when removing the trinity and loot grinds the current GW2 dungeons pale in comparison.

I sincerely hope there is a plan to improve things in the future.

To MarzAttakz,

Thanks, another reader understand what i am trying to introduce.

Just wanna make a visualized label to show what good dungeon group currently is doing and how single minded role build is not viable in GW2.

Doing all my dungeons with my guild mates, all rangers have berserker/rampagers melee have soldier/Valkyrie/berserk . I dont know why are you trying to fix whats not broken. There are no roles , just face-smashing-the-keyboard.

GW2’s “trinity” is called Damage/Control/Support by Arenanet.
http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/

Dang. LastDay beat me to it.

Crosssaber, we all understand what you are trying to do, that does not mean one has to agree. I know how you want to help people used to more traditional mmo roles make the transition, but still I think an approach of adjusting to a given situation in the best way your character offers is better than to squeeze yourself into new kinds of roles, fluid as they may be. Computer gamers usually have great problem solving skills, I do not think they need new cookie cutters once they leave the trinity mindset behind.

People need to get used to the idea of being flexible in a different manner… Other MMOs generally require flexibility in the sense that you’re doing something non-traditional yet still within your role whereas this game requires flexibility more in players swapping skills that best apply to the situation.

You don’t necessarily need to retrait, just be ready to not use the same set of skills all the time. Even as an engineer, I may rarely swap skills, but I might have to juggle between kits a lot more given the fight.

I don’t think a new trinity helps understand. At this point, people who run dungeons have done dozens of them. And they know what their characters can and must do to handle that content. At no point am I ever strictly a drawer or a flanker or an A-thing.

Consider my guardian.
My best source of self-healing is — buffing others.
A great source of damage is — putting up retaliation.
I am almost constantly putting up blind — is that drawing flanking or the A-thinging? Doesn’t really matter — it’s one of the things that makes the big attacks miss and is one of the things that approaches the “not just swinging a sword” idea from the manifesto.

We all heard this game does not have a holy trinity, that A.Net wanted to remove this so groups don’t get stuck looking for a tank or a healer or CC/DPS. Anyone is supposed to fullfill anyone elses’ roles, but ultimately, A.Net failed on this, because without the ‘healing’ role, all other roles aside from DPS become meaningless.

However, when I first ‘bought into’ this game I was watching an interview where it was said: Every class can fullfill any role. So take this necromancer…he can get in there, tank a little bit, then back out. And I lit up with excitement! Of course, I had my own theories on how this would be achieved, but that was not how A.Net achieved this ‘goal’. IN fact, they didn’t achieve it at all, imho.

However, this is what I had envisioned"

Stances.

There are 4 possible stances, we’ll say. Tank, healer, DPS and support. Any class can achieve 3/4 stances. No class can do all 4, with one role left out so that you can’t just walk into a dungeon with all thieves or some such. This promotes class diversity, as well as brings an interesting idea to the table:

Let’s just say your particular group has two classes that can tank, 3 that can heal, 4 that can DPS and 3 that can support. While it seems you are bringing in too few tanks, the way the traits could be set up is that the classes that can tank (while traited) can tank for longer because their CDs refresh faster.

While this idea in mind, you’d have to understand that all your abilities perform differently under different stances (think Ele attunements). So your GS in DPS stance would get 100 blades, your GS in tank stance would grant 100 parries (not really 100 parries…just saying…) a 6 second CD where you evade attacks (traited,. But once that skill is used, its on a CD. In fact, 1-5 would ALL have lengthy CD’s associated with them, so, even after weapon swapping, your original weapon CD’s would still be on timer. This is why having a second tank is needed.

So you call out for a tank swap, allowing the original tank to move into a CC or DPS role, while the second tank, who was on Support duty, moves into tank, and that guy on DPS moves into support, and so on and so forth. People would have to cooperate on switching roles on the fly, and make the game more interesting if mobs and dungeon bosses were adjusted appropriately.

This keeps A.Net’s philosophy that anyone can fill in any role (we all disocvered that was bumpkiss) and gives people back the holy trinity in such a way that makes the exploration of these mechanics fun and interesting, especially if the DEV’s balanced the mechanics around this ‘idea’.

No trinity. I left WoW because of that garbage. I hate having to rely on others for my own effectiveness.

teviko.6049:

@vince

sounds like your better off in a single player game.

I think centipede will be to your liking.

1. Why flame?
2. You’re not funny.
3. It is not unreasonable to want a character who isn’t 70% useless solo.

In WoW I hated dying if I pulled more then 2 enemies. I hated dying if I pulled one Elite. I hated dying if I didn’t have a pocket healer. I hated dying if the mages/hunters/warlocks didn’t DPS fast enough.

In GW2 I can take on things that other games won’t let you survive and win. That’s rewarding. Falling back to the archaic and annoying ‘holy trinity’ of Tank-Heal-DPS will make this game as boring as every other MMO that relies on it.

Centipede. Were you saving that one up for a moment like this?

vince.5937:

teviko.6049:

@vince

sounds like your better off in a single player game.

I think centipede will be to your liking.

1. Why flame?
2. You’re not funny.
3. It is not unreasonable to want a character who isn’t 70% useless solo.

In WoW I hated dying if I pulled more then 2 enemies. I hated dying if I pulled one Elite. I hated dying if I didn’t have a pocket healer. I hated dying if the mages/hunters/warlocks didn’t DPS fast enough.

In GW2 I can take on things that other games won’t let you survive and win. That’s rewarding. Falling back to the archaic and annoying ‘holy trinity’ of Tank-Heal-DPS will make this game as boring as every other MMO that relies on it.

Centipede. Were you saving that one up for a moment like this?

Yes, I couldn’t pass up the oppurtunity to make you feel special by directing you to a game more suited to your style.

I love the concept of roles. Which is why I went to a game with roles.

And if you look at MY suggestion, your viability would not be hindered because you are XX class (i.e you will not be unable to do damage, or heal, or take a hit or support your group). Your viability in PvE/PvP would in no way be impacted. In fact, it might be boosted because of my methodology.

AS a warrior, you can be a tank, a support role, or a lean mean, DPS fighting machine.

As a mesmer, you can be a support role, a tank (had interesting theories of how this could be accomplished `^_^` or DPS

An Elementalist could be a healer, a DPS’er or a tank

An Engi could be support, healer, tank(??)

A ranger could be tank, support, healer

So on and so forth, all accomplishing this through stance swaps and filling in a vaccum in a groups’ structure.

As it is you have

Role 1 = DPS
Role 2 = DPS
Role 3 = DPS
Role 4 = DPS
Role 5 = DPS

DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS….no wonder the mob mentality reigns supreme. It takes no skill to role with a zerg, all you have to do is spam 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1………..loot.

And yet here I am, running my Engineer with +Healing and Elixir Gun and all beneficial potions/Med Kit so I can buff/heal any team I get on.

What you don’t seem to realize is that people already do all these things. I’ve seen Elementalists tank. I’ve seen Rangers buff and heal. I’ve seen Engineers heal and debuff and tank (Juggernaut is fun). Yes, the mob mentality is to do damage— but damage is what kills enemies. The best form of crowd control and support is to kill the enemy dead. We don’t need the same agonizingly overused gaming trope that almost every MMO in existence has latched onto like some sort of desperate lamprey.

Also, please don’t pass off what was clearly a passive-aggressive insult as something logical.

vince.5937:

And yet here I am, running my Engineer with +Healing and Elixir Gun and all beneficial potions/Med Kit so I can buff/heal any team I get on.

What you don’t seem to realize is that people already do all these things. I’ve seen Elementalists tank. I’ve seen Rangers buff and heal. I’ve seen Engineers heal and debuff and tank (Juggernaut is fun). Yes, the mob mentality is to do damage— but damage is what kills enemies. The best form of crowd control and support is to kill the enemy dead. We don’t need the same agonizingly overused gaming trope that almost every MMO in existence has latched onto like some sort of desperate lamprey.

Also, please don’t pass off what was clearly a passive-aggressive insult as something logical.

Well, let’s see…

the ‘HOly Trinity’ worked for

EQ
EQ2
Vanguard
Rift
Aion
WoW
WAR
Horizons (istaria)
GW1

I’m sure there are many other MMO’s I havent’ listed, but it worked for ALL of them. It doesn’t work for GW2 because they built the ‘harder’ mobs to ‘hit too hard for tank’ heals don’t mitigate that spike damage, CC is ineffectual and DAMAGE is all that needs to be done to ‘win’.

Problem with a damage only damage only game is that you have to make the game easier so that people don’t complain that they are dying all the time because the mobs are too hard. Ever notice that you can hit at normal attack speed, but ‘normal’ mobs have 1/5 of our same attack speed?

That’s because the developers had to make them easy for you. That is why you can round up 4-5 at a time and hit 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, and win. There is little risk vs reward. it’s EASY, requires little thought and very little effort on the part of anyone.

MMO’s have one word I usually harp on when referring to any MMORPG, and that it is a MULTI-PLAYER game, meaning there are other people walking about the world, like you. Why do you avoid them? Feel superior to them? Inferior??

With anything that has more than one player able to play at the same time, I wonder why it is that people avoid other people in games like this. Especially when A.Net wants people to cooperate and work together to achieve an end goal.

However, with this…easy-mode..horizontal progression model, it in fact, is encouraging the opposite. I don’t have to form a group when Jormag spawns to quick rush and take it down, or call ALL HANDS ON DECK for my guild when the dragon spawns to take it down.

No, I join the other 50 free floaters and hit 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 until the ice shield goes down and then 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 until he flies up into the air.

I don’t have to worry about dying, because the dragon is so easy that he doesn’t bother to hit me. Even his attack is easily mitigated by my own self heal. The adds are no problem (except as a mesmer I can’t hit them fast enough :/ ) because everyone else AE’s them down and spams their damage and we all return to 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1.

The problem stems down to the lack of roles (healing especially). Without heal,s as I’ve said, the ‘other’ roles are meaningless. CC, Healing, tanking..mean nothing compared to do more damage than that guy.

With a holy trinity, you not only have to know how to play your part, you have to know how other play their parts as well. As my suggestion, and OPs suggestion goes, this is what would be accomplished. A way of having a holy trinity, without having to plug ‘certain’ classes in for each role.

No Warrior, Monk and ….anyone else….It would be…Ok, we have two tanking roles and 2 healing roles, could use some support roles and DPS.

That could be ANY combination of players, without having to limit it to 1-2 classes out of 8. You would have to rely upon them to know and perform their roles, as they would have to rely upon you to know yours, and a HUGE cooperation part in a group like that to know when and how to switch roles to compliment the groups tactics.

Your way sounds boring.

My way sounds much more exciting.

It kind of sounds like you have a very set way of doing things. However, from what you told me, you’re failing to do the following on teams and events:

-Set up combo fields to empower and alter the attacks of others
-Utilize buffs, shouts, banners, etc. to give other players boosts and benefits
-Coordinate yourself so that you might help a downed player and/or set up a healing area at the right moment
-Use utility skills and weapon skills that provide debuffs to enemies and buffs to players

You can praise the almighty Holy Trinity all you want (protip: just because everyone else does it doesn’t mean you should; ever heard the “if everyone jumped off a bridge would you do it too” question?) but from what you posted as your " battle strategy" you’re doing absolutely nothing to contribute to the success of others besides plucking the 1 key and healing if you get hit. Meanwhile you tell me that others should need to know their role and diversify to make for a better game? That is hypocrisy in its plainest form. Practice what you preach.

vince.5937:

It kind of sounds like you have a very set way of doing things. However, from what you told me, you’re failing to do the following on teams and events:

-Set up combo fields to empower and alter the attacks of others
-Utilize buffs, shouts, banners, etc. to give other players boosts and benefits
-Coordinate yourself so that you might help a downed player and/or set up a healing area at the right moment
-Use utility skills and weapon skills that provide debuffs to enemies and buffs to players

You can praise the almighty Holy Trinity all you want (protip: just because everyone else does it doesn’t mean you should; ever heard the “if everyone jumped off a bridge would you do it too” question?) but from what you posted as your " battle strategy" you’re doing absolutely nothing to contribute to the success of others besides plucking the 1 key and healing if you get hit. Meanwhile you tell me that others should need to know their role and diversify to make for a better game? That is hypocrisy in its plainest form. Practice what you preach.

OMG!

Shot through the heart….and you’re to blame!! You give love, a bad name!

Don’t give me that speech. In a zerg, and you know it, the mentality is 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1. There is nothing else.

As for combo fields…well gosh durnit, why didn’t I think of those?? What is it?? Is that when I lay down a healing spring as a ranger and shoot arrows across it and heal my allies??

Or laying down a fire trap and using hornet’s sting to get a flame shield? Or shooting arrows across it to get fire damage

Is that when I lay down chaos field and use phase retreat to get a chaos armor? Gosh, I just don’t knwo what these combo fields are!!!! Please teach me almighty master??

I did the GW2 thing. It doesn’t work. I’m glad your content with easy-mode ‘can I have all the cookies’ mode of the game.

You could have kept that knowledge to yourself and moved onto another thread. What you failed to do, was make any significant contributions to either my suggestion, or, more importantly, to the OPs. This is about how a holy trinity ‘might’ be achieved within the context of this game (not using OTHER GAME mechanics) .

We get you don’t like to work hard at something, but explain, in terms of this game, why these suggestions will not work, or why they are wrong (exploitables and such) other than your opinion that you don’t like the holy trinity.

It seems, more often than not, many people are starting to realize, as I have, that without this ‘holy order’ that the game is bland and uninteresting. My friend told me that he didn’t like the aggro system, because it MAKES NO SENSE and there is no way to reliably 1) get it, or 2) lose it. That boils down to a holy trinity system. If I know that I will get aggro is I press this skill after this skill then I will a) not use it, or b) use it depending on if I want aggro or not.

There is where skill and knowledge of your class comes in, when you know what skill combinations produce certain effects that the mobs react you, then you either do so at a convient time, or wait to do so at a convient time.

To give an example…

If I know a mob will run at 20% health in XX game, I root it before it does, so it doesn’t aggro others when it runs away. Making sure that CD is up at that time is MY job, and blowing it too early can cause a wipe to myself and to others…

Look what I did there…I used a holy trinity mechanism.. Oops my bad.

@teviko.6049 very well put. This is a very real problem and it’s in the bones on the game. It a core design flaw that impacts the fun….. The reason no one has broken from the holy trinity isn’t because they are all copy cats, it’s the same reason soliders positions on the battlefield haven’t changed much in a few thousand years, it’s because IT WORKS. If you’re going to come out and say “we don’t want a holy trinity” then whatever it is you come up with to replace better not take away from the strategic team play dynamic….. Unfortunately what ArenaNet came up with is not as good.

Don’t tell to go play another game or whatever. Just because I acknowledge the zerg-centric design of game and the shortcomings of that design doesn’t make me a hater. There is a lot to love, but it has some core faults.

I am not telling anyone to go play another game.

I suggested, to one person, that judging by the type of play he described as ‘fun’ that a single player is more inline with his play style.

I went to another game, because these ‘core faults’ as you put it was enough, eventually to make me go away. But the idea I put forth was what I had envisioned when I first saw an interview about this game, and they said that" ’anyone can perform any role".

I wanted to share my view, of what I saw, and based it around the mechanics already in game. I read the OP and he’s ideas were almost the same, albeit different. The point is, comment on why it is not a good idea (not just ‘I don’t like holy trinity, so you suck’ ) post, or why it could be a bad idea…ie. any exploits that this could cause.

A.Net nerfed rangers because apparently, spamming “1” is not fun for them, but with the games’ current viability, that all that is ever done, it’s what they wanted to avoid, but its all they did to promote. You can throw is a 2, 3, 4, 5 for fun, if your feeling squirrely, but in the end, the most used button always comes back to 1.

What I have mentioned would make 1-5 extraneous long CD’s so that eventually, you have no more actions to take as ‘that role’ and must swap out with another player to allow your CD’s to reset, but still contribute to the group by full filling a healing/support/DPS role until those CDs are either blown, or another swap occurs.

This in no way ‘full fills’ a true holy trinity, but it also keeps A.Net’s word on any class can perform any role.

(and believe me, mesmers CANNOT heal..not even remotely, not even if they TRIED, about the best you can get is that phantasms grant regeneration to allies…and you have to hope they live long enough to do that, because you just aren’t gonna do it with mantras, trust me I TRIED).

teviko.6049:

BrunoBRS.5178:

enough with the kitten “lets redo the entire combat, and try to shove some sort of trinity into it” threads.

Ah yes…such an uplifting and ‘helpful’ contribution to this thread.

Why did you stop by, perchance?

i stopped to ask people to stop posting their massive redesign threads, because they clutter the forum and just won’t happen. that, and trying to shove any kind of trinity in it is just plain stupid, no matter what you name the 3 roles.

guild wars 2’s combat system is here to stay, if you want to help improve it, try suggesting improvements to the current system, not try and ditch it and write your own new system. doing so not only has a better chance of helping the devs understand which direction the combat could go to, but it’s also not a waste of space (because this thread inevitably pushed other, potentially good threads down).

Gee, I thought what I was doing was adding a suggestion.

Sure, some redesign would be required, mainly on the mob parts, and on the players to adjust to their new…abilities.

Maybe there is a reason there is an out-cropping of people saying: “lack of a holy trinity…this game needs!” ?? Maybe, just maybe, there are flaws with having a massive free-for-all zerg “1” spamming fest? (whispers I’m sure there is a class that got nerfed because spamming 1 isn’t supposed to be fun game play according to A.Net)

Changes can be made that won’t involve adding this abhorent holy trinity, you so despise, but in reference to this thread, you have made no siginifacnt contributions. My idea adds a way that still has the same mechanisms in place (weapon sets, swapping, and adding stances that would ultimately add new skills for people to have)

WHatever threads you deem to be good may not be good to others. You are not the judge of what is good or not. you can have your opinion of what is good, but it doesn’t reflect everyone else’s opinions.

WHy doesn’t a holy trinity fit, in your opinion, other than you just don’t like it. I swear, I need to know why a holy trinity is such ‘bad news’ for this game.

In my experience, whoever has the highest Toughness ends up tanking.

maybe if you want something different, you shouldn’t stick to this game, and instead looking for something different. instead of changing something people like but you don’t into something you like but others don’t, just leave it and find a game with the things you like.

as for me not contributing, i have, on other threads that were about improving the combat, taking it one step further, and not about ditching what we have and replacing it with something else. maybe that thread got pushed a few pages back due to “OMG I HAVE THIS TRINITY THAT’S TOTALLY NOT THE SAME AS THE OTHERS, ANET THROW AWAY YOUR COMBAT, THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER” threads being posted every other hour (alongside threads about mounts and threads about this game needing grind)

So, what you are saying is that I can’t post a suggestion on what I felt was a design idea (not something that HAS TO BE implemented) because you don’t like it…

But you like the way it is now, so I am not allowed to make my suggestions, SUGGESTIONS mind you, all because you don’t like it.

While I don’t like the way it is now, and would like to add my voice to a growing people who have also realized that maybe ‘this way’ wasn’t as great as it was originally hyped up to be, all because it doesn’t mesh with your idea of the game (which just happens to co-incide with the way it is now).

Sorry, but it doesn’t work the way it is now, or else these threads would not be on the rise. Only reason I didn’t make a new post in regards to this very topic is because there was already a topic on page and it wouldn’t probably get merged anyways.

I am not telling A.Net to throw away their combat, you read as far as…holy trinity, slammed on your breaks, and yelled at us for having the nerve to make a suggestion, without even looking at these suggestions.

I had, what I felt, was a lovely idea for a combat system that would fit in the flow of this game, yet introduce a psuedo trinity system that people would not be completely opposed to, but you, along with some unnamed others, just read HOLY TRINITY and rant and rave without understanding.

All I can say to the people wanting roles is: L2P. Yes, GW2 is harder in instances because of the lack of roles- you can no longer rely on someone else to carry you through. Suddenly you have to actually be GOOD at the game to make it through the instance in one piece. I know that’s a difficult concept to muster when coming from WoW, but that is how it is.

Arenanet is not likely going to upend their entire system for the same of a few misplaced WoW players. Now, I could see them putting in an easier mode for people struggling and personally I think that would be a great idea, but to butcher one of its primary selling points? I highly, highly doubt it.

teviko.6049:

So, what you are saying is that I can’t post a suggestion on what I felt was a design idea (not something that HAS TO BE implemented) because you don’t like it…

But you like the way it is now, so I am not allowed to make my suggestions, SUGGESTIONS mind you, all because you don’t like it.

While I don’t like the way it is now, and would like to add my voice to a growing people who have also realized that maybe ‘this way’ wasn’t as great as it was originally hyped up to be, all because it doesn’t mesh with your idea of the game (which just happens to co-incide with the way it is now).

Sorry, but it doesn’t work the way it is now, or else these threads would not be on the rise. Only reason I didn’t make a new post in regards to this very topic is because there was already a topic on page and it wouldn’t probably get merged anyways.

I am not telling A.Net to throw away their combat, you read as far as…holy trinity, slammed on your breaks, and yelled at us for having the nerve to make a suggestion, without even looking at these suggestions.

I had, what I felt, was a lovely idea for a combat system that would fit in the flow of this game, yet introduce a psuedo trinity system that people would not be completely opposed to, but you, along with some unnamed others, just read HOLY TRINITY and rant and rave without understanding.

it’s not about you not being allowed to suggest, it’s about being realistic. and realistically, suggestions that require massive changes to the core game are as good as nothing, because in no possible universe will that suggestion be taken.

and clearly there are plenty of people that like it a lot the way it is, thank you very much. part of the reason is exactly due to this lack of roles that you’re trying to fight. you want roles? there are like five thousand other MMOs that do it, GW2 doesn’t have to be yet another.

and last but not least, keep in mind that the vocal minority always makes more noise. why would the people content with it be posting on the forums about how happy they are? they’d be playing instead. the people that don’t like it are always the ones that will make the most noise.

EDIT: and i don’t know why you got the impression that i was directing my posts to you, i was directing my post to TC (if i was directing my first post to you, i’d have made it clear). i haven’t even read your posts, and i just realized that no, you’re not TC.

I don’t think I care for your idea of a game, teviko. It sounds a lot like Rift, where there are roles.

What I like about GW2 is I’m never doing only one role.

Again – my guardian gets survivability by defense and proactive self-healing. Not enough to eat big hits, but enough to go toe-to-toe with position, blinds, blocks, and dodges.

How do I heal myself? Well, I do it by giving boons to allies.

How do I give boons to allies? Every time I do critical damage, I give ’em a stack of might.

So right there in one swing, I’m absorbing or avoiding damage, supporting my group, healing myself, and doing damage. Not switching from role to role, but doing all 4 roles in one swing. If you’re ever in a dungeon group and only doing one role, you suck.

Primary selling points? All I heard was, when i bought the game, was that Everyone could perform anyone elses role.

That has proven to be extremely untrue.

I can handle myself in a dungeon, I have to many a degree, and oftentimes was the one that figured out the trick to a fight when going in with all green players. Sometimes I would be shown a trick or two myself when ‘seasoned’ players would take us through, but as for candy rides???

In no MMO I’ve ever played in have I ever rode on the skirt-tails of others.

And I have never ONCE played WoW. I hate that game, HATE HATE HATE with an ever living passion, because if you ever dislike something about a game, the reply is always: “Go back to WoW. Oh, you’re a wow-baby, go back to WoW…” WoW, WoW, WoW, how I loathe thee.

GW promised to be a next gen game by ‘re-inventing the wheel’ as it were. We were supposed to have in game persistent , player driven areas, with events that spawned when certain conditions arose that would make the game play unique everytime yoiu played it.

Yet, the dynamic events are all the same, static content that is both predictable and almost (not entirely) impossible to lose. If I do it with one character, and bring another along (another race, map completion, whatever..) its ALL the same. Nothing my hero did before reflects upon the world now.

Nothing A.Net has promised has come to pass, except for no vertical gear progression. But your mistaken if you t hink there is no grind. How else are you to get your legendary?

Buy it? With what?? The money yoiu grind?

Mats? How do you get those? Money you get from grinding? or grinding the mats.

I get people dislike the holy trinity, but they dislike it because (from what I am hearing) is because you have to rely upon others for your own effectiveness?? Uhm, don’t you have to do that in dungeons? WHat else is the point of an MMO other than to ‘react’ with other people and feed off them and in turn, them feed off you???

That is why the solo oriented person feels at home. He doesn’t have to rely on another person to spam 1, or feel like he sucks at contributing to a large scale event, becaus ethat medal pops up and tells him he got a GOLD STAR for spamming 1.

You know, I can hit Jormag once, walk away 20 minutes and then come back and claim my medal and chest for ‘doing my best!’ Doesn’t mean I earned it, and if that is what holy trinity is, please…keep it.

I’d rather find something…challenging’ and conquer it.

What I suggested would have brought a unique depth to this game without altering it, but adjusting the difficulty of the mobs (basically trash would hit at normal speed, rather than this 1.5 the normal player attack rate) and would ‘force you’ gasp to perform better in a solo manner, as well as being better when your around other people.

the primary selling point of the combat is “there are no roles, everyone is self sufficient, and cooperation comes from being efficient and versatile, not depending on two other guys to handle half the job for you”.

you clearly missed that point.

also your posts are getting longer and longer. word of advice: people on the internet don’t like reading long walls of text. make it short and concise if you expect people to read your posts.

mulch.2586:

I don’t think I care for your idea of a game, teviko. It sounds a lot like Rift, where there are roles.

What I like about GW2 is I’m never doing only one role.

Again – my guardian gets survivability by defense and proactive self-healing. Not enough to eat big hits, but enough to go toe-to-toe with position, blinds, blocks, and dodges.

How do I heal myself? Well, I do it by giving boons to allies.

How do I give boons to allies? Every time I do critical damage, I give ’em a stack of might.

So right there in one swing, I’m absorbing or avoiding damage, supporting my group, healing myself, and doing damage. Not switching from role to role, but doing all 4 roles in one swing. If you’re ever in a dungeon group and only doing one role, you suck.

Guardian or warrior, the two professed most balanced classes in the game.
Sorry, other roles ’can’t perform all 4 roles with one swing, wish we could. And again, with one swing (1 I assume) you are still contributing to the ’spam 1 mentality).

I played a mesmer from the ground up, learned things from others along the way, and from my own trial and error, I know quite a bit about ‘roles’ and what I can, cannot do, and what I should be doing to help out my team.

As I’ve stated before, a mesmer cannot heal, I can bring support to my team, that, as you said, retroactively heal them. I don’t count granting an ally a boon, but if youi think so…coolio for you. IN that case, mesmers, next to guardians, are queens of the stone age. All of our skills are duality, they grant bonuses to either myself or allies (or both) while simutaneously granting a condition to a foe. But, all in all, that is a supportive role, not a healing one. Only on the luck chaos storms (or traited clones) can a mesmer be considered a ‘healer’ even in a limited capacity.

A mesmer can’t even take a hit, that’s why we have veil, mass invis, and decoy. All designed so you can move away from that thing, or pass the buck, so…we can’t even be considered a tank, unless you count the boss/mob, one shotting our clone as ‘tanking’.

And dps…even the best geared, hardest hitting mesmer doing DPS (completely ignoring the duality nature of buffing/debuffing) still plays second fiddle to every other class out there. With slow up time, and hard to maintain hitting power, a mesmer sucks in any other capacity, other than support. And in ‘fast’ dungeon roles, mesmers are passed over for other, choicer classes.

So, I miss your point on how this unique and amazing combat system changes the ‘gaming as we know it’ when all too many times, classes are still ‘pigeon holed’ into ‘roles as we understand them’.

And as for rift, you had to spec into those traits, and ‘chance roles’ between pre-selected trait trees. This new methodology would have stances, rather than roles, that granted your mace a different unique set of abilities depending on whatever role you full filled at that time.

This kinda accomplished a few other things as well:

1) I’ve seen posts about people wanting new skills (or new and varying weapons). In a way, having 5 new abilities tied to each weapon, depending on a stance would full fill this.

2) adds the holy trinity, without having to ‘change the entire scope of the game’. Believe me, what I see in my mind does not throw the old system out and replace it with a new system. It just adds to the unique system already in place.

3) With this, people could try truly unique builds and discover a new potential within the game. You don’t ‘have to be a warrior tank. You don’t have to be the support mesmer, you don’t have to be the healing guardian, but you can be, and you can decide to perform one of these roles better than others, or be the jack of all trades in your given selection.

Nothing has to be ‘Holy Trinity’ as people think of it, it would just people filling a particular need, at that time, until someone else takes a stab at it.

BrunoBRS.5178:

the primary selling point of the combat is “there are no roles, everyone is self sufficient, and cooperation comes from being efficient and versatile, not depending on two other guys to handle half the job for you”.

you clearly missed that point.

also your posts are getting longer and longer. word of advice: people on the internet don’t like reading long walls of text. make it short and concise if you expect people to read your posts.

If everyone is self sufficient, what is the point of an MMO?

WHy even allow hundreds/thousands of other players on my server if I am going to take my ball and play in my own little world all by myself?

Kinda self defeating.

Noted, will try to be more…punctual.

^ see, that’s a much better written post. it’s short and to the point.

that said, i think you’re mistaking “co-operation” with “co-dependency”. on a trinity system, you depend on the trinity to thrive. if you and all your friends enjoy playing DPS, then sucks to you and your friends, because someone has to bail out so you can have your tanks and healers too.

on GW2, you don’t need specific roles to be an efficient party. an efficient party complements each other without having to depend on one another.

think of it this way:

in a trinity MMO, you can’t complete an instance without the trinity. you need all 3 roles to be successful.

on GW2, you still need a full party to complete an instance, but at the same time, there is no prejudice. anyone can fill that gap, as long as they’re skilled enough (and i’ve had my fair share of runs ruined by bad players doing things wrong).

suddenly, just because there is no trinity involved, player skill becomes more important than what role they’re playing. that gives players more freedom to play what they want, and allows for devs to create more versatile builds (multiple ways of supporting or dealing damage within a single class).

Ah…I see a little more where you are coming from.

I like skill, I strive to be better and better with each pass until everything is innate. I achieved that very early on with my mesmer.

However, I like filling roles. I like being a cleric in XX game, or a sorc in XX game, or a tank in XX game. If me and my friends play DPS, then we will find someone who is happy enough to play the tank/healer that we lack. For us, it sthe socialization aspect.

Guys, please don’t kidnap my post.

To those claims and believe the DFA concept is the same to tank/healer/dps, i am sorry my english is bad, but you are total not reading or able to read.

DFA is not a trinity, and personally i hate the trinity as much as you can imagine! The idea of DFA is suggesting a party can be mixed up any class any build. And none of my word asking for a fix to the game, NO! I love GW2 and the break down of tank/healer/dps role is what i want!

The DFA is actually what GW2 is doing at the moment! No change is actually needed! But what DFA telling is a character development label only. Just a name telling what my build is good at.

Who even got targeted is a drawer, anyone who is not being targeted is Flanker, for someone more focus on team support will be Aidman, what so hard to understand? But the role will change during the long fight, don’t you ever got this experience? if a drawer are down / defeated or ran far enough, the boss will choose another target! Then the other player being targeted will become drawer automatically. Drawer by no means a tank, but rather use whatever method to stay alive. It is not about taking hit, its the opposite, not taking hit or even run around to let other flankers do the damage. Please don’t tell me you spec in dps and able to dodge all attack, if you can do so, be my guest just feel free to be stay aggro and fight, no harm done.

DFA is never asking a specific combination to survive, but rather suggest everyone be responsive to yourself and your team. If you cannot stay alive as a drawer, please try something else to make yourself more durable without become the burden of your team.

For my warrior, i say he is F-D-A means my target of build my warrior is damage come first but able to stay alive being targeted but not for long, also he can provide some support to party, that’s it, its just a communication method or a way to help someone who found themselves lost the role in party. Here is another way to see “Roles” within party.

DFA system is viable even a full team of glass cannon, because there are always someone being targeted by foes, or to extreme, could be every member is a drawer. But if you are able to stay alive no matter method or gear you are using, you are perfectly fine. For someone who is not being targeted, and focused on dealing damage, they will be Flanker, on the other hand, focusing team support that’s the Aidman. The main point is, this moment you are drawer, the next moment you give your team support you are aidman, when you are free to deal damage you are flanker. There are no fix role, role is switching often. Therefore, the more your build is all-rounded, the more suitable in these 3 roles. And you are still free to build a focused role, like someone wanted to be bunker and do very little damage, fine, as long as your party accept your play style, so someone like being glass cannon, fine as long as you don’t die often.

But to those say i want to be a dedicated healer, or a main tank, there are no tank or healer build. Everyone is responsible for their own life, but you are always welcome to give support.

Hard to take OP seriously when you can’t even understand him. And giving new names to the Holy Trinity was just stupid. Don’t bother trying to explain anything to me, I won’t be back here and I read/knew what you were suggesting. Just found it pointless.