Guild Wars 2

Do you people listen to the entire conversation? Or just the firsts words and come here at the forums: Oohh so-called-pros, devs proved you’re wrong, but I don’t know why…
Well, truth hurts and all those expecting a classic trinity in gw2, better take that idea out of your heads.

If you keep listening to that PoI, you will see they still want the game and professions not to be locked into trinity roles. Which means, you don’t need to be a specific profession to be the tanky or the healer, because that can be achieved, not only by some professions, but even by other ways than just 1 guy doing all that work.

Does the idea of a pure healer brake the original concept of the new trinity in gw2? NO, because people misunderstood what they where trying to do.

Gw2 was never meant to eliminate the trinity, or make healing/tanking/control worthless. What it wanted to do, and succeed, is to brake the lock of the roles to specific professions, allow the possibility to achieve those roles by multiple people, and even the possibility to win without needing all the roles.
That’s what gw2 did to the trinity.

Wait. It’s just me that don’t understand the same thing as the OP. They said, that they never intended to have no healer, just that you don’t need to be or need to have one.

They never said that they never intended to not having trinity. It seem to me that challenging group content will be hard enough that 5 zerker probably won’t be able to complete by temselves since it’s gonna be too hard. You gonna need a mix of support and healing might be something more important.

It doesn’t seem at all like trinity and it sound awesome. If they can pull it off.

If they can break the zerker meta then I am all for it. Nothing is more boring to me than a game were going max damage is by far the superior way to go. No matter how much healing/toughness I might equip, I will still get one shot like I would in zerker gear and that to me is the problem…many stats are not that strong beyond the pure dps ones.

There is always going to be a single, optimal “meta” strategy that defines the basic rules of how min-max players and their subsequent followers decide to play any given game, unless a new, better strategy that improves upon the previous optimization emerges, and then that one will dominate until said strategy also changes.

So the players define what they want to see in dungeons and PvE based upon their own criteria; in most cases it’s about reducing the speed of clearing content for faster rewards. This has occurred because there is no “trinity” in GW2.

What does a hard “trinity” model accomplish when the game content is designed around it/required to be played? It simply changes the “5 dps meta” to “1 tank 1 healer 3 dps” with no variability for change and no way for players to optimize much further or change strategies as a whole.

Anyone arguing for a “hard trinity” system doesn’t understand the fact that it solves absolutely nothing but only restricts further the options players have and create an immovable, static “meta” not subject to change regardless of player actions. In every game with a “hard trinity,” all parties will attempt to bolster DPS and reduce clear time as much as possible if it allows them to succeed at completing the content just as reliably. This just enforces certain styles are required to play, which for many, are seen as less fun and creates just as much toxicity within communities regarding kicking for group composition or not meeting the standards of other players.

ANet knows what made this game succeed was the lack of a “hard trinity.” Trying to force that upon players will only make them leave, not change their builds or play in ways they don’t think are fun.

fixit.7189:

If they can break the zerker meta then I am all for it. Nothing is more boring to me than a game were going max damage is by far the superior way to go. No matter how much healing/toughness I might equip, I will still get one shot like I would in zerker gear and that to me is the problem…many stats are worthless beyond the pure dps ones.

If they make enimies hit faster but smaller damage. If done right would make zerker gear not survive without outside healing because of not enough dodges/blocks.

Tanks could soak the damage better

And healers could keep up.

You’d still want an occasional dodge or die attack too.

simplesimon.2084:

fixit.7189:

If they can break the zerker meta then I am all for it. Nothing is more boring to me than a game were going max damage is by far the superior way to go. No matter how much healing/toughness I might equip, I will still get one shot like I would in zerker gear and that to me is the problem…many stats are worthless beyond the pure dps ones.

If they make enimies hit faster but smaller damage. If done right would make zerker gear not survive without outside healing because of not enough dodges/blocks.

Tanks could soak the damage better

And healers could keep up.

You’d still want an occasional dodge or die attack too.

There needs to be a line between making it easier for tankier players to sustain in these environments but also making it possible for skilled glass cannon players be able to survive. Forcing a style of play out of a scenario is the same as creating class restrictions, as many players do not possess multiple sets of armor or have interest in doing so or playing anything but their desired role; the same logic as to why people are upset DPS is the “meta” for speed-clears right now – the support and tank playerbase is unhappy that they have no presence, just as DPS players would be if content required them to build tankier. Do note as well that the “requirements” for tank/heal specs are completely artificial and are only defined by the players themselves wanting faster clears, not by the game’s intrinsic encounter mechanics.

I do believe they are pushing this slightly with some of the new mobs in HoT that focus ion grouping up and dealing large numbers of small attacks.

So its ok that dps people get all the glory and tank/healer types get punished…yea. Well, dps players do out number support fans by a massive margin so it is indeed understandable. I really hope HoT brings more team play aspects and less punishment to players who actually enjoy being a support player….weird I know.

fixit.7189:

Yea in GW2 there really is one role, dps….do or die. If you go tanky/healy roles you are almost always hindering other players rather than helping them; it’s better to be specced as much dps as possible and kill the mobs as quickly as possible rather than be a gimpy no effect support player that just drags things out longer than it has to be.

But in end this is how gw2 is…it’s a bastion for dps players who hate tanks/healers and wants nothing to do with them. lol.

Your comment is just so badly wrong on so many levels.

The berserker phenomenon isn’t unique to this game, and it doesn’t mean that everyone is DPS. It is entirely normal for tanks and healers to gear for as much DPS as they can manage without dying in order to clear DPS checks more easily and get things done faster. Every good healer finds ways to boost the group’s damage when they aren’t healing or handling mechanics, and tanks do barely anything but beat the snot out of enemies.

In fact, you cannot play a DPS in GW2 and not be a burden to your group. You’re a support — you contribute to heals, positioning and movement, damage, offensive buffs, or damage mitigation as needed. Cast Black Powder in the middle of a bunch of mobs? Gratz, you’re a healer now. Aggro a group of enemies then spectral recall out of sight so they have to find you? Nice tanking. Pop whirling defence while stacked with a group to negate incoming projectiles? You’re a healer again.

The idea that everyone is a DPS in GW2 is just plain idiotic and absurd.

evilunderling.9265:

The idea that everyone is a DPS in GW2 is just plain idiotic and absurd.

Thanks for bringing insults to the table. I am done replying; have fun and good luck.

fixit.7189:

No matter how much healing/toughness I might equip, I will still get one shot like I would in zerker gear and that to me is the problem…

You haven’t tried healing/toughness gear, it’s the most OP gear in the game.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

fixit.7189:

No matter how much healing/toughness I might equip, I will still get one shot like I would in zerker gear and that to me is the problem…

You haven’t tried healing/toughness gear, it’s the most OP gear in the game.

OP in what regard?

Shootsfoot.9276:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

fixit.7189:

No matter how much healing/toughness I might equip, I will still get one shot like I would in zerker gear and that to me is the problem…

You haven’t tried healing/toughness gear, it’s the most OP gear in the game.

OP in what regard?

Over Phailure

Shootsfoot.9276:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

fixit.7189:

No matter how much healing/toughness I might equip, I will still get one shot like I would in zerker gear and that to me is the problem…

You haven’t tried healing/toughness gear, it’s the most OP gear in the game.

OP in what regard?

OP in that a full nomad character can sit in melee range on mossman or lupicus and autoattack afk and not die.

Edit: Or Mai.

DeceiverX.8361:

simplesimon.2084:

fixit.7189:

If they can break the zerker meta then I am all for it. Nothing is more boring to me than a game were going max damage is by far the superior way to go. No matter how much healing/toughness I might equip, I will still get one shot like I would in zerker gear and that to me is the problem…many stats are worthless beyond the pure dps ones.

If they make enimies hit faster but smaller damage. If done right would make zerker gear not survive without outside healing because of not enough dodges/blocks.

Tanks could soak the damage better

And healers could keep up.

You’d still want an occasional dodge or die attack too.

There needs to be a line between making it easier for tankier players to sustain in these environments but also making it possible for skilled glass cannon players be able to survive. Forcing a style of play out of a scenario is the same as creating class restrictions, as many players do not possess multiple sets of armor or have interest in doing so or playing anything but their desired role; the same logic as to why people are upset DPS is the “meta” for speed-clears right now – the support and tank playerbase is unhappy that they have no presence, just as DPS players would be if content required them to build tankier. Do note as well that the “requirements” for tank/heal specs are completely artificial and are only defined by the players themselves wanting faster clears, not by the game’s intrinsic encounter mechanics.

I do believe they are pushing this slightly with some of the new mobs in HoT that focus ion grouping up and dealing large numbers of small attacks.

If we have people filling roles you’ll still could be full DPS cause you have the tankier player taking the hit or using active defence and bring kept up by the person that filled the healing roll. You DPS would just have to watch out of AOE attacks which your skilled players could dodge or your going to put extra strain on the support character

This is for group content. For open would you have to make sure that if someone is in DPS that they can kill it before they run out of there active defences and also that someone speced for support can kill it as well with there passive defence

In every MMO Ive played that had the trinity, every group had to beg to get a Healer to join it as no one wanted to be a Healer.
Most people wanted to play DPS followed by Tanks.
I played a Healer in WOW for years and came to hate the role as you got blamed every time for group wipes, even when it wasnt your fault.
Same in Lotro, too few healers , most DPS.
GW2 is great that it doesnt need this concept.

Why is toughness and healing power even in the game then lol………………..
specially healing power

Inimicus.7162:

Ragmon.6350:

Imagine the WoW druid (tank, healer, dd) depending on which tree you spec-ed, now apply that for all the WoW classes. That is GW2’s profession system in a nutshell.
Just that here the players define what they want and need for certain groups.

That’s the vision of GW2’s profession system in a nutshell. Clearly they had all that in mind when they made the things, but then some classes were over powered, some are still incredibly weak if you stack them against others, then yet others were left out and have been scorned for years because they don’t match up to what players eventually found to be optimal in small group content… which is the only place min/maxing is even remotely reasonable to try to do because for 3 years it’s been the only place you can truly have control over who gets in.

They still have things that need addressing before any amount of “tanking” can be reasonably achieved, fixing toughness in the face of PvE 1 shot mechanics is one I would place high on the list.

But the #1 thing I don’t want to see, and what Colin specifically said they are hell bent on avoiding, is creating classes that can 1 thing so well that it becomes their only thing. Think GW1… how many times did player Monks get to do the DPS? Answer is not many.

And he went farther that when you have some lynchpin class role situation, in a game that seeks to encourage pug groups…

GLF Healer, will pay 5k for run (the 1 monk in the mission outpost has been afk for 6 hours+ and nobody has heroes yet because this was pre-nightfall)

“Waiting to have fun” as he called it (wasting your life away, waiting for a specific class to show up) is something they wish to keep to a minimum.

So while they have a long way to go before the classes can properly fit into these roles, especially within the bounds of their given style… Necros have suffered in the pve meta since launch because their “style” doesn’t allow all the stuff the whole playerbase has been brow beaten into searching for, in spite of being one of the single most fun classes to play in the whole game. But I see them trying things now in preparation for HoT so hopefully they will have it hammered out and ready for the gigantic upset that some of us hope elite specs will bring. That condi meta uprising sure didn’t last long, did it? -.-

Preach it. Not to be annoying, I agree completely. I waited on monks in GW1 (I mained an Ele). DD monks rose up when they buffed RoJ.
Anet just needs to tweak the game a bit more so the condi professions have the same viability in PvE as zerkers. The condi characters are doing much better right now, and I hope they improve them a bit more. The condi uprising came and integrated itself into society.

No trinity, no problem. I don’t get why this is coming up again.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Shinji.2063:

So what do all those naysayers have to say now that the devs has said that was never their intention.

I say that ArenaNet has no consistent vision and those comments are laughable.

This is awkward…. you reported me earlier lol. Anyway, I didn’t hunt you down on the forums but I happened across this since it is still at the top.

I agree completely with what you’re saying. It’s like every few months they’re saying something completely different….. The reason I never bother watching their PoI unless it’s directly before an update will be live.

XxsdgxX.8109:

Why is toughness and healing power even in the game then lol………………..
specially healing power

Because …

• … combined with a bunker build with a large amount of sustain, they make a character very hard to kill.
• … not everyone who plays GW2 has the divinely-granted reflexes and acumen of the dedicated gamer, and they can benefit from some passive mitigation and sustain.
• … GW2 has a large and diverse community, which never speaks with one voice, nor wants all of one thing nor cares about all of the same things.
• … some play these games to create a character that thinks and reacts to the world, and have their own motivations, which sometimes include healing, or standing in the way of harm.
• … PvE, and specifically dungeons, are not the be-all and end-all of the game, and because those who think it is need to get over themselves.

simplesimon.2084:

DeceiverX.8361:

simplesimon.2084:

fixit.7189:

If they can break the zerker meta then I am all for it. Nothing is more boring to me than a game were going max damage is by far the superior way to go. No matter how much healing/toughness I might equip, I will still get one shot like I would in zerker gear and that to me is the problem…many stats are worthless beyond the pure dps ones.

If they make enimies hit faster but smaller damage. If done right would make zerker gear not survive without outside healing because of not enough dodges/blocks.

Tanks could soak the damage better

And healers could keep up.

You’d still want an occasional dodge or die attack too.

There needs to be a line between making it easier for tankier players to sustain in these environments but also making it possible for skilled glass cannon players be able to survive. Forcing a style of play out of a scenario is the same as creating class restrictions, as many players do not possess multiple sets of armor or have interest in doing so or playing anything but their desired role; the same logic as to why people are upset DPS is the “meta” for speed-clears right now – the support and tank playerbase is unhappy that they have no presence, just as DPS players would be if content required them to build tankier. Do note as well that the “requirements” for tank/heal specs are completely artificial and are only defined by the players themselves wanting faster clears, not by the game’s intrinsic encounter mechanics.

I do believe they are pushing this slightly with some of the new mobs in HoT that focus ion grouping up and dealing large numbers of small attacks.

If we have people filling roles you’ll still could be full DPS cause you have the tankier player taking the hit or using active defence and bring kept up by the person that filled the healing roll. You DPS would just have to watch out of AOE attacks which your skilled players could dodge or your going to put extra strain on the support character

This is for group content. For open would you have to make sure that if someone is in DPS that they can kill it before they run out of there active defences and also that someone speced for support can kill it as well with there passive defence

I guess many players that hate trinity not because they want to be pure dps. I don’t like to play contents that it is required to rely on a tank and a healer player to get through. I like to enjoy different combinations of class and different types of players instead of just boring tank+dps+healer.

I like it here that I can to rely on my own dodge, my survival skill to survive, this doesn’t mean solo contents. I want to support my allies and also deal some serious damage, i want to give a well timed shout heal to a dying teammate and just barely able to get him out alive. This you will not find in any trinity game out there because you are being forced to be either 1)tank, no damage no support, 2)dps, no survival no support, 3)healer, no damage

To sum it up, many players don’t like content being gated behind the requirement of best tank and healer.

Before this patch my full nomad guard was good at healing my allies and tanking and keeping conditions off, I dealt almost no significant damage but that was fine with me. After patch I can’t even keep myself alive with the same gear and similar build, and heals are awful, and I still deal no damage.
The way I liked to play the game has gone to full trash. Don’t know what class should I shift to. Makes me really sad(

Just because it wasn’t their intention doesn’t mean that it’s not the reality currently.

Right now, PvE only requires dps, there’s 0 need or want for healing or tanking

What Colin is describing is what I thought the game was going to be in 2012 when I was hyped.

At launch, I think the devs underestimated how much some players like going full defense or support, thought that Guardian and water Eles would float their boat, and said in all interviews “We know that you hate LF1M healer/tank so we threw those roles out of the window. Enjoy!” Then they realized some people just love playing those roles so this time around they’re going to be more careful about putting PvE content and elite specializations that challenge these kinds of players too.

Though that still doesn’t fix the problem of Toughness, Vitality and Healing Power not being very effective in PvE because active defenses are better than defense stats. I don’t like the idea of having stats that serve as a crutch for lack of skills. If I choose to gear in Nomad gear (I don’t) my tankiness should bring something desirable to the group since I sacrificed all my DPS for it. I don’t PvP but I know that those stats are useful in PvP; I don’t see why those wouldn’t be useful in PvE.

Bearhugger.4326:

What Colin is describing is what I thought the game was going to be in 2012 when I was hyped.

At launch, I think the devs underestimated how much some players like going full defense or support, thought that Guardian and water Eles would float their boat, and said in all interviews “We know that you hate LF1M healer/tank so we threw those roles out of the window. Enjoy!” Then they realized some people just love playing those roles so this time around they’re going to be more careful about putting PvE content and elite specializations that challenge these kinds of players too.

Though that still doesn’t fix the problem of Toughness, Vitality and Healing Power not being very effective in PvE because active defenses are better than defense stats. I don’t like the idea of having stats that serve as a crutch for lack of skills. If I choose to gear in Nomad gear (I don’t) my tankiness should bring something desirable to the group since I sacrificed all my DPS for it. I don’t PvP but I know that those stats are useful in PvP; I don’t see why those wouldn’t be useful in PvE.

I have not tried my nomad build after patch in dungeons runs, before patch I used it to run it with new people since they need a lot of support as its their 1st time. It makes them feel safe and easier to complete the run. Yes it takes like 5-10min longer than usual run but people get to learn new stuff, so that works.

When I first heard that they were going to “throw out the trinity” I thought it would be by allowing every class to fulfil the different roles: support/healing, tank/anchor and DPS and implement those roles so that you’re not just hovering over the tank as a support/healer pressing 1 to cast your small healing skill and occasionally pressing 2 for you medium healing skill, instead the healing would come as a side effect of fighting. That’s what they said so I don’t think this is a massive reversal on anything they’ve said before.

So you could, for example, tank or heal on a thief. Obviously not all professions are as effective at all roles but it should be possible to fill those roles with your character. I think they kinda have a simple form of that in the way that we share boons and some traits definitely are designed for support or increasing “tankyness”.

What actually happened was that people quickly realised they didn’t need support/healing or tank/anchor characters and only DPS is required (with a certain amount of boon sharing). I hope they introduce a need for people playing those different roles again. Those who don’t like it can still DPS those who do like it will love a required role other than DPS.

" Because if you have a strong foundation like we have, then you can build or rebuild anything on it. But if you’ve got a weak foundation you can’t build anything "

Jack Scalia

Solution: Guild Wars 2 Must Be Rebuilt From the Ground Up

‘Than we can talk about adding this or not adding that’ !

As long as there’s no particular reason not to heal or tank, people will play healers and tanks. There’s that wonderful thing called an economy going on. Demand exists, and so people try to meet that demand in order to profit.

Good trinity MMOs have fun content and provide ways for healers to make themselves useful when their heals aren’t required (usually DPS or buffing the group’s DPS), which avoids the boredom problem.

The whole “always blame the healer” thing has become a lot less prevalent in games as well — even if people think it actually was the healer’s fault, there’s almost invariably something they could have done better or differently that would have averted the wipe, so they usually don’t pass comment. The bigger problem is tank blame, since any mistake by a tank is incredibly visible.

The non-toxic, non-idiotic majority of players in most trinity games are acutely aware that insulting the tank and healer when things go wrong merely results in fewer tanks and healers queuing for content and longer waits to form pugs. That said, tank blame is still fairly common, since it’s very visible when their health plummets, or a mob switches targets, and it’s normal for players to expect to get away with going all-out.

All of this said, there’s space on the market for something different. So what do we have as support in GW2 — tank skills, healer skills, and other non-damaging utility?

• Positioning and movement of mobs — taunts, pulls, pushes, skills like spectral walk and infiltrator’s strike.
• Using crowd control on enemies to limit incoming damage, prevent them from using important skills, or to keep them vulnerable — deep freeze, head shot, diversion.
• Mitigating incoming damage to the group using area blocks, group evades, group aegis, blinds, etc. — Virtue of Courage, Feedback, Wall of Reflection.
• Helping players to mitigate incoming damage to themselves using group heals, protection, and group buffs such as vigour — Call to Arms, Healing Spring, Chaos Storm, Shadow Refuge.
• Indirect contributions to group DPS, such as might, fury, quickness, and vulnerability.
• Niche utility — poisoning mobs where enemy healers are present, for example.

There’s plenty to do here that’s not damage — you just have to do damage as well. Which is what would be expected of any good tank or healer. And high-end groups already do use all or most of these. As I said before, if you’ve never run as anything but a DPS, you have probably never had a smooth, quick, uncarried run of anything.

In fact, the reason we don’t have literal healers in GW2 is that a lot of groups are advanced enough that they don’t need healing from outside sources — which corresponds pretty neatly to the situation in other MMOs where a healer can keep everyone topped up with nothing more than their hots and pets.

Your post makes no sense.
To introduce a need for Tank / Healer characters then all the dungeons would have to be redesigned, which would then prevent them from being completed by DPS characters alone.
How can a need for a particular set of classes be introduced, without impacting in any way on players who dont like / want to play those classes.
The last thing this game needs is that every dungeon group has got to have 1 Tank and 1 Healer and a number of DPS chars.
Thats the WOW model which many people including me came here to get away from.

Bearhugger.4326:

At launch, I think the devs underestimated how much some players like going full defense or support, thought that Guardian and water Eles would float their boat, and said in all interviews “We know that you hate LF1M healer/tank so we threw those roles out of the window. Enjoy!”

That’s what most people misunderstood what devs initially had in mind. What they did is to change the limited roles of tank/healer to a more wide roles of control/support. But they didn’t eliminate them, just now healing/tanking were not a dedicated role, but a part of a bigger role.
This are the definitions of the changes:

Heal: Don’t belittle the SUPPORT role by calling it heal. Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is. It is reactive instead of proactive. Healing is for when you are already losing. In Guild Wars 2 we prefer that you support your allies before they take a beating. Sure, there are some healing spells in Guild Wars 2, but they make up a small portion of the support lines that are spread throughout the professions. Other kinds of support include buffs, active defense, and cross-profession combinations.

Tank: This is where Guild Wars 2 makes the biggest break from the traditional MMO setup. Tanking is the most rudimentary form of the most important combat fundamental, CONTROL. We wanted to build upon what we think makes control such an important part of dynamic combat. Control is the only thing versatile enough to get away from the rock-paper-scissors gameplay of other MMOs.

The new changes will bring new options for all those pigeonholed minded people, but they will still be all inefficient, because the combat of gw2 is enough complex to make healing alone less effective than all rounded support, and full tank useless, unless you make them game breaking.

simplesimon.2084:

If we have people filling roles you’ll still could be full DPS cause you have the tankier player taking the hit or using active defence and bring kept up by the person that filled the healing roll. You DPS would just have to watch out of AOE attacks which your skilled players could dodge or your going to put extra strain on the support character

This is for group content. For open would you have to make sure that if someone is in DPS that they can kill it before they run out of there active defences and also that someone speced for support can kill it as well with there passive defence

But dps in this game is so much more interesting than in classic trinity games: you not only concentrate on pushing out max damage, but also have to look after positioning, spot healing, supportive boons and crowd controls, no matter what class or character you play.

I’ve played both tank and healer in endgame raiding in trinity mmos, and fights in those games are so much less flexible. You either concentrate on max damage, max defense or max healing, and don’t spend any time on any of the other aspects of the fight. If a tank or healer goes down, the whole raid is usually screwed.

In this game, everyone can cover for everybody else, and everyone has to cover for everybody else. With the same class, depending on group composition and encounter mechanic, I can go into each of the fight aspects on demand, change my gameplay (and even equipment if necessary) to be more damage, support or cc heavy, but I can never really dismiss one of the aspects of a fight, not even in groups optimised for max killspeed.

To me, this combat system is the first time I actually enjoy playing dps, because it’s not just dps but all of my favourite playstyles rolled into one. Why split that off by assigning rigid roles to each player (and consequently higher chance of failure since the rest of the team can’t cover for one that goes down accidentally if everyone is traited and geared for their specific niche of one-trick pony playstyle)?

Soft, ever-changing combat roles are what this game excells at, at the price that people have to pay attention to all parts of combat and not just concentrate on one tiny aspect (e.g. only healing or only doing damage while avoiding aoe circles). And even better, the game still lets you play with a team-composition with more rigid roles, you just have to build your characters a bit different to do so. Why force everyone into more rigid roles when both is viable already?

This becomes all so confusing in the end.

Basically, from what i understand :

- no trinity in GW2

- every class is NOT bound by choosing a specific role out of tank/support/healer

- each class can choose on the fly (soft swap) what kind of role they bring to the table

it blends a mix depending on your build and allows you to actively swap roles or soft play between roles

- we are not concerned about the combat system, but are more concerned about the encounters (PvE) and mobs.

It’s that the mobs and encounters we have provided so far very rarely allow/encourage you to make use of the combat system as intended.

- and lastly, they will design HoT so that it will be more suited to the combat system.

but one of our goals with HoT is to help allow more room for players to experience the full range of the combat system in PvE

So what they’re saying is that we can choose to play what we want no matter what class, choose to bring more support or tank or heals (swapping roles) and that HoT will actively encourage you to do so in order for players to fully experience the combat system.

As far as i understand this, they’re saying :

Anyone can be support or tank or healer and focus on that role on the fly without the need to wait for someone specific to fullfill that role.
When you’re in a party that need a tank so to speak, anyone can take that role. Or if you need a healer, anyone can do that. There is no one specific you need to wait for.
There is no fixed trinity because anyone can fulfill that role no matter what race, class.

Ansau.7326:

What they did is to change the limited roles of tank/healer to a more wide roles of control/support. But they didn’t eliminate them, just now healing/tanking were not a dedicated role, but a part of a bigger role.
This are the definitions of the changes:

Heal: Don’t belittle the SUPPORT role by calling it heal. Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is. It is reactive instead of proactive. Healing is for when you are already losing. In Guild Wars 2 we prefer that you support your allies before they take a beating. Sure, there are some healing spells in Guild Wars 2, but they make up a small portion of the support lines that are spread throughout the professions. Other kinds of support include buffs, active defense, and cross-profession combinations.

Tank: This is where Guild Wars 2 makes the biggest break from the traditional MMO setup. Tanking is the most rudimentary form of the most important combat fundamental, CONTROL. We wanted to build upon what we think makes control such an important part of dynamic combat. Control is the only thing versatile enough to get away from the rock-paper-scissors gameplay of other MMOs.

Pretty much this.

I think it´s weird that so many apparently experienced people still have such a narrow understanding of GW2´s combat system. Both, all sorts of support and “pseudo-tanking” in the form of active defenses and CC, are vital parts of the game.

As Colin in his clarification post and many, many people before him aptly stated: The problem with GW2´s PvE is not the combat system, it is the content.

The idea of retroactively implementing a hard-trinity based combat system is ridiculously unrealistic and certainly won´t make all the issues the game currently has magically disappear.

First there are two different terms.

Trinity and Holy Trinity.

Trinity refers to the different aspects of combat – dealing damage, healing damage/mitigating damage, crowd control/support.

In old EQ it was actually 5 aspects – damage mitigation and healing were split and so were crowd control and support.

Holy Trinity refers to the single role a class executes in combat- tank, dps, heal. During an encounter the tank won’t start healing or the dps will become a tank – spec changes generally occur out of combat.

With the advent of WoW and games inspired by WoW, holy trinity and trinity became synonyms for many (most) people.

But Colin uses the original definitions for trinity and holy trinity.

People can say “look many (most) use them as synonyms, so why is Colin causing confusion”?

But how does one describe the aspects of combat without the term trinity?

Colin reddit post is pretty clear.

It works the way we intended: you can play control, support, and DPS actively. To folks who prefer to define by the holy trinity, Gw2 doesn’t force you to pick one of the three from heal, tank, or DPS and only do that – it blends a mix depending on your build and allows you to actively swap roles or soft play between roles. Our goal was to remove the forced singular role per you’re locked into, people often mistake this as saying gw2 has no trinity elements, that isn’t true – we just don’t believe in a forced role per for Gw2 for the reasons I covered in the live stream.

Notice how Colin clearly makes the distinction between Holy Trinity (role lock) and Trinity Elements (different aspects of combat).

But we all know that for PvE it mostly devolved into buff stacking, perfectly timed dodges (and other active defense) and max DPS.

If all of the aspects of trinity (dealing damage, healing/mitigating damage and CC/support) are to be present and have similar importance, encounters need to be redesigned.

Again Colin reddit post is clear.

It’s that the mobs and encounters we have provided so far very rarely allow/encourage you to make use of the combat system as intended.

Other than people thinking Trinity and Holy Trinity are the same thing, there is no room to misunderstand what Colin said.

I’m sure many of us, me for example, missed the poi for this week. After hearing what the devs had to say I thought it would be worth putting into the forums .

Collin came out for the poi and specifically said that, guild wars 2 was never meant to emphasize damage while ignoring support/healing roles. There take on the trinity was to address the problem of professions only having one role, and to instead make it possible for every class to be able to preform any role they wished.

He then went on to say that they are pushing for an emphasis in those roles, and said that new content coming in heart of thrones will require some support and healing .

Idk I thought it was a pretty big deal to be hearing this, and haven’t seen nearly enough talk about it

If it’s true. I welcome it . What are your thoughts

And someone please correct me if I took what he said the wrong way. This got my hype back up again I’d like to know now if I’m just being silly !

Swoo.5079:

First there are two different terms.

Trinity and Holy Trinity.

Trinity refers to the different aspects of combat – dealing damage, healing damage/mitigating damage, crowd control/support.

In old EQ it was actually 5 aspects – damage mitigation and healing were split and so were crowd control and support.

Holy Trinity refers to the single role a class executes in combat- tank, dps, heal. During an encounter the tank won’t start healing or the dps will become a tank – spec changes generally occur out of combat.

With the advent of WoW and games inspired by WoW, holy trinity and trinity became synonyms for many (most) people.

But Colin uses the original definitions for trinity and holy trinity.

People can say “look many (most) use them as synonyms, so why is Colin causing confusion”?

But how does one describe the aspects of combat without the term trinity?

Colin reddit post is pretty clear.

It works the way we intended: you can play control, support, and DPS actively. To folks who prefer to define by the holy trinity, Gw2 doesn’t force you to pick one of the three from heal, tank, or DPS and only do that – it blends a mix depending on your build and allows you to actively swap roles or soft play between roles. Our goal was to remove the forced singular role per you’re locked into, people often mistake this as saying gw2 has no trinity elements, that isn’t true – we just don’t believe in a forced role per for Gw2 for the reasons I covered in the live stream.

Notice how Colin clearly makes the distinction between Holy Trinity (role lock) and Trinity Elements (different aspects of combat).

But we all know that for PvE it mostly devolved into buff stacking, perfectly timed dodges (and other active defense) and max DPS.

If all of the aspects of trinity (dealing damage, healing/mitigating damage and CC/support) are to be present and have similar importance, encounters need to be redesigned.

Again Colin reddit post is clear.

It’s that the mobs and encounters we have provided so far very rarely allow/encourage you to make use of the combat system as intended.

Other than people thinking Trinity and Holy Trinity are the same thing, there is no room to misunderstand what Colin said.

Support and Damage mitigation are kind of the same thing. Unless you mean vitality/toughness as damage mitigation and Protection, Vigor, Reflect, Aegis, etc as Support.

But ya I hope that’s the direction they go toward. DPS and Support are already important in the game, but the fact that content isn’t that challenging mean that a lot of support is unnecessary. We use reflect, aegis, blind, but we rarely try to find a group with protection, vigor, weakness, etc.

I prefer active defense than defensive stats or healing. But that doesn’t matter that they can’t work together. Harder content that need both active defense to protect yourself against big burst and healing to survive quick ‘’auto-attack’’ would bring diversity in fight.

Anet already seem to make CC more important with the break bar. We’ll see. And there is other gameplay element that are not use currently. They could make boon rip important for some fight. For now there is only one fight that kind of need it, but you can just use reflect or destroy the turret.

For me, that’s what hard content should do. Force you to bring a bit of everything the game as to offer in order to succeed.

So from now until that mystical expansion whenever arena net coughs your hype changes? That sucks for you and you should learn to not get hype about new products.

Your interpretation of what Colin said is WRONG. Damage will always be emphasized because how else will the mob hp drop? What Colin said was, they don’t forced roles via holy trinity and that gw2 has soft roles. That means support, damage and control. You will always to do require damage, that’s a basic fact. He did say that current system heavily favors damage while control gets screwed via defiance, but in HOT that gets fixed. Support has always been there via buffs, regen, protect etc. in hot if boss mechanics improve players will have to time their control and hopefully boss will not allow themselves to get burst down quickly, whether by the boss based on the AI video running away to reposition itself to avoid getting melee to death.

The truth is a lot of people like yourself don’t understand the combat system very well. Zerker will probably still be the best armor set in PvE unless the content is so tough that heavily punishes mistakes and boss mechanics improve significantly from the current lack of any in PvE.

Also there is something you must learn today, roles are not related to armor stats you wear. Roles are built into traits, weapon and ultities, class mechanics. Stats only improve the strength of the soft role you play. So healing power increases regen given to players (support). Depending on the class, good players can do all 3 soft roles, while in zerker gear. Other type of gear like pvt, exist for less skilled players in PvE.

In any case what Colin said is not brand new information. This was stated 2 years ago. However, thanks to the AI improvements coming in hot this might finally happen, if you want to get easily hyped (since it seems you are) find the video online.

Also that is

My thoughts? I’m sick of hearing about the trinity. If players want that, they can return to Warcraft. Please don’t bring that tragedy to Guild Wars 2.

Swoo.5079:

First there are two different terms.

Trinity and Holy Trinity.

Trinity refers to the different aspects of combat – dealing damage, healing damage/mitigating damage, crowd control/support.

In old EQ it was actually 5 aspects – damage mitigation and healing were split and so were crowd control and support.

Holy Trinity refers to the single role a class executes in combat- tank, dps, heal. During an encounter the tank won’t start healing or the dps will become a tank – spec changes generally occur out of combat.

With the advent of WoW and games inspired by WoW, holy trinity and trinity became synonyms for many (most) people.

But Colin uses the original definitions for trinity and holy trinity.

People can say “look many (most) use them as synonyms, so why is Colin causing confusion”?

But how does one describe the aspects of combat without the term trinity?

Colin reddit post is pretty clear.

It works the way we intended: you can play control, support, and DPS actively. To folks who prefer to define by the holy trinity, Gw2 doesn’t force you to pick one of the three from heal, tank, or DPS and only do that – it blends a mix depending on your build and allows you to actively swap roles or soft play between roles. Our goal was to remove the forced singular role per you’re locked into, people often mistake this as saying gw2 has no trinity elements, that isn’t true – we just don’t believe in a forced role per for Gw2 for the reasons I covered in the live stream.

Notice how Colin clearly makes the distinction between Holy Trinity (role lock) and Trinity Elements (different aspects of combat).

But we all know that for PvE it mostly devolved into buff stacking, perfectly timed dodges (and other active defense) and max DPS.

If all of the aspects of trinity (dealing damage, healing/mitigating damage and CC/support) are to be present and have similar importance, encounters need to be redesigned.

Again Colin reddit post is clear.

It’s that the mobs and encounters we have provided so far very rarely allow/encourage you to make use of the combat system as intended.

Other than people thinking Trinity and Holy Trinity are the same thing, there is no room to misunderstand what Colin said

Source#1- 2011 Year

Source: “Can you give examples of this creative fearlessness at work in Guild Wars 2?”

Colin Johanson: “I think one of the core ones for me is taking the holy trinity [of MMO character classes] – you have your front line, you have your healer and you have your ranged character, basically – and just throwing it out the window”.

“We’re basically saying, listen, this as a core game mechanic is tired, we can do something better, we can do something more interesting than this. Let’s not do it, let’s try to do something else. And that’s what we’ve spent many years now perfecting and working on, and getting to the point that we feel we have a combat system that doesn’t need it and, we feel, works better without it”.

Source#2- 2010 Year

“Simple systems like this, along with cross-profession combos, and the dedicated healing skill slot, help free players from the MMORPG shackles, and let us break the mold even more. We’re making players more self sufficient, but are also providing appealing ways for them to effortlessly work together to create a more inspired moment-to-moment experience. That is why Guild Wars 2 does not have a dedicated healing class”.

“Everyone take a deep breath. It’s going to be OK”.

-skip-

“We keep hearing other MMO developers espousing the “holy trinity” of DPS/ heal/tank with such reverence, as if this is the most entertaining combat they have ever played. Frankly, we don’t like sitting around spamming “looking for healer” to global chat. That feels an awful lot like preparing to have fun instead of having fun".

-skip-

“Instead of the traditional trinity, every Guild Wars 2 profession is self reliant—not only can they all help each other by reviving in combat, but all professions have ways to build their characters differently to make them more versatile for group play”.

Etc…..

Trinity isn’t exactly the be-all and end-all. Games can do perfectly well without (and have).

Ardenwolfe.8590:

My thoughts? I’m sick of hearing about the trinity. If players want that, they can return to Warcraft. Please don’t bring that tragedy to Guild Wars 2.

All players want is for not all the game to be so easy bested by 5 zerkers. I think that is a fair request. Imo berserker armor should be something you use when you are in a group that you know can support you wearing it, not for every instance of the game.

Thaddeus.4891:

(…)

It doesn’t seem at all like trinity and it sound awesome. If they can pull it off.

Yeah it would be awesome if they could put soft roles into classes, i had more gameplay options with the last traits system than the actual one, the actual state is damage optimization or gtfo.

Zerker armor should be a high-risk, high-reward proposition. The Reward has always been there, but the risk never has been.

Hopefully, the Expansion will fix that somewhat.

Aeolus.3615:

Thaddeus.4891:

(…)

It doesn’t seem at all like trinity and it sound awesome. If they can pull it off.

Yeah it would be awesome if they could put soft roles into classes, i had more gameplay options with the last traits system than the actual one, the actual state is damage optimization or gtfo.

That’s not really different from Trinity games. Hardly anyone WANTS to play a tank or dedicated healer, max DPS is generally the most popular option. Leading to – as another poster already mentioned – endless requests of the type ‘group looking for healer/tank’.

MattyP.6954:

Zerker armor should be a high-risk, high-reward proposition. The Reward has always been there, but the risk never has been.

Hopefully, the Expansion will fix that somewhat.

After 2 years of same dungeon content of course players will easily overcome any content with ease.

The longer you play content the lower the risk.

This turned heated way too quick. And @ platinum member.

I think you’re mistaken in more ways then one here. Never once did I say damage will be thrown out. And never once did I say that support doesn’t exist, when did I say that? I said they are pushing for an emphasis on it. And I believe you to be wrong about dps being the best armor / build. However you want to put it.

Did he not say these support roles. Will have there place in hot?

You said you dint see dps gear sharing the spot light unless they make more punishing content. Whos to say there not? The current state of the game is pathetic when it comes to pve content and that’s due to speed clearing everything on a 5 man zerker team.

This game is too easy, face rolling content in 5 minutes isn’t fun. Your idea of the game isn’t fun for a lot of players, not all. I’m not speaking on behalf of the whole community. But this combat system , that I promise you I understand very well, lacks depth. Not because the depth isn’t there. But because its just not needed in a game where half of its utility is stuck in the shadows.

I agree with Fox, completely. I’m not saying get rid of dps, no one is. No one has.

@ ardenwolfe, I’m not asking for warcraft, I don’t want to only be able to tank on my blah or heal on my blah ( I ddidnt like wow. Didn’t make it past 20) I’m asking for roles across all classes to be viable., and content to need to take full control of the depth offered in the combat system

With all the over-use of CCs in some places, over-use of insta-gibs in others, there is just no incentive to run a tank or a healer. You have nothing to gain and a lot to lose.

GW2 will never, without very significant changes, support Trinity play, nor should it.

Tens of thousands of players, like myself, would run to the hills if strong Trinity was implemented.

PlatinumMember.5274:

MattyP.6954:

Zerker armor should be a high-risk, high-reward proposition. The Reward has always been there, but the risk never has been.

Hopefully, the Expansion will fix that somewhat.

After 2 years of same dungeon content of course players will easily overcome any content with ease.

The longer you play content the lower the risk.

The ease came from updates that made zerker too strong and Dr emphasized other builds in the game. Dungeon runs took a lot longer and usually ended up with a lot more failures back near launch. Yes partly because players didn’t know well what they were doing. But also because dps wasn’t scaled so poorly.

When the ferocity patch came in. It was extremely noticeable that dps had just became the king. Ferocity was broken. Dungeon run times decreased dramatically because people where just rolling through the content. No body los’d every fight. Or stacked . Because zerkers melted before the could get there damage off.

We want to see content that brings this combat system out of the state its in.

We have like 20+ armor sets in this game think its ok they add more roles to this game than only zerg