Guild Wars 2

Why?

Caudacus Manor 5 Thieves.
Swapping between Range and Melee.
A combination of Sword Pistol, Dagger Dagger, Shortbow and Pistol Pistol.

Thieves are excellent at stacking blinds, 5 thieves can time it right without voip and just visual cues, when smoke fields go down, someone creates a new one. This allows for thieves to come up close and do massive damage dagger and aoe with swords.

Arah 5 Rangers
3 shortbows and 2 longbows
3 greatswords and 2 axes 1 warhorn
5 Rangers with 5 pets effectly makes it 10.

Good pet control, excellent timing with healing spring, Condition damage stacks with Shortbows and 2 Longbows for CC and power.

We were basically able to keep mobs at a good range while we kite around them

Is the holy trinity still needed?

I don’t know if its “needed”, but it sure is more fun than combat w/out it. As an 8 year MMO healer, I sure do miss having a role I enjoy playing. To me, DPS is just boring.

Its just a difference of opinion on what’s fun & challenging.

i thought thats one of the selling points of the game..?? welcome to guildwars 2

Please, it seemed this topic had really waned by now, especially with Blizzard releasing the community patch for GW2. I beg of you, please do not necro the topic.

FarFarAway.6579:

I don’t know if its “needed”, but it sure is more fun than combat w/out it. As an 8 year MMO healer, I sure do miss having a role I enjoy playing. To me, DPS is just boring.

Its just a difference of opinion on what’s fun & challenging.

We call it support in Guildwars.
As 2 of the rangers were part beast masters our healing springs were more powerful than the other.

You can play support in Gw2 but dont forsake your dps, thats a huge mistake and you’ll be grass.

Ive done healer in many MMOs and most of them are boring imo, Champs online was the only one I liked aside from the fact that their powers are pink, not only was I able to do decent DPS but I was able to support my team, most of the time they didnt even need my help for healing.

Algreg.3629:

Please, it seemed this topic had really waned by now, especially with Blizzard releasing the community patch for GW2. I beg of you, please do not necro the topic.

MoP is just a gimmick

gillius.2856:

i thought thats one of the selling points of the game..?? welcome to guildwars 2

Indeed it is, but people have been complaining about their inablity to melee because theres no dedicated healer behind them to support them.

FarFarAway.6579:

I don’t know if its “needed”, but it sure is more fun than combat w/out it. As an 8 year MMO healer, I sure do miss having a role I enjoy playing. To me, DPS is just boring.

Its just a difference of opinion on what’s fun & challenging.

And that is the big lie of the trinity; That w/o healers everyone is DPS.

It’s flat out not true, whether you enjoy the role of healer or not.

Rizzy.8293:

Why?

Caudacus Manor 5 Thieves.
Swapping between Range and Melee.
A combination of Sword Pistol, Dagger Dagger, Shortbow and Pistol Pistol.

Thieves are excellent at stacking blinds, 5 thieves can time it right without voip and just visual cues, when smoke fields go down, someone creates a new one. This allows for thieves to come up close and do massive damage dagger and aoe with swords.

Arah 5 Rangers
3 shortbows and 2 longbows
3 greatswords and 2 axes 1 warhorn
5 Rangers with 5 pets effectly makes it 10.

Good pet control, excellent timing with healing spring, Condition damage stacks with Shortbows and 2 Longbows for CC and power.

We were basically able to keep mobs at a good range while we kite around them

Is the holy trinity still needed?

Seems to me, its just liked I posted in another thread…. its “ranged” favoured.

It doesn’t matter if you like Healing, or Tanking (as I do), if you have to play “Kiting-Ranged-DPS”.

Also, as for the broad comment “…its called support in this game..” …. to get rid of the so called holy-trinity (which for anyone who has been playing mmo’s longer then when swtor was released) will know… its actually 4 (tank, healer, support, dps)
but… here is the key fact…. NOT ALL CLASSESS HAVE THE SAME ROLE BASED SKILLS…

Take for example “Warrior” – cant tank (cause tanking doesn’t exist anymore in this game), cant HEAL (except myself very crappy like), cant put down any combo-fields (but do have finishers), and while I can range…. – why would I roll a warrior if I wanting to act like a ranger??

Sorry… 5x warriors will have hell in the dungeons….
or at least the world longest and most boring kite-fest.

but don’t let the above fool you, still enjoying the game, at least the open world and wvw stuff ; and just dinged 75, wearing full set of 70 exotics with superior sigils etc.. and having a blast out there with the dynamic events…

but dungeons… went in one… wont be going back..
so once I hit 80, not sure what I will do…. :S

Auraka.6238:

Rizzy.8293:

Why?

Caudacus Manor 5 Thieves.
Swapping between Range and Melee.
A combination of Sword Pistol, Dagger Dagger, Shortbow and Pistol Pistol.

Thieves are excellent at stacking blinds, 5 thieves can time it right without voip and just visual cues, when smoke fields go down, someone creates a new one. This allows for thieves to come up close and do massive damage dagger and aoe with swords.

Arah 5 Rangers
3 shortbows and 2 longbows
3 greatswords and 2 axes 1 warhorn
5 Rangers with 5 pets effectly makes it 10.

Good pet control, excellent timing with healing spring, Condition damage stacks with Shortbows and 2 Longbows for CC and power.

We were basically able to keep mobs at a good range while we kite around them

Is the holy trinity still needed?

Seems to me, its just liked I posted in another thread…. its “ranged” favoured.

It doesn’t matter if you like Healing, or Tanking (as I do), if you have to play “Kiting-Ranged-DPS”.

Also, as for the broad comment “…its called support in this game..” …. to get rid of the so called holy-trinity (which for anyone who has been playing mmo’s longer then when swtor was released) will know… its actually 4 (tank, healer, support, dps)
but… here is the key fact…. NOT ALL CLASSESS HAVE THE SAME ROLE BASED SKILLS…

Take for example “Warrior” – cant tank (cause tanking doesn’t exist anymore in this game), cant HEAL (except myself very crappy like), cant put down any combo-fields (but do have finishers), and while I can range…. – why would I roll a warrior if I wanting to act like a ranger??

Sorry… 5x warriors will have hell in the dungeons….
or at least the world longest and most boring kite-fest.

but don’t let the above fool you, still enjoying the game, at least the open world and wvw stuff ; and just dinged 75, wearing full set of 70 exotics with superior sigils etc.. and having a blast out there with the dynamic events…

but dungeons… went in one… wont be going back..
so once I hit 80, not sure what I will do…. :S

Not at all, the thieves I played with, at first we ranged, and right after the doorguard we realized how we were synergizing as a group and started to pull out our melee and started meleeing, even when we didnt have smoke screen up we had enough mobility to go in attack and go out before another powerful swing was taken at us.

On the Airship at Arah where hordes of risen started coming onto our airship, the 3 rangers with greatswords, myself included jumped into the mob clustered them and went swing happy whilst the other longbow and shortbow ranger AOEd with poison volley and barrage, not to mention they had piercing arrows as traits and therefore arrows were aoeing by default.

Melee is just as powerful if not more powerful than ranging, but if you stand still and melee expecting to exchange numbers, you’ll die.

Playing a thief in Gw2 was no different than when I was playing a rogue in Wow, Always moved trying to get behind the target.

Playing a Ranger on Gw2 a whole lot of difference than playing a Hunter on wow, I barely melee on my hunter on wow, on Gw2, every chance I get to melee, I take it.

There may not need to be a holy trinity, but there’s certainly an over emphasis inherent in the way offensive stats benefit you. I understand they don’t want you to be able to tank or heal your way through a fight, but to almost trivialize those types of stats is lame.

Here’s an example:
About combo healing (tested in the mists, every value at least 2 times):
350 healing power – 1390
1223 healing power – 1565

+900 healing and only +200 on a heal? Why even have it then if you’ve basically made it extremely worthless? +900 to any other stat would be an enormous difference…. even toughness although it has diminishing returns.

Wait! Did you hear that? It’s the sound an old paradigm hitting the ground.

I think that’s exactly what Anet was thinking about when they ditched the holy trinity. They wanted the players to think, work together and find creative ways to overcome obstacles.

The idea of each class having its specific role worked for a long time but it is dull now and I thank Anet for breaking new ground.

@ Calavera

True, but ditching the paradigm doesn’t mean putting an overemphasis on offensive stats for defensive ones. There should be give and take, pros and cons, to every stat so that they’re all useful to a player; it’s just a matter of finding the right mix that suits to your style of play.

I won’t miss the death of the holy trinity, Ultima online had no trinity and was IMO one of the best MMO to bad it taken what nearly 13-14 years to finally come back round. The do need to make boss fights more melee friendly. The big bosses of each race starting zones sets the trend you get in melee range you are dead. I would love to see bosses who actually do more damage the further away you are or something to stop everyone becomes a range-DPS jack rabbit

If you can’t melee without someone feeding you health… You are playing it wrong. Work out your own survivability tactics and make sure you and your team has proper support. I would also note that paying attention to the mobs special abilities and fighting style would help you too.

Might not be needed but it is one of the main reasons why I went back to WoW as my main game.

Again I’m not saying it’s ‘needed’ at all some people like it the way it is and that’s fine. I like the game still think it’s pretty amazing but I simply need that ‘normal’ mmo type of raiding.

Trinity is never needed in this game. People with old mind set on MMO’s still think it does. To user the Trinity is to go back to the boring days of …. WOW. “LF tank, 2dps and healer”. That is a pain. Now with GW2 you can run a dungeon with what ever makeup you want. If you know how to play your class you always finish and have a good time.

Nothing annoys me more then seeing LFG for dungeon and they are requesting “holy trinity” setup. Seems they spent 60 bucks and missed the point of the game.

FarFarAway.6579:

I don’t know if its “needed”, but it sure is more fun than combat w/out it. As an 8 year MMO healer, I sure do miss having a role I enjoy playing. To me, DPS is just boring.

Its just a difference of opinion on what’s fun & challenging.

I play a guardian focused on support and feel very much like a healer in traditional MMOS, drop trait points into defense and boon duration and run around with a mace/shield and staff, I spend more time buffing, shielding, and reviving allies than I do just trying to max out my DPS.

now I wanna play a dungeon with all 5 engineers! the bomb aoe madness will be so totally worth a wipe here and there

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, good riddance to the holy trinity.

I certainly believe its not needed…As a response to Auraka,i believe warrior can heal decently actually and boon the team via Warhorn as an offhand and shout healing + healing gear, 2.2k heal per shout + its effect is pretty cool imo.

I don’t necessarily mind losing the holy trinity.. The problem to me here is that they replaced it with.. basically nothing. The gameplay is essentially still the same as other RPGs, you have stats, a healthbar and a mix of abilities and so does the enemies.
But however you want to look at it, there are still skills that heal, do tanky stuff (block and give protection and such) and dps.. Thing is just half your skills are presets determined by weapon, so you have to make do with that odd protection spell even though you just want to hit hard from a distance.
Further more on the right side you’re forced to have one healing spell, three utility and one elite. No more, no less.
This pretty much forces everyone to be jack of all trades, despite the fact that healing and tanking abilities do exist, you just can’t really decide how you want to set things up.

I would prefer if a weapon had for instance 10 different abilities which you could then pick and choose from yourself, based on how you want to play. Kind of like a mix of GW1 and the current GW2 I suppose.
I’d also prefer if you had the option to replace your healing ability with a utility skill, if you don’t want to do any healing, that should be your choice. Maybe you could replace utility skills with healing as well, although that would perhaps be OP as things are now.

As for traits, sure they add a bit specializing.. But it’s really not fundamentally changing your playstyle.

The initial post leads me to believe the thread should be about how OP a thief is instead of how we don’t need the trinity. I never played a thief, but after seeing one one-shot a veteran mob I’m willing to listen to arguments about how they’re overpowered.

In terms of the trinity, the trinity hold together more than you think. If one side falls, the other two take over. In this case, two sides are down. Since most players kite or dodge and healing’s terrible, defense has lost its purpose and is essentially useless. That leaves power left. And if there’s only one aspect of the trinity left you get dominate strategies forming- why be anything else if power always works? It’ll be less about having a unique build and having variety and more about who has the bigger numbers. Like in other MMOs

The trinity is a paper-rock-scissors effect that balances the three archetypes: Tanks hold the attention of enemies but have poor damage output, DPS does the damage but won’t be able to take a hit, and healing keeps them alive but could draw attention to themselves if the tank’s not there to protect them. If you got rid of healing all you have left is a tank and DPS. If you make enemies hit so hard or do so much in condition damage that no amount of defense will save you, then no one will play a tank. All that’s left is DPS. The trinity is essential to proper strategy because it gives players purpose. People seem to be under the impression that the trinity forces players to play a certain way- not so. If you give all classes at least two viable options of play (i.e. a DPS warrior vs. a tank warrior vs. a buffer warrior) then players can pick and choose who to play. And if all classes have three forms of gameplay, that’s 24 “advanced” classes you can choose from, each having their own unique form of gameplay. All this would take to come to fruition is a rebalancing to make condition damage (done by the players at least), healing power, toughness, and vitality more potent.

Or you can just click an enemy, press 1, and hold down W all while caring only how big your bow is. Whatever works.

The trinity is not essential to anything.

There are loads of trinity-based games. I can’t understand the people who bought a game that clearly and unequivocally said it was getting rid of it.

Hi. I want a burger. I’m tired of Burger Barn, so I’m going to go to Wong’s House Of Super Chinese Food. Then I’m going to tell Wong how great burgers are and how burgers are essential to running a restaurant.

I played each role of the trinity in wow, since I got bored playing only one all the time. But the time investment to keep up two or three sets of competitive gear was just too much for me. Plus, always being asked to switch to tanking because I could and the others couldn’t (or hadn’t invested the time) seriously dampened the fun I had.

I love how GW2 makes you play all three roles in one fight, focusing as much on defense as doing damage. I’m not quite so happy that kiting seems to trump defenses all the time, or how that gives an edge to ranged classes.

My Guardian has more blocks and blinds than any other class, but it’s designed to not work 100% time, otherwise it would be tanking. So at some point the boss is going take 90% of my HP in one shot and I have to run until he loses interest. Then I’m completely out of the game until I can heal to least 91% HP, so I won’t get one-shot. That takes a long time, since I’m not supposed to heal up all the damage in real time because that’d be a healer.
Meanwhile, a ranger is happily circlestrafing the boss, doing solid damage, avoiding the red circles just by running and never having to heal.

Porky.5021:

Hi. I want a burger. I’m tired of Burger Barn, so I’m going to go to Wong’s House Of Super Chinese Food. Then I’m going to tell Wong how great burgers are and how burgers are essential to running a restaurant.

Let me fix your analogy:

Hi. I want a burger. I’m tired of lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles with my patty, so I’m going to try onions and mushrooms instead. Then I’m going to stop eating onions and mushrooms because it turns out I like lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles the best after all.
However, I wouldn’t mind trying avocados and swiss cheese on it also, so when I find a menu that offers those options, I’ll probably give that a try too.

That didn’t really fix anything, that changed it.

You guys who like burgers keep coming to the chinese restaurant complaing you want burgers. Wong’s is right next to a Burger Barn for god’s sake. Go there. Quit telling Wong he needs to server burgers.

Trinity still exists, just in a different shape.
DPS/CC/Support.

Support is insanely flimsy right now, since +healing doesn’t scale, and toughness doesn’t prevent enough damage. Incidental damage from trash mobs with 1800 (rounded down) toughness and protection still almost 1 shots my guardian. Dodge isn’t always available.

No, I’m not saying there should be a healing/tank/DPS trinity. I am saying more stats that actually help support oriented characters need to work. But instead we get lazy dungeon design.

@ Strato

that’s what I’m saying… I know there are some groups that can pull of the dungeons as-is, but that doesn’t mean flawed stats are flawed stats. I’m not saying that +healing should be so OP that I can heal through a fight, but +900 healing should give me a lot more on a heal than 200 extra points or so (direct heal).

While I dont miss spamming looking for heals, i was hoping instead for all classes to be able to heal well, if thats how they chose to spec instead of now which is basically everyone heals for kitten

In my opinion “the holy trinity” makes for a more fun experiance. As it is now, everyone is just running around all over the place.
Its much easier playing as a team and everyone doing their “job” with a tank, healer etc

Maybe they could have kept the tank part, and just skipped the healer/dps part

Removing the tank and healer was a great decision. Though the combat system seems a little chaotic at the beginning, it’s rather tactical if you figure out how everything works.

From my old mmo guild, only people who haven’t played healers and tanks before are complaining, the rest is very happy.

Porky.5021:

You guys who like burgers keep coming to the chinese restaurant complaing you want burgers. Wong’s is right next to a Burger Barn for god’s sake. Go there. Quit telling Wong he needs to server burgers.

This.

I, for one, could never go back to tank/heal/dps gameplay. Watching paint dry seems more interesting than that after GW2’s combat.

DusK.3849:

Porky.5021:

You guys who like burgers keep coming to the chinese restaurant complaing you want burgers. Wong’s is right next to a Burger Barn for god’s sake. Go there. Quit telling Wong he needs to server burgers.

This.

I, for one, could never go back to tank/heal/dps gameplay. Watching paint dry seems more interesting than that after GW2’s combat.

Ever play GW1? Man the classes and builds put GW2 to shame. GW2 is more like mmo lite.

MrThebigcheese.2014:

Ever play GW1? Man the classes and builds put GW2 to shame. GW2 is more like mmo lite.

I played GW1 constantly from May 2005 onwards. I honestly like GW2’s professions better. GW1 consisted mainly of “If you’re not running Dragon Slash or Discordway, you lose.” That’s nowhere near “putting GW2 profs to shame”.

DusK.3849:

MrThebigcheese.2014:

Ever play GW1? Man the classes and builds put GW2 to shame. GW2 is more like mmo lite.

I played GW1 constantly from May 2005 onwards. I honestly like GW2’s professions better. GW1 consisted mainly of “If you’re not running Dragon Slash or Discordway, you lose.” That’s nowhere near “putting GW2 profs to shame”.

I already know how biased you are so I’ll simply tell you that your statement is 100% incorrect and wish you luck using the very, very limited skill set in GW2 while pretending it’s better.

You don’t have to wish me luck, I’ve already had great success with it. But hey, thanks anyway!

A lot of players love to heal. A lot of players love to tank. And I don’t mean the gimmick healing and tanking that Gw2 has either. Removing the Holy Trinity was one of the worst things an mmo could do. Some things are not meant to be changed. Enjoy your zerg fest Gw2 fan boys….

Geemo.6018:

A lot of players love to heal. A lot of players love to tank. And I don’t mean the gimmick healing and tanking that Gw2 has either. Removing the Holy Trinity was one of the worst things an mmo could do. Some things are not meant to be changed. Enjoy your zerg fest Gw2 fan boys….

How was it the worst thing ever? It just gives everyone a lot more choice in what they like. Before it was always restricted, and your just someone that still stuck in that ‘old’ mindset, believe me I know.

More like best thing ever. Going through an entire dungeon being pigeon-holed into one role was boring.

MrThebigcheese.2014:

DusK.3849:

MrThebigcheese.2014:

Ever play GW1? Man the classes and builds put GW2 to shame. GW2 is more like mmo lite.

I played GW1 constantly from May 2005 onwards. I honestly like GW2’s professions better. GW1 consisted mainly of “If you’re not running Dragon Slash or Discordway, you lose.” That’s nowhere near “putting GW2 profs to shame”.

I already know how biased you are so I’ll simply tell you that your statement is 100% incorrect and wish you luck using the very, very limited skill set in GW2 while pretending it’s better.

This is where The Secret World trumps guildwars2.

They took what made guildwars awesome with the “build system” and implemented it according to your equipped weapons.

Now if Guildwars2 had that, where weapons had different skills and you can choose which ones you want to use and make a 5 skill weapon build, Gw2 would have been perfect.

Geemo.6018:

A lot of players love to heal. A lot of players love to tank. And I don’t mean the gimmick healing and tanking that Gw2 has either. Removing the Holy Trinity was one of the worst things an mmo could do. Some things are not meant to be changed. Enjoy your zerg fest Gw2 fan boys….

Im not Fanboy I believe Gw2 has A LOT of flaws, but getting rid of the trinity and having people synergize with one another was one of the few right things its done.

FarFarAway.6579:

Porky.5021:

Hi. I want a burger. I’m tired of Burger Barn, so I’m going to go to Wong’s House Of Super Chinese Food. Then I’m going to tell Wong how great burgers are and how burgers are essential to running a restaurant.

Let me fix your analogy:

Don’t claim to fix his analogy, when in fact you over-complicated it and moved away from his original intent. Sheesh.

I feel like a deeper semblance of trinity would only help this game’s combat to be more structurally engaging. I don’t think it could possibly harm the game. It was done well in GW1, i don’t know why they decided to gut the strategy and tactical combat from their franchise. I’m tired of stupid, incoherent zergs with narrow mechanics and options for the player. This combat isn’t going to hold a playerbase like GW1 did so successfully. Take heed, ArenaNet. The innovations are not as good as you percieve them to be.

lothefallen.7081:

Take heed, ArenaNet. The innovations are not as good as you percieve them to be.

Take heed, losthefallen… this is purely opinion, not fact. In fact, I think some of the boss dungeon fights should be upped in difficulty so they cannot be zerged, but I can hear the river of tears that would cause already.

Cyrus.8261:

My Guardian has more blocks and blinds than any other class, but it’s designed to not work 100% time, otherwise it would be tanking. So at some point the boss is going take 90% of my HP in one shot and I have to run until he loses interest.

Not to be rude, but you’re doing it wrong.

Take the Utility skill Save Yourselves. It casts (I believe) every Boon in the game on you with a 5 second duration. Switch one of your main hand weapons to Mace, 2 of the 3 attacks (#1 & #2) have a heal. Combined with you Virtue that heals and your #6 slot heal, you are golden the majority of the time.

I use a Torch in my off hand it’s more offensive. However someone else has recommended Shield. I assume that would increase your survivability even more than my setup.

the trinity was rarely if ever needed in any MMO, it’s just always been the path of least resistance, and I do disagree with their decision to remove healing and tanking, I enjoy healing and I enjoy the structure the trinity offers for PUGs, if I want trinity free gameplay I can do it just as well in other games.

lothefallen.7081:

I feel like a deeper semblance of trinity would only help this game’s combat to be more structurally engaging. I don’t think it could possibly harm the game. It was done well in GW1, i don’t know why they decided to gut the strategy and tactical combat from their franchise. I’m tired of stupid, incoherent zergs with narrow mechanics and options for the player. This combat isn’t going to hold a playerbase like GW1 did so successfully. Take heed, ArenaNet. The innovations are not as good as you percieve them to be.

How anyone can equate “you must make your team with this makup only” (i.e. the trinity) with anything resembling “tactics” is beyond me.

You moan about zerging because you don’t understand two basic facts about this game.

#1. This game is not your standard MMO. It is actually closer to an Action RPG (think Diablo) than an MMO.

#2. You don’t use combo fields.

If you would learn and use combo fields you would now have a sense of the tactics and synergies available to you in a party in this game.

Fast paced? Yes. Zerg? No.

Guys, I want to be able to just stand in one spot and 1-2-3-4-5. Because it’s tactical. It requires teamwork.

Except no, it’s not, and it doesn’t, and anyone who would actually say otherwise wouldn’t know “tactical” or “teamwork” if either hit them in the face.

And if you’ve done a dungeon in this game, they probably have hit you in the face, pretty hard, and you zerg’d, death-ran, paid your 30s repair fee, and then came here to the forums to complain about how the dungeons are “too hard” or “badly designed.”

Zoridium JackL.7463:

the trinity was rarely if ever needed in any MMO, it’s just always been the path of least resistance, and I do disagree with their decision to remove healing and tanking, I enjoy healing and I enjoy the structure the trinity offers for PUGs, if I want trinity free gameplay I can do it just as well in other games.

Really?
Because I’ve 2 manned razorfen downs with a friend on WOW back in the vanilla days I was a druid in cat form and he was a rogue and we stealthed all the way to the lich to kill him, occasionally id need to pop back to NE form to heal him, hes still dependant on me to keep him alive

And you can tank in guildwars2, tanking doesn’t mean HEY HIT ME I CAN TAKE IT.
Tanking means holding the aggro and dodging the attacks.