Guild Wars 2

@All:
I wouldn’t call it holy trinity, because for me that implies:
- Guardian = Tank
- thief = melee DPS
- Ranger = range DPS
- “Cleric” = healer (we don’t have that class for a good reason)
- …

GW2 is far beyond that (in theory) because if I decide to play one class I am not forced into a specific role. Let’s take a warrior, he can be Support, melee DD, range DD, Condi DD, Tank/Bunker and probably some Hybrids. And every other class can do this, too. Yes one class is a better DD, one a better Support, … So one class can do specific parts a bit better then others, but who cares? That doesn’t mean others can’t do that content the same way or without this specific role. If all classes could do the same equally good, why would we need different classes?

I miss being a purely dedicated healer. I loved being a healer, absolutely loved it. This is the reason why I played some Rift when it went F2P but I couldn’t get passed the fact that you had to stand still to cast. GW2 has completely spoiled me in that aspect; the fact that you can move and still cast/attack… I LOVE THAT FEATURE

I don’t miss the trinity. But I was and still am dissapointed by how useful healing support is.

A full berserker warrior can go full support if he/she wants. I normally do it in PUGs (if I’m the lone warrior) by going fgj/banner of disci/banner of str and then signet of rage unless the group seems to have decent DPS then I slot in warbanner for the full fury uptime. On my mesmer I have full berserker and can double boons, chain reflects, strip boons, AOE condition removal from phantasmal warden on temporal curtain whirl finisher, apply AOE quickness for DPS increase. On my (you guessed it) full berserker guardian, I can offer projectile absorption/reflection by chaining wall of reflection and then shield of the avenger. I can remove conditions with purging flames or pure of voice. I can give group protection with hold the line, group stability with stand your ground, group swiftness and aegis for skipping sections (retreat). I can make my own fire field and blast it for might. Warrior can blast fire fields with their banners.

Now people will say “but all you’re doing is increasing DPS!”, but isn’t that the point? In a trinity MMO, you have your tank taking aggro so that your DPSers can actually deal damage and not face planting, if they take hits you have your healer to heal them up so again, they’re not face planting. In both the trinity MMO case and in GW2’s case, support is designed around maximising group DPS uptime, it’s just that you’re not forced to take specific classes in GW2 and the roles aren’t clearly defined. Support in the “healing” sense doesn’t come from burst heals, it comes from damage mitigation through aegis, reflects and protection, so rather than bringing HP bars up, you’re reducing the amount they drop in the first place.

And now people will say “but this means I have to re-roll warrior, guardian, mesmer!” and to that I say that most people here have no idea what the meta is. Take your ranger, take your engineer, take your elementalist, take your thief. Geared properly and played properly, these classes can stack might better than warriors. You can deal higher damage than warriors (fiery greatsword rush will wipe the floor with warrior hundred blades, you channel for 4 seconds and deal 300k damage, warrior will do maybe 40k over a 2.75s channel). All of these classes besides engi (tell me if I’m wrong here btw) can absorb projectiles. You can stack vuln better with an engi (in fact you can hold 25 vuln permanently), ranger with spotter/frost spirit is a solid DPS increase as long as you’re using sword/warhorn and a DPS pet. Necro … admittedly lacks enough group utility.

So I’ll say it again. There is a ton of support in this game. If you think that it just requires pressing 1 on bosses, then you’ve probably watched too many speed clear videos where they’re actually using proper skill rotations, switching out utilities between fights and stacking boons so effortlessly that you don’t even notice it they’re doing it so quickly. No, you should not use stats like healing power or boon duration, they’re not needed, but in absolutely any gear you can provide a ton of support. Even a horrifically geared warrior can provide group might, fury, power, condition damage, precision and crit damage increases.

tl;dr we don’t need trinity we already have support

Karizee.8076:

Nope, don’t miss it one bit.

Combat feels much more fun and immersive without it. I like the hybrid nature of GW2’s professions and I love that parties form instantly.

This ^

people seem to be missing the fact that guild wars 2 never promised to remove the holy trinity of tanking healing and dps.

the idea was to give a new trinity, one of control/damage/support. the idea was that everyone could do a part of this in varying degrees. for examples,

control: a ranger could cripple an enemy and kite it. a thief could stun an enemy.
damage: well, pretty much what it is now
support: a warrior could shout buffs to the entire party. a guardian could provide defensive buffs.

in one of the forum posts, a dev said they were looking to address the support part in the october 17 patch.

colesy.8490:

A full berserker warrior can go full support if he/she wants. I normally do it in PUGs (if I’m the lone warrior) by going fgj/banner of disci/banner of str and then signet of rage unless the group seems to have decent DPS then I slot in warbanner for the full fury uptime. On my mesmer I have full berserker and can double boons, chain reflects, strip boons, AOE condition removal from phantasmal warden on temporal curtain whirl finisher, apply AOE quickness for DPS increase. On my (you guessed it) full berserker guardian, I can offer projectile absorption/reflection by chaining wall of reflection and then shield of the avenger. I can remove conditions with purging flames or pure of voice. I can give group protection with hold the line, group stability with stand your ground, group swiftness and aegis for skipping sections (retreat). I can make my own fire field and blast it for might. Warrior can blast fire fields with their banners.

You don’t see the problem here? You use a full offensive gear and provide even better support (due to higher crit chance) and do 150% more damage than some one who wants to play Full Giver Support. You might want to call this person idiot for running Giver armor in PvE. The only thing giver armor give better than Zerker is a 400hp/sec regeneration instead of 130 and maybe some AoE heals/shouts. This could help somehow if bosses wouldnt burst that much in a very slow rate so that all can be dodged. If they hit twice as fast with half the damage vigor and regeneration/healing would become more important. But this still wouldnt mean, that the content cant be done without a supporter.

Boon durration means nothing, because all boons can be stacked to easy. Its only interesting for solo play.

colesy.8490:

Now people will say “but all you’re doing is increasing DPS!”, but isn’t that the point? In a trinity MMO, you have your tank taking aggro so that your DPSers can actually deal damage and not face planting, if they take hits you have your healer to heal them up so again, they’re not face planting. In both the trinity MMO case and in GW2’s case, support is designed around maximising group DPS uptime, it’s just that you’re not forced to take specific classes in GW2 and the roles aren’t clearly defined. Support in the “healing” sense doesn’t come from burst heals, it comes from damage mitigation through aegis, reflects and protection, so rather than bringing HP bars up, you’re reducing the amount they drop in the first place.

I know that support means increasing DPS, but why is the zerkergeared and full dps skilled player able to do this as good or even better than someone wearing clerics gear or some other stat combinations.

colesy.8490:

And now people will say “but this means I have to re-roll warrior, guardian, mesmer!” and to that I say that most people here have no idea what the meta is. …

The problem we have now is that going everything other than zerker gear is a disadvantage for the group. Making the fights take longer, taking more damage, need more concentration, leaving a bigger place for mistakes.

colesy.8490:

(fiery greatsword rush will wipe the floor with warrior hundred blades, you channel for 4 seconds and deal 300k damage, warrior will do maybe 40k over a 2.75s channel).

Im pretty sure these 300k are not intended. No other class is able to deal that much damage.

colesy.8490:

So I’ll say it again. There is a ton of support in this game. If you think that it just requires pressing 1 on bosses, then you’ve probably watched too many speed clear videos where they’re actually using proper skill rotations, switching out utilities between fights and stacking boons so effortlessly that you don’t even notice it they’re doing it so quickly. No, you should not use stats like healing power or boon duration, they’re not needed, but in absolutely any gear you can provide a ton of support. Even a horrifically geared warrior can provide group might, fury, power, condition damage, precision and crit damage increases.

And you really dont see the problem here? btw what do you mean by horrifically geared? white, blue, green and yellow gear or 95% of the stat combinations other than zerker gear.

No we dont miss it , finally people can solo-play everything not having to kiss kitten or wait hours an end for an arrogant Tank or Healer.

As a former consistant healer player.

No…

Why?

I’m not going back to those days. The days when the healer was blamed for everything. Despite whether or not it was the healers fault. Despite that Private Jenkins “Rambo’ed” 30 yards ahead of the rest of the team, got inevitably dusted seconds later, and the healer is expected to rez/put up with that guy. Despite that I was skilled enough as the healer to always be the last to fall, but still called a nub when everyone else /resign’ed.

Nope…

Won’t do it.

The trinity mechanic is horribly artificial and very much outdated. The fact that some fights are less interesting in this game won’t magically get solved by reïntroducing the trinity. If anything, they’ll become even more stale because you now need a rotation instead of actually fighting something.

You don’t see the problem here? You use a full offensive gear and provide even better support (due to higher crit chance) and do 150% more damage than some one who wants to play Full Giver Support. You might want to call this person idiot for running Giver armor in PvE. The only thing giver armor give better than Zerker is a 400hp/sec regeneration instead of 130 and maybe some AoE heals/shouts. This could help somehow if bosses wouldnt burst that much in a very slow rate so that all can be dodged. If they hit twice as fast with half the damage vigor and regeneration/healing would become more important. But this still wouldnt mean, that the content cant be done without a supporter.

Boon durration means nothing, because all boons can be stacked to easy. Its only interesting for solo play.

Vigor is important. DPS guards stick 5 in honor for vigor on crit. Now I personally don’t see the problem at all, because it just demonstrates that you don’t need to gear in a certain way to support your team.

I know that support means increasing DPS, but why is the zerkergeared and full dps skilled player able to do this as good or even better than someone wearing clerics gear or some other stat combinations.

Because I already told you, damage mitigation is the “healing” in this game. You don’t have a player burst healing others to get them back up, you reduce the damage taken in the first place. This is exactly what ANet meant when they said “play how you want”, you can run a completely trash build but it doesn’t make your aegis or protection any worse. Admittedly if you don’t stack power, precision and crit damage your reflects become weaker … but the mechanic of reflecting projectiles itself isn’t diminished in any way.

The problem we have now is that going everything other than zerker gear is a disadvantage for the group. Making the fights take longer, taking more damage, need more concentration, leaving a bigger place for mistakes.

Precisely – because zerkers can just spam a ton of support while outputting maximum DPS.

Im pretty sure these 300k are not intended. No other class is able to deal that much damage.

I’m not going to argue what ANet intended or not since it would just go nowhere – fact of the matter is that rush completely destroys anything else in DPS so this warrior/guardian/mesmer “trinity” people have in their heads doesn’t exist. You generally only need one warrior for banners, one guard for reflects (if that’s even required) and aegis, and beyond that … do what you want.

And you really dont see the problem here? btw what do you mean by horrifically geared? white, blue, green and yellow gear or 95% of the stat combinations other than zerker gear.

A warrior in white gear.

The holy trinity is not missed because it is still in GW2.It is now called:Dps.Controll,Support.
Why?Because the roles are not pure.

colesy.8490:

1. I thought it was pretty obvious I meant that you had a mesmer in the group and were waiting for the feedback.

Protip: Don’t wait, dodge. If the mesmer does drop feedback, whether you dodged or not won’t matter. And before you go complaining about wasting endurance (because you will) I will say this: Vigor. And/or endurance regen food.

colesy.8490:

2. Except those two silvers and the two turrets actually hurt quite a lot if you can’t burst them down quickly. They even hurt if you pull them and they put the fire fields up on to where you’re standing. Dodging out of the fields can just screw up your positioning so you aren’t cleaving the two mobs and turret.

This has never been a problem for anyone except really bad zerker groups who don’t know how to dodge.

colesy.8490:

3. Lack of DPS causes wipes all the time. It’s what tends to happen when you run berserker in a PUG full of pvt, they can’t kill anything fast enough and you can’t sustain your evades long enough so you die. Sure, if you’re all berserker you can (…literally) clear a dungeon naked just with weapons and trinkets, but unless you’re on the top of your game, in a low DPS situation against a boss, their attacks will most likely end up killing you once you slip up, unless it’s something as faceroll as the effigy in CoF p1 where probably the only thing stopping you from killing it is the regen.

If you’re dying in berserker gear, either don’t use berserker gear or learn to play better. Relying on the rest of your group to burst down the boss before it can kill you doesn’t make you pro.

colesy.8490:

There are roles in the game, they’re just not as “if you don’t have this, you can’t do this content” as a trinity MMO, which is a good thing.

The roles in GW2 are so loosely defined that calling them “roles” doesn’t really fit. Highly organized groups can assign roles, but roles aren’t necessary to complete any content. GW2 is really an “every man for himself” game. If you die, 99% of the time, it was your own fault.

Raine.1394:

Sylentir.8913:

Raine.1394:

Sylentir.8913:

Raine.1394:

SNIP

Um, you keep saying that a trinity is what’s optimal or what’s most used. This is false. A trinity (When used in gaming conversations) is specifically the Tank/Heal/DPS setup that is necessary to succeed in other games. You can run 5DPS, 4DPS/anchor, 3DPS/anchor/support, or any wild party composition you want, and still finish content. There is no trinity because it isn’t required to have the tank/heal/dps elements to finish content. Emulating the trinity may be possible, but it isn’t mandatory.

You are correct in how I am using the term. I am not using it to indicate ‘mandatory’, simply optimal and most desired. GW2 does have a trinity in terms of what is most sought out and most used.

Except that’s not what a trinity means. In every other context, a trinity is used to refer to a mandatory setup. You can say that you “define it differently”, but then I could just say pink bunny tree grass and say that with my definitions, it’s a valid sentence.

I learned in my first philosophy class in college that it was fine to use a word differently, or even invent a word, as long as you gave it a definition. I am using the term trinity to mean actually having a trinity as opposed to a game that designs in and mandates a trinity.

well, see what damage postmodernism did to philosophy even.

Protip: Don’t wait, dodge. If the mesmer does drop feedback, whether you dodged or not won’t matter. And before you go complaining about wasting endurance (because you will) I will say this: Vigor. And/or endurance regen food.

Considering I only join “experienced only” groups I generally assume people know what they’re doing, so why should I play around not expecting feedback? I mean if they were ranging then sure, I’ll just ignore them and fend for myself, but if we were to full melee and finish phase 1, I’d expect a feedback.

This has never been a problem for anyone except really bad zerker groups who don’t know how to dodge.

I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. The whole point of the pull at the start is to lump the silvers and the turret with each other so you can cleave them down. If you can’t cleave, it means you soak up damage from the fire fields and they die slower, so more things have a chance of going wrong.

If you’re dying in berserker gear, either don’t use berserker gear or learn to play better. Relying on the rest of your group to burst down the boss before it can kill you doesn’t make you pro.

…where did I claim to be pro at anything? And sure, you should play better, but you can’t always dodge everything. For example I was in CoE in a low DPS group today, was doing perfectly fine at alpha (well… they were faceplanting) and I had no endurance left. Whirlwind was on cooldown too. Oops, I died. Well there was physically nothing I could do.

The roles in GW2 are so loosely defined that calling them “roles” doesn’t really fit. Highly organized groups can assign roles, but roles aren’t necessary to complete any content. GW2 is really an “every man for himself” game. If you die, 99% of the time, it was your own fault.

Roles still exist though. Just because the game doesn’t assign them for you doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Happyfool.8951:

I don’t miss being in a queue for an hour as a DPS role.

Get friends. “queueing” is not the right way to play an MMO.

colesy.8490:

Roles still exist though. Just because the game doesn’t assign them for you doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

They don’t exist.

Tell me, which class, skills and traits can I use to make myself a dedicated healer, capable of keeping up an entire dungeon party of 5?

The “healer” role does not exist, so no. However if you’d like to be a “support” role, you could load yourself with shouts, for example. With good use of shouts and virtues (on Guardian, obvz) you could make sure Kohler never pulls a single PUG in your terrible PUG party. The entire party.

A well-played Support can actually do wonders for any team and STILL be geared for DPS.

Conversely, you may have someone that tosses around blinds, chills, immob, for the control role. They do things like make sure the mobs are grouped together for your people to cleave efficiently.

unleashed.8679:

Let’s say that every Boon and non damaging Condition would be half effective than they are right now. ~30% reduced effect and duration. But on the other hand they will get stronger on both sides, effect and duration, the more boon duration I invest. The question is what happens with non damaging Conditions? Do they increase with condition duration and Condition DD’s become new meta if stacklimit get fixed (good damage + super CC), Only downside for them, vulnerability wouldn’t bring any benefit.

These are some interesting thoughts. Maybe even adding another stat like boon effectiveness and condition effectiveness. I think of these as the cc and support equivalents of crit damage.
Random thoughts boons: (fully specced)
1. Protection mitigates 50% dmg
2. Regen heals for 100% more
3. Might adds 1% crit damage
4. Swiftness overrides slowing effects by 50%
5. Stability lowers incoming condition duration by 30%

Random thoughts conditions:
1. Poison reduces incoming boom duration by 30%
2. Chilled slows attack speed by 50%(a mechanic I dont understand why it is not in the game)
3. Cripple further slows you down to 75%
4. Weakness lets your enemy‘s attacks fail 30% of the times
5. Burning is also 15% AoE dmg (Stacking on each other)
6. Fear spreads to others for 30% of the initial duration
7. Vulnerability also decreases enemy‘s toughness by 20
8. Blindness lingers for an additional 0,2…1 second)

Just something out of my head…
I never do this, but what do you guys think? (please bear in mind that these are random examples and the stat required for this would mean a heavy, heavy investement just like getting max crit damage.)
DIVA

They don’t exist.

Tell me, which class, skills and traits can I use to make myself a dedicated healer, capable of keeping up an entire dungeon party of 5?

Read:

Now people will say “but all you’re doing is increasing DPS!”, but isn’t that the point? In a trinity MMO, you have your tank taking aggro so that your DPSers can actually deal damage and not face planting, if they take hits you have your healer to heal them up so again, they’re not face planting. In both the trinity MMO case and in GW2’s case, support is designed around maximising group DPS uptime, it’s just that you’re not forced to take specific classes in GW2 and the roles aren’t clearly defined. Support in the “healing” sense doesn’t come from burst heals, it comes from damage mitigation through aegis, reflects and protection, so rather than bringing HP bars up, you’re reducing the amount they drop in the first place.

You do not need to heal to support. I’ll tell you actually how you can do what I’ve mentioned in this paragraph:

Roll a guardian. Use 0/0/0/0/0, go completely naked, use no trinkets, no weapons. Put hold the line, wall of reflection and retreat on your utility bar. SUPPORT!

Serris.6874:

people seem to be missing the fact that guild wars 2 never promised to remove the holy trinity of tanking healing and dps.

the idea was to give a new trinity, one of control/damage/support. the idea was that everyone could do a part of this in varying degrees. for examples,

control: a ranger could cripple an enemy and kite it. a thief could stun an enemy.
damage: well, pretty much what it is now
support: a warrior could shout buffs to the entire party. a guardian could provide defensive buffs.

in one of the forum posts, a dev said they were looking to address the support part in the october 17 patch.

Actually no when fighting a boss of any kind their own version of the trinity isn’t even there. Even when it comes to different kinds of DPS.

We were supposed to have what your description says happens but that’s not what we have…

control: a ranger instead of crippling the enemy uses the AOE because he’s in burst DPS gear and because using anything else on the long bow is useless, it might as well be a one button weapon, while a thief could stun an enemy but since this is a boss the enemy is immune due to imbalanced defenses vs stuns so they revert to #1 spam, Also in burst zerker gear.
damage: well, pretty much what it is now, except everyone is in burst zerker DPS gear.
support: a warrior could shout buffs to the entire party but what we really have is a warrior either using a 2 h sword to burst down the boss and a guardian could provide defensive buff but what we really have is retaliation bursts and flames all over the place. Both btw would be in burst DPS gear and nothing else.

See my point? That’s exactly what’s happening please no one come on here and try to make it seem like it’s anything else because we all know it’s not. The prices for zerker gear are the way they are because of this, people are choosing divinity runes and the moment they changed the traveler runes to include longer boons and longer conditions along with crit damage bonuses and movement speed runs due in part to how people were putting only 2 runes each on their armorsets to do just that, suddenly that runeset is astronomical in price!

That’s what the real story of combat is in this game. Until they make some much need hard choices when it comes to improving condition damage healing scaling and reducing the immunities on bosses it will remain borked.

Zeldain.5710:

colesy.8490:

Roles still exist though. Just because the game doesn’t assign them for you doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

They don’t exist.

Tell me, which class, skills and traits can I use to make myself a dedicated healer, capable of keeping up an entire dungeon party of 5?

colesy is talking about roles, as in, “It’s Joe’s role to provide block, Tom’s to provide reflection.” You’re talking about Roles, as in, “You get to stink at everything but this one aspect of play.” Thing is, you can also adopt a Role in GW2 by donning something like Magi’s gear, and speccing into healing. You won’t get the results you’d get in another game, but you get the gimping yourself part.

colesy.8490:

Considering I only join “experienced only” groups I generally assume people know what they’re doing, so why should I play around not expecting feedback? I mean if they were ranging then sure, I’ll just ignore them and fend for myself, but if we were to full melee and finish phase 1, I’d expect a feedback.

So, you choose to not dodge expecting the mesmer to cast feedback, then complain when you die because you chose to not dodge. That’s not the smartest way to approach an encounter.

colesy.8490:

I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. The whole point of the pull at the start is to lump the silvers and the turret with each other so you can cleave them down. If you can’t cleave, it means you soak up damage from the fire fields and they die slower, so more things have a chance of going wrong.

Protip: Don’t stand in the fire. I have never been in a CoF group that wiped at the very first pull. If you have, then you had a bad group. No amount of strategy, reflects, or cleaves can save you from a bad group.

colesy.8490:

…where did I claim to be pro at anything? And sure, you should play better, but you can’t always dodge everything. For example I was in CoE in a low DPS group today, was doing perfectly fine at alpha (well… they were faceplanting) and I had no endurance left. Whirlwind was on cooldown too. Oops, I died. Well there was physically nothing I could do.

I used to run CoE like it was a second job. I know subject alpha better than the devs. There is only one attack that you absolutely need to avoid, and if you’re running out of endurance during the fight, then you need more vigor and/or endurance regen food. The amount of DPS your group does shouldn’t ever affect your ability to survive an encounter. I have soloed subject alpha on more than one occasion, as a guardian, in full knight’s gear.

colesy.8490:

Roles still exist though. Just because the game doesn’t assign them for you doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

The “roles” you seem so fond of mentioning, are more like tasks.

“pull the mobs and turrets together so we can cleave them”
“drop feedback when lupicus uses his projectile attack”

These are not roles.

Quarktastic.1027:

I used to run CoE like it was a second job. I know subject alpha better than the devs. There is only one attack that you absolutely need to avoid, and if you’re running out of endurance during the fight, then you need more vigor and/or endurance regen food. The amount of DPS your group does shouldn’t ever affect your ability to survive an encounter. I have soloed subject alpha on more than one occasion, as a guardian, in full knight’s gear.

Actually, I get the feeling you don’t, because there are at least 3 attacks you need to dodge, or you’ll have a bad time…

Big ring filled with ice. Big ring with icy fog. Dragon’s tooth.

Miss any of those and you’ll have a really bad time.

I wonder how much of his hp you solo’ed though, because I heard getting crystalled is fun and avoidable when solo’ing him…

I totally miss the trinity, I was one of the few kinds of players who made a tank class as a main and later made a healer class as an alt.

GW2 could’ve been fine without the trinity but the only reason that you’re feeling “nothing is special” is that PvE has no special mechanics, everything can be blasted through with DPS and no mechanics counter it at all, not to mention w/o a dedicated healer everyone can just weave some support and heals into their builds and you end up with 5 solo players coordinating a task instead of a true group.

Lokki.1092:

Aisa.2817:

So basically, we have to keep ourselves alive and work as a team to get through dungeons. What’s wrong with that?

Work as a team? Are we playing the same (PvE) game. My teams seem to work like this.

1. Get in group
2. No need to speak to anyone unless someone doesn’t know what to do
3. Wait for cut scenes.
4. Skip what needs to be skipped
5. Kill what needs to be killed.
6. Type in /s “P2 P3?” or “Ty”

Repeat.

There is no teamwork. Those player may as well be DPS bots or NPCs. Nothing I can do will save them nothing they can do will save me. And we are all better off DPSing our faces off and just avoiding damage in the first place.

killing stuff together is team work.

laying down combo field and finishers is team work.

etc etc.

team work.

Bright.9160:

Quarktastic.1027:

I used to run CoE like it was a second job. I know subject alpha better than the devs. There is only one attack that you absolutely need to avoid, and if you’re running out of endurance during the fight, then you need more vigor and/or endurance regen food. The amount of DPS your group does shouldn’t ever affect your ability to survive an encounter. I have soloed subject alpha on more than one occasion, as a guardian, in full knight’s gear.

Actually, I get the feeling you don’t, because there are at least 3 attacks you need to dodge, or you’ll have a bad time…

Big ring filled with ice. Big ring with icy fog. Dragon’s tooth.

Miss any of those and you’ll have a really bad time.

I wonder how much of his hp you solo’ed though, because I heard getting crystalled is fun and avoidable when solo’ing him…

Pack him into a corner, and you only have to dodge the ice circle. You don’t get the dragon’s tooth in melee range.

I soloed all of his HP. Stability will prevent the crystal from trapping you, but it won’t free you once you’re trapped. Teleport skills will remove you from the crystal. Well timed stability/teleports and the crystals are no problem.

Path 1 alpha is the easiest though, since you don’t need to dodge once you get him into a corner. Even my ranger was able to solo him, by letting my pet break the crystals. My guardian has soloed path 2 alpha from 100% HP, and path 3 alpha from about 50%. Path 3 alpha is arguably the hardest to solo, because the crystals come down more frequently.

colesy.8490:

300k HP is like 20% of Lupicus’ HP. Most bosses don’t have 1.5 million HP, so warriors aren’t going to be able to repeatedly get their rotation off. You’re ignoring the fact that fiery rush has a low cooldown and can be repeated too. Lightning hammer deals about 6k/6k/10k in its auto chain too (plus a damage boost at below 33% HP so your damage will spike up about 2k more), which destroys warrior DPS again.

Cast fiery rush, teleport to your current position and then you stay where you are. Positioning doesn’t matter, you still deal a ton of damage. Check out rT’s Lupicus kill, he isn’t pushed against a wall but fiery rush takes him down in to his second phase fast.

I agree that an elementalist should be in the party (especially since i like seeing class diversity instead of 4 warrior 1 mes), but that elementalist probably wont out dps the other warrior in the party (if it is 1 war 1 ele). When using FGS I’m going to assume (other than on lupi I guess) that your mesmer can pull the boss into a wall, so that the teleport isn’t needed. In this case the warrior will out dps the ele during the dungeon run because when the ele casts fgs, a second one drops on the ground that the warrior could just walk over and pick up, same with the lightning hammer. But when those 2 spells are on cd, the warrior will be putting out more dps on trash mobs (as the boss would have probably died from 2 fgs rushes for 300k+ each). So while 1 ele 1 warrior is better than 2 warriors, that ele won’t out-dps the warrior in the party in most dungeon runs.

Although in response to OP’s post. I do miss the trinity a little (as I mainly played healers or tanks). There was just something about having the whole party’s success on your shoulders that made it exhilarating and intense. I would get a lot of compliments and guild/party invites for getting parties out of tight spots or making clutch plays. (the tank loses aggro for a second and a dps eats a powerful boss attack, or multiple dps misjudge a spell and get nuked by a boss aoe, etc. and you have to work on bringing 4+ people back up to full hp without letting anyone drop from their almost nothing). It was always just really fun to be the person that could make or break a group with one cast or one mistake or awesome play. There are still opportunities to make awesome plays in gw2, but I feel like there was a lot more with a trinity and distinct roles.

Bright.9160:

Actually, I get the feeling you don’t, because there are at least 3 attacks you need to dodge, or you’ll have a bad time…

Big ring filled with ice. Big ring with icy fog. Dragon’s tooth.

Miss any of those and you’ll have a really bad time.

I wonder how much of his hp you solo’ed though, because I heard getting crystalled is fun and avoidable when solo’ing him…

They can also be avoided by staying mobile, ESPECIALLY Dragon’s Tooth. I for one can attest that it’s perfectly possible to avoid all attacks without vigor or endurance regen.

Ortumbra.7490:

It was always just really fun to be the person that could make or break a group with one cast or one mistake or awesome play. There are still opportunities to make awesome plays in gw2, but I feel like there was a lot more with a trinity and distinct roles.

That’s exactly what’s wrong with the trinity concept. No matter how skilled you are as a player, if that ‘special person’ messes up, you won’t be able to complete your task. The good thing about GW2 is that you can salvage the fight through skill. On several occasions, I’ve managed to turn a loss into a win by temporarily soloing the boss while ressing people. That’s fun gameplay, not having to restart every time the healer or the tank makes a mistake.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

killing stuff together is team work.

laying down combo field and finishers is team work.

etc etc.

team work.

I think you are missing what I’m saying there. My point is that we don’t have role based teamwork, active teamwork or even necessary teamwork

Yes, all of us in a group fighting the boss is technically teamwork. With me being there the boss dies 20% faster than if I wasn’t

The point is that we have no active teamwork, and what teamwork we have, we don’t need. For example; Signet of Fury, Banner of discipline, and “For Great Justice” on warriors. Very common very popular… But they don’t take those groups skills or use it to give me the buff. No its worth while for them to use it for themselves. In fact you run across duplicate banners so often its comical.

The tactic, the build, the play style doesn’t change for the group, it is the exact same as solo.

That is what I mean. Sure you may combo off my Symbol of Wrath but I sure as heck didn’t put it there for you, and if you were not there I still would have put it there. I know my crits give you might… but they give me might too. guess what? The reason I have them is to increase my damage, your increase is 100% incidental.

This sort of teamwork is akin to, “We all drive cars so we are all working as a team to pollute.” While this is true in a sense, it is not the same teamwork as a basketball team, or a football team, where they actively assist their teammates and play their role on that team, in some cases the role may change. Sometimes your small forward has to get the rebound instead of the center. But the point is they have a role they play and a position on the team.

This is the kind of game based teamwork people want. It doesn’t mean we are stuck and have to stay in our roles more like football. It can be more organic than that, the point is that we have roles. As it stands now you don’t even need those people at all, nearly all bosses can be soloed because of this. Having 4 more people just make the fight faster. There are very few that have a gimmick to make you need another person and even then its not combat related, it’s simply person A must push a button.

What is my position in CoF? CoE? AC? CM? HoTW? Risen Giant? Dwayna temple? Claw of Jormag?

DPS #1, DPS #4, DPS #42…

There is nothing useful I can do aside from down the boss as fast as possible. And no amount of AOE heals, Reflects, shouts, or any “support” I can do outside of ressing people is going to be better at keeping an ally alive than they can do on their own.

unleashed.8679:

@All:
I wouldn’t call it holy trinity, because for me that implies:
- Guardian = Tank
- thief = melee DPS
- Ranger = range DPS
- “Cleric” = healer (we don’t have that class for a good reason)
- …

GW2 is far beyond that (in theory) because if I decide to play one class I am not forced into a specific role. Let’s take a warrior, he can be Support, melee DD, range DD, Condi DD, Tank/Bunker and probably some Hybrids. And every other class can do this, too. Yes one class is a better DD, one a better Support, … So one class can do specific parts a bit better then others, but who cares? That doesn’t mean others can’t do that content the same way or without this specific role. If all classes could do the same equally good, why would we need different classes?

…

I would say GW1 did a much better job with that than GW2. You could be any role really in GW1. The difference being there was always one role a specific class was best at. Which is how it should be imo. Why bother with other classes in the first place if everyone can do the same thing? Granted, GW2 does have differences between the classes. But it pales in comparison to the distinction and diversity of GW1.