Guild Wars 2

Yes I know what the trinity is but what makes it so great and interesting and why do people want it?

This is basically what the trinity boils down to: it allows players to have more challenging fights as you need to have players work together in timing certain skills to keep the rest of the party alive or at optimal performance.

To some extent we have some coordinated game play with reflects, water fields, aegis, vulnerability stacking, might stacking (fire fields), and fury uptime “stacking”. However we can get through almost all content without using any of these coordinated play tactics. Granted we might be slower and wipe a bit more but it’s still possible to make it through.

I think what we need is more of the coordinated game play with more dire consequences for not coordinating, so that without coordination of skills, you will be unable to progress. Anet has done this right to some extent with reflect. For example in SW mid lane, harpy fractal, and TT.

My suggestion:
I would love to see more utility mechanics that work like reflect. It would be great if certain groups of classes got different sets of these mechanics. If you would fail to use this mechanic then you would die (especially if you were berserker, maybe make it so you would live if you were knights or soilder). So for example, the snipers in Arah give a unique condition status that instant kill you if you don’t dodge. Guardians, Warriors, and rangers (just picking a random 3, but might be best to do one of each armor class) would have a utility skill to negate this debuff for such an amount of time.

Another similar idea would be use of fields, such as light fields in the sniper example to negate this debuff. So say you blast a light field the debuff that instant kills you is removed. But it can’t be removed from simple condition removal. This idea would be easier to implement as Anet wouldn’t have to make new skills or attach new effects to current ones.

Conclusion:
This is just my thoughts on how to make the game more challenging. I am doubtful we would ever see anything like this because Anet caters to more casual game play which is fine. So I won’t be expecting anything like this but it would be nice and I wouldn’t mind hearing others thoughts on this. And I know this isn’t a real trinity suggestion since this would still allow for berserker meta, but I think this suggestion meshes better with the current combat system for a coordinated group play which is what (in my opinion) the Trinity boils down too (feel free to agree or disagree with that opinion though).

Thanks for reading

Andraus.3874:

This is basically what the trinity boils down to: it allows players to have more challenging fights as you need to have players work together in timing certain skills to keep the rest of the party alive or at optimal performance.

I never felt any of those ‘’players work together ’’ because of Holy Trinity. As a tank, I was doing my job, almost ignoring the rest of the team. As a healer it was the same, but I was looking at my side bar to make sure I was keeping everybody alive. There was teamwork in holy trinity game, but it wasn’t because of the trinity. In SWOTOR for exemple you had to prepare and be on the same page for the order in which you should kill the mobs, otherwise it could end badly. This was coordination, but nothing to do with holy trinity.

The reason why some people like holy trinity is because it give you a role, an important part of the team. You were the healer, if you stop your team will die and it give you an importance. As a tank if you stop doing your job the boss run after the healer and dps which are not equip to survive and the team fell apart. Since you usually only have 3 dps, if you don’t do your job right the total dps of the team if affected immediately. That’s why people like the trinity. But we all know that those strenght also come with weakness. It’s easy to put the responsibility on the healer or the tank for a wipe, the number of people that want to play tank is limited, it can be hard to find a complete party and you are hostage to the tank and healer because if they leave it’s you that will have a hard time finding a new team, not them. It also limit your role. As a healer you heal, as a tank you tank and as a dps you dps, which can be a narrow way of playing.

There is enough place in the game industry to both non holy trinity and holy trinity game. We don’t need every game to follow the exact same recipe.

Andraus.3874:

To some extent we have some coordinated game play with reflects, water fields, aegis, vulnerability stacking, might stacking (fire fields), and fury uptime “stacking”. However we can get through almost all content without using any of these coordinated play tactics. Granted we might be slower and wipe a bit more but it’s still possible to make it through.

That’s a design choice by Anet. It’s a casual game and it was designed to be completed with any build/group. You may like it or not, but that a core concept of the game and a selling point.

Zerker = trinity in this game sadly

Glass canon + active defense + support = trinity in this game YEAH

Decrypter.1785:

Zerker = trinity in this game sadly

Zerker is simply a stat combination, not the entirety of the build.

If I build my Warrior with:

• Hammer + Mace/Shield
• Banners
• Focused on Defense and Tactics lines

I could put zerker gear on but they’d still primarily be focused on control and support.

This game already has a trinity, it just happens to be gear-independent, making Berserker gear the ideal gear for all PvE content because you’ll be able to preform your trinity role(s) while also doing maximum DPS.

GW2’s trinity is:

1. Damage
2. Control
3. Support

Another difference in GW2 is that classes don’t have dedicated roles. Despite there being a trinity (and it’s definitely there), you’re not just performing 1 of the 3 roles. You’re contributing to all 3 aspects of the trinity to different degrees regardless of your class, but each class does have a focus on one of the 3 roles.

A guardian for example focuses heavily on support and control, but he brings damage to the table as well.

The elementalist will provide the party with DPS buffs and will mostly bring damage to the table, but offers some support too.

Etc. etc. etc.

in gw2 power / precision / ferocity what else… elementalist is meta now

Well now that my thread is already derailing… My suggestion is about coordinated gameplay more than the Trinity. I titled it the Trinity because it relates in a way from how I view the Trinity. But thanks for your feedback Thad I get your points as well. I just don’t see this game getting a real Trinity which is ok

I should start a thread about how many people actually read the whole first post or just respond to a few words from the title lol

Players already work together in this game, arguably more so than in games with a traditional trinity. It just works so seamlessly that most of us don’t realize.

• People have to be careful not to ‘waste’ fire fields when stacking might.
• It’s critical to position correctly and dodge on time, in concert.
• You have to coordinate fields and finishers, otherwise you can’t stack might/vulnerability, generate emergency heals, etc.
• You have to coordinate use of control skills, so that you can move/interrupt bosses when it counts, instead of on cool-down.

It happens that a lot of veterans can now do this in their sleep (just about) throughout most instanced content. But that’s got nothing to do with the presence/absence of the traditional trinity. The zerker meta isn’t the cause of this either; it’s a result of people figuring out how to minimize the effort/time to finish the content.

Every game has a meta, since players learn to adapt to the game’s mechanics a lot faster than developers (and NPCs) can evolve to keep a step ahead. When the game launched, recommended tactics involved a lot more passive defense, more defensive stats, and so on. It’s been a long time since the last major overhaul to instanced content, and we’ve figured it all out.

Holy Trinity = Tank Healer DPS
And makes no since to me
Me its more like
Melee Tank
Magic Tank – like a death knight or paladin
Magic Healer
Melee Healer
Melee Support
Magic Support
Crowed Control
Min 6 in group

Been playing Everquest 1/2 since 1999 to 2012 or so then moved over to Gw2 Huge difference def miss tank and healers all we got now is DPS,crowed control and support all bad other than the first

There’s a lot of room to push towards a more coordinated gameplay with the current game mechanics.

Thaddeus.4891:

I never felt any of those ‘’players work together ’’ because of Holy Trinity. As a tank, I was doing my job, almost ignoring the rest of the team. As a healer it was the same, but I was looking at my side bar to make sure I was keeping everybody alive.

This is very true, but “Trinity” games aren’t necessarily like that – the reason modern ones often are is because of how specialized/narrow characters have become.

I mean, go back in time to say, Dark Age of Camelot (for a long, long time the 2nd-most-popular MMO after EQ). In PvE it was technically a “Trinity” game, in that you had characters who primarily did damage, characters who primarily got monster attention, characters who primarily healed, but because the characters were much less narrowly specialized, you had considerable overlap, and people could often switch roles or occupy multiple roles – for example, look at the Warden – primary role is likely healer/buffer, but they were also tough enough to off-tank easily, and did significant enough damage that they needed to focus the right target.

You also had large groups – 8 people – so there was room for characters who weren’t overspecialized.

I could go on, but I think you get the point – it wasn’t this mindless “I only think about what I’m doing” deal that most modern trinity games are (though, tbh, if you are a tank who does not think about what the healer is doing, you are a total bad of the worst kind – and a lot of tanks are horrible bads of that kind). If you have a much looser situation, where you technically have tanks, healers, etc. but there’s a lot of crossover and hybrids and so on, and groups large enough to make that work, then it doesn’t have to be that way.

Not saying GW2 needs to implement any of that, but it’s worth knowing.

WoW has ultra-narrow specs and literally no hybrids in the real sense anymore (though it does have some talents which encourage thinking about others). SWTOR had groups so small that it was basically “specialize or screw everyone”.

Andraus.3874:

This is basically what the trinity boils down to: it allows players to have more challenging fights as you need to have players work together in timing certain skills to keep the rest of the party alive or at optimal performance.

Nah. That depends on how devs design stuff. It is possible to create hard and interesting fights with gw2 roles.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Thaddeus.4891:

I never felt any of those ‘’players work together ’’ because of Holy Trinity. As a tank, I was doing my job, almost ignoring the rest of the team. As a healer it was the same, but I was looking at my side bar to make sure I was keeping everybody alive.

This is very true, but “Trinity” games aren’t necessarily like that – the reason modern ones often are is because of how specialized/narrow characters have become.

I mean, go back in time to say, Dark Age of Camelot (for a long, long time the 2nd-most-popular MMO after EQ). In PvE it was technically a “Trinity” game, in that you had characters who primarily did damage, characters who primarily got monster attention, characters who primarily healed, but because the characters were much less narrowly specialized, you had considerable overlap, and people could often switch roles or occupy multiple roles – for example, look at the Warden – primary role is likely healer/buffer, but they were also tough enough to off-tank easily, and did significant enough damage that they needed to focus the right target.

You also had large groups – 8 people – so there was room for characters who weren’t overspecialized.

I could go on, but I think you get the point – it wasn’t this mindless “I only think about what I’m doing” deal that most modern trinity games are (though, tbh, if you are a tank who does not think about what the healer is doing, you are a total bad of the worst kind – and a lot of tanks are horrible bads of that kind). If you have a much looser situation, where you technically have tanks, healers, etc. but there’s a lot of crossover and hybrids and so on, and groups large enough to make that work, then it doesn’t have to be that way.

Not saying GW2 needs to implement any of that, but it’s worth knowing.

WoW has ultra-narrow specs and literally no hybrids in the real sense anymore (though it does have some talents which encourage thinking about others). SWTOR had groups so small that it was basically “specialize or screw everyone”.

Eurhetemec, you are pretty much describing GW1.

And I agree. Any tank who isn’t paying attention to how the group is in terms of energy, health, cooldowns, how safe it is to continue, is just doing the bare minimum of tanking, and often that’s not enough.

The unfortunate thing is, there are some very interesting fights happening in challenging content (basically fractal 30-40 and above) which make every class contributing fullfill a role and add to the group.

For example, while you can facetank just about anything for a couple of hits in dungeons or lower fractals, try doing that against any normal or veteran mob in a high level fractal and see how long it goes. Hint, not long.

So you get your elementalist for group protection and might (and reflects, and water fields, etce.tc), then you get your guardian for group aegis, reflects and on demand group support, then maybe a warrior or thief for good damage and stealth or a mesmer for portals, timewarp and reflects (I’m only mentioning some of the utilities, let’s keep it simple).

If even one of the people does not play decently or use their skills at the correct time (guardian monitoring boss attacks and group health to know when to pop that F2 or F3 for example), getting up stability/reflects to not get knocked down by harpies, etc.
You will notice the outcome. Granted, most of these are burned into an experienced players mind and it’s more a matter of going through the motions. But it does not make it less important or have less of an impact.

Unfortunately those moments are far and seldom. Normal dungeons barely require such attention (none at all actually), open world content is a huge zerg fest, spvp is probably the closest in the game that gets it right (even better sometimes than pve).

It’s not that roles are missing, it’s just most content does not require skilled play such that a lot of people never get into experiencing the goodness of this open combat system. It’s a lot harder to create content compared to the standard tank and spank that is in most other mmos.

The main reason they wanted to avoid the Trinity is that, in Trinity-centric games, it’s not so much about the trinity itself, as it is how it affects the players’ mindset.

First off, the NEED for each corner of the trinity. You could not go anywhere without one of each role.

Second, the lack okittennowledgement (partially tied into the “everyone is too absorbed in their part of the fight”) – You’re so busy watching enemy aggro as the tank, that you don’t actively acknowledge the healer keeping you alive, for example.

Which leads to the blame: If the tank DOES die, whose fault is it? Clearly the healer’s, and no one else’s. If the DPS dies, it’s either the healer, failing to keep them alive, or the tank, failing to hold enemy attention. And if enemies start going after the healer, it’s the whole front line’s fault for failing to stop the enemy.

And then there’s the entitlement. This is what happen when the lack okittennowledgment I mentioned earlier meets the other player’s ego. Why are they not praising the tank for holding the enemy so well? Where’s the love for the DPS, who did the actual killing? And the healers…. hoo boy! Without the healers, everybody dies – they hold the power of life and death, and they can WITHhold that same power!

It’s just a few months before I joined GW1, but there was once an…. incident… in that game. One that lives in infamy in the minds of all who were there. It was the Great Monk Strike of Thunderhead Keep. (Which brings us back to my FIRST point, about how difficult it is to function without all parts of the trinity!)

Guild Wars 2 consciously chose to avoid this. And it succeeded at that goal – for all the talk of a “new trinity”, you can essentially do all group content with pretty much any mix, provided everyone knows what to do in that content.

It’s not a perfect system, I’ll admit – the aversion of the trinity has led most to take a soloist attitude to the game, even, to an extent, when doing group content.

Cyninja.2954:

So you get your elementalist for group protection and might (and reflects, and water fields, etce.tc), then you get your guardian for group aegis, reflects and on demand group support, then maybe a warrior or thief for good damage and stealth or a mesmer for portals, timewarp and reflects (I’m only mentioning some of the utilities, let’s keep it simple).

Many players seem to hate this kind of teamplay.
Not everbody wants to rely on a healer – or a guard dropping his wall/stabi. Thats a classic trinity moment “does he heal me or do i die?” “does he drops the wall or am I in trouble?”.
I’d like to see more of this stuff, I prefer having a guard being responsible for WoR/stabi, an Warrior for might etc. But making this roles more important would lead to a more trinity like game.

Duke Darkwood.4237:

The main reason they wanted to avoid the Trinity is that, in Trinity-centric games, it’s not so much about the trinity itself, as it is how it affects the players’ mindset.

First off, the NEED for each corner of the trinity. You could not go anywhere without one of each role.

Second, the lack okittennowledgement (partially tied into the “everyone is too absorbed in their part of the fight”) – You’re so busy watching enemy aggro as the tank, that you don’t actively acknowledge the healer keeping you alive, for example.

Which leads to the blame: If the tank DOES die, whose fault is it? Clearly the healer’s, and no one else’s. If the DPS dies, it’s either the healer, failing to keep them alive, or the tank, failing to hold enemy attention. And if enemies start going after the healer, it’s the whole front line’s fault for failing to stop the enemy.

And then there’s the entitlement. This is what happen when the lack okittennowledgment I mentioned earlier meets the other player’s ego. Why are they not praising the tank for holding the enemy so well? Where’s the love for the DPS, who did the actual killing? And the healers…. hoo boy! Without the healers, everybody dies – they hold the power of life and death, and they can WITHhold that same power!

It’s just a few months before I joined GW1, but there was once an…. incident… in that game. One that lives in infamy in the minds of all who were there. It was the Great Monk Strike of Thunderhead Keep. (Which brings us back to my FIRST point, about how difficult it is to function without all parts of the trinity!)

Guild Wars 2 consciously chose to avoid this. And it succeeded at that goal – for all the talk of a “new trinity”, you can essentially do all group content with pretty much any mix, provided everyone knows what to do in that content.

It’s not a perfect system, I’ll admit – the aversion of the trinity has led most to take a soloist attitude to the game, even, to an extent, when doing group content.

Haha. Reminds me of looking for monks. (for that reason, playing a monk was always rewarding, even more when duo-monking with my father)

Unfortunately, removing the trinity only removed those two roles. For most modern groups to function effectively, you need might stacking, you need battle standard, you need capped vuln on foes, stealth and portals for skipping, reflects for bosses, etc.

You don’t ask for a monk or a n/rt healer, you ask for a thief or a mesmer. You don’t need a tank, you need reflects. Same deal, less choices.

Andraus.3874:

This is basically what the trinity boils down to: it allows players to have more challenging fights as you need to have players work together in timing certain skills to keep the rest of the party alive or at optimal performance.

Whats so challenging when as a DD i only have to stay behind a mob and do
my rotation .. and if i ever get aggro i blame it on the tank ??

The only real challenge there is for tanks and healers .. and we see how people
all love to be constantly challenged in those games because there are sooo
much more tanks and healers than DDs ..

oh .. wait …

I’ve played games with ‘trinity’ (in all roles) and I’ve played games without. Both take skill. Don’t know what the OP is going on about. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Duke Darkwood.4237:

The main reason they wanted to avoid the Trinity is that, in Trinity-centric games, it’s not so much about the trinity itself, as it is how it affects the players’ mindset.

First off, the NEED for each corner of the trinity. You could not go anywhere without one of each role.

Second, the lack okittennowledgement (partially tied into the “everyone is too absorbed in their part of the fight”) – You’re so busy watching enemy aggro as the tank, that you don’t actively acknowledge the healer keeping you alive, for example.

Which leads to the blame: If the tank DOES die, whose fault is it? Clearly the healer’s, and no one else’s. If the DPS dies, it’s either the healer, failing to keep them alive, or the tank, failing to hold enemy attention. And if enemies start going after the healer, it’s the whole front line’s fault for failing to stop the enemy.

And then there’s the entitlement. This is what happen when the lack okittennowledgment I mentioned earlier meets the other player’s ego. Why are they not praising the tank for holding the enemy so well? Where’s the love for the DPS, who did the actual killing? And the healers…. hoo boy! Without the healers, everybody dies – they hold the power of life and death, and they can WITHhold that same power!

It’s just a few months before I joined GW1, but there was once an…. incident… in that game. One that lives in infamy in the minds of all who were there. It was the Great Monk Strike of Thunderhead Keep. (Which brings us back to my FIRST point, about how difficult it is to function without all parts of the trinity!)

Guild Wars 2 consciously chose to avoid this. And it succeeded at that goal – for all the talk of a “new trinity”, you can essentially do all group content with pretty much any mix, provided everyone knows what to do in that content.

It’s not a perfect system, I’ll admit – the aversion of the trinity has led most to take a soloist attitude to the game, even, to an extent, when doing group content.

I was there for that strike, we do remember

Problem with the GW2 setup:

We can run a DPS build with a focus, we have 4 focus points
1 heal
2 support
3 CC
4 conditions

Why are(n’t) these used:
1 heal well not really popular, dedicated hgealers are non functional due to large range AOE heals from ele (soothingh mists) or guardian(virtue of resolve) self regens, (guard, ele": see before, warrior: healing signet, thief signet of malice? regen on stealth, necro: DS…, regen in DS , vampiric traits, health on kill, ranger signet of the wild (if I remember correct) and so on.
In case there is 1 dedicated healer groups lose 5-10% DPS but gain max health for the duration of the partyu, unless facing a very hard hitting enemy.

2 support is used, mostly in the case of blinds, chills, weakness, aegis, regen, stealth, quickness, swiftness, might and fury, when played well it makes an healer obsolete.

3 CC’s DO NOT WORK AGAINST BOSSES.

4 conditions still face the condi cap, after 3 years. rendering condi’s useless when stacks are reached. 1 mesmer and 1 other coindition userf can run in 1 party, BUT their DPS through DOT is abysmal.

In the end leaving us DMG/Support and DMG builds. DMG builds are shunned. as DMG without group support makes you no benefit for the team. this is what rangers and necro’s frequently hear…. Necro’s can provide chills, CC’s boon removal, blinds targetable healing, vulnerability regen and protection, but most do not care.
Rangers provide some group buffing through vulnerability, long range pulls and their pet (choose your buff) as well as a water field with heals and regen and condiremoval

Beldin.5498:

Whats so challenging when as a DD i only have to stay behind a mob and do
my rotation .. and if i ever get aggro i blame it on the tank ??

Only true in games with a really bad combat system without any active defense and with tank/aggro control.
Add blinds to DDs and if they get aggro they can protect each other.

In a more trinity like game DDs can be part of the defense through active defense. Bad groups might blame the healer for letting them wipe – but its their fault if they get too much dmg.
Trinity can be a chain of events: enemy is trying to attack someone: is someone in reach? Is he able to hit more than one player – one player did a mistake. Is he able to place his hard hitting attacks? DDs made a mistake and didn’t stop him from doing so (blinds, interrupts). Did the attacks hit? Protection guy made a mistake and didn’t saw the enemy placing his attacks (aegis, stabi, WoR). Is the target getting healed? If no: healer made a mistake and lets him die.
Healer is only the last instance, everybody is responsible for dmg taken. You cannot avoid all dmg, but the serious one should be avoided. Your healers will run out of mana if you do too much mistakes and your party will wipe. But if you do some mistakes (and fail the dodges for example) you won’t die, because another player could help you and fixes your mistakes.
This is imho good teamplay. If your just standing there as a DD and do your dmg stuff without caring about using active defence: in some Games (for example: GW1) your failing to do your job and someone else has to hop in and repair your mistakes. If its the healer this could cause a wipe on the long term, since he is running out of ressources.