Guild Wars 2

… on the forums?

DPS: the attackers, whether it be ANet or another player, this role engages in criticism and negative reactions to anything and everything. Some will use the DPS rotation of, “QQ” and “whine”, followed up by, “Entitled.” Others will stick to less damaging politically correct attack rotations, which have the advantage of being less likely to attract mod aggro.

Tank: the defenders, always trying to draw poster aggro away from ANet (or, in some cases, other posters). These posters never see a criticism they don’t want to wade in and get up close with. They also need to have high energy defenses to absorb the barrage of flame from the DPS they take on.

Healer: the conciliators, these posters seek to find the middle road, the compromise. They try to find a way for everyone to win, or for everyone to get something from the forum endgame. While this is an essential role in the forum trinity, there tend not to be as many playing it, leaving some threads to devolve to conflict between DPS and DPS or DPS and Tank,

Honorable Mention: Utility: Since there used to be a quaternary in MMO’s, the forums can have one, also. These posters are the analysts. Their contribution to threads is to look at systems or numbers and try to make sense of them. They sometimes do not have a horse in the race, but feel the need to lay out the problem, because oftentimes neither the Tanks nor the DPS know what they’re talking about — in the Utility’s considered opinion.

Mine is usually Utility, though at times I play the healer, and occasionally DPS. Come to think of it, that was kind of my preferences in games that had a trinity…

It honestly depends on my mood and what the content of the thread is. I think, on the whole, I’m a mixture of your “Healer” and “Utility”.

I like to try to keep an open mind, but I will still try to bring fact, reason and a realistic view to the table. Sometimes I wonder if people see me as a bit of a party-pooper considering I’m usually the kind of person to say “this isn’t likely going to happen” to the dreamers and what-if-ers.

I’m also an avid “report” button here. I don’t like to see threads/the forum in general get out of hand or off-topic… I like to see a good discussion continue, but to be put to rest when it’s no longer constructive. I believe that the cleaner a forum is, the more valuable it is.

If somebody begins to bother me, I usually just walk away from the discussion and normally somebody else jumps in to “Tank”, but I will quite happily jump in and support somebody else if I feel like my input would be valued. (Wait… isn’t what what they call “Forum White-Knighting”? :P)

I think I’d make my own.

Enforcer: Have a set idea of how they expect an MMO to function at a basic level, often end up acting as a Tank to ensure maintenance of Rarity,Prestige, the skill>time>money hierarchy and other core MMO components. Tend to switch to DPS in situations where these are not respected or where removal is attempted, generally against Equalists. Can function as the Healer role in situations where compromise is a possibility, although rare since the topics tend to be extremely polarizing. Will use Utility when convenient to their cause.

White-knighting is part of some DPS rotations, due to its supposed armor-piercing effect on Tank armor.

Enforcer, eh? I’m up for a quintenary! Or is Conski’s contribution really just switching roles based on an underlying principle?

Just to widen things further: Wildcard. I’m on my side.

I play healer in good MMOs, in GW2 I like to play builds with lots of cc, thats pvp of course, PvE i just play the zerk meta.

Hah I like Zenleto’s description it might be more accurate for most Indigo.
Everyone has their own principals/agenda based on their experiences and can switch roles according to it.

So, some stick to one role, mostly, others switch roles based on the thread. More like GW than a trinity MMO, then.

My role is to post to as many threads before they lock but not directly contributing to that lock. +1 to score. Like… stealth thief.

it is to know my role and shut the kitten up…

according to the rock at least…