Guild Wars 2

TheDaiBish.9735:

But in essence Vayne is right. If you have to choose between Tank, Healer or DPS – or Control, Support and DPS as is in GW2 – the variety in builds goes right down to a grand total of 3. After all, if we’re talkiing about basic roles, GW2 could have any amalgam of:

• Movement Control (Cripple, Immobilize)
• Damage Control (Weakness, Blind)
• Healing Control (Poison)
• Direct Damage
• DoT
• Boon Stripping
• Healing (Healing, Condition Removal, Regen, Reviving)
• Offensive Support (Might, Fury)
• Defensive Support (Protection, Aegis)
• Field Provision

---

It doesn’t necessarily have to be choosing between one of 3 or more possibilities. In fact, even trinity games allow healers and tanks to do more than simply heal hp bars and taunt foes. There’s usually a combination of effects in varying intensity that allows one to fill in for multiple roles or swap into other roles for limited time if circumstances require.

That being said, the points you list don’t have to be the only mechanics at work. Combos are a thing that exist, it’s just downplayed. Blocking and evading are mechanics as well, they are just overplayed. The various mechanics should be balanced in such a way that you can combine them to some degree to fulfill a specific or blend of roles. What can currently be accomplished isn’t non-existant but things lean far too much on some mechanics (like fire fields and blast finishers) and hardly at all on others (whirl/projectile finishers and practically any other field but water).

TheDaiBish.9735:

I don’t get why people are so stuck up on the fact that you need the Trinity to create engaging encounters. You don’t.

The Trinity, in essence, is only possible because there are 3 mechanics constantly needing attention: threat; outgoing damage and; incoming damage. Regardless of what else is going on in the fight or mechanics unique to that particular encounter, them 3 are a constant and will appear in every fight, thus keeping the players of these individual roles busy.

Taking that into consideration, GW2 could easily have encounters – both open-world and instanced – that required a bit more than just damage. All they would need is multiple mechanics that would need to be tending to happening at the same time.

This would open up more build diversity – since, unlike the Trinity, the encounters aren’t bound to needing a tank, healer and DPS – and at the same time, this would allow groups to choose their method of approach; everyone bring a little of everything an rotate that way or have a group where each player builds to combat a specific mechanic.

You’d likely have to broaden what each of those roles entails, however. Once you do that, then you can make more mechanics that interact with them. Currently, a support role just applying lots of boons or hp has too limiting an effect to play off of that would be crippling to any instance a dedicated support of a specific type isn’t there…

The problem with this game is that it has the potential to reach that ‘sweet middle ground’ between not having trinity at all and full-on trinity, but it’s still too far at the end of ‘not having trinity at all’ hence shoehorning everyone into berserker or damage-based builds and gear, the kill-it-quick mindset and the total lack of teammate reliance.

For me, I’d like to see more trinity in the game. But not full-on ‘hard trinity’ i.e. you absolutely have to have someone build to heal or tank. Builds should be made by Anet to boost the current abilities that professions have, namely support abilities like CC, healing and debuffing to actually make them noticeably viable in group content. An example I am hoping to see with the Druid is allowing them a way of tapping into and optimising regeneration: i.e. there is the ability within the elite spec to build so that regen is twice as effective/permanent/removes conditions over time etc. But that’s just a hypothetical example so don’t go picking me apart over that.

I will be interested to see just how they make raid content “more challenging” if they don’t ultimately move more towards trinity. Otherwise DPS will still be meta and everyone will still be rolling as full-damage zerknerds, but dying more often.

I think many are missing the point of Anet’s trinity, and yes there is a trinity in GW2, its called damage, control & support.

Anet do not want you to be locked into one role all the time, or throughout an entire dungeon for instance. They want there to be tanky builds, but tanking is not the only thing you will be able to do. Even if you stat heavily into high vitality and toughness, you can still bring along tons of control and support to help your team in other ways beyond staying alive for longer. And the beauty of the GW2 system is that you can change to a DPS build at any time (out of combat). You are not, for example, locked into a healing role as a guardian profession.

Anet are not removing the features and mechanics of the trinity, they are merely removing the confines and restrictions of it, by allowing you to mix and match or chop and change. And they are also giving you the ability to tackle any situation with any build. Raids may change this of course, and that will hopefully be in a good way, but because you can change your build you will not be stuck in one role throughout the entire raid.

I personally really like Anet’s approach to the trinity system. Their flexible soft trinity is much more engaging and adaptable than any other I have tried, and I am really looking forward to seeing how they make more use of it in raids.

Most people here don’t understand the current meta at all…

what warrior spec is meta?
support (PS + banners) or dps? → support warrior

why is there still a thief in group although ele would bring more dps? → stealth for trash skipping (support) and blinds for trash killing (control)

why do you bring a guardian? → support (stability, reflect, protect, blocks) and control (immo)

why do eles use icebow? dps (skills 4) and just as important deep freeze (skill 5) which is control.

Also eles and guardians give healing so everyone in the group constantly gets the 10% damage buff from scholar runes (another support)

→ current meta already is not about just one role (dps) it already is a trinity of dps, support and control

That moment when you realize that smart positioning and playing different roles in a fight has been shortened to simply “trinity”. Man, do I love this so-called trinity!

@Edit
Current meta is about nullifying mechanics and dealing DPS. Hope ANet fixes this horrible flaw in their PvE content. Thank you.

Rin.1046:

I think many are missing the point of Anet’s trinity, and yes there is a trinity in GW2, its called damage, control & support.

Anet do not want you to be locked into one role all the time, or throughout an entire dungeon for instance. They want there to be tanky builds, but tanking is not the only thing you will be able to do. Even if you stat heavily into high vitality and toughness, you can still bring along tons of control and support to help your team in other ways beyond staying alive for longer. And the beauty of the GW2 system is that you can change to a DPS build at any time (out of combat). You are not, for example, locked into a healing role as a guardian profession.

I certainly understand this, not only from listening to various discussions on the subject but also through experience. The problem comes in when specific aspects of the game are tuned to a point that tips them into obscurity or overuse. For example, your example of having a tanky build that can bring support. What can such a build do that an offensive build that can bring the same support cannot? The game is tuned to use various mitigation techniques that circumvent tankiness such as blocking, dodging, blinds and reflects and it’s still possible to have weakness, protection and regen application to make up for lack of defensiveness. Blast finishers also have strong effects further tuning close-proximity battles to heal and apply more boons. But on the other end of the spectrum, no traits, utilities or boons reward you for defensive stats (except regeneration), other finishers don’t support other defensive combat approaches like kiting or full range and supporting effects generally require a specific range to apply.

Rin.1046:

I personally really like Anet’s approach to the trinity system. Their flexible soft trinity is much more engaging and adaptable than any other I have tried, and I am really looking forward to seeing how they make more use of it in raids.

Not going to lie, I’m quite bias when it comes to these situations. While I like the way combat flows in this game, I don’t like how their soft trinity is executed. Coming from a different background, where a hard trinity did exist, each branch was a blend and each branch could be augmented to not needing one. I liked that approach because it basically changed how you approach fights. Each archetype felt distinct, some drastically distinct from most others and so you’d approach fights differently and thus approach group content differently depending on the blend.

But I think since the focus of content tend to fall on the reward rather than how you complete it, Anet must focus on making the act of getting to the reward non-exploitable. So players will moan if you make their content take longer to accomplish or require more clearage or enforce more task be completed to get the best reward. I hope they take their attitude toward content rewards away from speed clearing and more toward being rewarded for engaging all the content of a particular instanced situation (talking raids not current dungeons).

Dromina.5023:

Most people here don’t understand the current meta at all…

what warrior spec is meta?
support (PS + banners) or dps? -> support warrior

why is there still a thief in group although ele would bring more dps? -> stealth for trash skipping (support) and blinds for trash killing (control)

why do you bring a guardian? -> support (stability, reflect, protect, blocks) and control (immo)

why do eles use icebow? dps (skills 4) and just as important deep freeze (skill 5) which is control.

Also eles and guardians give healing so everyone in the group constantly gets the 10% damage buff from scholar runes (another support)

-> current meta already is not about just one role (dps) it already is a trinity of dps, support and control

I understand the context of GW2 but coming from standard MMOs….

1. Buffs that improve damage that isn’t exclusive to others is DPS. Improving others’ DPS can be a form of support but when said support is half meant to make you do more damage is just another form of DPS. This would be a symbiosis/pet type of DPS.

2. Out of Combat effects are utility, which I suppose can be seen as a type of support but most (again, in different context) would just consider that utility, like a thief being able to pick locks, a moderatior/bard being able to charisma their way past people, etc.

3. Control is undertuned in PvE. For the most part, movement impairing effects hardly matter, immobilize is pretty strong and everything else relies mostly on split second effects. It’s only really effective if you’ve got oppressively strong DPS and undertuned everywhere else. Considering other games, building for control here often isn’t high priority or outwardly strong.

Dexlmentia.7391:

Anet, why don’t you simply admit the Trinity is an essential part of gaming beyond the zergs we’ve had for three long years?

This incremental move toward roles, clearly demonstrated in the current and previous beta events, is tiresome.

How about no? I love gw2 because there isnt a trinity, this is how it works here. Deal with it <3

Leo G.4501:

I understand the context of GW2 but coming from standard MMOs….

1. Buffs that improve damage that isn’t exclusive to others is DPS. Improving others’ DPS can be a form of support but when said support is half meant to make you do more damage is just another form of DPS. This would be a symbiosis/pet type of DPS.

2. Out of Combat effects are utility, which I suppose can be seen as a type of support but most (again, in different context) would just consider that utility, like a thief being able to pick locks, a moderatior/bard being able to charisma their way past people, etc.

3. Control is undertuned in PvE. For the most part, movement impairing effects hardly matter, immobilize is pretty strong and everything else relies mostly on split second effects. It’s only really effective if you’ve got oppressively strong DPS and undertuned everywhere else. Considering other games, building for control here often isn’t high priority or outwardly strong.

1) So might is a dps skill? Improving other people damage is a dps skill? Ok if I agree with that will you agree that self healing is the same as group healing?

2) Does it change anything? Ok then Thief are brought into meta because they bring utilities even if they do less dps than Elementalist. Sementic won’t change anything to the situation. All profession outside of Elementalist are in the meta because for NON-DPS reason (support, control, utilities, whatever the name).

3) Control is very important in good group. It’s not as important as DPS and Support and maybe they will improve it in HoT, but it’s still present and some profession sacrifice a little of DPS to bring a bit of control to improve the overall performance of the group.

runeblade.7514:

Coldtart.4785:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Might and faceroll dpsing makes up a large part of PvE.

And yet the meta is not 5x ele.

Some say that it doesn’t happen because it would break the fabric of reality.

Well we’re getting close. Didn’t 4x ele win an ESL tournament?

Sicarius.4639:

Well we’re getting close. Didn’t 4x ele win an ESL tournament?

Yup. But it’s 4 defensive elementalist. Get back at us when 4 Fresh air elementalist will wing an ESL tournament ; )

Thaddeus.4891:

Sicarius.4639:

Well we’re getting close. Didn’t 4x ele win an ESL tournament?

Yup. But it’s 4 defensive elementalist. Get back at us when 4 Fresh air elementalist will wing an ESL tournament ; )

Oh, that makes it ok then.

I love how people call the GW2 combat system shallow while pretending like the trinity isn’t the absolute most shallow combat system on the planet.

One dude stands against wall, get all mobs to attack them. Another dude spam heals that dude, everyone else spam their DPS skills. I mean, you know the combat system is terrible when, as a healer, I literally never have to even look up from the health bars. I can select my tank, then press one or two buttons every 2-4secs.

Was a raid healer for 4 years using a Trinity system. It’s not fun anymore. Everyone who feels it is the be all end all of combat must not have played enough of it because it is soooo boooorrrrriiinnngg.

The worst part is you’re forced to do it too. At least in GW2 I can choose what I want to play. (before the metasheep chime in here, you can play other builds in this game…) If I want to play a heal build, I can, if I want to be survivable, I can, if I want DPS, I can. Will I kill things slower, sure, but who cares this is a game. You’re not rewarded anything extra for your epic completion times….

Draknar.5748:

I love how people call the GW2 combat system shallow while pretending like the trinity isn’t the absolute most shallow combat system on the planet.

One dude stands against wall, get all mobs to attack them. Another dude spam heals that dude, everyone else spam their DPS skills. I mean, you know the combat system is terrible when, as a healer, I literally never have to even look up from the health bars. I can select my tank, then press one or two buttons every 2-4secs.

Was a raid healer for 4 years using a Trinity system. It’s not fun anymore. Everyone who feels it is the be all end all of combat must not have played enough of it because it is soooo boooorrrrriiinnngg.

The worst part is you’re forced to do it too. At least in GW2 I can choose what I want to play. (before the metasheep chime in here, you can play other builds in this game…) If I want to play a heal build, I can, if I want to be survivable, I can, if I want DPS, I can. Will I kill things slower, sure, but who cares this is a game. You’re not rewarded anything extra for your epic completion times….

That’s because of the content. One requires you to fill more roles the other doesn’t.

We have no trinity currently because we don’t need one, the mechanics are so poor yeah, you could run a healing build, but why? Everyone has pilled into the corner and grabbed the Ele’s conjured weapons. You’re not contributing anything.

Sicarius.4639:

That’s because of the content. One requires you to fill more roles the other doesn’t.

We have no trinity currently because we don’t need one, the mechanics are so poor yeah, you could run a healing build, but why? Everyone has pilled into the corner and grabbed the Ele’s conjured weapons. You’re not contributing anything.

Gear =/= roles.

On my Elementalist I try to max my DPS, on my thief I focus on stealth and blind, on my guardian i focus on keeping my allies high hp.

That three higly different role right there. But people see zerker and think OMG JUST ONE ROLE EVERYBODY DO THE SAME QQQQQQQ

Could they improve it? Yes. But saying that GW2 doesn’t have role is non sense.

Thaddeus.4891:

Sicarius.4639:

That’s because of the content. One requires you to fill more roles the other doesn’t.

We have no trinity currently because we don’t need one, the mechanics are so poor yeah, you could run a healing build, but why? Everyone has pilled into the corner and grabbed the Ele’s conjured weapons. You’re not contributing anything.

Gear =/= roles.

On my Elementalist I try to max my DPS, on my thief I focus on stealth and blind, on my guardian i focus on keeping my allies high hp.

That three higly different role right there. But people see zerker and think OMG JUST ONE ROLE EVERYBODY DO THE SAME QQQQQQQ

Could they improve it? Yes. But saying that GW2 doesn’t have role is non sense.

Sadly, most people won’t ever understand that your role isn’t defined by a stat combo rather than a build, and that the stat combo is here only to improve the efficiency of the said build, but it’s just some BONUS and not mandatory at all by the design of the game wanted since headstart by the developpers.

Sadly the people that don’t get it seem to be the Devs who aren’t making gear that would better fit roles other than DPS, like FIXING GIVER’S ARMOR for example.

xvalkyrie.6742:

Yeah, because with trinity mmos, I never hated this part at ALL…

“3 DPS lf 1 healer, 1 tank”

3 hours later…

“3 DPS lf 1 healer, 1 tank”

The other two in my group turn to me and beg me to please play my healer or tank so we can just GO already.

And the whole WoW lfg finder only sort of fixed things, because 3 dps will still wait around for healers and tanks to join, when a healer or tank a group pops immediately (especially if you’re a healer).

Yeah, that was fun never playing dps because nobody wants to be a healer or tank when the dps charge forward then blame you for not taunting enough or not healing enough.

Forget that crap. I’m happy that people have to not be dain bramaged and know how to dodge, how to take care of themselves, how to stack boons and strip conditions and play as a team. And if you don’t think that’s what happens in pve and wvw and even pvp, then I hope you get the opportunity to play with more experienced individuals in the future.

Experienced members of GW2, take a newbie under your wing, bring the community up. This trinity stuff pops up most on the forums from people who don’t understand how the game is supposed to function and have only played trinity mmos and rpgs. Lets change some hearts and minds when you see it in game.

You just compared the bad people who play trinity to the good people who play GW2.

Not advocating either but the good people who play trinity help bring up new players just like the good players in GW2 and the bad players in GW2 still run around as heedlessly as the bad players in trinity.

Honestly the whole "meta’ thing is pointless until raids come out.

Who cares if you can steamroll 3 year old content that was abandoned over 2 years ago? Anet could care less about dungeons, and you should to.

There is no meta until we see raids. Once optimal raid comps are figured out then we will have a better idea of what is “meta”. Ele’s could be completely useless in raids if the bosses constantly move and deal AOE consistent damage or if you need to break into small teams where you can’t just stack.

I do feel fairly confident in saying that PS warriors will still be wanted. 1000 power, 20% crit and ferocity are hard to pass up no matter what the situation.

Azumi.9572:

portedGoblin.7413:

Don’t introduce Trinity, but some changes are needed I think.

To me it is very boring that all the game content is best done in Berserker gear.

Sometimes I spend some time looking into traits and build for a support build and maybe that would be fun to change things up a bit. Try something new. All the gear, traits etc exists to do it, except game content.
Where would I play it? If I try dungeon I will be kicked. All world PVE/Living Story can be done in Berserker gear. Shadow Behemoth… yeah that would really help!

I think the games needs to be rebalanced so that it would be very difficult to play any content solo in Berserker gear. Most mobs today only attack once every 10s or so, to make sure you can doge most of the attacks. I think we should keep these, but also to add some constant damage in between.

That way you could get a support friend and the two of you team up, one DPS with a little support, maybe a Celestial build, the other could go Berserker.

A dungeon group could be 1 support + 4 DPS. Not trinity but at least some more opportunity to play some other builds once in while.

There is no point. Again, the game is based around being solo. One member building a ‘support’ build isn’t going to have any affect on his or her teammates.

Zerker isn’t the Meta for no reason. Zerker is the Meta because the game DEMANDS it.

Everything is damage. Kill as quick as possible. For this you want damage. Zerker is simply the top dog for this.

The game becomes significantly more boring when you roll a non-Zerker team because everything takes longer.

Instead of doing 8k bad crits or 11k good crits, you’re doing 1k bad crits and 2k good crits.

All of a sudden a fight that is generally 2 minutes is now 10 minutes.

I am not bored by this. So I’d enjoy longer fights thinking when to cc the foe, when to dodge when to buff, heal, strip. Take me along if you want to do it a different way rather than dps all day. I have builds planned for this “other way” of doing things.

And this is why:

What we have at the moment on GW2 is not actual content. 99% of the instances are like: Skip 80% of the mobs, and the ones that can’t be skipped, you pull to a corner and AoE them down. It requires zero skill, zero effort and zero team co-ordination.

Atm GW2 is basically a game that requires no tactic or thinking, and all you have to do is just barely know the current meta. If you do know it, you can faceroll every single instance or encounter while being semi-afk playing with 1 hand. If you want this to continue because you’re too lazy actually playing a challenging game, that’s fine, but please don’t say trinity is what makes a role playing boring…

Add me in game Azumi.9572 and Yelloweyedemon.2860! My condi ele needs more friends!

Coldtart.4785:

I find it funny that people both fail to see the teamwork that exists in GW2 (lets see you set a WR dungeon time or beat a gvg guild in wvw with equal numbers or win an ESL monthly with pugs) and are completely fooled by the illusionary teamwork of the trinity system.

And here we have the most important post of the thread.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Trinity, or better, roles is what makes a role playing game great. In serious MMOs for lets say a 12 man raid, you needed 1 tank, 1 off tank, 1 healer for the group, 1 healer for just the tanks, 2 support classes (1 buffer 1 debuffer), 2 ranged dps and 4 melee dps. Everyone of course needs to know exactly what he’s doing or the whole group will wipe because of 1 person. This is what makes a game great. It gives you the actual satisfaction that you acomplished something, and not just facerolled another instance.

This is exactly what I HATE about trinity. You just flat out can’t do the instance unless you have exactly those people. You don’t have the 12th? Guess what, no raid. Also, it’s friggin kittened that if one person doesn’t cleanse that one debuf then the tank dies and the raid wipes, or if someone is in the wrong position for just a second, and the healer dies, then the raid wipes (or whatever the mechanic might be). Those instances are too brutal and can take months to ever finish, if at all, because it was just too brutal.

Raids should be challenging, difficult, but doable. They shouldn’t take forever to finally get through it with the most dedicated team; you should be able to bring a new person in, and teach them how to do it and have the possibility of passing without wiping on the first boss for 2 hours. I’ve played those games, and they just aren’t fun.

You are the exact kind of person that does not want challenge, and wants every raid to be do-able by random pugs who can’t even speak english.

If raids are so easy as you want them to be, guild groups will just faceroll them day #1 and then we’ll go back to the current GW situation.

Thing is Anet understood that, heck the whole challenging content design. I really doubt that raids will be pug friendly.

If as you say “you can’t spend 2 hours on a boss because you can’t stay focused and move/cleanse dots when you have to”, then you can go ahead and play the same facerolling instances we’re stuck since day #1. The instances that require everyone to stuck together and melt stuff while wearing the same kind of gear no matter the class or build. This is not a game, it’s an easymode farmfest.

I see you can write English, but apparently, you can’t read English. How on earth did you completely misread what I wrote as me saying I want raids to be like the easy mode that dungeons are now?

cthaeh.2168:

Coldtart.4785:

I find it funny that people both fail to see the teamwork that exists in GW2 (lets see you set a WR dungeon time or beat a gvg guild in wvw with equal numbers or win an ESL monthly with pugs) and are completely fooled by the illusionary teamwork of the trinity system.

And here we have the most important post of the thread.

This has to be the most asinine thing I have ever read. GvG/WvW/ESL are all PvP, which has never in the history of PvP been attached to a trinity system because it doesn’t work with actual people controlling the characters. This is why the PvP in GW2 actually uses more gear sets and has more roles than the PvE.

WR dungeon times shouldn’t even be a thing. Any game that has to stoop to such an arbitrary measurement should be ashamed that their content is so unbelievably faceroll easy. That the player base has to come up with an artificial reward to pat themselves on the back for wasting their time, that game should just be put out of it’s misery.

To call a trinity system “illusionary teamwork” shows a complete lack of understanding about why it’s in place and how it actually works. Does it belong in GW2? no, but aspects of it can be brought over to help enrich and develop the gameplay beyond the pointless DPS fest that the game’s PvE has become.

Or just make smarter mobs really.
Gw 1 whoch is heas old had much more diverse and smarter mobs that did more than just auto-attack every 5 secs and sit there taking damage.
I’m curious to see how HoT fares in respect to that.

Dexlmentia.7391:

Anet, why don’t you simply admit the Trinity is an essential part of gaming beyond the zergs we’ve had for three long years?

This incremental move toward roles, clearly demonstrated in the current and previous beta events, is tiresome.

its not that they trying to get rid of the trinity.
its that they trying to make it so the trinity is…blurred

aka instead of being just a tank. or just a healer. or just a dps

you instead are a bit of a healer and a bit of tank(ex. guardian tank builds). or a bit of a healer and a bit of dps(ex thief stealth builds).

or a bit of a tank and a bit of dps(ex. necro power build).

making it so you can perform multiple roles
ex. necro tank/dps = power build. necro heal/tank = bunker build. necro heal/dps = vamperic crit build.

ex2. theif tank/dps build = condition removal/crit build. thief heal/tank = stealth spam build with condition removal. thief heal/dps build = heals on crit dmg.

this means while you can try to focus on 1 side of the trinity, its harder than in othergames, as Anet wants you to be able to perform multiple roles. and not focus on 1.

as if everyone just focuses on 1 trinity role, then we only need 3 classes….. hence making it so u need to perform multiple roles to open up the way for multiple classes

Gewd.8125:

wayneericgouin.9371:

I’m referring to anets stance on the originally proposed idea that everyone can fill every role, which in my opinion causes the game to be somewhat homogenized with no clearly defined difference between professions in pve. I do realize that it has to do with the way pve is designed. Sidenote: why is everyone against a trinity anyway? I’ve been playing mmo’s since EQ pc launch and the trinity was my favorite part of the genre.

All of the problems I just explained right above you.

If you have been playing mmo since Everquest you should know first hand the difficulties getting a tank and healer. Unless you play one yourself that is.

The only mmo that doesn’t have this issue is WoW due to the sheer number of players they have, and even then I heard people complain about top guilds poaching tanks and healers and having no one to replace them with because the replacements were several equipment tiers behind.

I really don’t see the appeal behind trinity unless you are one of the people playing tank or healer and love the special treatment you get over everyone else. Tank and spank is not any better than what we have now. And mechanics that extend beyond tank and spank is not something that only trinity systems can have.

I agree with your points, I’m not for the traditional trinity at all I just find it peculiar that people grab their pitchforks when they hear the term in the forums. zerker only speed run groups are ok though.

arenta.2953:

Dexlmentia.7391:

Anet, why don’t you simply admit the Trinity is an essential part of gaming beyond the zergs we’ve had for three long years?

This incremental move toward roles, clearly demonstrated in the current and previous beta events, is tiresome.

its not that they trying to get rid of the trinity.
its that they trying to make it so the trinity is…blurred

aka instead of being just a tank. or just a healer. or just a dps

you instead are a bit of a healer and a bit of tank(ex. guardian tank builds). or a bit of a healer and a bit of dps(ex thief stealth builds).

or a bit of a tank and a bit of dps(ex. necro power build).

making it so you can perform multiple roles
ex. necro tank/dps = power build. necro heal/tank = bunker build. necro heal/dps = vamperic crit build.

ex2. theif tank/dps build = condition removal/crit build. thief heal/tank = stealth spam build with condition removal. thief heal/dps build = heals on crit dmg.

this means while you can try to focus on 1 side of the trinity, its harder than in othergames, as Anet wants you to be able to perform multiple roles. and not focus on 1.

as if everyone just focuses on 1 trinity role, then we only need 3 classes….. hence making it so u need to perform multiple roles to open up the way for multiple classes

Valid points certainly, but I feel like content could be designed in a way that would require things such as boon stripping, stealth, conditions, zerk dps and a variety of builds to succeed so that we don’t end up with the current system of stacking might and vulnerability and smashing the 1 key in a corner. Which I suspect is where anet is going with the new raids ( we can all hope anyway). It’s not even that we need a trinity, we just need content that forces us to think outside of the dps box.

No. If you want a trinity, feel free to go play a game that has that.

Can´t believe that I write this, but I am with maddoctor in this one. You can indeed tank good even with cloth wearing characters here if you know how to do it, the heavy armor guys can just makie it in a more forgiving way for the new player.

I also actually should be excited that Anet gives players that like tank and heal orniented toons new chances with raids, if it did not reek so much of needed effort to do a raid that gives me headdaches. I don´t mind and even like filling both of the more unwanted roles if you explain the boss mechanic really, really slow to me and swallow your urge to yell at people that don´t crunch numbers and so don´t get it at the first explanation. That´s probably, aside from actual comradrie and funny stuff in TS, the reason to join guilds in any MMO.

wayneericgouin.9371:

I agree with your points, I’m not for the traditional trinity at all I just find it peculiar that people grab their pitchforks when they hear the term in the forums. zerker only speed run groups are ok though.

The main difference is that zerker speed run are an optimal way of doing content, not the only possible. I have more fun doing fractal 50 with 1 cleric, 3 assassins and 1 sinister that I have when I play with 5 zerker even if it’s less efficient to play that way.

In a traditional MMO you can’t play without 1 healer, 1 tank and 3 DPS. In GW2 we have the choice.

The simple fact is that dungeons have been dead meat for years.

Now people who have been doing nothing else but abusing the terrible dungeon AI for all that time fear that something more complex will replace the lousy gameplay we had in dungeons.

Really, if you think GW2 dungeons are fun and the raids should build up on what we got there, I really hope you will get disappointed.

I am ready for different roles to take in raids, be it three or more. I love healing , I love tanking, I love to do damage and I love to support my team.

What I don’t like is buffing up and then DPS the kitten out of stuff. Every. Single. Time.

Hope ANet is getting raids right, somehow.

Thaddeus.4891:

Sicarius.4639:

That’s because of the content. One requires you to fill more roles the other doesn’t.

We have no trinity currently because we don’t need one, the mechanics are so poor yeah, you could run a healing build, but why? Everyone has pilled into the corner and grabbed the Ele’s conjured weapons. You’re not contributing anything.

Gear =/= roles.

On my Elementalist I try to max my DPS, on my thief I focus on stealth and blind, on my guardian i focus on keeping my allies high hp.

That three higly different role right there. But people see zerker and think OMG JUST ONE ROLE EVERYBODY DO THE SAME QQQQQQQ

Could they improve it? Yes. But saying that GW2 doesn’t have role is non sense.

I could play the sit in the corner and do nothing role, but it doesn’t matter. None of the roles remotely matter if you can stack and DPS down poor AI. It runs right through the game, almost zero mechnics. Anet knows this and has tried to revamp certain elements of the game, hell they’re telling you about all these new mechanics and how different the expansion is going to be when it comes to encounters so you buy it! They’re telling you it was bad so buy the expansion, maybe if you’re not willing to listen to me you’ll listen to them!

GW2’s system allows for build freedom and complexity. You can heal yourself, you can deal decent damage, you can take the heat off of others, you can do whatever you need to do as any class based on your build. The Trinity system prevents even attempting to work outside your locked role with rigid mechanics. Healers don’t deal decent damage, tanks can’t heal, DPS can’t handle taking hits, etc. It doesn’t create challenging content, it creates repetitive rigid content where getting the pattern down means you never lose.

The removal of that reliance on trinity mechanics means they can create more complex encounters and that players can create unique builds. It’s one of the best features of the game. You can play whatever class you want whatever way you want, and there’s a way to succeed.

Sicarius.4639:

I could play the sit in the corner and do nothing role, but it doesn’t matter. None of the roles remotely matter if you can stack and DPS down poor AI. It runs right through the game, almost zero mechnics. Anet knows this and has tried to revamp certain elements of the game, hell they’re telling you about all these new mechanics and how different the expansion is going to be when it comes to encounters so you buy it! They’re telling you it was bad so buy the expansion, maybe if you’re not willing to listen to me you’ll listen to them!

Ok now go fractal 50 stack and DPS without blind, aegis, reflect, etc.

That’s just bullkitten. Again if it was ONLY stack and DPS we would have group of 1 Warrior and 4 Elementalist, but it’s not the case. This kind of response is freaking frustrating.

Talk about how more than half the dungeon have poor encounter that need very few support. Talk about how many of the mechanic in the game doesn’t really have an impact (Boon Corrupting, Condi Transfer, weakness, etc) or very few impact (stab, condi clear, protection, etc) in PvE content. Talk about how Control is lacking. Talk about the unbalence between direct damage and condition damage.

The game has some serious role in their profession, but the content don’t push or ask players to use them as much as most player would like.

Deim Hunir.8503:

Or just make smarter mobs really.
Gw 1 whoch is heas old had much more diverse and smarter mobs that did more than just auto-attack every 5 secs and sit there taking damage.
I’m curious to see how HoT fares in respect to that.

When I was in the base game’s beta I felt it was cheap how mobs would move out of the DPS fields. When it steps out of the lava it’s depriving you of DPS and takes longer to kill and progress.

Mobs have four second knockdowns (that are still highly telegraphed but in a big chaos is hard to see), stunlocks, shorter cooldowns and can outnumber the player even when the player didn’t calculate them arriving so their bad AI is a form of balance.

Dungeons however are a different story, I say don’t cheat the player by having the boss go friendly at a quarter health left. I remember in a fractal where we were all transformed into charrs and I waited to see for an opportune time to kill things. I shadow refuged abunch of friendly NPCs for stealth and healing so that group of mobs wouldn’t be trouble. Instead I was apparently supposed to ignore the mobs and take out the door. Oh well, live and learn. In dungeons things have way upscaled health and damage so even there an AI improvement would be cheap in many situations. They could be programmed to counter against certain charge time moves, but if those never come up then that could be “exploited” by just autoattacking for example.

Thaddeus.4891:

Sicarius.4639:

I could play the sit in the corner and do nothing role, but it doesn’t matter. None of the roles remotely matter if you can stack and DPS down poor AI. It runs right through the game, almost zero mechnics. Anet knows this and has tried to revamp certain elements of the game, hell they’re telling you about all these new mechanics and how different the expansion is going to be when it comes to encounters so you buy it! They’re telling you it was bad so buy the expansion, maybe if you’re not willing to listen to me you’ll listen to them!

Ok now go fractal 50 stack and DPS without blind, aegis, reflect, etc.

That’s just bullkitten. Again if it was ONLY stack and DPS we would have group of 1 Warrior and 4 Elementalist, but it’s not the case. This kind of response is freaking frustrating.

Talk about how more than half the dungeon have poor encounter that need very few support. Talk about how many of the mechanic in the game doesn’t really have an impact (Boon Corrupting, Condi Transfer, weakness, etc) or very few impact (stab, condi clear, protection, etc) in PvE content. Talk about how Control is lacking. Talk about the unbalence between direct damage and condition damage.

The game has some serious role in their profession, but the content don’t push or ask players to use them as much as most player would like.

No, you need two warriors, one with soldier (still has power on it since precision and ferocity are extra damage that’s great to have rather than necessary) who uses rifle and hammer, a guardian, engineer for condition damage, control, and some healing, and an elementalist. Maybe a Necro in one of the warrior’s place for wells, group lifesteal, and minions. On my thief my shadow refuge creates a lifesteal field so a Necro should have something even better on that front.

Agemnon.4608:

Deim Hunir.8503:

Or just make smarter mobs really.
Gw 1 whoch is heas old had much more diverse and smarter mobs that did more than just auto-attack every 5 secs and sit there taking damage.
I’m curious to see how HoT fares in respect to that.

When I was in the base game’s beta I felt it was cheap how mobs would move out of the DPS fields. When it steps out of the lava it’s depriving you of DPS and takes longer to kill and progress.

Mobs have four second knockdowns (that are still highly telegraphed but in a big chaos is hard to see), stunlocks, shorter cooldowns and much higher numbers than the player so their bad AI is a form of balance.

Dungeons however are a different story, I say don’t cheat the player by having the boss go friendly at a quarter health left. I remember in a fractal where we were all transformed into charrs and I waited to see for an opportune time to kill things. I shadow refuged abunch of friendly NPCs for stealth and healing so that group of mobs wouldn’t be trouble. Instead I was apparently supposed to ignore the mobs and take out the door. Oh well, live and learn. In dungeons things have way upscaled health and damage so even there an AI improvement would be cheap in many situations. They could be programmed to counter against certain charge time moves, but if those never come up then that could be “exploited” by just autoattacking for example.

Good. This is what teamwork is for. Someone use immobilize. and you bring the nuke AoE.

I’m not that mad about no healer class (I love to be healer). But I don’t see why they didn’t just make every class have a healing tree in order to combat this. So instead of a singular monk class you just had 8 classes that could be monk.

Samarak.7519:

I’m not that mad about no healer class (I love to be healer). But I don’t see why they didn’t just make every class have a healing tree in order to combat this. So instead of a singular monk class you just had 8 classes that could be monk.

Every class have a healing tree or most of them do.

Warriors- Vigorous Shout
Guardians- Battle Presence
Necromancer- Life steal and transfusion
Mesmer- Mantra heal
Ranger- Tons of regen and that F2 pet heal.
Engineer- Blast healing
Elementalist- Water magic
Thief- Stealth res.

Vayne.8563:

I’ll respond as I did on reddit:

If I never saw another game again with the trinity, it would be too soon. Just imagine how much fun Lord of the Rings would have been if all foes only attacked Boromir, while Gandalf stayed back and healed him and the hobbits, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli all dealt damage in relative safety.
You may believe, truly believe, that the trinity makes for a good game. But it’s contrived to the point where it removes everything that makes role-playing games great.

Thanks to this, casual gamer boromir had to die, because no one was able to heal him. Thats not fair.

Eldar.5146:

Vayne.8563:

I’ll respond as I did on reddit:

If I never saw another game again with the trinity, it would be too soon. Just imagine how much fun Lord of the Rings would have been if all foes only attacked Boromir, while Gandalf stayed back and healed him and the hobbits, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli all dealt damage in relative safety.
You may believe, truly believe, that the trinity makes for a good game. But it’s contrived to the point where it removes everything that makes role-playing games great.

Thanks to this, casual gamer boromir had to die, because no one was able to heal him. Thats not fair.

Sounds like Boromir needed to l2dodge.

The responses here show so much ignorance in some cases.
So many people blame zerker gear, others blame stacking, others blame the lack of roles because everyone is DPS.

Not everyone is DPS, everyone has the highest damage gear on but they all have roles to play. Now if you consider that your role as a guardian for example is to provide aegis at the right time, reflects at the right time, etc… You can do that in full zerk gear or full cleric’s gear, it does not matter because you will still be doing the exact same things.

Because you have a role in that group. You can be a beastly cleric healer with insane healing power if you do not do those things that are required of your role in the party, you are dead weight. Same goes if you are the mightiest dps guard around, if you fail to provide “guardian things” to your party, you are dead weight.

All you who are crying about the zerker meta should really start playing the game with your eyes open and realize that there certainly are roles. Maybe then you will finally see why X dungeon was easy and effortless with one party and a drag and difficult with another. Because you cannot just smack on some zerk gear, stand in a corner, press 1 and then loot.

Leo G.4501:

…snip for size…

You have some valid points, and I do agree that the way Anet creates content to fit with their combat system needs work. I also agree that parts of the system need improvement, such as your example about regen. If protection was stronger when specced with defensive stats, then defensive stats would be able to offer stronger support then dps specs.

Now Anet has voiced that they are not frightened to use a harder trinity system (due to each profession being able to swap roles), I really think they need to improve the boons and conditions system to work better with stats, so that your gear makes more of a difference. I do not think this change would jeopardise the current soft trinity too much, because each prof can easily change from dps to tank. So long as content can be tackled with any team composition, which I think is the ultimate goal Anet has for their game, I think a stronger trinity could work, without it becoming a restricted trinity, that is often utilized in other games. If that makes sense?

In my mind, if a team is specced full dps they should be able to clear mobs faster but be at a higher risk of being wiped, and the opposite should be true of a full team of tanks. Both groups should be able to tackle the content, but in different ways. I really like the boons system, but there needs to be more reason to spec into defensive stats, which currently there isn’t. That’s not to say defesive or supportive stats are not effective, they can be, but like you say, when dps stats can do the job just as/more effectively than defensive stats what is the point in speccing into them?

I really like Anet’s combat system, I just hope they can improve their content to utilize it more.

Yimiko.8524:

The Trinity system prevents even attempting to work outside your locked role with rigid mechanics. Healers don’t deal decent damage, tanks can’t heal, DPS can’t handle taking hits, etc. .

False. This is only true in the current trinity system games, it is not universal.
Back in 2005 when I played a melee DPS shaman at WoW I also was an off-tank and an off-healer. Even at Wotlk I remember I saved my party during a boss encounter when all our true healers were dead, my party survived 2 mores minutes with my heals and we killed the boss. And I remember our paladin healer provided some DPS and was able to tank decently some dozens of seconds. And our druid tank could easily switch to DPS in the middle of an encounter.
When Arenanet claimed they want a soft trinity, I thought all classes would be like the vanilla shaman, paladin or druid :
- even if you spec in DPS you continue to support and tank,
- even if you spec in Support you continue to dps and tank
- even if you spec in Tanking you continue to dps and support.

But what I see true in game is only the first sentence.

wayneericgouin.9371:

arenta.2953:

Dexlmentia.7391:

Anet, why don’t you simply admit the Trinity is an essential part of gaming beyond the zergs we’ve had for three long years?

This incremental move toward roles, clearly demonstrated in the current and previous beta events, is tiresome.

its not that they trying to get rid of the trinity.
its that they trying to make it so the trinity is…blurred

aka instead of being just a tank. or just a healer. or just a dps

you instead are a bit of a healer and a bit of tank(ex. guardian tank builds). or a bit of a healer and a bit of dps(ex thief stealth builds).

or a bit of a tank and a bit of dps(ex. necro power build).

making it so you can perform multiple roles
ex. necro tank/dps = power build. necro heal/tank = bunker build. necro heal/dps = vamperic crit build.

ex2. theif tank/dps build = condition removal/crit build. thief heal/tank = stealth spam build with condition removal. thief heal/dps build = heals on crit dmg.

this means while you can try to focus on 1 side of the trinity, its harder than in othergames, as Anet wants you to be able to perform multiple roles. and not focus on 1.

as if everyone just focuses on 1 trinity role, then we only need 3 classes….. hence making it so u need to perform multiple roles to open up the way for multiple classes

Valid points certainly, but I feel like content could be designed in a way that would require things such as boon stripping, stealth, conditions, zerk dps and a variety of builds to succeed so that we don’t end up with the current system of stacking might and vulnerability and smashing the 1 key in a corner. Which I suspect is where anet is going with the new raids ( we can all hope anyway). It’s not even that we need a trinity, we just need content that forces us to think outside of the dps box.

agreed

which is why my Necro is a soldier vampire build xD

its amusing to be in a dungeon and solo the boss cause berserkers died in 1 hit. while i just go “that didn’t hurt >=D”

i’m currently experimenting mixing some knight gear in with the soldier to give me a bit of critical. but as it is i’m out damaging berserkers by a MASSIVE margin due to my durability, power, and vamperic dmg.

maybe change the functioning of boons into something like protection does no longer reduce incoming damage by 33% but instead increases armor by 50%? So defensive boons are stronger with defensive stats and weaker with offensive stats.

you would still have to bring sufficient offensive stats to circumvent a possible boss enrage.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Really, if you think GW2 dungeons are fun and the raids should build up on what we got there, I really hope you will get disappointed.

I have seen games take this approach before, where new content is designed for new players not those who currently play and it almost always fails.

I have never done a dungeon yet (Brand new) and no idea about what I want from the raids but if dungeons are successful content in GW2 (Going by participation not opinion) then changing the paradigm is very risky.

Those who really dislike the gameplay have already left by and large, those still around are here because they like what is currently on offer and are the people that new content should be aimed at.

Yvi.5762:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Really, if you think GW2 dungeons are fun and the raids should build up on what we got there, I really hope you will get disappointed.

I have seen games take this approach before, where new content is designed for new players not those who currently play and it almost always fails.

I have never done a dungeon yet (Brand new) and no idea about what I want from the raids but if dungeons are successful content in GW2 (Going by participation not opinion) then changing the paradigm is very risky.

Those who really dislike the gameplay have already left by and large, those still around are here because they like what is currently on offer and are the people that new content should be aimed at.

YES YES YES.

Don’t change the style of gameplay, increase the challenge, doing so will make us want the defenses we left behind. Healing has strength, it can make things easier, I’ve seen it in Fractals where things can get hairy. And, don’t do things like make a field of damage where you’d want healing but then add poison so it makes it kind of stupid to even try…

Tanky gear would be wanted as things would be hitting a little faster more chances for mistakes, but not only that fights lasting longer so you’d have to play perfectly for longer.

Basically I want something that’s like soloing Lupi without reflects but with a bunch of other mechanics on top. If you can’t solo lupi without reflects you should be wanting some defensive gear or opting to play at range, or both. You’d want a healing role person to help you recover from the stray hits. A guy with high toughness to help draw aggro more often (mechanic does work, just not everywhere and not fully consistent). People to keep blinds/chills/cripples/slows going to give you some breathing room, and then people with plenty of harder CC to break the bar (I’m really hoping they revert their decision to include all the soft CCs in that, it’s dumb). And finally as much DPS as you can muster given all those other factors that let you survive.

The gameplay style doesn’t need to change, it just needs to grow and get harder.

Dromina.5023:

maybe change the functioning of boons into something like protection does no longer reduce incoming damage by 33% but instead increases armor by 50%? So defensive boons are stronger with defensive stats and weaker with offensive stats.

you would still have to bring sufficient offensive stats to circumvent a possible boss enrage.

Reducing incoming damage by 33% and increasing armour by 50% are exactly the same.

Jerus.4350:

The gameplay style doesn’t need to change, it just needs to grow and get harder.

And instead we get raids ><