Guild Wars 2

Okay, try to bear with me for a moment.

When I think of Druid, I think of “nature healer”. From EQ to WoW to DAoC and many others, Druids have been a class of being a backup or primary healer beyond other magical abilities. When I think Ranger….well, first I think of Ranger Rick, then I think of someone who is a forest tracker, hunter, and so on.

From the video shown, a Ranger is using a Staff to cast what looks to be a vine root on an enemy creature in front of it. And the Ranger still has his loyal pet out attacking the same creature. Vines are an indication of a nature based CC.

An Engineer with mobile turret pets and a massive hammer. Having a “summon Steam armor” ability as part of their Specialization doesn’t seem too far off for tanking.**

When the developers hit the stage, as well as many of the interviews from the media, they mentioned how they wanted to bring group based challenge to Guild Wars 2.

I really see the developers sinking in tons of healing, tanking, and support abilities through Specialization on top of the plethora of DPS abilities already in the game. This would make a perfect situation to add in a trinity system without actually calling it such. Is that such a bad thing, though?

My paranoia is solid.

**Edited because Engineer mistake thanks to video using armor that looks very much Heavy.

Engineers don’t wear Heavy armors…

Its going to be very interesting indeed. I think gw2 is about to have drastic changes with the specialization and mastery systems. Exciting!

Also, engineers dont use heavy armor

One of the great things about GW1 was that you clearly had tank and healer archetypes but neither were mandatory for clearing challenging content.

Personal opinion.

I have no problem with an optional trinity.

Nope.
There won’t be trinity in GW2 because it’s not designed for it and we don’t need it.
Every class can heal its self and can be tanky by switching gear and traits.

Also, Engineers wear mid armor not heavy.

Even an optional trinity would prove useless. Most professions are versatile enough to do that already.

I think what’s expecting us is something quite new and Anet clearly proved that they were able to think outside the box.

So forget your wowy rpgy old druid and embrace innovation

IllegalChocolate.6938:

One of the great things about GW1 was that you clearly had tank and healer archetypes but neither were mandatory for clearing challenging content.

Personal opinion.

I have no problem with an optional trinity.

you already have optional trinity :P

you can get a zerker ele that’s dps, cleric guard as healer and pvt warrior as the tank..
almost all classes have the traits and the skills to spec for any role of the trinity

Siphaed.9235:

Okay, try to bear with me for a moment.

When I think of Druid, I think of “nature healer”. From EQ to WoW to DAoC and many others, Druids have been a class of being a backup or primary healer beyond other magical abilities. When I think Ranger….well, first I think of Ranger Rick, then I think of someone who is a forest tracker, hunter, and so on.

From the video shown, a Ranger is using a Staff to cast what looks to be a vine root on an enemy creature in front of it. And the Ranger still has his loyal pet out attacking the same creature. Vines are an indication of a nature based CC.

The thing about Druids is that their power isn’t just plants and animals and healing magic. Its all encompassing as far as everything nature goes. They can command plants and have animal friends [pets and skills like entangle and healing spring], sure, but they can also control the elements and weather (which is probably why Rangers have skills from all 4 of the classical elements. Half of our utility skills are elemental themed, such as our spirits, lightning reflexes, muddy terrain, etc.)

Even though Rangers in GW2 are called Rangers, and most people think of them as hunters and trackers….well….the Druid is already there, and its been there with this profession since the very beginning with GW1.

I really don’t see any problems here with Druids. The other thing is that any profession can do anything, so its more than possible that we should be able to spec our Druid Rangers for Damage, Control, or Support.

I mean, seriously, the only thing that a Ranger doesn’t actually have already that is druid related is the shape-shifting into animal forms (which….go get a Norn if you really want that)[edit: Rangers in this game also don’t wear light armor, and they are just fine using metal weapons and armor] (also edit : and no, I’m not suggesting in any way that Rangers are going to get this stuff when the expansion comes. It seems more like they get more plant related stuff…an assumption made based entirely on one skill!)

Druids in the GW universe aren’t your typical healer types. They are connected to nature, in a rather profound way, but they don’t fit into the typical “Shapeshifting into animals” or “Only heal” category that we’ve seen a lot.

I am curious, though, about whether or not this might clear up some information about Druids themselves in lore. Since they were abundant in the Maguuma Jungle and were speculated to have once been human.

You assume to know a lot about druids, and may be you do.

But do you know a lot about GW2 druids ? Devs clearly said that you would encounter druids in this expansion but they never said that they were a copy of the common image of a druid we all have in our minds

It might just be a name like that.

Remember how they entirely redesigned the Sylvari race just because they seemed too “elvish” to them.

I don’t think Anet is willing to copy any existing stuff we’re used to… think outside the box guys, outside the box

Abdulaziz.1496:

Nope.
There won’t be trinity in GW2 because it’s not designed for it and we don’t need it.
Every class can heal its self and can be tanky by switching gear and traits.

Also, Engineers wear mid armor not heavy.

Never say never. Guardian’s new specialization is still unknown, and Monk ( dedicated healing profession in GW1 ) could very well be “on the table”. While I’m not too fond of the idea of having a specialization that’s dedicated to healing in GW2, I wouldn’t be too shocked if it came to pass.

Keep in mind that HoT’s content is suppose to be the most challenging content they’ve designed for GW2. Something they keep stating in interviews since PAX South. I know that bringing in difficult content doesn’t mean ushering in the Trinity, but depending on the difficulty and the amount of it ( in this case, an expansion worth ), they may feel like it’s their best option to help players combat the rise in difficulty.

I don’t see a monk specialization, we already have Tome of Courage for that which is way enough

Chrispy.5641:

Siphaed.9235:

Okay, try to bear with me for a moment.

When I think of Druid, I think of “nature healer”. From EQ to WoW to DAoC and many others, Druids have been a class of being a backup or primary healer beyond other magical abilities. When I think Ranger….well, first I think of Ranger Rick, then I think of someone who is a forest tracker, hunter, and so on.

From the video shown, a Ranger is using a Staff to cast what looks to be a vine root on an enemy creature in front of it. And the Ranger still has his loyal pet out attacking the same creature. Vines are an indication of a nature based CC.

The thing about Druids is that their power isn’t just plants and animals and healing magic. Its all encompassing as far as everything nature goes. They can command plants and have animal friends [pets and skills like entangle and healing spring], sure, but they can also control the elements and weather (which is probably why Rangers have skills from all 4 of the classical elements. Half of our utility skills are elemental themed, such as our spirits, lightning reflexes, muddy terrain, etc.)

Even though Rangers in GW2 are called Rangers, and most people think of them as hunters and trackers….well….the Druid is already there, and its been there with this profession since the very beginning with GW1.

I really don’t see any problems here with Druids. The other thing is that any profession can do anything, so its more than possible that we should be able to spec our Druid Rangers for Damage, Control, or Support.

I mean, seriously, the only thing that a Ranger doesn’t actually have already that is druid related is the shape-shifting into animal forms (which….go get a Norn if you really want that)[edit: Rangers in this game also don’t wear light armor, and they are just fine using metal weapons and armor] (also edit : and no, I’m not suggesting in any way that Rangers are going to get this stuff when the expansion comes. It seems more like they get more plant related stuff…an assumption made based entirely on one skill!)

Well Druid is a real life religion, so it’s safe to assume that the fantasy version of them follow similar guidelines that the Real life religion is based on. So animal forms may happen. Since Druids take on the spiritual form of animals that they worship.

actually Arenanet long time ago stated quite clearly that they are not just “removing holy trinity of mmo” but that ther are "replacing current and boring holy trinity of mmo with their own trinity of roles that everyone can fit into all of them and by thusany run can be succesfull.

these roles where:
damage – like name states
support – boons condi removal this kind of crap
control – stuns knockbacks dazes criples – everything to control battlefield – to not let anamies do their crap while we are doing ours

I’m hoping for specializations to help mold roles like the Trinity. I’d support this.

Abdulaziz.1496:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

One of the great things about GW1 was that you clearly had tank and healer archetypes but neither were mandatory for clearing challenging content.

Personal opinion.

I have no problem with an optional trinity.

you already have optional trinity :P

you can get a zerker ele that’s dps, cleric guard as healer and pvt warrior as the tank..
almost all classes have the traits and the skills to spec for any role of the trinity

I guess I was thinking more in line with pure straight healing like healing prayer monks.

Honestly they really should suck it up and add in the trinity. The system they tried to make left people heal starved even though constant mending was needed as you only got two dodge rolls and the fights seemed design being able to roll 3 or 4 times. The way people counter this is by pretty much going boarderline pure zerker and become glass cannons no matter what armor they have which makes for boring, frustrating and uncreative fight mechanics since they can’t do propper “tanks deal with x mechanic” or “dps need to do x”.

While you can try and sugar coat it all you like and act like its a non issue the lack a holy trinity failed created Zerg Wars essentially.

Forget the Trinity. Just make support roles (tank/soak damage, heal/reduce damage, control/delay damage) viable and/or required for group content. I’m sick of zerg dps. I plan on coming back for the expansion, but I’d like to stick around longer before getting bored, like I unfortunately did with Guild Wars 2. I think it has the potential to be amazing, but more zerg content will hold it back.

and in most MMORPGs rangers are also only ranged. meanwhile, in GW2…

remember how pre-launch everyone was worried the guardian would be a trinity archetype? yeah. no. so let’s stop thinking GW2 is adopting the old trinity because they’re using similar names to their professions as other MMOs.

i mean, GW2’s trinity has always been about damaging, supporting, and CC. nothing says the specializations can’t be stronger in areas where previously the character was weak on. in fact, that’s more likely what they’ll be about: providing new avenues and roles for the core professions.

There IS no trinity though, GW2 style or otherwise. It’s just zerg zerg zerg. Occasionally people will play some form of bunker in pvp, but that doesn’t count as having a new version of the trinity as a core concept of the game.

Siphaed.9235:

Okay, try to bear with me for a moment.

When I think of Druid, I think of “nature healer”.

What about Diablo IIs Druid. That was absolutely not a healer, it was a combination of creature control and nuke damage, which sounds exactly like what GW2s Druid is going to give us.

I also agree that the video seems to show the engineer wearing heavy armor, and at the announcement panel they made it sounds like specialization will change more than just the weapon the class uses, so I don’t think its far-fetched so say that the Engineer specialization will let them either equip heavy armor or at least be able to generate it as a skill, kind of like an Iron Man suit.

Laki.7160:

There IS no trinity though, GW2 style or otherwise. It’s just zerg zerg zerg. Occasionally people will play some form of bunker in pvp, but that doesn’t count as having a new version of the trinity as a core concept of the game.

i don’t know, have you seen WvW groups? like WvW guilds, not pugging zergs. the people in there have very defined roles. a zerg without support, heal, and/or CC won’t win a fight.

knightmawk.5673:

Siphaed.9235:

Okay, try to bear with me for a moment.

When I think of Druid, I think of “nature healer”.

What about Diablo IIs Druid. That was absolutely not a healer, it was a combination of creature control and nuke damage, which sounds exactly like what GW2s Druid is going to give us.

I also agree that the video seems to show the engineer wearing heavy armor, and at the announcement panel they made it sounds like specialization will change more than just the weapon the class uses, so I don’t think its far-fetched so say that the Engineer specialization will let them either equip heavy armor or at least be able to generate it as a skill, kind of like an Iron Man suit.

that engineer is wearing magitech armor. come on, guys :/

BrunoBRS.5178:

Laki.7160:

There IS no trinity though, GW2 style or otherwise. It’s just zerg zerg zerg. Occasionally people will play some form of bunker in pvp, but that doesn’t count as having a new version of the trinity as a core concept of the game.

i don’t know, have you seen WvW groups? like WvW guilds, not pugging zergs. the people in there have very defined roles. a zerg without support, heal, and/or CC won’t win a fight.

I suppose I can’t comment on that, since the last time I tried WvWing it was completely empty. I have been playing structured pvp and dungeons, though, and it feels slightly better. Huge emphasis on slightly. It feels like arenanet is toying with the idea of making support more viable, but are unwilling to dive all the way in. I’m still crossing my fingers, hoping for the ability to specialize in a single element, so I can play a water-specific elementalist.

It’d be interesting to see an emphasis on non-damage roles in the expansion, but I think that would be more impactful if it was reflected in the encounter & enemy design.

Knighthonor.4061:

Well Druid is a real life religion, so it’s safe to assume that the fantasy version of them follow similar guidelines that the Real life religion is based on. So animal forms may happen. Since Druids take on the spiritual form of animals that they worship.

Neo-Druidism is a real life, modern religion that cropped up less than 300 years ago, based on romanticized views on what ancient druids were. Not all druids believe the same thing, and the belief system and religious practice can vary wildly from group to group like many other neo-pagan religion which is not something to talk about for here or now. The point is that while some do love that animal spirit thing, many others don’t.

Druids in actual history were one of the highest ranks of Celtic society, and their occupation actually varied, not all were priests. The priests practiced their religion in secret, kept no written record of what they did, and that were said to have superior knowledge of nature, and could tell the future by looking at natural patterns. Of course, Priests all over the world did this, and they were called many more things than just Druid.

Fantasy Druids (at least the nature aspect) is actually a very recent creation, but since almost all Fantasy druids are almost directly influenced from that same source (Dungeons and Dragons), Its kind of safe to speculate on what the Guild Wars 2 Druid has, based on the DnD version, especially since the Ranger already follows many aspects of the DnD Ranger and Druid. (its interesting to note that DnD copied (or was inspired by) GW2 Rangers using Greatswords for their newest edition and has rules for how a Ranger would use Two handed weapons. Seriously!)

Softspoken.2410:

It’d be interesting to see an emphasis on non-damage roles in the expansion, but I think that would be more impactful if it was reflected in the encounter & enemy design.

I agree. The encounters need to be tuned to allow for support to shine. I’m glad they tried breaking away from the trinity by trying to say every class can do everything, but there needs to be room for classes to do something other than zerg.

Laki.7160:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Laki.7160:

There IS no trinity though, GW2 style or otherwise. It’s just zerg zerg zerg. Occasionally people will play some form of bunker in pvp, but that doesn’t count as having a new version of the trinity as a core concept of the game.

i don’t know, have you seen WvW groups? like WvW guilds, not pugging zergs. the people in there have very defined roles. a zerg without support, heal, and/or CC won’t win a fight.

I suppose I can’t comment on that, since the last time I tried WvWing it was completely empty. I have been playing structured pvp and dungeons, though, and it feels slightly better. Huge emphasis on slightly. It feels like arenanet is toying with the idea of making support more viable, but are unwilling to dive all the way in. I’m still crossing my fingers, hoping for the ability to specialize in a single element, so I can play a water-specific elementalist.

sPvP is just a result of the current meta. there are still very clear roles in it, but right now the meta is pushing for a more skirmishy, fast rotation style than the traditional “bunker, teamfighter, backcapper, support” team comp that was predominant for the longest time.

as for WvW, my guild was having this very problem tonight. we didn’t have enough people covering all roles, and the other groups did. a well placed CC on an underperforming group can end a fight before it even starts. we spent a good amount of time trying to reorganize ourselves, not just in terms of specs, but which professions to bring, and spreading out the supporters through all parties.

also about WvW – we all had bunkerish build when I was running with guild that aimed into “pro” WvW

we all were bunkerish and when we stacked 25 stacks of might…

well we were dealing with zerk-zergs quite easily – even if they outnumbered us

I sure hope they don’t add trinity to gw2, the combat system is very nice as it is.

You can use the trinity as is.
I’ve had friends with support-based water elementalists.
I’ve designed my guardian as a tanky-support initially, now is more tanky-dps.
All classes can be designed as dps, although clearly some are better than others at it. Like Guardian has a whole plethora of support skills, while warrior and engineer are a bit more “selfish” when compared to Guards.
The trinity is available if you want to use it. Its simply not necessary. Which makes combat more varied, and fun. Also you don’t need to wait for a warrior a priest and a guardian to walk into a bar to start a party, and that’s the main point of the no-trinity system.
Its not about there not being tanky specs, healy specs, or whatnot, its about you not NEEDING them implicitly. Or at least needing a specific profession that is linked to that specific role.

This is a GW1 Druid http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Druid not the old toga wearing tree loving hippies in other rpgs your thinking of.

Quote: the Druids actually shed their physical bodies to become one with nature. The Druids now exist as spirits, appearing similar to Oakhearts.

Bringing trinity back would be like the ONLY thing to save this crap…..but wont happen…combat is still ultraboring even with expansion…the design is crap to its core, nothing but a rework from base could change that.

grayskull.2367:

This is a GW1 Druid http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Druid not the old toga wearing tree loving hippies in other rpgs your thinking of.

Quote: the Druids actually shed their physical bodies to become one with nature. The Druids now exist as spirits, appearing similar to Oakhearts.

Are you sure they weren’t toga wearing, tree loving hippies before they became one with nature?