Guild Wars 2

Seeing as the game wants to avoid the whole tank/healer/dps trinity, it seems relevant to look at games that have done that while still keeping PvE challenging.

In pathfinder, until the 6th level spell “Heal” is acquired, healing is rarely worth the time it takes to cast until the heal spell occurs, and most DMs will have intelligent enemies actively avoid characters that are built like traditional MMO tanks.

Part of the reason for this is the fact that lethality is quite high, with both players and enemies having the potential to be dropped incredibly quickly. The strategy then comes from properly controlling the enemy groups before they can kill or disable your own group.

You’re seeing the GW2 in the wrong sense.

It’s not that they don’t want any trinity, it’s just that they don’t want it to be required. To achieve this, they create classes that can fit every roles depending on how they are build/geared.

Keeping PvE challenging ain’t really hard, they just have to add mechanism that are less forgiving. And the change in the defiance mechanism is a good way to open a lot of possibility in this direction. Same goes for the masteries which involve that we will encounter foes that are resilient to anykind of damage except if you are able to drop it off of it’s resilience for a certain duration.

You mention rocket tag encounters in your title and then babel about pathfinder table top gaming. Is there are point you are trying to make and have you even played Gw2 at all?

Is it really necessary to be rude when someone is expressing an opinion? Saying someone is “babbling” is an overt put-down. You add nothing to the discussion with this kind of behaviour.

Marina Demeretmonde.1064:

Is it really necessary to be rude when someone is expressing an opinion? Saying someone is “babbling” is an overt put-down. You add nothing to the discussion with this kind of behaviour.

Your post didn’t add anything to the discussion either though, nor did this post I’m writing now.

Marina Demeretmonde.1064:

Is it really necessary to be rude when someone is expressing an opinion? Saying someone is “babbling” is an overt put-down. You add nothing to the discussion with this kind of behaviour.

You are overly sensitive. I was stating that the OP said nothing in the body of the first post that had any relevance to the title as far as I know. If someone is going to type out a few paragraphs, at least make it a bit more obvious what you are talking about. So yes, they were babbling.

That’s exactly why Berskerker is the meta in PvE: kill before you can be killed.

Eponet.4829:

most DMs will have intelligent enemies actively avoid characters that are built like traditional MMO tanks

Meanwhile it’s also the opposite in GW2, as the mobs will actively seek out characters with higher toughness, which is why mobs seem to hate warriors, guards, and ranger’s bears.
Then again, aggro is also determined by DPS and location, so it all really depends on the given situation.