It’s a well known fact that GW2’s PVE is horrible. Trash mobs have ridiculous health pools, boss strategies consist of nothing more than “kite and dodge” with singular gimmicks if you’re lucky. Event bosses, meant to replace raiding, are mindless zergfests with no strategy involved (Risen High Priests) or giant monsters that sit in one place and roar at you helplessly while you kill them with zero resistance or challenge (the dragon encounters, also Zhaitan). It doesn’t help that the loot from all of this is either non existent or just plain sucks.
There’s a simple reason why this is true and will remain an unbreakable constant for GW2’s lifespan as a game. It’s the much touted “no holy trinity” gameplay. Now I know how the responses to this will go:
But Vasham, the trinity just put all the responsibility on the healer and no one else! DPS could sleepwalk through encounters and tanks just had to not die!
False. To say the trinity was that simplistic shows one’s ignorance of PVE mechanics and overall lack of experience in true endgame content. Tanks, DPS, and Healers all had specific sub-duties in encounters, mechanics to watch for, and skills to master beyond their base role in the raid. I would dare say the trinity required a higher skill ceiling than any role a class can play in GW2.
But the trinity forces people into playstyles they don’t like and extends the time it takes to form a group!
False. While a time existed in previous MMOs where to play a certain class meant you played a certain role in the trinity that time has long passed. MMOs with good class balance (read: anything not by Arenanet) have either been released or changed their classes so the one you play isn’t pigeonholed into a specific role. I never met a tank or healer in WoW, Rift, or other games that played those roles exclusively yet didn’t enjoy it. The lack of those roles have turned many players away from GW2, and I can’t blame them.
But the trinity is an old and tired system! This game’s system is new!
New doesn’t mean good, if anything it’s proven the opposite. The lack of the trinity as a solid foundation for encounter design is why GW2 has had such trouble with it’s PVE content. Arenanet made the mistake of viewing the trinity in such shallow terms during development that they forgot why it’s stood the test of time. Without the trinity to provide that basic framework encounters boil down to a murky cloud of damage dealing and kiting. There’s nothing to support more advanced mechanics than the most basic of gimmicks as GW2’s dungeons and events have proved, and the new Fractals dungeon has reinforced that proof.
Deny it all you want, but PVE players are the backbone of a healthy MMO. With GW2’s sPVP in a rapid decline and the pipe dream of esports becoming more unreachable every day Arenanet will need to appease the PVE playerbase to stay afloat. With such poor encounter design limited by a wide eyed dream of a world with no trinity it’s an avenue they are not prepared to deliver on unless drastic change is made to class balance and the trinity is reinstated.
That, or we can look forward to spamming 2 again to kill the next Elder Dragon.
