[Explanation] The 'Holy Trinity', Dungeons, and You.

[Sylvanie]

Correct. And with that point, you might say the only trinity that exists in this game is Dps and Support. Oh wait, that's a duplicinity, duplicatinity, a Binity?

You honestly can only spec for DPS or Support and fluctuate between those two extremes.

Yes, that's pretty much it. There are offensive builds and there are defensive builds and even that is a continuum, not two different roles.

You can try and construct a trinity-like model on top of the GW2 mechanics, but it won't improve your odds at doing dungeons.

From what I've been seeing, there are the two following reasons why people try to construct a trinity model:

(1) To make sense of a world turned upside down from their normal gaming experience.
(2) To prove that GW2 didn't really innovate.

In practice, the closest equivalent you have to GW2 is tanker-less teams on City of Heroes (except that CoH missions and mechanics are mostly a whole lot easier than GW2 dungeons). It's all about pooling buffs, debuffs, and controls.

[JonnyB]

except that 0% of the available abilities or customization allow you the opportunity to direct a mob to keep attacking you. You might be able to CC something, slow it down, help take damage by standing in front of it's face, but you are not tanking. If that was all tanking took, then we could say the environment is the only thing in GW2 that has a tank spec. Rocks do a better job of slowing enemies and preventing damage than any player could do in a pretend tank mode.

You hang on tight to that mindset then come back in a couple months and re-read what was said here. It's been thoroughly explained how it works in this MMO.

Once the shiny wears off and players have had a chance to evaluate the game objectively rather than from an hysterical "There is NO TRINITY....we are DIFFERENT!!!" point of view, they will realize that there are the three party roles in GW2.

Have fun and play safe!

[Dodrin]

You hang on tight to that mindset then come back in a couple months and re-read what was said here. It's been thoroughly explained how it works in this MMO.

Once the shiny wears off and players have had a chance to evaluate the game objectively rather than from an hysterical "There is NO TRINITY....we are DIFFERENT!!!" point of view, they will realize that there are the three party roles in GW2.

Have fun and play safe!

Oh geez.

You obviously know what you're talking about.

[Deleted]

You hang on tight to that mindset then come back in a couple months and re-read what was said here. It's been thoroughly explained how it works in this MMO.

Once the shiny wears off and players have had a chance to evaluate the game objectively rather than from an hysterical "There is NO TRINITY....we are DIFFERENT!!!" point of view, they will realize that there are the three party roles in GW2.

Have fun and play safe!

I like people that have not even touched the game that comments on these forums, either that or he have not touched a single dungeon yet.

[zito]

You hang on tight to that mindset then come back in a couple months and re-read what was said here. It's been thoroughly explained how it works in this MMO.

Once the shiny wears off and players have had a chance to evaluate the game objectively rather than from an hysterical "There is NO TRINITY....we are DIFFERENT!!!" point of view, they will realize that there are the three party roles in GW2.

Have fun and play safe!

Yea the roles are called support, damage, and control Just because you got a mob to focus attack you while you kite it doesn't make you a traditional tank. If you played any other mmo such as rift or WoW you know what the definition of a tank is, you can't sugar coat it in this game. You are kiting the mob meaning you are controlling the mob for the group.

Once that mob has decided to be done with you controlling him he will target another person and now it is that persons job to do something either dps like a moron, control it like before or support yourself and the group.

There is no tank, there is no healer just because you provide regeneration to the group doesn't make you a healer it makes you support and there are more ways to support the group then healing.

Try and play the game the way it was meant to be played instead of sticking your own mentality into it making yourself think "this game has to be played this way no matter what".

[BLSTMASTER]

You just have to wait and see. This is just a game, with limited possibilities. And we all know threat system is not random. It's just a matter of time.

Yes, everyone is a tank. some classes are just better at it. Properly specced and geared of course. Just like in GW2.

While i don't completely agree, I have to echo some points here.

Some classes/professions are better at surviving than others, either by being able to take more hits, having self heals, or having more tools to dodge attacks.
Then it is beneficial To have the mob 'focus' on that class/profession so the rest of the group can be out of harms way (mostly)

Think of vanilla wow. everyone could 'hold' threat, it was usually the person doing the most damage/doing damage earlier and so on. The dps 'roles' would hold off from doing anything (even healers too. like priest bubbles) at the start so that the tank roles can gain enough threat on the mob, and to ensure that the mobs stay on the tankier classes. You couldn't taunt most bosses, so you had to go by threat alone in most cases.

Warriors weren't tanks because they had a protection spec. Hell, in some cases, arms/fury specs would tank. They tanked because they were the most 'tanky' class.


Although most damages are designed to be dodged /clear debuff etc, It is still beneficial to have the tankier profession/spec be the one that is holding threat on the mob. (Makes room for more mistakes too imo)



But I dont think the holy trinity(tank dps heal) really works in this game because I dont think (at least for now) its the optimal way to run dungeons. (Because of the healer role)

[Deleted]

Still not seeing any justification as to why losing the Trinity is good thing though. I've seen people discuss losing it over and over along with whether the next new game actually achieves it or not, but I don't recall anyone explain why we want it.

Personally I see nothing wrong with clear defined roles in a game so from my perspective, I don't want to lose it.

[Deleted]

Personally I see nothing wrong with clear defined roles in a game so from my perspective, I don't want to lose it.

Because looking for a tank for 30 minutes is exhausting.

[darkeden999]

GW2 dungeons are like those magic eye pictures. At first its just a bunch of mindless chaos that seems incomprehensible and pointless. Then you finally see the pattern and BOOM, its simple.

[VibrantViolet]

I haven't read all the comments, but what it really boils down to is people getting out of the holy trinity mindset, and accepting that every class needs to play a supportive role in dungeons. I've run AC a few times, and the biggest issue I see is people not preparing beforehand. They need to change abilities around. People are coming in, going full-on dps, with no supportive abilities. That's not the way to do it. Also, no matter how hard Warrior or Guardian tries to tank, they can't hold aggro. It's just the way it is. I had aggro a lot as a Necromancer. You just have to learn to kite and dodge.

[zito]

Still not seeing any justification as to why losing the Trinity is good thing though. I've seen people discuss losing it over and over along with whether the next new game actually achieves it or not, but I don't recall anyone explain why we want it.

Personally I see nothing wrong with clear defined roles in a game so from my perspective, I don't want to lose it.

There is nothing wrong with it, they are not in GW2 and people with the trinity mentality are pushing it in this game claiming that its there regardless of what everyone is saying and the truth is no its not you are just playing the game wrong.

You try and make a "tank" and a "healer" in this game get 3 dps and do a dungeon and see what happens.

[Sylvanie]

Still not seeing any justification as to why losing the Trinity is good thing though. I've seen people discuss losing it over and over along with whether the next new game actually achieves it or not, but I don't recall anyone explain why we want it.

Personally I see nothing wrong with clear defined roles in a game so from my perspective, I don't want to lose it.

There are the following problems with the trinity model:

(1) Most of the responsibility gets dumped on the shoulders of tanks and healers (especially healers eventually have to cover up for everybody else's mistakes, because mistakes usually result in more damage being taken). Conversely, a DPS role can be pretty boring.
(2) Complexity of a fight is too dependent on encounter mechanics. If the mechanics aren't difficult, it's largely about mechanically following an ability order, because you have only a very narrow job to do.
(3) Replacing someone for organized PvE content can be difficult. If our WoW raid could slot in whoever instead of specifically needing a tank or healer replacement, our life would be much easier.
(4) For large group content (especially raids) you need to gear up a few players for multiple roles, because you may need an additional tank or switch a healer to DPS. This puts an extra burden on those people and has the potential to create loot issues.
(5) There are limitations to what you can put in solo content. Solo quests, insofar as they exist, have to be tailored to the class (or be trivial). SW:TOR worked around that to an extent with companions, but there were still large gaps in difficulty (and the companion system would have been far more interesting without the trinity, because you wouldn't have been limited to one or two companions who complemented you well, but could have picked whoever you liked).
(6) It's difficult to scale content dynamically by group size with the trinity model. That doesn't mean that it's trivial without dedicated roles, but it's comparatively easier.
(7) The trinity model is a poor fit for non-fantasy genres. Tanks can work, but dedicated healers are mostly out of place in non-fantasy games (SW:TOR is again an example, but science fiction games in general as well as superhero games don't really know a healer archetype).

Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that the GW2 system is necessarily a good solution to these problems; I was just trying to answer why some players and game designers are unhappy with the trinity. If you want to hear my opinion about the GW2 mechanics (with the caveat that my highest level character is 36), I think the system could benefit significantly from relying less on twitch elements and more on tactical decisions. If I had a sugar daddy who was willing to give me a couple of hundred million to build my own MMO, I'd probably end up producing a different design, though it would very likely be far removed from the trinity, too.

Also, some players will prefer a trinity-less model for some reason or another. For example, the roles do align nicely with common power fantasies, and that's what a lot of us play in fantasy worlds for [1]. The trinity model also provides a nice comfort zone.

[1] I don't mean that negatively. In RL, I'll call my husband to pick me up when I'm working late rather than walking through dark streets. On my blood DK, well, I can laugh at physical threats. That is an enjoyable aspect in and of itself.

[Eldar45]

There is no holy trinity at all. There is basically a DPS support hybrid thing for every profession, and every person in your group should be specced like that.

You want to try to tank? Maybe you can theoretically hold aggro, but even with full "tanking" traits and a shield and the right skills, you are still only going to survive MAYBE three hits from a boss. Sure you can block a few of them, but eventually you are going to have to stop tanking the boss or you are going to die.

Healers? Nope, no true healers. The spells that cause healing that can actually heal other players heal for nothing. You basically have to rely on yourself to be kept alive. Those healing spells can keep you up through most incidental damage, but taking a boss swing takes off half your health, even in story mode. To stay alive during a boss fight, whoever has aggro has to be good at dodging out of the way off attacks.

Anyone that argues this has not done a single dungeon, and if they say they have they are lying. Plain and simple.

[Requiemcliff]

There is no holy trinity at all. There is basically a DPS support hybrid thing for every profession, and every person in your group should be specced like that.

You want to try to tank? Maybe you can theoretically hold aggro, but even with full "tanking" traits and a shield and the right skills, you are still only going to survive MAYBE three hits from a boss. Sure you can block a few of them, but eventually you are going to have to stop tanking the boss or you are going to die.

Healers? Nope, no true healers. The spells that cause healing that can actually heal other players heal for nothing. You basically have to rely on yourself to be kept alive. Those healing spells can keep you up through most incidental damage, but taking a boss swing takes off half your health, even in story mode. To stay alive during a boss fight, whoever has aggro has to be good at dodging out of the way off attacks.

Anyone that argues this has not done a single dungeon, and if they say they have they are lying. Plain and simple.

Agreed for the most part, typically I tend to play as a buffer as my engineer, elixir gun and attacking the enemy. But, while my heals exist, they don't entirely help.
What really can help though, is the revive elixir, where if somebody goes down, I can get them back and fighting in a few seconds. It isn't a healer, but it is support heavy, generally for every class, that's how it feels, I mean, the warrior I have been messing around with, just looking at abilities and talking with friends, we have warriors built into shouts, flags, or just smashing, its the first time I ever saw so much support from a warrior. It's actually really interesting with classes and how they work.

[Keldrath]

I like the new system. It puts more emphasis on individual performance. You can't just rely on someone else to do everything for you while you munch cheetohs and smash your buttons in a rotation.

It also makes the good players shine and the bad players stand out more as well, because they don't have someone to pull their slack. Which brings it into a much more bring the player not the class kind of realm.

Sure, bad players may get discouraged, and heck might not even participate because of it, I see no problem with that. Even better, it may motivate a good portion of them to get better, we don't all start out as pro all-stars. Better that it forces them to get better or leave, than to accommodate their bad habits. And since this is a subscription free game it can be that way, they don't need to focus on customer retention as hard as a sub-fee game does, which means they don't need to cater to those players and can instead cater to the fans.

Storymode is easy enough to get through without having to get super good.

[Drunkenfinn]

Oh god... Reading all this makes me super-scared to PuG anything in this game...

That being said... However much I'd love to play a GS Warrior in Dungeons I'll prolly end up playing a spec similar to my PvP one with lots of stuns, knockdowns, durability and other forms on control.

Let's say theres 2 hard-hitting trash-mobs. I'll control/kite/stun/KD one while the rest of the team kites and kills the other. Simples!

[Seolla]

LvL 80 here running high end explorer mode dungeons with full guildies;

What we found is that there IS some sort of aggro mechanics, but it's really really weird

You CAN almost hold aggro like 90% of the time IF you don't move. It's largely based on proximity; You can test this with a melee "tank" spec (like a warrior with shield and what not), with an elementalist dpsing from yards away; if your warrior never moves, the mob actually doesn't switch to the elementalist like 90% of the time.

What we found makes mob switches aggro:

the "tank" does a roll or some movement skills
the "tank" stops attacking that mob (actually most of the time the mob still stands there attacking the tank still, it's really weird here)
someone tries to res someone
there are some other unknown factors too

With that being said, it's almost impossible to run a pure tank+pure healer set up in exploratory mode dungeons. Because as you can see above, if you want to "try" to tank, you will have to mostly stand relatively still, and not use rolls as much. This means you're taking A LOT more damage than you should. We couldn't get a pure healers to keep up a stationary "tank" because of how long the CDs of heals are in the game (we had a water elementalist stacking full healing stats/traits healing a shield/mace warrior with full defensive traits/stats).

So basically, just like the OP said, you'll be better off equipping everyone with some defensive/healing stats/abilities and focusing on avoiding damage and kiting during fights. Class synergy is also very important; stacking might, vulnerability, and keeping up fury etc is big. And of course, without being said, you need focus firing at, but Ctrl+T really makes that effortless even in pugs.

---------- Post added 2012-09-07 at 02:25 AM ----------

Yes, that's pretty much it. There are offensive builds and there are defensive builds and even that is a continuum, not two different roles.

I think this pretty much nailed it; Holy Trinity in the traditional sense (like in WoW) is divided into very distinct and defined roles (with maybe small wiggle rooms for things like hybrid/support classes, but still relatively distinct)

GW2 on the other hand, is a continuum of dps/survivability/support stats that pretty much every class can get and pick and choose however much they want for each stats.

[Deleted]

There are the following problems with the trinity model:

Thanks for the only real response to my query.

The thing is I recognise and have experienced much of what appears in your list, and my reaction is that the implementation of the trinity requires work, as opposed to getting rid of it completely.

Seems a bit of a cop out for a dev to say their new game is doing away with the mechanic rather than trying to resolve the problems inherent with a system that has worked for a very long time (with exception to various incarnations of your points of course).

[Deleted]

Depends on my build, innit? And gear. there are +healing gems, you know, and +toughness and +vitality.
We are talking about dungeons, not leveling up, right?
In the end there will be dedicated healers and tanks. Trinity system works not because there's no alternative - but because it works.

In all fairness, if you're standing outside a dungeon yelling "DEDI HEALER LF WARR TANK + 3 DPS PST, NO RANGERS", I fully expect you to still be shouting the same thing when I come out of the dungeon with my shiny new hat. Or possibly getting slaughtered inside because everyone in your group is trying to play Guild Wars 2 as if it were World of Warcraft 2.