How does this non-trinity stuff work in GW2?

[Deleted]

I've read up some more on GW2, bought the game, and apparently, instead of a holy trinity like most MMORPGs have, it relies on something else, but I don't quite understand how that works. what is it? how do you do it? does it work on all attacks or only on some?

[NightZero88]

You should try looking through this sticky, it should answer all your GW2 related questions.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...tiated-READ-ME!

Every class has the ability to heal and also can support if traited and "specced" that way. You can't just stand and tank a mob like you would in WoW so it works just fine. A lot of time it's just running around but personally as my engineer I'm specced and traited to be support so I constantly blind and snare mobs while buffing my allies and healing them. Mostly it involves not getting hit as best as you can.

[Deleted]

Before this degenerates into a mass brawl over why "Holy Trinity" sucks or is the ultimate-solution to everything, game-comparisons ensue, and Fencers locks it...

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "it"?

If you mean "threat"/"aggro" management, then you are not supposed to understand it. And it is probably different for different mobs/bosses etc. There is no one rule as to who gets aggro under what situation - or if there is then I'm not aware of anyone that's undisputedly sussed it out!

Basically, you look after yourself. While people can gear & trait to take more damage and/or do a bit of healing here & there to others, it is ultimately down to you to stay alive.

Without the so-called "Trinity", when you die there is very little justifiable reason to RAGE at other players. You can't just auto-blame the tank/healer and kick/rage-quit - it's your own damn fault for not avoiding the big attack(s) and/or the red-circles etc.

[Rhywolver]

Just like in other games (for example: Diablo). Just watch your back.

[Baloneyz]

I've read up some more on GW2, bought the game, and apparently, instead of a holy trinity like most MMORPGs have, it relies on something else, but I don't quite understand how that works. what is it? how do you do it? does it work on all attacks or only on some?

You only look after your own health by dodging, using skills and your healing ability. The only thing you need to "worry" when in group is to provide the best boons ( buffs in GW2 ) for the right moment to your teammates and yourself at the right time. Some professions ( classes in GW2 ) can tank more depending on their weapon and armor setup, but the idea is to do as much damage as possible and dodge ALL the harmful spells and effects that your enemies cast on you.

That's the simplest way i could have said this.

EDIT: Also, and learning this comes with time, you can boon yourself and teammates around by using ability combos ( e.g. Guardian puts a mark on the floor that boosts some stats and, for example, warrior leaps in it and the boon that the mark gives is shared with all the teammates around *|-|* or Elementalist puts a Firewall and a ranger or thief or warrior or anyone with a ranged physical attack can shoot through the wall and their arrows/bullets will be on fire when they hit the enemy ) There are a lot of combos so look closely for them and learn them

[Lazuli]

You're 90% DPS with self heals and a little CC depending on profession and weapon set.

Dodge is your godmode button, immunity to damage for 1s and any proff can do 2 of them back to back. Makes for some annoying pvp but it's alright in pve.

[Zeek Daniels]

basically do what you can to keep yourself alive. Help revive others when they are in a downed state, make use of dodges and evade abilites, if your a support build help with condition clearing or giving out buffs. My ele for instance is good a removing conditions and providing regeneration.

[Fencers]

There is aggro of a sort. However, in the dimpliest and indeed practical terms; combat is an "every man for himself" system. Every class is essentially [and again, practically speaking] a DPS class w/ options.

When gaining aggro, for whatever reason, you try to survive, heal, kite, dodge, CC or impede the mobs as able.

[Deleted]

I've installed the game, played it for an hour, and it's getting somewhat clear for me. just have to practise somewhat with dodges and evades.

[rhandric]

I've installed the game, played it for an hour, and it's getting somewhat clear for me. just have to practise somewhat with dodges and evades.

And (self) heals, and utility (though you need at least level 5 for that, and utility covers the gamut from defensive to support to offensive). Blocking an attack through using an ability can be better than dodging it, as you can sometimes continue attacking (depending on the ability, of course) while blocking, but not while dodging.

[Karizee]

It's more like:
Damage
Control
Support

Mobs and bosses have different aggro mechanics. They can target:
The closest player
Who is dealing damage
The weakest player (downed state)
The strongest player (using shield or high health)

Much more emphasis is placed on teams working together with the strength of their builds and using cross-profession combos. For instance, a necromancer can rez up to 3 players (within a tight range) using a certain signet, a guardian can apply defensive boons to allies, a medicat engineer can drop bandages all around or an elementalist can dodge thru a combo field set down by anyone to provide an AOE heal.

Coming from WoW the easiest way I can explain it is that combat feels more PvP-ish. It can feel hectic/chaotic until you get an understanding of how things work, after that it is a pure joy to learn and play.

[Deleted]

It works ok. The only problem with it is that because of the lack of specific roles the bosses can only have a certain amount of skills. For example, you can't make a boss that lowers the health of everyone to 10% all the time and he heals based on how much health people have (anub'arak) since... there's no healer.

Besides this however, it works rather well. Waiting times are preety much gone, you're just trying to find 5 people, you don't need to wait for someone from a minor community of people like tanks to want to do your dungeon.
It also eases the problems of blaming others for your own fault. You can't do such because... you're watching out for your character, there's no tank to watch your threat or a healer to heal your ass. You need to do all those things yourself.

[MrSerious]

Basically, you look after yourself. While people can gear & trait to take more damage and/or do a bit of healing here & there to others, it is ultimately down to you to stay alive.

^ totally this.

Sometimes it will require each person to change a few utility abilities to deal with certain bosses. ranged - have some reflects, or switch a weapon out to give the party a shield. Melee boss, change out a few abilities to help kite the boss.

You can get away with glass canon builds while leveling but keeping that build at level 80 will probably hurt you when entering dungeons.

But Alvarez has got it right - you have to look after yourself. No more of this complaining about the healer or the tank not holding aggro.

[Deleted]

I find that GW2s PvE suffers greatly as a result. As mentioned previously none of the encounters can have complex mechanics. The only real mechanic is ability 'x' doing some fatal damage, avoid ability 'x' with a dodge roll. I played GW2 end game dungeons for a while but there's so much lacking that I don't think I could do them again, it's not even the lack of Holy Trinity, it's more that there is 0 competition in the game. Everything is a paradise. You might call it elitist, but I think it's cool that there are some players in an MMO who have an item you or I may never ever see. Am I jealous of Paragon's world first Lei Shen heroic kill? No. Am I jealous they'll farm heroic BiS before I get my normal BiS? No. They deserve to have better gear because they're far more competitive than I, now, am.

You could arguably call it childish but Lei Shen (heroic) is pretty hard, so hard in fact that a GM at Blizzard decided to troll all of the top guilds progression (or farming in the case of 3) on him: https://twitter.com/lei__shen it's a fun read!

[rhandric]

Legendaries say hi.

[NightZero88]

I find that GW2s PvE suffers greatly as a result. As mentioned previously none of the encounters can have complex mechanics. The only real mechanic is ability 'x' doing some fatal damage, avoid ability 'x' with a dodge roll. I played GW2 end game dungeons for a while but there's so much lacking that I don't think I could do them again, it's not even the lack of Holy Trinity, it's more that there is 0 competition in the game. Everything is a paradise. You might call it elitist, but I think it's cool that there are some players in an MMO who have an item you or I may never ever see. Am I jealous of Paragon's world first Lei Shen heroic kill? No. Am I jealous they'll farm heroic BiS before I get my normal BiS? No. They deserve to have better gear because they're far more competitive than I, now, am.

You could arguably call it childish but Lei Shen (heroic) is pretty hard, so hard in fact that a GM at Blizzard decided to troll all of the top guilds progression (or farming in the case of 3) on him: https://twitter.com/lei__shen it's a fun read!

What does the last half of this post have to do with anything? And the game is not built around competition the game is built around cooperation which personally I feel is much better.

[Fencers]

Well, the PVE is very non-competitive. As it was in GW1- cooperation is reinforced/encouraged wherever possible in PVE.

PVP is of course competitive.

Seems like solid game design.

[Ichifails]

I've read up some more on GW2, bought the game, and apparently, instead of a holy trinity like most MMORPGs have, it relies on something else, but I don't quite understand how that works. what is it? how do you do it? does it work on all attacks or only on some?

It's watch your back until you get to end game content. At that point you sort of need a guardian or a warrior to sort of tank... and an water elementalist or someone else that can be a heavy support.

That's basically a holy trinity and the people that say it isn't there either aren't doing fractals, they enjoy spending retarded amounts of time bashing their head at the same thing or are simply too much into the "no holy trinity" belief that they will refuse to even think it exists.

The best way to do stuff in GW2 is still Tank/Support(healer)/DPS.

[Sylvanie]

In brief, everybody has a basic responsibility to deal with all three roles (except that healing becomes a combination of healing, avoidance, and mitigation). When you have aggro, your job is to stay alive; everybody else deals damage and/or helps you stay alive. In short, your responsibilities change dynamically throughout a fight.

Aggro mechanics vary by mob. Most melee mobs have a strong preference for targets in melee range (or close by), others may have different priorities. This allows some limited form of aggro control against (most) melee mobs; while their preference for targets in melee range is not absolute and they can be made to pursue others, it both allows keeping them off ranged players with some coordination and the trading of aggro between multiple melee players. Manipulating the aggro of ranged mobs is only situationally effective, since they can just turret and pick their targets; dangerous ranged mobs are often dealt with through a variety of other techniques, whether reflecting their projectiles, CC, or simply burning them down fast.

Raw healing is comparatively weak in GW2, but so is the damage intake, once you have avoided what is avoidable. It is important to avoid high damage abilities. Every character has the ability to dodge, which not only will move you to a different spot fast, but also grants you a second of immunity. The Protection boon (boon is GW2-speak for buff) and the Weakness condition (condition = debuff in GW2) reduce incoming damage that cannot be avoided; the Aegis boon blocks the next incoming attack and the Blindness condition makes the next incoming attack miss (except on most champion mobs, where there's only a 10% chance for that). A lot of the nastier damage also comes in the form of condition damage (i.e., damage over time). There are various abilities to remove conditions on yourself or other players (the equivalent of cleansing/dispelling in other MMOs). Control effects also can help with suppressing incoming damage, especially stuns, fears, knockdowns, knockbacks, and dazes (daze will put skills on cooldown for a number of seconds). Note that only every n-th control effect will work against most champion mobs, due to the Defiant mechanic, but can be very useful against other mobs. There are also abilities that reflect or destroy projectiles and thieves and mesmers have stealth abilities to give you a reprieve.

Healing comes in the form of direct heals, regeneration, and food buffs. Every profession has a direct self-heal in skill #6, with variations by profession (for example, necromancers can summon a blood fiend that will heal you for a bit on each attack and can be sacrificed for a bigger self heal). Individual professions may have additional self-heals available, either through weapon abilities, slot skills, or traits (for example, elementalists can pick a trait so that they heal when they switch to water attunement, and guardians have a trait that heals them for a bit for each boon they give to themselves or an ally). Regeneration is a boon that stacks duration; that means that additional regeneration casts will be tacked on to the end rather than making the existing regeneration stronger. Individual classes also have regeneration-like effects that stack on top of the regeneration boon such as a guardian's Virtue of Resolve or an elementalist with the trait for Soothing Mist. Finally, various food buffs also restore health, either as a chance on a critical or as a persistent regeneration effect that stacks on top of the regeneration boon. Food buffs persist through death in GW2. Note that while many of these regeneration effects appear to be weak in absolute terms, you don't have persistently strong incoming damage, either, so they aren't all that weak in relative terms.

A final form of healing is reviving yourself or other players. Unlike most other MMOs, and more like a lot of tabletop RPGS, your health reaching zero will not immediately kill you. You have limited options to stay alive, but the #4 button will heal you (not enough if you keep getting attacked), and other players can help you with that. That's a form of healing that's available to everyone, but note that reviving other players generally draws a high amount of threat.

DPS is generally simple, and only a few professions can actually significantly boost their output through a complex rotation. In general, GW2 is an ABM (always be moving) game more geared towards twitch mechanics instead of the ABC (always be casting) mechanics you may be used to from WoW or Rift. Thus, for most professions, DPS generally consists of 2-3 buttons (including auto-attack). Buffing group DPS through applications of Might (increases your allies' damage output) or Vulnerability (increases a mob's damage intake) can matter, too. DPS rotations are kept simple because you're meant to be watching what the mob is doing and environmental events (and react to that) rather than focusing on your action bar.

Managing aggro if you have it can be done in various forms; a lot of open world mobs can simply be face-tanked, because they don't do enough damage to be a risk (which ones varies by class, spec, and level). Kiting (for ranged players) or circle-strafing (for melee players) is often an effective way to deal with abilities that are difficult to avoid, but is much less effective against ranged mobs (especially those with instant attacks that will just turrent and gun you down if you don't dodge). Kiting can be made more effective with cripple or immobilization effects, though some mobs are immune to those. Dodging is of course also important, and many dodgeable attacks are advertised by a clear visual swirly effect; harmful area effects are marked by red circles on the ground; for other effects, especially from dungeon bosses, you may have to learn their animation. Some attacks are intentionally unavoidable, except through sheer luck; others are machine-gun like, where you will almost always take the initial hit, but can dodge the rest. A key part of dealing with aggro is how to handle being incapacitated, i.e. through stun or knockdowns. A number of abilities will break stuns (and are labeled as such), and the Stability boon will grant immunity to most control effects. Note that you can still use instant abilities when stunned or knocked down.

[Xalzel]

Its horrible for PvE and wonderful for PvP. Anything not warrior or Guardian will never get into instance groups. But it removes the crazy healing in PvP.