Would you change the holy trinity of WoW?

[Magpai]

Who would play that role though? Also sounds very difficult to balance.

[MrKnubbles]

Yes, I would change the roles. I would want to add Hybrid which fulfills damage and healing. We currently have damage classes that can offer very little healing or healing classes that offer very little damage.

I would also want a Support. They would have more short term buffs but still be able to offer some damage or healing as well.

[mvaliz]

...it makes me wonder if Scenarios were designed this way initially in hopes of finding an alternative to the "rigidness" of the trinity.

[Deleted]

But what's the point of it, if it's just a mix of the current roles, that can do a bit of everything. But not really do all to well at one of them, why would we need or want one one ? :P

I don't have much of a problem with it, but I just don't really see the point.

hehe I see where you come from so I'll be honest. I want a support spec because I think it would expand the options and encounters in-game. I think Blizz needs to evolve and take the exemple from the new era games like GW2 and rift or it will perish...
Also in a more personal note, I would like to had support spec because some of my class concepts have a support spec

[Tarrlogar]

I'm always designing my own pen and paper games borrowing many ideas from WoW. I often like to read about Vanilla and BC raids because of the class depth, but take the player, not the class, became important because of how human nature is. A design I am using is that hybrids are off tanks and there are fights that require hybrids to switch roles. A druid's main stat would be wisdom, which makes all forms work equally. When I finally got to play WoW in 2006 and learned that druids have specs and can't switch effectively roles, I thought that was utterly retarded. Why make a class that can switch roles but then not have them play like that beyond low levels, due to talents? I suppose the problem with hybrids is that zealous raid leaders would just not take them and bring in more of the pures. To counter that, make some of the off tank mobs untankable by main tanks (through use of damage types) and design encounters around phases that have different tank/healer/DPS requirements so that a hybrid has to switch roles throughout the fight. Also, as they in Vanilla, give these hybrids unique buffs so they have to get brought.

So there is the idea of making hybrids mandatory to make a new role. Then as others said, there is support. I'm always looking at the idea of the bard class. Give them better CC than a mage, giving them the equivalent of two polymorphs while having them provide a ton of buffs. While we are at it, make rogues a support class too. Their job can be to scout, disarm, pickpocket, unlock, and all that other jazz they did in Icewind Dale and similar games but not what they do on WoW (and yes, I know they have these abilities in WoW, but they never get put to good use). Bards and Monks in Everquest, I have read, I guess do this thing called Lulling where they can take a pull and separate certain tough mobs from the group (such as a dumb but strong ogre), and fight them individually.

I still like WoW in it's current form, especially as MOP, but I still often crave more in the department of class and role depth.

[Constraint]

I always adored support classes in MMOs. <3 bards so much! I really doubt Blizzard will ever incorporate such things, with their insistence that 3+ classes MUST, at all times, have the same buffs available. We all know what happened to specs which provided even a moderate "bring for buffs" capacity, i.e lots of specs in vanilla, shadow priests in every caster group in BC, an enh shammy in the melee group, caster shammy in the healer/ranged groups etc etc. Apparently people were "obliged" to bring them, so they took a homogenization hit to the face, and here we are today.

[Keoren]

and take the exemple from the new era games like GW2 and rift

I do not disagree per se, but successfully implementing a full-time support role into the mix would be extremely hard. If the benefits of having one were anything other than straight-up boring and linear buffs, balancing the role would also be more of a continuous struggle than just about any other. Realistically speaking the role would either end up as being boring, and/or overpowered and compulsory, and/or underpowered and novelty.

The possibility of being a support player is definitely a good addition to a sandbox (or even a theme park) RPG that focuses on immersion over competition. In WoW, however, the idea seems quite dysfunctional.

[melodramocracy]

You dont see the bigger picture here. If a support role was added, it would bring many support new support specs with it, and giving all these new specs a place on the LFD and LFR interface

I think they may be wanting to stay away from this sort of thing because they don't want battles to feel like another role is 'mandatory'.

Much like they seem to stay away from fights where you absolutely HAVE to have x class (or, enough classes have been homogenized to the point that it's no longer needed).

Support roles would be amazing in PvP however.

[Deleted]

I'm always designing my own pen and paper games borrowing many ideas from WoW. I often like to read about Vanilla and BC raids because of the class depth, but take the player, not the class, became important because of how human nature is. A design I am using is that hybrids are off tanks and there are fights that require hybrids to switch roles. A druid's main stat would be wisdom, which makes all forms work equally. When I finally got to play WoW in 2006 and learned that druids have specs and can't switch effectively roles, I thought that was utterly retarded. Why make a class that can switch roles but then not have them play like that beyond low levels, due to talents? I suppose the problem with hybrids is that zealous raid leaders would just not take them and bring in more of the pures. To counter that, make some of the off tank mobs untankable by main tanks (through use of damage types) and design encounters around phases that have different tank/healer/DPS requirements so that a hybrid has to switch roles throughout the fight. Also, as they in Vanilla, give these hybrids unique buffs so they have to get brought.

I see... very interesting read here. You just made my day buddy =^p.
So the conclusion I got from reading this was that you think hybrids, namely druids should be able to change specs. This is obviously impossible imo because then there would be endless QQ from other classes, namely pure dps. Also we cannot do this because there are no pure tank classes or healers so pretty much all classes are hybrids right? This means onlythere would be no need for specs anyways. The way you could imo overcome this would be by adding yet another specific type of support class/spec designed around being capable of performing two roles at once more away from dps and support but into tank and heal thus forsaking dps. Or just a morpher type of class/spec whose main role is to be able to tank and heal and dps but without being OP. This is very very farfetched I know but it was still a good creative exercise =P

So there is the idea of making hybrids mandatory to make a new role. Then as others said, there is support. I'm always looking at the idea of the bard class. Give them better CC than a mage, giving them the equivalent of two polymorphs while having them provide a ton of buffs. While we are at it, make rogues a support class too. Their job can be to scout, disarm, pickpocket, unlock, and all that other jazz they did in Icewind Dale and similar games but not what they do on WoW (and yes, I know they have these abilities in WoW, but they never get put to good use). Bards and Monks in Everquest, I have read, I guess do this thing called Lulling where they can take a pull and separate certain tough mobs from the group (such as a dumb but strong ogre), and fight them individually.

This bit really got me going m8. I so wish that Wow could be more like diablo and dragon age and just have random enemies and events come from nowhere, specially in dungeons and raids. This type of environment where a class's unique traits could be explored far deeply then the mere damage dealing, healing and tanking facerolls that currently mandate. that's what I would work for if I was of Blizz at least.
Anyway, maybe you could check out my classes in my sig and see how I would try to implement a support role

[Teriz]

I actually prefer Blizzard's version of support. Every class has support abilities, but no class is specifically a support class. So while I'm DPSing with my WindWalker Monk, I'm also buffing the group with Legacy of the White Tiger and Legacy of the Emperor. Alternatively, if I'm healing with my Shaman, my passive auras are increasing casting and melee speeds.

That is a superior model than having a class created solely for the purpose of buffing others.

[Sivick]

While FFXIII had it's problems the role system was amazing. being able to switch from tank to dps to healer on the fly was awesome. And they had buff and debuff classes too... It provided for very interesting combat and that saved the game for me.

[mistahwilshire]

No I wouldn't change it. Frankly it's the best system out in MMOs right now. I'm an avid GW2 player and that system doesn't hold a candle to the traditional holy trinity. Many have tried and failed miserably at breaking away to non traditional systems and there's a reason for that. The trinity works. Very very well.

[MoanaLisa]

Yes, I would change the roles. I would want to add Hybrid which fulfills damage and healing. We currently have damage classes that can offer very little healing or healing classes that offer very little damage.

I would also want a Support. They would have more short term buffs but still be able to offer some damage or healing as well.

I think one of the real problems with hybrids as they are now is that within their specific spec, they really don't act as hybrids. Shadow priests--what I play--generally aren't interested in healing and I've seen a couple of ugly confrontations when one was asked to be ready to do some off-healing. I don't mind it myself and have found myself tossing out Power Word: Shields with some abandon when things don't go according to plan. I am well aware that the one thing that players in random groups don't understand is anything much that's subtle in that way. Stopping DPS to do much of anything else that might be helpful gives some people the shakes.

The game has more or less boxed everyone into one of the legs of the trinity and it's very difficult to break through that.

[Volitar]

No, I think games that try and break the mold are cute but they can't hold my attention very long. The whole dodge thing feels gimmicky to me.

[skrump]

I would love to play a class that focuses on buffing others, but I can't imagine Blizzard changing the way the holy trinity works in WoW.

Pallies, Druids, Shammies were focused on buffing others in Vanilla and did exactly what the Op is describing, problem was they were mostly worthless outside of the raid even though they were also designed to do a half ass job of performing each of the roles of the holy trinity.

[Kantoro]

GW2 has the worst dungeon experience I have EVER experienced. You would lose ppl by the millions if WoW adopted that style of play.

[Manabomb]

I'd actually like to think the idea of being a buff bot was lost on players due to multiple factors, such as a raid needing one of every buff bot if they were going to be any kind of serious or the fact you are doing less dps/healing/not as good of a tank as your comrades, but your buffs help them attain their increased ability.

It's things like this where it shows exactly what certain raiders are, either out for themselves "I must top all the deepz meters guys" kind of raider, or a for the raid, will be willing to reroll 3 times in a single content patch just to achieve the bleeding edge sort of raider. In a world where more of these "bleeding edge sort of raiders" (I'm not talking about hardcore raiders, although they are similar, bleeding edge raiders choose to raid normal mode content because of time constraints, ect, but still put in the effort of min maxing their character, ect.) I would like to think the idea of a buff bot "role" for the four dps classes that only have a single role (as dps) would work out amazingly, especially seeing as mages, warlocks and hunters are quite common classes.

Alas in our world where convenience meets the very strict casual players schedule of when and how long they are able to sink time into the game, this idea probably would not hold over very well. Granted on a personal level I think the entire holy trinity is stupid and should be abolished from mmo's and rpg's alike, for a game so set in it's roots like WoW is, I doubt a change this controversial this late in the games lifespan would do much more harm than good.

---------- Post added 2013-05-05 at 04:31 AM ----------

GW2 has the worst dungeon experience I have EVER experienced. You would lose ppl by the millions if WoW adopted that style of play.

That's a rather faulty conjecture. Many people adore the gw2 dungeon experience for many reasons. I won't deny that there are those that dislike it as there are those that dislike WoW's stylizing of dungeons, but you cannot say WoW will lose millions if they tried to expand on current classes instead of say, making a new one, or adding tanking/healing abilities to warlocks, mages, hunters or rogues. That's basing a fact on your own opinions.

[prwraith]

I'm actually annoyed they took out the raid comp thing. With the everyone can do everything policy I feel that aspect of the game lost uniqueness. I ENJOY playing support, making others better and their job easier. Knowing that the raid couldn't have succeeded without me being in a dozen places helping different classes.

But the whole 2 tanks 3 healers 5 dps or 2 tanks 5 healers 18 dps where the classes don't really matter is drull.

perfect example of awesome support = mystic in tera online.

[Deadmedic]

as alot of ppl where saying the hybrid classes where actually support classes back in Vanilla and BC, and it got so bad in BC that a perfect raid set up required an exact number of hybrids and pures and a specific healer make up, Brutallus was actually designed around this, for instance, you Needed 2 shadow priest as a mana batteries for the healers, only 2 tho, any more and you would be loosing out on dps, you needed enough shaman to keep BL on your best dps up for the majority of the fight, you needed pallies outside of raid to zone in, give buffs, then leave and sit outside, you where even requried to have a few of each profession, so you could have things like drums up all the time and crap like that, this kind of play was frustraiting to raid around because each raid spot needed a back up cause you couldnt go without that perfect make up. i am glad they dont work this way anymore, but i do miss my uniqueness as being a mana battery.

[Griffter]

I actually like the trinity. I enjoy all three roles, and enjoy switching between them pretty regularly. The only way to get rid of it is to make every spec decent at all three at the same time, and that just makes everything bland.

A support role would be interesting. I think it could be done successfully in WoW if done right, but I doubt Blizzard would want to make a change that big in a game this old. Of course, that's what I would have said about LFD, LFR, CRZ, pet battles, etc as well, so you never know.