Breaking the "Trinity"

[[-Spiritus-]]

Greetings! For those of you who don't know, GW2 is attempting to break the holy trinity of "Tank, DPS, & Heal" and replace it with Damage, Support, & Control. To learn more read here: http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-gam...healing-death/

What do you guys think of this? Do you think it can work? Are you excited as to what kind of raiding encounters could be designed around this new concept of each profession having a piece of the new trinity? Do you think PvP will be more dynamic because of it?

[StationaryHawk]

While GW2 currently has no plans for raids (just the massive dynamic event bosses), I'm very excited about their new system for PvE. The "Tank, DPS, & Heal" trinity was getting rather dull, even though it worked, and I'm glad that someone's attempting to stray from it. Should make for some very interesting dungeons.

[Deleted]

They've already shown it works at demos, and I've tried it myself, and I am sold on the idea of it.

They showed 3 Engineers and 2 Thiefs doing a dungeon with no issues regarding tanks or healing. The fights revolve around making you use your abilities to their fulliest, not a zerg fest like some seem to think it will be.

although some profession obviously can take more of a beating due to heavy armour etc, some are capable of AoE healing abilities, but theyy are not healers in that respect.

PvP is a hell of alot more fun like this, I played at Eurogamer, and nobody gets bursted down really fast, you don't take enough damage to warrent needing a healer, though if you don't use your healing skill you're going to die fast.



I would much rather play with my firnds, than some randomer from trade, just because I had to take him due to been class X.

[Mif]

It's also important to point out that all classes will be able to do damage, support allies, and control enemies (control as in knockback etc, not tank).

I think it will work, and more importantly I think it will really let good players shine.

[wahsa]

It can definitely work. Not much emphasis was placed on healing in Guild Wars anyway, and healing wasn't really a problem in PvE anyway. Heck, the only time I ever considered healing was when I had a 55HP Monk for farming ectoplasm.

[Borzo]

One of the big problems with the holy trinity is that it is class specific. Only certain classes can tank or heal.

In GW2, EVERY class can play EVERY role. This is a HUGE step forward.



Also: The AI required to support a holy trinity is as dumb as the gum on my shoe. It hurts my brain whenever I get into a PVE fight that's tank/spank. That kind of lazy programming needs to go out the window. Aggro-management and tank-healing is poor design. Maybe we had nothing better 10 years ago... but we've come a long way, and I'm glad to see it go.

[Merendel]

I think it will work, and more importantly I think it will really let good players shine.

and let the really bad players either improve or fade into obscurity. The worst part about the trinity is it sometimes forces you to bring someone that can not handle the skill requirements because you have no other choice. I remember having to try and recruit a war tank back in the black temple era. The only one we could find was truely awful, he thought he was the best tank on the server. The only reason we put up with him was you literaly could not do one of the fights without a war tank and we could not find a better one dispite looking. That, if for no other reason, is why I pray this modle will suceed. Although the no trinity does look fun reguardless.

[Deal]

I'm liking the idea that players will have to look after their own health pools and what not, the tank/dps/heals thing is really overdone and i'm looking foward to trying this new system.

[Skyve]

It's good that there won't be classes that are primarily effective/useful in certain areas of the game, and instead pretty much anything will be useful anywhere, while it used to be that you couldn't do PvE without a tank, but could hardly use a tank for PvP.

[YouAreAllWrong]

This

PvP is a hell of alot more fun like this, I played at Eurogamer, and nobody gets bursted down really fast, you don't take enough damage to warrent needing a healer, though if you don't use your healing skill you're going to die fast.

and this

I think it will work, and more importantly I think it will really let good players shine.

get me really excited about this system. If they manage to balance it at a decent level, then it would probably be one of the best structured PvP in a MMORPG.
The true progression is getting better at the game itself, not just having a stat say that now you can do more damage for example.

[Futhark]

I think another important thing to note, is the developers realized they couldn't do this unless the very encounters themselves were changed. This is the biggest hurdle I had in understanding how breaking the trinity would work. "But if there's no tank, who absorbs the damage from the boss?" Well, there won't be fights with a boss beating on one guy. There won't be a "hey everybody fight me every 10 seconds" taunt ability. There won't be huge damaging boss attacks meant to be absorbed by The Tank and not The Dps.

The fights will be balanced to better support an environment where everyone is just as survivable as the next guy as long as the group is capable. The group won't be an auto-wipe when one person dies. Everyone is just as important as the next.

I think this sounds great.

[Stealthedbear]

I think its a great idea. I always end up playing tank/healer when I don't really want to just because no one else is willing or has the skill to. Everyone can play what they enjoy.

[Deleted]

So far I love the idea of the Trinity being replaced with this new system. Now you can just play with the profession you feel that best suits you, and not just because your friends need a healer, tank or dps. And now that you take care of yourself, you can't blame your own failings on everyone else.

[Baek]

While I know that there aren't going to be any raids per se in GW2, I'd like to see how that would play out without the Trinity (or in some games Quartet adding support in the mix). I've always played a tanking class in MMO's but being able to switch things up makes it sound so much more fun. Also, think about the extreme soloing community. If you can pretty much do anything with any comp, soloing content will be very interesting. I do like that they are making the classes **slightly** specialized with Guardians being a bit more tanky and giving elementalists that AoE heal. My friend just goes on and on about how he is going to be a hybrid of his resto shaman and a frost mage. If we got Beta invites he'd probably poo himself.

[oldscratch]

One of the things that got me started playing Guild Wars 1 was the fact that there really wasn't a tank. I hated that about the MMOs up until that point. Now with the removal of the "healer" it just makes the game even more available to play as the toon that you want to play the way that you want to play. I am very partial to Tanking and Healing, but given the chance to use my abilities to do all three depending on the situation... It opens up a utopia of great thoughts in my head!

[Blznsmri]

The only time I ever enjoyed playing WoW was when things were chaotic and the mobs didn't have an aggro table. That's when combat became active, where using CC's, feints, movement wasn't just some pre-planned BS.

Death to the trinity, off with its head!

[Borzo]

I do like that they are making the classes **slightly** specialized with Guardians being a bit more tanky and giving elementalists that AoE heal. My friend just goes on and on about how he is going to be a hybrid of his resto shaman and a frost mage. If we got Beta invites he'd probably poo himself.

Guardians have the 2nd lowest HP of any profession. So "tanky" is probably not the right word. I believe the GW2 devs would use the word "controlly".

---------- Post added 2011-09-27 at 03:09 PM ----------

The only time I ever enjoyed playing WoW was when things were chaotic and the mobs didn't have an aggro table. That's when combat became active, where using CC's, feints, movement wasn't just some pre-planned BS.

Death to the trinity, off with its head!

This is so true. Playing my mage and chain-ccing predetermined mobs was boring. It's when packs got pulled accidentally and the healer got aggro that things became fun, dynamic, and engaging. Of course, that would be the "wrong way to play WOW"... and that upsets me. Finally it seems there's a game where "the right way" and "the fun way" are the same.

[Wrathonia]

Guardians have the 2nd lowest HP of any profession. So "tanky" is probably not the right word. I believe the GW2 devs would use the word "controlly".

And that makes me worry a bit. It feels like Guardians will be the GW2 version of Shaman, and we see how well Shaman are doing right now...

[Hraklea]

I don't have problems with the trinity itself, what bothers me is the 1/1/3 format. You should be able to run an instance with two tanks and no heals in WoW, or five damage dealers, etc. Forcing you to have exactly this format in all instances in the game is very limited.

Guild Wars 2 system looks really good, I hope it doesn't punish bad players too much.

[Borzo]

And that makes me worry a bit. It feels like Guardians will be the GW2 version of Shaman, and we see how well Shaman are doing right now...

I'm a little unclear as to what exactly worries you? Can you elaborate?

---------- Post added 2011-09-27 at 03:48 PM ----------

Guardians are full of shields and barriers, and that's why they have the 2nd lowest HP. I don't know if using bubbles and walls is something that I'd call "tanky". Is there something about this that worries you?