Funnily enough, the trinity was initially not really a trinity: sometimes it was thought that trinity was tank-healer-cc, then later it was thought to be tank-healer-dps, but actually it existed of tank-healer-dps-cc.
So, depending upon how you look at team combat mechanics in MMO's, there are actually 4 areas or expertise, or 'roles' instead of 3 or when you look even broader at MMO team combat, there's a wide array of roles: team support or utility (buff/debuff), damage redirection or mob attractor (tank), damage recovery and/or regeneration (healer), mob movement control (crowd control), mob damage control (lockdown, cc), mob control (puppeteer), damage deflection, damage prevention, damage reduction/absorption, burst damage, AoE damage (dps) etc.
Of all those, only the blue ones are needed for trinity combat, and in trinity combat those aren't defined as skillsets but as roles/classes. Looking at the possible team combat functions, it should be clear that classic trinity is only 1 possible mix for team combat, and a limited one as well. There are more effective mixes possible, especially if the roles aren't seen so much as roles, but as skillsets, of which a class can have a mix of a few.
Tank / dps / healer has always been known as the Holy Trinity. This is not a new term but a saying that has been around for over nearly 2 decades.
You dont even need a proper tank, any charactor with good damage mitigation and maybe burst damage will do instead of heavy armour and aggro control.
Dps charactors have and nearly always are mages in every game, you get the odd game where another class rules single dps but mages have and always will rule aoe Dps, they are always good at cc too.
Healers are always needed for there buffs/debuffs and of cause heals.
....
Terrain will and has always played a major part in the Holy trinity, trapping a group of monsters in a doorway or a stuck out rock etc has always played it's part.
....
New ideas from Game companys are always trying to stop the Trinity, example AOC : this game had monsters that could freely move through you so they could get at the dps who would of course be doing the most damage.
Thus we have addons eg Damage/Aggro meters introduced by the players themselfs to fight back at companys that try to stop the Trinity, Now all players can watch thier aggro and adjust to it.
....
Until some innovative programmer comes up with a solution to stop the Holy Trinity you will always have the Tank / Dps / healer in every game.
It will be fun to see how they will over come this.
Really? Everyone that doesn't do a guild is a solo hero? Even if you said most, you would still be so very wrong. You strike me as an elitest, especially with your comment about pick up groups. Just who do you think you are anyway. Do you pay our subcriptions? Till you do, you have no right to judge how we play. You want to roll with a guild, good for you, but I personally find most guilds to be nothing more than political cliches with more drama than a gaggle of drag queens. I'll stick with my soloing and pick up groups and enjoy these games as I see fit.
ArenaNet is virtually eliminating the need for a tank and healer and it will be everyone's job to manage aggro, heal themselves and ressurect those who fall in battle. I think it's brilliant. It makes everyone important to the group without having to conform to some stupid narrow minded role.
You should try not to take the things I said so personally. I simply said that a good guild solves the problem of having to wait for a specific class. I never said all guilds are better than pugs. I never told anyone that they have to play a certain way. I just offered a solution from personal experience. Im sorry your experiences in guilds have been bad.
Ive been in bad guilds. I leave. Ive started my own guilds by inviting people that Ive had a good time with. Guilds are created by people just like you n me. They arent just some massive globs of horrible elitists.
Im sorry that you got so upset. I didnt presume anything about you. If you took my previous post personally, it was unintentional. I hope you can see that.
When you say "good" guild, what you mean is "large" guild, isn't it? Most of the "good" guilds I've been with have also been small ones. People know each other well and genuinely enjoy one another's company. In these cases, there is almost zero drama and zero bitching. That's a good guild to me. However, it's also a fact that there aren't going to be a dozen absolutely_needed-class_X characters on at all hours, and in some cases, no one else at all that's in your level range for you to group with. The answer: PUG it. And this is where you can anticipate sitting around for who knows how long, waiting for an absolutely_needed-class_X to answer your LFM.
As far as I'm concerned, the larger a guild is, the more likely you'll get a group, but the less likely that it will be with people that you would choose to game with if you had an option. Good does not equal big.
One other thing about "karma farmers". Being in the area where an event is taking place does not mean that the event will be scaling up or that you'll be siphoning karma. It doesn't matter how cool you are, you don't exist until you start participating. Exactly what that means, I'm not sure, but I think it's safe to assume that causing damage will get your foot in the door. Other support stuff might be counted as well, but the point is, events will only scale and you'll only be able to gain rewards if you're actively participating. Even if you went in, bashed a few skulls, then just waited in the middle doing a dance animation, the event would scale up with your initial participation, then scale back down again when you take a powder. You would receive credit for your contribution and that's it. If your contribution was miniscule, so too will be your reward.
There is no leeching and there is no carrying. You get cashed out for how much you put in. ArenaNet has stated that they've taken great pains to ensure events can't be griefed in this way so it's just not something I think warrants concern.
The combat style you speak of may not be practical in a game that has you fighting more than one enemy at a time. Once you throw in three more swords, the whole "reactive" combat or should I say "dynamic combat" breaks apart because you'll have to react to different moves that may be coming at you all at the same time. The game will have to be made in such a way that you can only fight one enemy at a time and I'm not sure if a lot of people would like that...
That is not entirely true. There are attacks to fight several opponents as well, real working attacks. It is of course a lot harder than fighting a single oponent and you will in most cases have to put your main focus on one, but it should work for up to 1 against 3. A larger zerg than that would be hard but frankly would you be dead in any case then unless you were a fully armored knight against 4 very unlucke peseants with butterknifes.
I do agree that it works better when you pair up one against another but frankly is anything else in a real battle a slaughter (unless you can stand with your back against a wall and it isn't easy then either). Unless the lonely guy more or less go full defence he will be hit.
On the other hand is ganging up a great tactic.
But with 2 people striking at you the game mechanics will have to know all three and which the main target of the lonely guy have. It still works. You might also have to count in what any nearby friend and enemy does, certain attacks they do might help or make your situation worse. It might sound complicated but you have a computer doing the math, you just get your 8 options anyways.
Of course it would be a shock to many players who are used to killing 5 enemies alone at the same time and the power munchkin player type might not like that but the main idea was to add realism to the combat and more strategy.
Of course terrain, the direction of the sun and other factors might also help, it is easier to feign if the enemy got the sun in her eyes.
Comments
Tank / dps / healer has always been known as the Holy Trinity. This is not a new term but a saying that has been around for over nearly 2 decades.
You dont even need a proper tank, any charactor with good damage mitigation and maybe burst damage will do instead of heavy armour and aggro control.
Dps charactors have and nearly always are mages in every game, you get the odd game where another class rules single dps but mages have and always will rule aoe Dps, they are always good at cc too.
Healers are always needed for there buffs/debuffs and of cause heals.
....
Terrain will and has always played a major part in the Holy trinity, trapping a group of monsters in a doorway or a stuck out rock etc has always played it's part.
....
New ideas from Game companys are always trying to stop the Trinity, example AOC : this game had monsters that could freely move through you so they could get at the dps who would of course be doing the most damage.
Thus we have addons eg Damage/Aggro meters introduced by the players themselfs to fight back at companys that try to stop the Trinity, Now all players can watch thier aggro and adjust to it.
....
Until some innovative programmer comes up with a solution to stop the Holy Trinity you will always have the Tank / Dps / healer in every game.
It will be fun to see how they will over come this.
When you say "good" guild, what you mean is "large" guild, isn't it? Most of the "good" guilds I've been with have also been small ones. People know each other well and genuinely enjoy one another's company. In these cases, there is almost zero drama and zero bitching. That's a good guild to me. However, it's also a fact that there aren't going to be a dozen absolutely_needed-class_X characters on at all hours, and in some cases, no one else at all that's in your level range for you to group with. The answer: PUG it. And this is where you can anticipate sitting around for who knows how long, waiting for an absolutely_needed-class_X to answer your LFM.
As far as I'm concerned, the larger a guild is, the more likely you'll get a group, but the less likely that it will be with people that you would choose to game with if you had an option. Good does not equal big.
One other thing about "karma farmers". Being in the area where an event is taking place does not mean that the event will be scaling up or that you'll be siphoning karma. It doesn't matter how cool you are, you don't exist until you start participating. Exactly what that means, I'm not sure, but I think it's safe to assume that causing damage will get your foot in the door. Other support stuff might be counted as well, but the point is, events will only scale and you'll only be able to gain rewards if you're actively participating. Even if you went in, bashed a few skulls, then just waited in the middle doing a dance animation, the event would scale up with your initial participation, then scale back down again when you take a powder. You would receive credit for your contribution and that's it. If your contribution was miniscule, so too will be your reward.
There is no leeching and there is no carrying. You get cashed out for how much you put in. ArenaNet has stated that they've taken great pains to ensure events can't be griefed in this way so it's just not something I think warrants concern.
That is not entirely true. There are attacks to fight several opponents as well, real working attacks. It is of course a lot harder than fighting a single oponent and you will in most cases have to put your main focus on one, but it should work for up to 1 against 3. A larger zerg than that would be hard but frankly would you be dead in any case then unless you were a fully armored knight against 4 very unlucke peseants with butterknifes.
I do agree that it works better when you pair up one against another but frankly is anything else in a real battle a slaughter (unless you can stand with your back against a wall and it isn't easy then either). Unless the lonely guy more or less go full defence he will be hit.
On the other hand is ganging up a great tactic.
But with 2 people striking at you the game mechanics will have to know all three and which the main target of the lonely guy have. It still works. You might also have to count in what any nearby friend and enemy does, certain attacks they do might help or make your situation worse. It might sound complicated but you have a computer doing the math, you just get your 8 options anyways.
Of course it would be a shock to many players who are used to killing 5 enemies alone at the same time and the power munchkin player type might not like that but the main idea was to add realism to the combat and more strategy.
Of course terrain, the direction of the sun and other factors might also help, it is easier to feign if the enemy got the sun in her eyes.