As someone who has played in a beta weekend, I say the trinity is dead in GW2, it's not in GW2's blood. Square peg in a round hole.
Which is something I'm grateful for. The Trinity is one of the most ludicrous game mechanics I've ever experienced. And Devs in such games spend all that work enforcing a very artificial game mechanic that isn't even fun or interesting at a base level.
If you're talking about WoW's trinity then yeah, it's absolute garbage. On the other hand there are versions of the trinity where e.g. healers are not idiots that spam heals. You might talk about the need for tanks and such to do content though and that is perfectly fine to not like, even if I like it. On the other hand GW2's system will be interesting to experience in person.
I'm talking about any Holy Trinity system. EQ, WoW, TOR, or whatever system you want to name. It's hugely unrealistic and problematic. The following is what I do not like about them, in no particular order.
1. The base mechanics of the class interactions are boring, boring, boring. So gimmicks have to be used everywhere in one form or another.
2. More significantly there's no traditional RPG before MMOs, era in history, or fantasy/sci-fi/whatever literature where an HT mechanic is used. It's a terrible way to represent the vast majority of fantasy/historic/sci-fi worlds.
3. People don't desire to play the roles in the ratios they are needed. Heck, even if they did, you'd still have shortage problems due to random variances in who is online at the time.
4. Now, granted with #2, games don't have to be realistic, but HT has also started the idea that without it you can't have or encourage teamwork and everything is a zerg. Or even that without HT roles or specialties can't exist (military history soundly disproves this). Or even without pre-defined roles and specialities, teamwork is worthless (counterexample: Batman and Robin).
5. It's completely unrealistic in that it requires bosses to be immensely stupid. The Lore of All Evil and Genius Mastermind can't figure out to kill the healers? Because anyone with a shred of intelligence in PvP knows that you kill the Healers first (unless the PvP game is soundly different and the healers can't keep up). This makes it very difficult for me to immerse myself. (And I'm not even getting into the silliness of people who can do damage but are wholly incapable of defending themselves).
It's just such a hack of a mechanic that any MMO that comes out with it really turns me off now.
Originally posted by Svarcanum Not very many people in this post trying to explain the video, which is the root of the question. I agree, it very much looks like the guardian is old school tanking that boss. Someone said the boss had ranged attacks and didn't really go for the guardian but the other team members. That would explain why it looks like he's tanking but is not. Personally that fight looked REALLY boring, but as for tanking my personal experiences as guardian is that in no way shape or form did I feel like a tank. More often than not I had to run like a little girl when I fought one of those blindness resistant elite mobs. So that video does a poor job of displaying my experience as guardian.
I agree. That video, along with many others, really doesn't give a proper representation of the game.
So CAN there be trinity? In lower easier instances sure, in harder ones... noone knows. But is THIS game designed around there being a trinity.. No. So what does it matter if it could be there or not? It's all just play preference.
Need to be more specific than that. If there's one bad guy, everyone else is ranged, and the bad guy can't do much damage...then it seems like there can be tanking...though there really aren't dedicated healers. Someone picking up some traits and using the right weapon attack to do some off-healing is limiting themselves for relatively little healing. Note there aren't any character attributes tied directly to healing. It isn't like WoW or the like where there is +healing gear.
This sort of thing doesn't work well if there are multiple mobs or if the current mob switches to attack someone else. I'm not sure how physically moving out of the way of attacks affects mob behavior either, but in the video someone provided the Guardian was NOT moving out of the way of attacks. From what I gathered, they also had a fairly gimicky build that happened to stop most damage (at least in that storymode dungeon, and storymode dungeons are easy). I think that may be from an old build of the beta, because I heard they nerfed something like this for guardians at some point.
So I don't think attempting to do a Trinity game would actually work against most content. Someone just did a video of a very niche application, niche even for an easy area.
The devs say "Play how you want to play" but I want to play as a healer. Im not interested in doing dps.
If I spec to be a healer I will be gimping myself. Therefore you either have to be an all rounder or pure dps ?
I sugest you play a elementlis or a guardian and spec heavy into support. You will have tools to heal and also ways to stop damage happening to team mates. You can play a class heavy in support and people will love you for it. But you will be doing damage while you do this. You wil not be transfixed on peoples health bars. I love playing support and this is the most fun I have had playing a support role in any MMO. Watch the video below to get the idea. You can spec a lot of the classes to play support with many flavors of it but like I said Guardian and Elementlist have the strongest healing. Just dont expect to stand there spaming heal and watching health bars.
The devs say "Play how you want to play" but I want to play as a healer. Im not interested in doing dps.
If I spec to be a healer I will be gimping myself. Therefore you either have to be an all rounder or pure dps ?
I sugest you play a elementlis or a guardian and spec heavy into support. You will have tools to heal and also ways to stop damage happening to team mates. You can play a class heavy in support and people will love you for it. But you will be doing damage while you do this. You wil not be transfixed on peoples health bars. I love playing support and this is the most fun I have had playing a support role in any MMO. Watch the video below to get the idea. You can spec a lot of the classes to play support with many flavors of it but like I said Guardian and Elementlist have the strongest healing. Just dont expect to stand there spaming heal and watching health bars.
very nice vid added that one to my sPVP section in my sig:)
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
The devs say "Play how you want to play" but I want to play as a healer. Im not interested in doing dps.
If I spec to be a healer I will be gimping myself. Therefore you either have to be an all rounder or pure dps ?
If you would enjoy playing a role where you spend a fair amount of your time in a group providing Boons (Buffs), clearing Conditions (Debuffs), while also possibly providing some light healing (with all of the Buffing/Debuffing/Healing happening indirectly as you can't target a teammate) you can have quite a bit of fun in GW2.
Also, designing a Build that focuses on Reviving people as efficiently as possible feels a bit like "traditional" healing as well.
If you only truly enjoy playing a "Pure Healer" role in a "Holy Trinity" system than GW2 really isn't the game for you.
Please don't take this as an attack in any way. I've given this same advice to a few friends and guildmates.
So CAN there be trinity? In lower easier instances sure, in harder ones... noone knows. But is THIS game designed around there being a trinity.. No. So what does it matter if it could be there or not? It's all just play preference.
Need to be more specific than that. If there's one bad guy, everyone else is ranged, and the bad guy can't do much damage...then it seems like there can be tanking...though there really aren't dedicated healers. Someone picking up some traits and using the right weapon attack to do some off-healing is limiting themselves for relatively little healing. Note there aren't any character attributes tied directly to healing. It isn't like WoW or the like where there is +healing gear.
This sort of thing doesn't work well if there are multiple mobs or if the current mob switches to attack someone else. I'm not sure how physically moving out of the way of attacks affects mob behavior either, but in the video someone provided the Guardian was NOT moving out of the way of attacks. From what I gathered, they also had a fairly gimicky build that happened to stop most damage (at least in that storymode dungeon, and storymode dungeons are easy). I think that may be from an old build of the beta, because I heard they nerfed something like this for guardians at some point.
So I don't think attempting to do a Trinity game would actually work against most content. Someone just did a video of a very niche application, niche even for an easy area.
Yes, but building as a certain specific role is possible is what I'm saying. And there are classes with healing skills that could be viable to heal others relatively well if given enough healing power. Is it enough that his only role is healing? no, but it's possible to build your class to fall into trinity. And that is playstyle. If you want to build your class as a tank and get in the way of ranged attacks to protect the team or stay in melee range like the guardian then you can, will it work outright, no, but it still serves the specific role that the particular person wants to fill, mitigating damage from other players by tanking it yourself or healing teammates with bonus healing power to help keep people alive. All I'm saying is taht this game is not built to be run purely by trinity standards and that if people feel they can play only one role, then it might hurt them later when that role is not really viable as it is.
The devs say "Play how you want to play" but I want to play as a healer. Im not interested in doing dps.
If I spec to be a healer I will be gimping myself. Therefore you either have to be an all rounder or pure dps ?
I sugest you play a elementlis or a guardian and spec heavy into support. You will have tools to heal and also ways to stop damage happening to team mates. You can play a class heavy in support and people will love you for it. But you will be doing damage while you do this. You wil not be transfixed on peoples health bars. I love playing support and this is the most fun I have had playing a support role in any MMO. Watch the video below to get the idea. You can spec a lot of the classes to play support with many flavors of it but like I said Guardian and Elementlist have the strongest healing. Just dont expect to stand there spaming heal and watching health bars.
Yeah I was thinking of going for an ele as I prefer to be at range.
So if I played a heavy support specced ele and I got caught in a 1 on 1 pvp situation, will i have to tools to get away from my attacker or slow him/her down a bit before reinforcments arrive ?
sorry for the newb questions but the gw2 tools site appears to be down atm.
The devs say "Play how you want to play" but I want to play as a healer. Im not interested in doing dps.
If I spec to be a healer I will be gimping myself. Therefore you either have to be an all rounder or pure dps ?
I sugest you play a elementlis or a guardian and spec heavy into support. You will have tools to heal and also ways to stop damage happening to team mates. You can play a class heavy in support and people will love you for it. But you will be doing damage while you do this. You wil not be transfixed on peoples health bars. I love playing support and this is the most fun I have had playing a support role in any MMO. Watch the video below to get the idea. You can spec a lot of the classes to play support with many flavors of it but like I said Guardian and Elementlist have the strongest healing. Just dont expect to stand there spaming heal and watching health bars.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
So I haven't played any of the beta, but from the footage I've seen, there IS a trinity. Lots of classes (if not all) have a healing and tanking "spec". As I watch some of the dungeon running I see people falling into those roles.
It really caught my attention during a run PC Gamer did. I don't have the Youtube link handy, but you could probably find it.
Ok first of all, I know exactly which video you're referring to. It remains the ONLY video I've seen where a single class was standing in front of a boss mob, but here's the problem..... the boss was not a physical threat..... its mechanic was "poison" and due to the fact that the "tank" in question was removing the status ailments from himself, he was able to keep its attention meanwhile not dying. It's pretty safe to say that anyone in that group could have stood in front of it like he did since it was no physical damage threat.
So essentially...... no.
And be honest, that's the ONLY time you saw something like this. I've watched everything out there and there aren't any other videos like this. It's the dungeon, it's not the player.
(Don't hold me to this, I just know it wasn't physically attacking the "tank" or there would have been more damage)
Yeah I was thinking of going for an ele as I prefer to be at range.
So if I played a heavy support specced ele and I got caught in a 1 on 1 pvp situation, will i have to tools to get away from my attacker or slow him/her down a bit before reinforcments arrive ?
sorry for the newb questions but the gw2 tools site appears to be down atm.
yes you can:)
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Yeah I was thinking of going for an ele as I prefer to be at range.
So if I played a heavy support specced ele and I got caught in a 1 on 1 pvp situation, will i have to tools to get away from my attacker or slow him/her down a bit before reinforcments arrive ?
sorry for the newb questions but the gw2 tools site appears to be down atm.
yes you can:)
Good thx Aerowyn
Just coz I won't be able to do good dps it's nice to know that I won't be a sitting duck either
When a mob is hitting you, you're tanking. It doesn't matter if there's no aggro mechanic to keep the attention on yourself or not. What the poster above you is saying is that it's impossible to keep mobs from hitting someone in your party, therefore SOMEONE is tanking.
Doesn't have to be the same person every battle, or even the same person throughout one whole fight. But someone is going to be taking that damage, and someone is going to be supporting him (including his own self heals), and someone is going to be killing the mob... And then roles will switch depending on how the fight goes.
From what I can tell, the GW2 difference is it's fluidity in party members moving between the roles, not their complete absence from the game.
interesting take on tanking
He is a little off but not far from the mark. A mage in WoW could tank if thats the case. Where it becomes taking is when your class is designed to mitigate damage by buffs/regen/ac/skills then you are tanking. I know GW fans like to say the classes dont tank, they have control skills. <<>> thats cutting hairs if you ask me. GW2 does have a soft trinity as all classes have what they need to stand toe to toe with a boss for a small time. But if someone cant see its not done in the standard MMO way then they are not worth replying to.
Well.. a lot of people (me included) consider "tanking" any time you're getting hit. Now that being said you have funny tanking and real tanking in most games, but that's the quality of said tanking.
The holy trinity is *not* gone from GW2 anyone who says that is getting caught up in catch phrases and hype. You don't need to even be ina beta to realize this... just look at a skill list. If you have heals, abilities/items allowing to absorb tank, and some doing some sort of damage... you have a HT. In GW2 the HT is just greatly diminished in importance. Maybe just one strat amongst many.
I don't know if people see this as semantics or they honestly believe the HT is dead in GW2.
Anyone who has played GW2 knows that #1 is not possible. You have ZERO aggro control abilities. #2 is debateable, and I have seen compelling evidence both ways, but I remain convinced that in the harder content it is not feasable even if it may be possible.
Just taking hits is not Tanking. Tanking is a specific form of Control and all Professions have access to control abilities and builds, but this is not the same as saying all professions can Tank.
If every profession has the tools to "tank" and "heal" for any period of time, then there is no holy trinity as holy trinity = dedicated roles.
Just about every single ability any profession has that allows you to heal other players has a damage or other support component to it as well.
Damage avoidance/mitigation is done via block and dodge as well as things like blind and stun/knockdown/cripple which every profession has.
In other MMOs like WoW there were gimmick tanking scenarios, mage tanks in Gruul or Warlock pet tanks / hunter pet tanks Shaman tanks etc. etc. but the game was DESIGNED from the ground up to have the Holy Trinity in play.
GW2 is DESIGNED from the ground up to NOT have the Holy Trinity in play.
All classes CAN be damage, support, control and often all at the same time/within a split second of each other.
Having someone spec'd into Support especially for Healing means you the party member will probably have to use your own healing skills less often, but you still can't just stand there taking a beating and expect to not go down.
So CAN there be trinity? In lower easier instances sure, in harder ones... noone knows. But is THIS game designed around there being a trinity.. No. So what does it matter if it could be there or not? It's all just play preference.
Need to be more specific than that. If there's one bad guy, everyone else is ranged, and the bad guy can't do much damage...then it seems like there can be tanking...though there really aren't dedicated healers. Someone picking up some traits and using the right weapon attack to do some off-healing is limiting themselves for relatively little healing. Note there aren't any character attributes tied directly to healing. It isn't like WoW or the like where there is +healing gear.
This sort of thing doesn't work well if there are multiple mobs or if the current mob switches to attack someone else. I'm not sure how physically moving out of the way of attacks affects mob behavior either, but in the video someone provided the Guardian was NOT moving out of the way of attacks. From what I gathered, they also had a fairly gimicky build that happened to stop most damage (at least in that storymode dungeon, and storymode dungeons are easy). I think that may be from an old build of the beta, because I heard they nerfed something like this for guardians at some point.
So I don't think attempting to do a Trinity game would actually work against most content. Someone just did a video of a very niche application, niche even for an easy area.
Yes, but building as a certain specific role is possible is what I'm saying. And there are classes with healing skills that could be viable to heal others relatively well if given enough healing power. Is it enough that his only role is healing? no, but it's possible to build your class to fall into trinity. And that is playstyle. If you want to build your class as a tank and get in the way of ranged attacks to protect the team or stay in melee range like the guardian then you can, will it work outright, no, but it still serves the specific role that the particular person wants to fill, mitigating damage from other players by tanking it yourself or healing teammates with bonus healing power to help keep people alive. All I'm saying is taht this game is not built to be run purely by trinity standards and that if people feel they can play only one role, then it might hurt them later when that role is not really viable as it is.
From everything I've read, watched, etc, etc, you can LEAN towards a support, control, or DPS role. However, you can't ever go 100% into anything. Everything gets a large DPS role standard. You can't avoid that. Everything gets a large self-healing role standard. You can't avoid that.
Now let's look at the weapons for say a Warrior:
Two-handed Weapons
Greatswords have a movement debuff (cripple).
Hammers stun, weaken, cripple, push back, and knock-down.
Bows blind and immoblize.
Rifles cripple, makes vunerable, and push back.
One-handed Weapons
Axes cripple.
Maces stun, weaken, daze, make vulnerable, and knock down.
Swords immoblize and cripple.
Off-hand
Shields stun
Warhorns buff and debuff.
Every Warrior has control abilities. Every single one. You can't spec completely out of control as a warrior. You can spec more or less into it. Every other class is similar in this respect. Everyone is a hybrid to one degree or another. If you ignore that, then you don't play to your potential.
Talking about tanking is particularly ridiculous. As if you focus on absorbing damage, then where does that leave you? You fight one guy and take forever while everyone else is killing the enemy. There's no way to aggro everyone to you...that won't happen. Similarly, you can't spec all healing and heals others provide is relatively weak. That doesn't make it negligible, mind you, but the healing doesn't exist to support a pure tanking job (which doesn't exist because of aggro).
So there are 3 aspects to combat in a way. Support, damage, and control. But you can't go 100% into any one of them. Everyone has at least self-support. Everyone has damage. Everyone either has control or support moves on their weapons (and those moves almost always do damage).
And running into ranged attacks is generally going to be stupid. Because you have to respond super-quick to get in the way. Well, wait a second, that gives LOADS of time for those people to get out of the way. So really you are just hurting yourself for no reason.
Keep in mind that Control is NOT tanking. Support is NOT healing (per se, though there can be a small healing element). Trying to jam in HT roles into the game is thinking about things the wrong way. Everyone wants to be dodging and avoiding damage. Running into damage is the last thing you want to do. You aren't going to be playing someone who is 10 times tougher than everyone else, with people tossing heals to keep you topped off. That mechanic isn't there so getting yourself hurt on purpose is a bad idea on many levels, especially when you can just *gasp* avoid the damage.
Rather than roles, think of Control, Damage, and Support as combat elements. Everyone has some mix of these elements, and using them properly is needed to play well. I think the Devs did a bit of a disservice to themselves by talking in just these terms. For instance, avoidance is also an element. If you don't try to avoid damage with movement and dodging, then you'll do poorly. It's no less important than the others, but it gets a lot less mention because people are stuck in HT-thinking mode. Skill combos are also an element and using them is important to do well.
Anyhow, you can specialize somewhat, but there's not anything like the specializations extremes that you see in most MMOs. The specializations are smaller and more realistic.
So I haven't played any of the beta, but from the footage I've seen, there IS a trinity. Lots of classes (if not all) have a healing and tanking "spec". As I watch some of the dungeon running I see people falling into those roles.
It really caught my attention during a run PC Gamer did. I don't have the Youtube link handy, but you could probably find it.
i am with OP here, and I have played the betas and I am a regular poster in this forum and have taken part in alot of the trinity topics here over the time. People fall in roles as the video clearly shows- its just wrong to call it healing and tanking specs.
Everyone that have followed GW2 and/or played the beta should know now that there is no "holy"! trinty in GW2 , thats means that there is no forced fixed roles.That is an amazingly good thing.
But there is roles. Thesse roles can be described analayzed and improved. And they will be.
ArenaNet have described them as Support, damage and control.
This is called the new trinity, by people that don't get that this is actual the basic foundation for the holy trinity, simply because Tanks and threath is a simple primitive form of control, and heling is (whack- a-mole) the most simple form of support, and dps is what damage is reduced to when tanking and healing have nullified the opponents impackt. So nothing new about, its just what trinity really is about.
But ArenaNets unique twist on the trinity is to make it difficult , and less obvious to actual have fixed roles. This is done mainly through 2 things. By letting weaponskills actual come with options to support, damage and control. And by letting people have to take responsebility for their own constitution in battle.
This leads to builds where players are use to have build where they do all the roles of support, damage and control.
The theory is that since every one can do at least a little of everything that means there will not be roles. This is imho oppinion a wrong theory. And there is 2 reasons here.
First you can make builds that really focus alot on 1 role , and neglect the other to a degree where around 80% of what you do can be put into doing that role. (8 out of 10 skills). Unless your group is really good at communicating, specialised roles has a lot less chance og being ineffictive because of redundant uses of roles. (an exsample when a group of 5 all controll ( cripples, blind and stun ) the same target at same time they are not nessacerry effictive, though they cleary demonstrate that they all can control. The group with specialised roles will avoid thesse situation with redundant skill use, and because of that be more efficient in many cases.
Second, for the groups that don't have specialeze build into specific roles. to avoid the innefficent situations where every do the same role at the same time, players need to be clear about who are doing what at what time. The way to be clear is to have defined roles , even if they switch alot during an encounter.
What remains to be seen is if builds that focus on 1 role will work better in Pick up groups, than builds where everyone can do a little of everything. IMHO the group with builds specialised in trinity roles, will be the more safe way to play, where the failure rate would smaller, but the best combos harder to reach. And offcause the opposite for groups that do not build around trinity roles, they will have more chances of doing better combos, but alot harder time pull them off, because it require so much more to combine this little of everything.
So I haven't played any of the beta, but from the footage I've seen, there IS a trinity. Lots of classes (if not all) have a healing and tanking "spec". As I watch some of the dungeon running I see people falling into those roles.
It really caught my attention during a run PC Gamer did. I don't have the Youtube link handy, but you could probably find it.
i am with OP here, and I have played the betas and I am a regular poster in this forum and have taken part in alot of the trinity topics here over the time. People fall in roles as the video clearly shows- its just wrong to call it healing and tanking specs.
Everyone that have followed GW2 and/or played the beta should know now that there is no "holy"! trinty in GW2 , thats means that there is no forced fixed roles.That is an amazingly good thing.
But there is roles. Thesse roles can be described analayzed and improved. And they will be.
ArenaNet have described them as Support, damage and control.
This is called the new trinity, by people that don't get that this is actual the basic foundation for the holy trinity, simply because Tanks and threath is a simple primitive form of control, and heling is (whack- a-mole) the most simple form of support, and dps is what damage is reduced to when tanking and healing have nullified the opponents impackt. So nothing new about, its just what trinity really is about.
But ArenaNets unique twist on the trinity is to make it difficult , and less obvious to actual have fixed roles. This is done mainly through 2 things. By letting weaponskills actual come with options to support, damage and control. And by letting people have to take responsebility for their own constitution in battle.
This leads to builds where players are use to have build where they do all the roles of support, damage and control.
The theory is that since every one can do at least a little of everything that means there will not be roles. This is imho oppinion a wrong theory. And there is 2 reasons here.
First you can make builds that really focus alot on 1 role , and neglect the other to a degree where around 80% of what you do can be put into doing that role. (8 out of 10 skills). Unless your group is really good at communicating, specialised roles has a lot less chance og being ineffictive because of redundant uses of roles. (an exsample when a group of 5 all controll ( cripples, blind and stun ) the same target at same time they are not nessacerry effictive, though they cleary demonstrate that they all can control. The group with specialised roles will avoid thesse situation with redundant skill use, and because of that be more efficient in many cases.
If you have a bunch of people chilling, then that's ok, because the nature is that the stacking is still helpful. Assuming chilling is a good idea in that particular dungeon. Similar with other abilities. Also, it doesn't matter who brings support or control or how it is split up in a group. You can't specialize to make your chilling better than Bob's. You can't specialize to make your buffs better. They'll stack and work the same way on people. So going with 1 person with 2 chills or 2 people with 1 chill is much the same. Add to this the fact that everyone is going to be doing damage, and you have something where you really can't "specialize" in something that's not DPS unless you nerf your damage-dealing stats in favor of survival. If you do that too much, you'll hurt the group because tanking doesn't work.
Tough group content, as I see it, will be a lot more about making sure you have all the bases covered, one way or another, and not at all about having one person focus on one job, etc, etc. Heck, it will probably be a better idea to have everyone change their stuff around a little bit before heading in somewhere, because you can't make a build that doesn't buff or debuff.
Originally posted by Angier2758 Well.. a lot of people (me included) consider "tanking" any time you're getting hit. Now that being said you have funny tanking and real tanking in most games, but that's the quality of said tanking. The holy trinity is *not* gone from GW2 anyone who says that is getting caught up in catch phrases and hype. You don't need to even be ina beta to realize this... just look at a skill list. If you have heals, abilities/items allowing to absorb tank, and some doing some sort of damage... you have a HT. In GW2 the HT is just greatly diminished in importance. Maybe just one strat amongst many. I don't know if people see this as semantics or they honestly believe the HT is dead in GW2.
So CAN there be trinity? In lower easier instances sure, in harder ones... noone knows. But is THIS game designed around there being a trinity.. No. So what does it matter if it could be there or not? It's all just play preference.
Need to be more specific than that. If there's one bad guy, everyone else is ranged, and the bad guy can't do much damage...then it seems like there can be tanking...though there really aren't dedicated healers. Someone picking up some traits and using the right weapon attack to do some off-healing is limiting themselves for relatively little healing. Note there aren't any character attributes tied directly to healing. It isn't like WoW or the like where there is +healing gear.
This sort of thing doesn't work well if there are multiple mobs or if the current mob switches to attack someone else. I'm not sure how physically moving out of the way of attacks affects mob behavior either, but in the video someone provided the Guardian was NOT moving out of the way of attacks. From what I gathered, they also had a fairly gimicky build that happened to stop most damage (at least in that storymode dungeon, and storymode dungeons are easy). I think that may be from an old build of the beta, because I heard they nerfed something like this for guardians at some point.
So I don't think attempting to do a Trinity game would actually work against most content. Someone just did a video of a very niche application, niche even for an easy area.
Yes, but building as a certain specific role is possible is what I'm saying. And there are classes with healing skills that could be viable to heal others relatively well if given enough healing power. Is it enough that his only role is healing? no, but it's possible to build your class to fall into trinity. And that is playstyle. If you want to build your class as a tank and get in the way of ranged attacks to protect the team or stay in melee range like the guardian then you can, will it work outright, no, but it still serves the specific role that the particular person wants to fill, mitigating damage from other players by tanking it yourself or healing teammates with bonus healing power to help keep people alive. All I'm saying is taht this game is not built to be run purely by trinity standards and that if people feel they can play only one role, then it might hurt them later when that role is not really viable as it is.
From everything I've read, watched, etc, etc, you can LEAN towards a support, control, or DPS role. However, you can't ever go 100% into anything. Everything gets a large DPS role standard. You can't avoid that. Everything gets a large self-healing role standard. You can't avoid that.
Now let's look at the weapons for say a Warrior:
Two-handed Weapons
Greatswords have a movement debuff (cripple).
Hammers stun, weaken, cripple, push back, and knock-down.
Bows blind and immoblize.
Rifles cripple, makes vunerable, and push back.
One-handed Weapons
Axes cripple.
Maces stun, weaken, daze, make vulnerable, and knock down.
Swords immoblize and cripple.
Off-hand
Shields stun
Warhorns buff and debuff.
Every Warrior has control abilities. Every single one. You can't spec completely out of control as a warrior. You can spec more or less into it. Every other class is similar in this respect. Everyone is a hybrid to one degree or another. If you ignore that, then you don't play to your potential.
Talking about tanking is particularly ridiculous. As if you focus on absorbing damage, then where does that leave you? You fight one guy and take forever while everyone else is killing the enemy. There's no way to aggro everyone to you...that won't happen. Similarly, you can't spec all healing and heals others provide is relatively weak. That doesn't make it negligible, mind you, but the healing doesn't exist to support a pure tanking job (which doesn't exist because of aggro).
So there are 3 aspects to combat in a way. Support, damage, and control. But you can't go 100% into any one of them. Everyone has at least self-support. Everyone has damage. Everyone either has control or support moves on their weapons (and those moves almost always do damage).
And running into ranged attacks is generally going to be stupid. Because you have to respond super-quick to get in the way. Well, wait a second, that gives LOADS of time for those people to get out of the way. So really you are just hurting yourself for no reason.
Keep in mind that Control is NOT tanking. Support is NOT healing (per se, though there can be a small healing element). Trying to jam in HT roles into the game is thinking about things the wrong way. Everyone wants to be dodging and avoiding damage. Running into damage is the last thing you want to do. You aren't going to be playing someone who is 10 times tougher than everyone else, with people tossing heals to keep you topped off. That mechanic isn't there so getting yourself hurt on purpose is a bad idea on many levels, especially when you can just *gasp* avoid the damage.
Rather than roles, think of Control, Damage, and Support as combat elements. Everyone has some mix of these elements, and using them properly is needed to play well. I think the Devs did a bit of a disservice to themselves by talking in just these terms. For instance, avoidance is also an element. If you don't try to avoid damage with movement and dodging, then you'll do poorly. It's no less important than the others, but it gets a lot less mention because people are stuck in HT-thinking mode. Skill combos are also an element and using them is important to do well.
Anyhow, you can specialize somewhat, but there's not anything like the specializations extremes that you see in most MMOs. The specializations are smaller and more realistic.
Which is my point exactly. You can still spec and gear towards a role, but there isn't enough skills by far to fit the role perfectly.
And I have played a elementalist. go double dagger, you have 2 healing skills, 1 aoe, 1 single target on urself. Staff has healing rain. You can't spam these, but you can be considered a healing class by using these skills, BUT that cannot be your only role.
Which is my point exactly. You can still spec and gear towards a role, but there isn't enough skills by far to fit the role perfectly.
And I have played a elementalist. go double dagger, you have 2 healing skills, 1 aoe, 1 single target on urself. Staff has healing rain. You can't spam these, but you can be considered a healing class by using these skills, BUT that cannot be your only role.
Eh, by all accounts the healing is quite weak. So no, I don't think you could be considered a "healing class" anymore than everyone is already a healing class or a guy who can leap is a "leaping class." It's a relatively minor element. The condition removal is more significant, I'd say.
If every profession has the tools to "tank" and "heal" for any period of time, then there is no holy trinity as holy trinity = dedicated roles.
Just about every single ability any profession has that allows you to heal other players has a damage or other support component to it as well.
Damage avoidance/mitigation is done via block and dodge as well as things like blind and stun/knockdown/cripple which every profession has.
In other MMOs like WoW there were gimmick tanking scenarios, mage tanks in Gruul or Warlock pet tanks / hunter pet tanks Shaman tanks etc. etc. but the game was DESIGNED from the ground up to have the Holy Trinity in play.
GW2 is DESIGNED from the ground up to NOT have the Holy Trinity in play.
All classes CAN be damage, support, control and often all at the same time/within a split second of each other.
Having someone spec'd into Support especially for Healing means you the party member will probably have to use your own healing skills less often, but you still can't just stand there taking a beating and expect to not go down.
I present to you sir:
WoW's Paladin. Holy trinity represented as one class with the tools to do any one in any spec (with degrees of success).
Comments
I'm talking about any Holy Trinity system. EQ, WoW, TOR, or whatever system you want to name. It's hugely unrealistic and problematic. The following is what I do not like about them, in no particular order.
1. The base mechanics of the class interactions are boring, boring, boring. So gimmicks have to be used everywhere in one form or another.
2. More significantly there's no traditional RPG before MMOs, era in history, or fantasy/sci-fi/whatever literature where an HT mechanic is used. It's a terrible way to represent the vast majority of fantasy/historic/sci-fi worlds.
3. People don't desire to play the roles in the ratios they are needed. Heck, even if they did, you'd still have shortage problems due to random variances in who is online at the time.
4. Now, granted with #2, games don't have to be realistic, but HT has also started the idea that without it you can't have or encourage teamwork and everything is a zerg. Or even that without HT roles or specialties can't exist (military history soundly disproves this). Or even without pre-defined roles and specialities, teamwork is worthless (counterexample: Batman and Robin).
5. It's completely unrealistic in that it requires bosses to be immensely stupid. The Lore of All Evil and Genius Mastermind can't figure out to kill the healers? Because anyone with a shred of intelligence in PvP knows that you kill the Healers first (unless the PvP game is soundly different and the healers can't keep up). This makes it very difficult for me to immerse myself. (And I'm not even getting into the silliness of people who can do damage but are wholly incapable of defending themselves).
It's just such a hack of a mechanic that any MMO that comes out with it really turns me off now.
That pretty much says it all. Just play the game and you will find out why your impression is wrong.
I agree. That video, along with many others, really doesn't give a proper representation of the game.
Need to be more specific than that. If there's one bad guy, everyone else is ranged, and the bad guy can't do much damage...then it seems like there can be tanking...though there really aren't dedicated healers. Someone picking up some traits and using the right weapon attack to do some off-healing is limiting themselves for relatively little healing. Note there aren't any character attributes tied directly to healing. It isn't like WoW or the like where there is +healing gear.
This sort of thing doesn't work well if there are multiple mobs or if the current mob switches to attack someone else. I'm not sure how physically moving out of the way of attacks affects mob behavior either, but in the video someone provided the Guardian was NOT moving out of the way of attacks. From what I gathered, they also had a fairly gimicky build that happened to stop most damage (at least in that storymode dungeon, and storymode dungeons are easy). I think that may be from an old build of the beta, because I heard they nerfed something like this for guardians at some point.
So I don't think attempting to do a Trinity game would actually work against most content. Someone just did a video of a very niche application, niche even for an easy area.
The devs say "Play how you want to play" but I want to play as a healer. Im not interested in doing dps.
If I spec to be a healer I will be gimping myself. Therefore you either have to be an all rounder or pure dps ?
I sugest you play a elementlis or a guardian and spec heavy into support. You will have tools to heal and also ways to stop damage happening to team mates. You can play a class heavy in support and people will love you for it. But you will be doing damage while you do this. You wil not be transfixed on peoples health bars. I love playing support and this is the most fun I have had playing a support role in any MMO. Watch the video below to get the idea. You can spec a lot of the classes to play support with many flavors of it but like I said Guardian and Elementlist have the strongest healing. Just dont expect to stand there spaming heal and watching health bars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wsbavY2Q2M&feature=plcp
very nice vid added that one to my sPVP section in my sig:)
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
If you would enjoy playing a role where you spend a fair amount of your time in a group providing Boons (Buffs), clearing Conditions (Debuffs), while also possibly providing some light healing (with all of the Buffing/Debuffing/Healing happening indirectly as you can't target a teammate) you can have quite a bit of fun in GW2.
Also, designing a Build that focuses on Reviving people as efficiently as possible feels a bit like "traditional" healing as well.
If you only truly enjoy playing a "Pure Healer" role in a "Holy Trinity" system than GW2 really isn't the game for you.
Please don't take this as an attack in any way. I've given this same advice to a few friends and guildmates.
GW2 is a very-well-designed game.
So is EVE.
Neither are "the perfect game" for everyone.
Yes, but building as a certain specific role is possible is what I'm saying. And there are classes with healing skills that could be viable to heal others relatively well if given enough healing power. Is it enough that his only role is healing? no, but it's possible to build your class to fall into trinity. And that is playstyle. If you want to build your class as a tank and get in the way of ranged attacks to protect the team or stay in melee range like the guardian then you can, will it work outright, no, but it still serves the specific role that the particular person wants to fill, mitigating damage from other players by tanking it yourself or healing teammates with bonus healing power to help keep people alive. All I'm saying is taht this game is not built to be run purely by trinity standards and that if people feel they can play only one role, then it might hurt them later when that role is not really viable as it is.
Great reply, thx
Yeah I was thinking of going for an ele as I prefer to be at range.
So if I played a heavy support specced ele and I got caught in a 1 on 1 pvp situation, will i have to tools to get away from my attacker or slow him/her down a bit before reinforcments arrive ?
sorry for the newb questions but the gw2 tools site appears to be down atm.
another good one on this topic
I Might Be Your Bra; It's a Support Thing by Enigmius
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Ok first of all, I know exactly which video you're referring to. It remains the ONLY video I've seen where a single class was standing in front of a boss mob, but here's the problem..... the boss was not a physical threat..... its mechanic was "poison" and due to the fact that the "tank" in question was removing the status ailments from himself, he was able to keep its attention meanwhile not dying. It's pretty safe to say that anyone in that group could have stood in front of it like he did since it was no physical damage threat.
So essentially...... no.
And be honest, that's the ONLY time you saw something like this. I've watched everything out there and there aren't any other videos like this. It's the dungeon, it's not the player.
(Don't hold me to this, I just know it wasn't physically attacking the "tank" or there would have been more damage)
yes you can:)
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Good thx Aerowyn
Just coz I won't be able to do good dps it's nice to know that I won't be a sitting duck either
Well.. a lot of people (me included) consider "tanking" any time you're getting hit. Now that being said you have funny tanking and real tanking in most games, but that's the quality of said tanking.
The holy trinity is *not* gone from GW2 anyone who says that is getting caught up in catch phrases and hype. You don't need to even be ina beta to realize this... just look at a skill list. If you have heals, abilities/items allowing to absorb tank, and some doing some sort of damage... you have a HT. In GW2 the HT is just greatly diminished in importance. Maybe just one strat amongst many.
I don't know if people see this as semantics or they honestly believe the HT is dead in GW2.
Tanking requires two things.
1) The ability to force the enemy to attack you
and
2) The ability to survive the attack.
Anyone who has played GW2 knows that #1 is not possible. You have ZERO aggro control abilities. #2 is debateable, and I have seen compelling evidence both ways, but I remain convinced that in the harder content it is not feasable even if it may be possible.
Just taking hits is not Tanking. Tanking is a specific form of Control and all Professions have access to control abilities and builds, but this is not the same as saying all professions can Tank.
If every profession has the tools to "tank" and "heal" for any period of time, then there is no holy trinity as holy trinity = dedicated roles.
Just about every single ability any profession has that allows you to heal other players has a damage or other support component to it as well.
Damage avoidance/mitigation is done via block and dodge as well as things like blind and stun/knockdown/cripple which every profession has.
In other MMOs like WoW there were gimmick tanking scenarios, mage tanks in Gruul or Warlock pet tanks / hunter pet tanks Shaman tanks etc. etc. but the game was DESIGNED from the ground up to have the Holy Trinity in play.
GW2 is DESIGNED from the ground up to NOT have the Holy Trinity in play.
All classes CAN be damage, support, control and often all at the same time/within a split second of each other.
Having someone spec'd into Support especially for Healing means you the party member will probably have to use your own healing skills less often, but you still can't just stand there taking a beating and expect to not go down.
From everything I've read, watched, etc, etc, you can LEAN towards a support, control, or DPS role. However, you can't ever go 100% into anything. Everything gets a large DPS role standard. You can't avoid that. Everything gets a large self-healing role standard. You can't avoid that.
Now let's look at the weapons for say a Warrior:
Two-handed Weapons
Greatswords have a movement debuff (cripple).
Hammers stun, weaken, cripple, push back, and knock-down.
Bows blind and immoblize.
Rifles cripple, makes vunerable, and push back.
One-handed Weapons
Axes cripple.
Maces stun, weaken, daze, make vulnerable, and knock down.
Swords immoblize and cripple.
Off-hand
Shields stun
Warhorns buff and debuff.
Every Warrior has control abilities. Every single one. You can't spec completely out of control as a warrior. You can spec more or less into it. Every other class is similar in this respect. Everyone is a hybrid to one degree or another. If you ignore that, then you don't play to your potential.
Talking about tanking is particularly ridiculous. As if you focus on absorbing damage, then where does that leave you? You fight one guy and take forever while everyone else is killing the enemy. There's no way to aggro everyone to you...that won't happen. Similarly, you can't spec all healing and heals others provide is relatively weak. That doesn't make it negligible, mind you, but the healing doesn't exist to support a pure tanking job (which doesn't exist because of aggro).
So there are 3 aspects to combat in a way. Support, damage, and control. But you can't go 100% into any one of them. Everyone has at least self-support. Everyone has damage. Everyone either has control or support moves on their weapons (and those moves almost always do damage).
And running into ranged attacks is generally going to be stupid. Because you have to respond super-quick to get in the way. Well, wait a second, that gives LOADS of time for those people to get out of the way. So really you are just hurting yourself for no reason.
Keep in mind that Control is NOT tanking. Support is NOT healing (per se, though there can be a small healing element). Trying to jam in HT roles into the game is thinking about things the wrong way. Everyone wants to be dodging and avoiding damage. Running into damage is the last thing you want to do. You aren't going to be playing someone who is 10 times tougher than everyone else, with people tossing heals to keep you topped off. That mechanic isn't there so getting yourself hurt on purpose is a bad idea on many levels, especially when you can just *gasp* avoid the damage.
Rather than roles, think of Control, Damage, and Support as combat elements. Everyone has some mix of these elements, and using them properly is needed to play well. I think the Devs did a bit of a disservice to themselves by talking in just these terms. For instance, avoidance is also an element. If you don't try to avoid damage with movement and dodging, then you'll do poorly. It's no less important than the others, but it gets a lot less mention because people are stuck in HT-thinking mode. Skill combos are also an element and using them is important to do well.
Anyhow, you can specialize somewhat, but there's not anything like the specializations extremes that you see in most MMOs. The specializations are smaller and more realistic.
i am with OP here, and I have played the betas and I am a regular poster in this forum and have taken part in alot of the trinity topics here over the time. People fall in roles as the video clearly shows- its just wrong to call it healing and tanking specs.
Everyone that have followed GW2 and/or played the beta should know now that there is no "holy"! trinty in GW2 , thats means that there is no forced fixed roles.That is an amazingly good thing.
But there is roles. Thesse roles can be described analayzed and improved. And they will be.
ArenaNet have described them as Support, damage and control.
This is called the new trinity, by people that don't get that this is actual the basic foundation for the holy trinity, simply because Tanks and threath is a simple primitive form of control, and heling is (whack- a-mole) the most simple form of support, and dps is what damage is reduced to when tanking and healing have nullified the opponents impackt. So nothing new about, its just what trinity really is about.
But ArenaNets unique twist on the trinity is to make it difficult , and less obvious to actual have fixed roles. This is done mainly through 2 things. By letting weaponskills actual come with options to support, damage and control. And by letting people have to take responsebility for their own constitution in battle.
This leads to builds where players are use to have build where they do all the roles of support, damage and control.
The theory is that since every one can do at least a little of everything that means there will not be roles. This is imho oppinion a wrong theory. And there is 2 reasons here.
First you can make builds that really focus alot on 1 role , and neglect the other to a degree where around 80% of what you do can be put into doing that role. (8 out of 10 skills). Unless your group is really good at communicating, specialised roles has a lot less chance og being ineffictive because of redundant uses of roles. (an exsample when a group of 5 all controll ( cripples, blind and stun ) the same target at same time they are not nessacerry effictive, though they cleary demonstrate that they all can control. The group with specialised roles will avoid thesse situation with redundant skill use, and because of that be more efficient in many cases.
Second, for the groups that don't have specialeze build into specific roles. to avoid the innefficent situations where every do the same role at the same time, players need to be clear about who are doing what at what time. The way to be clear is to have defined roles , even if they switch alot during an encounter.
What remains to be seen is if builds that focus on 1 role will work better in Pick up groups, than builds where everyone can do a little of everything. IMHO the group with builds specialised in trinity roles, will be the more safe way to play, where the failure rate would smaller, but the best combos harder to reach. And offcause the opposite for groups that do not build around trinity roles, they will have more chances of doing better combos, but alot harder time pull them off, because it require so much more to combine this little of everything.
my 2 cents
There's not a great amount of redundant skill use, however. Check out effects and durations of stuff and how they stack.
If you have a bunch of people chilling, then that's ok, because the nature is that the stacking is still helpful. Assuming chilling is a good idea in that particular dungeon. Similar with other abilities. Also, it doesn't matter who brings support or control or how it is split up in a group. You can't specialize to make your chilling better than Bob's. You can't specialize to make your buffs better. They'll stack and work the same way on people. So going with 1 person with 2 chills or 2 people with 1 chill is much the same. Add to this the fact that everyone is going to be doing damage, and you have something where you really can't "specialize" in something that's not DPS unless you nerf your damage-dealing stats in favor of survival. If you do that too much, you'll hurt the group because tanking doesn't work.
Tough group content, as I see it, will be a lot more about making sure you have all the bases covered, one way or another, and not at all about having one person focus on one job, etc, etc. Heck, it will probably be a better idea to have everyone change their stuff around a little bit before heading in somewhere, because you can't make a build that doesn't buff or debuff.
Oh! So like Halo then!
Which is my point exactly. You can still spec and gear towards a role, but there isn't enough skills by far to fit the role perfectly.
And I have played a elementalist. go double dagger, you have 2 healing skills, 1 aoe, 1 single target on urself. Staff has healing rain. You can't spam these, but you can be considered a healing class by using these skills, BUT that cannot be your only role.
Eh, by all accounts the healing is quite weak. So no, I don't think you could be considered a "healing class" anymore than everyone is already a healing class or a guy who can leap is a "leaping class." It's a relatively minor element. The condition removal is more significant, I'd say.
I present to you sir:
WoW's Paladin. Holy trinity represented as one class with the tools to do any one in any spec (with degrees of success).