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Trinity isn't really dead, she just downloaded newer stats!
Fadedbomb
Member Posts: 2,081
All joking aside the "Trinity" really isn't dead, but has simply taken a different form in GW2. More importantly it fits GW2's design rather than being an industry shaper. Then again it isn't a new thing either for games like EQ, EQ2, or DAOC.
However, for games like WoW where elitism rules the show towards grouping & raiding it most definitely is a change of pace. As I mentioned before I've seen similar "All DPS only" groups doing group content just as easily, if not faster, than "Trinity" setup groups in DAOC, EQ, and EQ2 from a personal perspective.
I also don't see many people changing that much in GW2. I've still seen people whom see themselves as the "Tank" that has to keep his squishy teammates alive etc etc. I do understand the want to be able to adapt to any situation rather than being forced to wait for hours for a half decent dps/healer/tank as that seems to be a larger drawback in other games (especially WoW, but then again healing in WoW is /easybutton with healing GUI mods).
All of that having been said, I'm curious to see if people can still maintain classic MMO setups that run just as well as full DPS setups simply because they allow you the "choice" to spec full into dps, hp, tanking, accuracy, conditions and any combination in between. So it'd be fairly pointless if one setup ruled them all, because quite frankly that means that the choices you made were simply an illusion boiled down to developer design that has no other alternative to be viable.
Just my morning without-coffee ramblings 
!
-Cheers
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
Comments
The differences here are focus and function.
-Focus wise, a Wow tank is a tank when he's in his spec. His DPS is so low as to be meaningless. His healing is minimal, and only on himself. A healer cannot waste mana dpsing (usually), and most focus entirely on support. DPS are expected to generate as high a damage number as they can, and sometimes we even ask them to pretty please not stand in fire. That's generally it.
In GW2, you are all three roles. You can focus more on tank or heals, but you won't be able to go 100% into that role like in WoW. Maybe 50-25-25 at best. You will do substantially more control or healing that had you ignored those things, but you still still be able, and in fact encouraged, to take up other roles as combat demands. Consider yorself a healer but no one needs heals? Do some murdering. Get the boss away from the tank, whose health is low. Keep him busy while the elementalist swaps to water and gets the tank back up. Tank's got him again? Awesome. Go nuke those adds.
-Function is the other major difference. Let's say in WoW you are a dps. Your team's healer just bit the dust/DC'd/dropped party because the tank rolled on his shoulders and won. You're in a heated firefight. You have a healing spec....wait, you're in combat. You can't do anything but sit there and watch your team die.
-In GW2, healing insn't the responsibility of one player- it's the responsibility of ALL. Ditto with control, ditto with damage. even if you DID have a "dedicated healer" on your team, you should be healing when you or others need if he cannot.
You know what tanks are in GW2? People about to need a rez. The trinity is dead. Roles are effectively dead. Damage, control and support aspects of combat are now distributed amongst the skills you take with you, not tied directly to your build. You can add more flavor into the specific aspects, for example I can add a layer of control on my mesmer by having clones cripple on shatter, but that doesn't make me a tank or make me tempted to play like one. Anyone that tries to specialize in GW2 will find themselves ultimately inferior to more balanced players with situational awareness, i.e. knowing what skills to use in what situations. This is by design. You need to forget everything you know. Only then can you realize the truth. There is no spoon.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I played a Necromancer for 6 years in EQ. So i am used to the role: DPS, support, crowd control, emergency healer, emergency (off)tank ... and puller of course. But there is no pulling game anymore.
If you look to the so called "Unholy trinity" in good old EQ over 10 years ago, it was pretty similar to GW2s combat. 6 Jacks of all Trades (Necs, Shadowknights, Shamans, Paladins, ....even clers if they stop healing and fight, damnit), no mainhealer or maintank allowed. Such unholy groups have been most fun ever in EQ. The fight works often with overaggroing, which is a no-go in the trinity but a must-do in the unholy trinity. This way you are just tanking for a short time and the next player takes over the aggo. Pretty similar to what i see in GW2: Aggo is bouncing and you change your role on the fly.
So for me, there is not so much new in GW2, I prefer to play this way since ages.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
They are tied to your build though. In the form of traits you pick for your character. Same thing with the gear you wear. You will almost certainly stack certain stats depending on what role you choose to play. Unless you want to be average at everything and not paticularly good at anything.
Sorry, but trinity is dead and burried.
I´ve seen people who tried to tank in ascalon cats. They took a dirt nap real fast. We found that kiting, interrupting, slowing and stunning mobs was a hell of a lot more effective.
We went into the cats with a group of 3 mesmers, 1 ele and me playing a necro. You never would have guessed we only had cloth armor. The cats were no problem.
I am guessing you need a more diverse set-up to get more and different debuffs when you want to play it in explorable mode. But like I said no tank is going to replace a full debuff bar on a mob
A) It's technically possible. Whether it's a good idea is something that will require a great deal of testing.
In GW2, it's more like 50-25-25 for a specialist, at best. You'll spend the most of your effort in your chosen specialization, but you'll be supporting and damaging right along with it.
Being average or good isn't tied to your build however. Your builds give you more tools in the toolbox. But it doesn't matter how many screwdrivers you have when dealing with that rusty bolt. Combat is completely about using the right tools at the right times. You do that and you'll find the balanced builds will ultimately reign supreme while the specialists lag far behind. What value is there in having someone specced as heavily into healing as they can get if everyone else in the party is capable of working together to prevent/mitigate damage?
Oderint, dum metuant.
There's your problem. We took a group of 2 warriors, necro, guardian (staff healing concentration), and a ranger and the warriors tanked everything while the guardian spammed as many AOE heals on the warriors as possible while the ranger & necro womped on everything with dps/aoe skills.
Trinity isn't dead, merely players are trying to get away from it. Also, the whole "trinity" idea is a farse to me. Like the poster above, I ran a necro/sk in EQ1 for YEARS and we never had a need for healers in our dps instance groups.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
All thoughts of saying "no - you're entirely wrong...".... hell, why bother?
Just play the game and find out for yourself that your arguement doesn't hold water - the proof of the pudding and all that.... and it you do find yourself dropping into trinity-style play - ask yourself if you are forcing it on the game or the game is forcing it on you....
Actually it would be a very bad game design, if the trinity would be fully dead. Its weaker, more situational, and not the one and only way to fight anymore and mostly less efficent. But good game design means versatility. I doubt Arenanet is as dumb as players, who cry "Trinity is dead". Even if i am not a friend of the trinity as posted above.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
you can't highlight one sentence and ignore the rest. The poster clearly states that they had no problems without heavy armored damage absorbing specs.
If you want to run a group with the token warrior mage priest setup and claim the trinity is alive fine, its great that guild wars is flexible. Whats even better is that I can rock up with 5 Thieves with 5 very different specs and do the dungeon in an entirely different way. When it comes to the trinity its not about what you can do its about what you can't, in titles that enforce the holy trinity you simply can not turn up with whatever class you want and cake walk a dungeon.
Also, while I won't say the trinity isn't dead....traditional toe-to-toe tanking IS dead in this game. There's no denying that.
You can still be the guy who tries to hold mob's attention and keep them away from others. I've done it. The differnce is in traditional tanking, you're a damage soak. You're SUPPOSED to get hit, so others don't. In GW2's "control" role (not entirely a rose by another name, the distinction is important), you are not supposed to get hit. At all. You keep the enemy's attention while doing your best to not take a single point of damage.Think of it like evasion tanking in a game like CoH...only instead of relying on dice rolls, you're relying on your own smarts and reflexes.
Which is why I think I will probably lean towards Control on many of my characters...but I won't ignore the other two facets.
I still like how people mistake the concept of MMO trinity and simple concept of roles. While they overlap they aren't exactly the same. First is tied to core mechanics of given game, where certain roles are pre-determined and essential for progress. The second is simple instance of strategy.
Even in real life the so called "trinity" exists. On battlefieleds, be it modern or historical, you usually had that distinction. There were medics responsibel for patching up wounded, there was heavy armour (like, where do you think the word tank comes from?) as well as functions built around straight up hurting the other side.
It's simply impossible to really create a combat situation that does not use those elements unless your aim is pure chaos.
As to GW2 itslef. People did Ascalonian Catacombs in wierd setups like 5 warriors or 5 thieves. You are not forced to bring any specific class. None of the encounters I've seen so far required any profession-specific mechanic. Sure, some thing might be easier if you have access to certain things (like various Guardian fields that give you bit of ground control, or mass AoE from Elementalists can speed up progress on a trash pack or two), but at no point you will run into a room and say "Damn we can't do it without at least 1 [insert profession here]".
Even in explorer mode, many of the encounters can simply ignore professions because they use built in, dungeon props to overcome them. There is a boss in AC that you beat using traps operated by several chains to kill him and the constantly spawning waves of mobs. During final boss battle (Ghost Eater) in the dungeon you can use 4 cannons to damage him and the oozes he spawns.
The difference is focus. That combat medic was expected to fight alongside fellow soliders to a reasonable degree. Every soldier is trained in how to patch up his squadmates if someone gets hit.
The problem I've always had with the modern/WoW definition of the trilogy is that the soldier could ONLY shoot people, the medic could ONLY heal. Overspecialization breeds in weakness. When you make one person a lynchpin, removing him breaks the machine. You want at least some degree of redundancy.
This.
The Holy Trinity as the RIGID specialization where 1 character has 1 role only is dead.
GW2 is back to the old rpg feeling where characters were just "adventurers" and not "tank, healers and dps"
I would love to see you try tanking and healing a boss in GW2, I've seen it failed a thousand times. then tell me trinity isn't dead in this game. doesn't matter what class you play I've seen Guardians, Necros and Warriors drop like flies fighting a bandit boss in the lvl 30 area.
This entire thread is redundant.
Discussion already happening and pretty much over at:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/358887/page/1
Reporting OP to have thread closed/merged.
Faded, add your opinion/thoughts to previous thread don't start a new one - forum rules!
Was just about to do the same spock.
Yes, this could've easily just gone into the already existing thread on the trinity. It's more productive to have the discussion in one place rather than split between multiple threads discussing what's, essentially, the same thing. Locking this.
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