Your thoughts on the Holy Trinity abscence

[Stand The Wall.6987]

Hey all,

I don't think I've played any other mmo without a holy trinity. I was wondering what you guys like/dislike about it, as well as your answers to the following questions:

Do you think adding support classes was a good thing?

How would you improve on the no Trinity concept?

Anywho thanks in advance, and I look forward to reading your responses.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

Besides the Faux Holy trinity we currently have, I am not sure what to think on it. On the one hand, I would prefer that everyone is a jack of all trades being able to heal and tank for themselves without relying on others. On the flip side, I can see how it is easier to balance for developers if they have the Holy Trinity system. I am kind of at a toss up for the whole thing.

[jbrother.1340]

You are going to get a really mixed set of responses and I have to wonder if this is just troll bait.

 

This is a polarized issue in the gaming community especially this one.

 

 

I like both ways myself. They are both valid in my mind and both fill their niche. In the end what I really like is variety in most things. Others have their own opinions which you are about to find out :)

[ProverbsofHell.2307]

I would honestly prefer a move towards further embracing the trinity.

[Elothar.4382]

While I personally prefer the traditional trinity, I understand that this game wasn't designed that way and am okay with it. I just stay away from dungeons and raids and focus on the elements of the game I really like.

[Yamazuki.6073]

There's a difference between absent and not completely focused on. A game where it is absent would be Vindictus, you relied on your class and consumables to survive. GW2 has supports/healers/tanks all over the place.

[Rhyse.8179]

This thread again.

[Chemistral.7318]

This will sound a bit odd coming from me.

Personally as someone who loves and happily plays as the healer in MMO's I love how the game didn't openly have it at launch. It gave me a little peace of mind knowing that for the most part everyone was responsible for their own well-being, thus freeing me to pick up and use skills that I wanted to learn but weren't optimal for healing. (Conjure Frost Bow was probably my favorite in that aspect.) What I dislike about the system though is that unfortunately many of us (myself included) are used to having the holy trinity and thus try our best to make builds that excel in the Healer/Tank/DPS role and so rather than enjoy the freedom we've been granted we dive back into that classic style of gameplay. I even have a Support Elementalist I keep on the side for such occasions in the future but I honestly really enjoy playing my Ranger more even though it's not as good as my Ele for groups.

 

As for your questions: (Take these with a grain of salt as I'm a returning player and therefore relatively new)

1. As happy as I should be to see my favorite role excel in the game I'm not excited for it since those Professions/Specalizations will become nearly (if not already) mandatory for group content and this game was meant to break away from the holy trinity and not adapt it.

2. I'm no balance expert but I would perhaps suggest reducing the raw healing for the support roles, I think it should be nice to have a support but not required.

[Ardid.7203]

The "trinity" is a very specific and outdated concept, more linked to grindy and old school mmorpgs with gear progression, level raising and all that stuff. Pure artificial limitation, non-creative and cliché, it is of no use for GW2.

 

Do you think adding support classes was a good thing?

Yes.

 

How would you improve on the no Trinity concept?

Just a few ideas:

- More builds available for all professions, providing ways to direct damage, condi, hybrid, defense, healing, cleansing, ccontrol, boosting, mobility and diverse combinations of all these.

- Better constructed enemies, that behave more similar to good players.

- Enemies and encounter designs that surpass and more frequently invalidate the mere "DPS check" concept.

- More interesting environmental challenges.

- CC potency with its own stat.

- Condi clear potency linked to Healing Power.

- Elimination of Ferocity.

[TWMagimay.9057]

For years now my go-to GW2 opinion has been "I love everything about this game except the gameplay". This whole no-trinity thing is all fine and dandy until you realise that some classes have vastly superior survival compared to others and it's not because of gear or build but purely because the class was made that way. Watching somebody who has the exact same gear I do tank hits that will down me on the spot is just...depressing.

[Obtena.7952]

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> Hey all,

> I don't think I've played any other mmo without a holy trinity. I was wondering what you guys like/dislike about it, as well as your answers to the following questions:

> Do you think adding support classes was a good thing?

> How would you improve on the no Trinity concept?

> Anywho thanks in advance, and I look forward to reading your responses.

 

As a consequence of lacking holy trinity, I miss a narrow range of PVE performance between classes. This also indirectly affects WvW and PVP. I hope other game companies take notice and realize that discarding holy trinity is not without it's own set of complications.

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

My thoughts? Good. The trinity can stay in other MMOs. I'd rather rely on myself to do the job than someone else. If I fail, I know it's all me. :)

[Ashen.2907]

> @"Yamazuki.6073" said:

> There's a difference between absent and not completely focused on. A game where it is absent would be Vindictus, you relied on your class and consumables to survive. GW2 has supports/healers/tanks all over the place.

 

This.

 

 

That said, I am glad that the game doesnt focus on trinity play.

[EpicName.4523]

This is easier to answer than you think. The whole concept behind the lack of trinity is to avoid forcing professions/players into a single role, right? To have "diversity".

But...some professions are still clearly better (or worse) at certain things than the others so they are still pushed into certain roles.

 

While technically you can get the job done without druid or mesmer supporting/tanking, it wouldn't be optimal, right? Players want to increase their chances even when it is not needed. And since some professions are better at some roles they always will be played as the "meta" dictates. Either play as you are told or don't get invites.

This proves that the "lack of trinity" concept simply doesn't work because of the player's mindset.

 

In other games when you roll, say, a priest you know you will likely be healing. It's more often than not in the class description.

 

In this game, when you roll, say, a guardian you won't support because some other profession is doing it better. If that is the case, why not have a trinity and at least know what you can and can't do from the start?

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> Hey all,

> I don't think I've played any other mmo without a holy trinity. I was wondering what you guys like/dislike about it, as well as your answers to the following questions:

> Do you think adding support classes was a good thing?

 

From a gameplay perspective that is ultimately irrelevant.

If they don't exist content would be design without taking them into account.

If they exist content would be designed taking their existence into account.

 

 

> How would you improve on the no Trinity concept?

> Anywho thanks in advance, and I look forward to reading your responses.

 

The most basic and general thing a trinity accomplishes is to lower the minimum skill requirements. Is this good or bad? Matter of preference I guess. How is it easier? Well lets take the Mai Trin fractal as an example. Right now it does not make use of the trinity which means that ideally every party member is aware of the mechanic and know how to deal with it. With a more trinity oriented version presumably the fixation would be on the tank and then only that person really needs to know most of the mechanics. Everyone else just defaults back down to 'stay out of red circles'. It doesn't mean everyone's skill is automatically lower but it does mean that just having one good party member is about as good as having 5 so the minimum average skill level required is lower. You could shift that up by having additional roles for the rest of the party but that is still a lower requirement because each person only needs to be good at that one thing rather than being ready to do any of the possible roles as well as having to pay attention to when role switches occur.

 

On the other hand I don't think the devs do a great job of designing fights without the trinity. There are some good ones but mostly it is not therefore it is probably better if they stick to making what they are good at making. I am personally not a fan of the trinity oriented designs but what is there to be done about it? Nothing as far as I can see except wait to see if anyone manages to make a game that matches the expectations at some point.

 

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

As far as Raiding is concerned the Trinity is alive and well, unfortunately there's no diversity in the role of tank but hopefully that will change.

 

As far as 5 mans though it's all just a DPS race, in t4s you'll probably have a healer that's about it.

 

As a former WoW tank this took me a long time to come to terms with but it is what it is.

[mauried.5608]

As a former WOW healer, the trinity is the worst possible thing to have in a MMO, simply because in terms of popularity most players want to be DPS classes, the next popular want to be tanks, and the least popular are healers.

So you get idiot situations where players wait for hours to start a raid because they havnt got a healer, or have to offer gold to any healer who will join their group because without a healer the group will wipe.

Also being a healer is toxic because if the group does wipe regardless of the cause, the healer gets the blame.

I left WOW because of the trinity and came here because GW2 doesnt have one .

 

[Vayne.8563]

I've always hated the trinity in every game. It's always felt contrived and unheroic to me. As I've often said, Lord of the Rings would have been far more boring if Boromir were tanking, Gandalf was healing him and no one ever went after the Hobbits, Gimle, Aragorn or Legolas. It's just very artificial.

 

I prefer this. It doesn't mean there's no team work. It means there's different team work...but it's more reactive and less set in stone. If someone falls, generally someone else can pick up the slack. In most games, if your tank or healer go, that's it.

[SkyShroud.2865]

Most games have trinity classes simply because it simplify the balancing and make it slightly easier for newcomers to figure out the game while there are also games with open ended character designs but it makes things complicated for some people.

 

There are pros and cons for either and I don't think it is that hard for anyone to see the pros and cons.

 

Gw2 has make itself confusing with the specializations and likewise give forms to specific trinity compositions for raid where the primary supports are specific classes due to their inherent designs. However, if you only view this from the raid's perspective, then, sure, the trinity is specific but if you are a PvX player that does all game modes, you will realize the trinity is different in WvW. While trinity compositions do exist and will always be regardless if there are trinity classes or not, the gw2 classes are still flexible to a certain extend. For balance sake, there should no class that can do godly heal and godly dps at the same time, trinity composition is inevitable.

[Professor Sprout.1560]

I'm neither for or against a "trinity" (or "quarternity" or any higher or lower numeral "-ity") character build system. Any player dipping their toes into the MMO pool might reasonably ask "why do I need to play this game with other people?" - the existence of three rigid class roles that must be filled by at least 3 separate people in order to have the best shot at a specific strand of content provides a clear answer to that question. In theory in a well-designed game it would also provide a fun answer. The Holy Trinity is far however from being the only possible answer to this question. Provided that the answer to this question is consistent across both the buildcraft and content of the game and leads to a fun experience, any number of approaches will do.

 

Where I have concerns for this game are those cases in buildcraft where classes lack the ability to offer anything practical to a group other than DPS or healing; and those cases in content where trinity-based encounter design (and especially DPS checks) is being applied to a game which fundamentally does not suit such play.

[Crossaber.8934]

PvE encounter needs improvement, thats all i have to say.

 

Make the enemy behaves more like a player instead of just a damage sponge, wise use of boon, condition removal, invulnerable, dodge and teleport, create boss add on: 1) spawn at location that can't be melee but either heal the boss or heavily damage players, thus make ranged dps - RANGE SUPPORT; 2) add on that must be CC to stop buffing boss, make designated CC player - CC SUPPORT; 3) add on that teleport away from player team keep buffing boss or debuff players with only a small window to kill to make use of high mobility single burst dps class like thief - SPIKE SUPPORT; 4) These above add on should constantly buff boss with boon or condition removal, if the team do not have enough range support/CC support/spike support, boon corruption/removal will be needed - BOON MANAGEMENT SUPPORT. Since these add on must be killed fast as they has huge impact on fights etc.

 

When the encounter is expected to has team composition that mixed with ranged dps, heavy CC, high mobility single target burst, boon removal/corruption, the game will be in a much better state.

[Sarpan.9074]

I don't know what you mean about this absence. The game has plenty of onions, celery and green peppers.

[Swagger.1459]

> @"Vayne.8563" said:

> I've always hated the trinity in every game. It's always felt contrived and unheroic to me. As I've often said, Lord of the Rings would have been far more boring if Boromir were tanking, Gandalf was healing him and no one ever went after the Hobbits, Gimle, Aragorn or Legolas. It's just very artificial.

>

> I prefer this. It doesn't mean there's no team work. It means there's different team work...but it's more reactive and less set in stone. If someone falls, generally someone else can pick up the slack. In most games, if your tank or healer go, that's it.

 

Should have tried City of Heroes... :)

[Tasida.4085]

No trinity is one of the main reasons I LOVE this game. No more LF healer/tank etc and waiting an age for 1 to appear. It wouldn't hurt my feelings in the least if more games were developed without that cursed trinity mess. I can go anywhere open world and a few dungeons solo with a some of my chosen toons and fight/survive easily enough to complete what i set out to do.

[Vayne.8563]

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > @"Vayne.8563" said:

> > I've always hated the trinity in every game. It's always felt contrived and unheroic to me. As I've often said, Lord of the Rings would have been far more boring if Boromir were tanking, Gandalf was healing him and no one ever went after the Hobbits, Gimle, Aragorn or Legolas. It's just very artificial.

> >

> > I prefer this. It doesn't mean there's no team work. It means there's different team work...but it's more reactive and less set in stone. If someone falls, generally someone else can pick up the slack. In most games, if your tank or healer go, that's it.

>

> Should have tried City of Heroes... :)

 

Never heard of it ;)