What I worry about is that classes that are good at buffing and debuffing will become the next "healer". Meaning that people will feel that certain classes will be required in order to do harder level content.
I want a game where it doesn't matter what class you play, as long as you work together you can run the content.
I am willing to bet cash money that this will become truth. Every game ends up this way it seems, and it kinda sucks...
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
What I worry about is that classes that are good at buffing and debuffing will become the next "healer". Meaning that people will feel that certain classes will be required in order to do harder level content.
I want a game where it doesn't matter what class you play, as long as you work together you can run the content.
I am willing to bet cash money that this will become truth. Every game ends up this way it seems, and it kinda sucks...
I'm willing to bet that a heal specc'd ELE,Engi, or guadian will be very sought after I still think that dungeons will be doable with a cc heavy team or a damage soaking team or 4 glass cannon's that are really good at avoiding damage.
What I worry about is that classes that are good at buffing and debuffing will become the next "healer". Meaning that people will feel that certain classes will be required in order to do harder level content.
I want a game where it doesn't matter what class you play, as long as you work together you can run the content.
I am willing to bet cash money that this will become truth. Every game ends up this way it seems, and it kinda sucks...
It doesn't matter at all if its true that people will feel it that way, it only matter if it is the truth that certain classes are required.
to set this in perspective a qoute from developer Eric Flanum can help: he replied on this on guru
I'm just curious how an all Thief group would function in a dungeon setting, especially since Eric referred to condition removal being a necessity.
Eric then Answered
"This is the part where we aren't done with the game quite yet Thieves will have other forms of condition removal in addition to the trait you mention. "
It took most of the player base years to realise that mesmers didn't suck in GW1. Truth takes time to be known, and bad habbits take time to clear.
Imo, people just need to get their hands on the game. I know theorycrafting is fun and should be done, but since the game is so much different from your previous experience, it may be hard to grasp the combat from a distance. I am not saying they will succeed with this concept or that it is well implemented, but the only thing that really needs to be changed beside roles in the game are mob encounters. Those are the ones that need to be challenging within the combat design.
To be honest I think that this trinity is dead talk is just talk. People will still be tanks, healer and DPS and I think the only difference will be that tanks will be able to do some DPS and healing, healers will be able to do some DPS and possibly of-tank and DPS will be able to do some healing and of-tank.
Still they will be tank, dps and healer roles. It's just that people wont be locked into those roles permenantly but rather be more flexible, which is all good.
The thing is even if you want to tank, you can't, even if you have heavy armor, you can probably just take a few swings more before you die.
You can try to be healer, you can try to be tank, but soon you will die over and over and can't figure out why you just wiped 5 times in a simple PVE fight.
The players that can switch their weapons and chain combos and boons are the ones that will succeed. Those that have 100 health left and is still fighting in range of the mob instead of switching to long range attacks and heal themselves and put buffs and debuffs will keep dying.
Those that can move their characters to LOS attacks, and those that can dodge and recognize the enemy's attack animations will be the ones that people remember.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
The part I find most amazing here is all the people who appear to honestly believe a healer does absolutely nothing but spam the same 3 heal spells all day.
Show of hands from the healers out there, how many of you do nothing but healing in an instance?? No buffs, no debuffs, no side DPS, no CC, just a couple basic heals and nothing more??
I can tell you this, having played a healer in every game I have ever played over the past 8 years, I have yet to find the luxary of just tapping the heal button. In my opinion, if everyone here thinks thats all a healer does....
Honestly though, there isnt much a switch from a traditional healer role to a support role with some heals. All it will be is a minor focus change from main healer role to backup healer role with a bit more DPS thrown in. The tank is going to be the one player that has to make the biggest changes to thier playstyle. The wont be able to do anything they are used to doing in GW2.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
The part I find most amazing here is all the people who appear to honestly believe a healer does absolutely nothing but spam the same 3 heal spells all day.
Show of hands from the healers out there, how many of you do nothing but healing in an instance?? No buffs, no debuffs, no side DPS, no CC, just a couple basic heals and nothing more??
I can tell you this, having played a healer in every game I have ever played over the past 8 years, I have yet to find the luxary of just tapping the heal button. In my opinion, if everyone here thinks thats all a healer does....
Honestly though, there isnt much a switch from a traditional healer role to a support role with some heals. All it will be is a minor focus change from main healer role to backup healer role with a bit more DPS thrown in. The tank is going to be the one player that has to make the biggest changes to thier playstyle. The wont be able to do anything they are used to doing in GW2.
First of all, you are extremely correct to say that as a healer you aren't just pressing 3 buttons. A good healer is one that knows when to use their skills and when buff and debuff.
Don't get me wrong, if you have a heal that can heal me when I make a mistake and got hit, please do, but in GW2 you aren't responsible for my survival, I am responsible for my own survival.
Its not like because I am not an real tank, I can't knock back or cripple and control the mob with my skills if i have them. I will do what i can to ensure everyone survives. Its just harder because we are all responsible for our own mistakes.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
As previously stated in this thread or another, those trying to play this so called "trinity" bs will just have to fail till they learn how to play in GW2..
All hail the Barn Owl! oh.. and the RED SQUIRREL!!!
As previously stated in this thread or another, those trying to play this so called "trinity" bs will just have to fail till they learn how to play in GW2..
These kind of threads should end, because we already knows that the Trinity as we know is doesn't exist anymore.
Stickies have all the informations,
we got traits that you can look over
we got current skills available for all class to be reviewed
Anet already stated that they are making sure a full team of thiefs, elemetalists, engineers , warriors, guardians, mesmers, rangers ...etc will be viable to clear dungeons. ( changes coming )
So why is there still a huge discussion on whether or not trinity exists? Lets start talking about how classes can benefit one another and how they should be played. That kind of discussion will be more beneficial and useful, then discussing about trinity that we all know doesn't exist in GW2.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
The part I find most amazing here is all the people who appear to honestly believe a healer does absolutely nothing but spam the same 3 heal spells all day.
Show of hands from the healers out there, how many of you do nothing but healing in an instance?? No buffs, no debuffs, no side DPS, no CC, just a couple basic heals and nothing more??
I can tell you this, having played a healer in every game I have ever played over the past 8 years, I have yet to find the luxary of just tapping the heal button. In my opinion, if everyone here thinks thats all a healer does....
Honestly though, there isnt much a switch from a traditional healer role to a support role with some heals. All it will be is a minor focus change from main healer role to backup healer role with a bit more DPS thrown in. The tank is going to be the one player that has to make the biggest changes to thier playstyle. The wont be able to do anything they are used to doing in GW2.
Well having played a healer in Rift, I have to say that all I that game was heal and nothing else. No in-combat buffs, no debuffs, or CCs. Sure I had some of those skills available to be, but the only a efficient way to play a healer in Rift is to heal. Doing anything else was a waste of mana and a waste of a GCD.
Anyway your theory on how it will work in GW2 is quite flawed, because support heals are nothing to be relied upon in GW2. Can you honestly tell me that a player dropping a AOE heal every now and then can be compared to playing a dedicated healer?
IMHO the problem is that people try to fit everything into a trinity scheme. In the end, you will need someone to deal damage and someone is going to take it. That's like saying Battlefield is boring because all you do is shoot people in the face. The most controversial part of trinity is the healer/support role and there was a nice post on GW2Guru explaining how support in GW2 differs from other games. In WoW, tank exists because you HAVE TO take damage, no way to avoid it, just trying to minimize the hit. In GW2, most attacks can be dodged, avoiding them completely. Same with support. In WoW (I am saying WoW but I mean any WoW-like game or EQ-like game) the way of supporting is buffs on allies and debuffs on enemies. More armor, more damage, more speed and the opposites for the enemies. Where GW2 differs is that it has positional combat. If your ally is attacked and you use stomp to kick the attacker away, you are already doing defensive support in a way that isn't really possible in WoW. If you use eg. your flamethrower to pull the enemy to your warrior, you are doing offensive support.
Yes, in the end you are going to make sure your HP bars stay up as possible and enemies HP bars go down, but trying to force it into trinity scheme is gross oversimplification of the game rules.
Having a "dedicated" healer will probably help, but if that player is trying to focus exclusively on healing and is ignoring most of his weapon skills and not dealing significant damage, then yeah, it's not going to work out.
Tanking, on the other hand... That will never work, and without a tank, having a healer carries much less meaning.
That's what ultimately can break trinity teams down. If Anet makes the small tweak of getting rid of the "aggro" concept it all falls appart.
Exactly, we've gone over this I don't know how many times.
You can't have the trinity in GW2 because you can't control aggro. No aggro control...no trinity combat.
Trinity combat is not something that "just happens" naturally in any game. The game has to be specifically designed for it to work.
I can see a case where a game could have no aggro but there are tanks. Any game with collision detection can allow the tank to stand between the enemy and their fragile friends. That's generally how real combat works as well. I'm not a fan of the trininty anymore, only because of the pain of finding groups, but it doesn't require aggro to work effectively.
As previously stated in this thread or another, those trying to play this so called "trinity" bs will just have to fail till they learn how to play in GW2..
These kind of threads should end, because we already knows that the Trinity as we know is doesn't exist anymore.
Stickies have all the informations,
we got traits that you can look over
we got current skills available for all class to be reviewed
Anet already stated that they are making sure a full team of thiefs, elemetalists, engineers , warriors, guardians, mesmers, rangers ...etc will be viable to clear dungeons. ( changes coming )
So why is there still a huge discussion on whether or not trinity exists? Lets start talking about how classes can benefit one another and how they should be played. That kind of discussion will be more beneficial and useful, then discussing about trinity that we all know doesn't exist in GW2.
I totally agree!!! start one up and I will be there!
All hail the Barn Owl! oh.. and the RED SQUIRREL!!!
Having a "dedicated" healer will probably help, but if that player is trying to focus exclusively on healing and is ignoring most of his weapon skills and not dealing significant damage, then yeah, it's not going to work out.
Tanking, on the other hand... That will never work, and without a tank, having a healer carries much less meaning.
That's what ultimately can break trinity teams down. If Anet makes the small tweak of getting rid of the "aggro" concept it all falls appart.
Exactly, we've gone over this I don't know how many times.
You can't have the trinity in GW2 because you can't control aggro. No aggro control...no trinity combat.
Trinity combat is not something that "just happens" naturally in any game. The game has to be specifically designed for it to work.
I can see a case where a game could have no aggro but there are tanks. Any game with collision detection can allow the tank to stand between the enemy and their fragile friends. That's generally how real combat works as well. I'm not a fan of the trininty anymore, only because of the pain of finding groups, but it doesn't require aggro to work effectively.
Are you positive? Think carefully about playing WoW and imagine doing it without threat tables. How long do you think the average boss encounter would last? Or forget the bosses, just think about the trash. Collision detection would only save you if you can confine every encounter to very small choke points, and the chances of that happening are somewhere between slim and none. Even then, you still can't control the ranged attacks which ignore ZoC, so again, an inevitable party wipe.
Without aggro, *everything* comes tumbling down in seconds with traditional trinity mechanics.
In the end, it will just require people to learn a new system. It will seem fresh for a while, it *will* be fun to those of us looking for something different from the trinity, but there will be patterns, there will be ideal ways to do things, and the bad ways to do things.
This whole debate reminds me of a school board reviewing and drastically changing the ciriculum of a school district. New ideas and ways of teaching and learning are being put out there, and people will have to learn how to deal with it.
My hope, is that it is fun, and easy enough to remain fun, but hard enough to be challenging. If Anet can pull that off, this will rock.
If it becomes another "ideal build" needed, then we have just replaced the trinity with something else. The only thing that will determine this is actual playtime by the masses. We can theorize and speculate our brains out, but until a LOT of people get time at the keyboard, it's all moot, arguing either side.
No dedicated healer is a great way to play. Plus from what I've seen you'll have to get taken down a lot to actually "lose" the encounter. A lot of classes have great second wind type abilities and it'll just mean the fight will move along in stages; rather than just wipe because someone missed a stroke on a specific command string.
This is fine.
I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
Originally posted by Unlight Originally posted by FrodoFragins
Originally posted by Creslin321
Originally posted by Kuppa
Originally posted by Shroom_Mage
doesn't require aggro to work effectively. Are you positive? Think carefully about playing WoW and imagine doing it without threat tables. How long do you think the average boss encounter would last? Or forget the bosses, just think about the trash. Collision detection would only save you if you can confine every encounter to very small choke points, and the chances of that happening are somewhere between slim and none. Even then, you still can't control the ranged attacks which ignore ZoC, so again, an inevitable party wipe. Without aggro, *everything* comes tumbling down in seconds with traditional trinity mechanics.
GW1 has holy trinity without traditional aggro. Seems to work fine there.
Are you positive? Think carefully about playing WoW and imagine doing it without threat tables. How long do you think the average boss encounter would last? Or forget the bosses, just think about the trash. Collision detection would only save you if you can confine every encounter to very small choke points, and the chances of that happening are somewhere between slim and none. Even then, you still can't control the ranged attacks which ignore ZoC, so again, an inevitable party wipe.
Without aggro, *everything* comes tumbling down in seconds with traditional trinity mechanics.
GW1 has holy trinity without traditional aggro. Seems to work fine there.
GW1 doesn't have traditional aggro and it also doesn't have a traditional trinity, let alone a holy one. If your tanks can't reliably hold aggro, they aren't tanks in terms of a trinity, and in GW1, there is no reliable way of holding aggro. CC in that game is designed to counter the lack of true tanks. That's why it can work.
TBH that video seemed like two guys talking out their a$$ over posts they read... its nothing new other than insulting two classes way of tanking in GW2, as in taking threat to let the other heal up and stuff. We have known all this about trinity for a while.
this. seriously.
that killing the triinity means in applicaiton is that sometimes you will need more healing than one toon can provide other times you will need more tanks than one can provide.
The problem is bigger than forgetting the trinity... it's forgetting roles altogether. If you think about it, combat itself can be broken down into damaging the enemy, controlling the enemies actions and supporting your allies. When you look at the skills in GW2, you see that these attributes are spread out onto the skills, often more than one per skill. The way skills are set up, you pretty much have little choice but to incorporate all these aspects into your character. Everyone talks about the guardian as a potential "healer" type or "tank" type, but when you look at the skills you see that they're not meant to be pigeonholed in such a fashion. Start with any weapon, for example...
Surround yourself and nearby allies with a shield. Grant protection to yourself and nearby allies if counter attack hits.
1 is a damage chain for all three with a self-heal.
2 is damage and support both.
3 appears to be a support based skill.
So taking a mace, even though it feels more supportive, it's very essence is in damage; you need to be attacking the enemy for 1 and 2 to do anything. Look at the off hands that can go with it:
Ignite your foe with a fireball. Puts your Zealot's Flame into a 40 second recharge.
Focus - damage, control and support all in one for (4), support and damage (potentially) on (5).
Shield - damage and support on (4), control and support on (5).
Torch - Damage and support on (4), Damage on (5).
Then of course you add in traits, utiilty skills... if you step back and consider that the skils themselves contain these different facets of combat instead of the player representing a particular role, and you look at how much easier it is to build a character with skills that give you a variety of ways to perform all three facets compared to trying to specialize it becomes clear that the game is, at its very core, designed to have balanced characters all contributing relatively equally to damaging the bad guys, controlling the bad guy's ability to damage you and supporting your allies with buffs, condition removals, etc.
In a nutshell, the combat in GW2 favors a lack of roles, instead each character simply using skills in a balanced fashion to do what's needed in combat. You can flavor yourself to be a little more supportive, a little stronger in control aspects, but ultimately you need to learn to forget roles altogether and simply use the right skills for the job at the right times.
People are going to be taken out of their comfort zone and will have to re-educate themselves on a new way of dealing with mobs.
Personally I think its a breath of fresh air and should be approached with an open mind. Trinity is old and trusted by many of us over the past number of years. But it also getting old and stale and to predictable, any group with the trinity set up with half a brain can do most content that relies on that setup.
I dont think those that like to solo their MMO's and dont like to socialise might find they are going to have a difficult time getting through some of these dungeons, I just dont see Pugs cutting it out from what videos I've seen. Could be a good thing, could be bad, for me it will be the former, as MMO's should be about people interacting with each other.
Originally posted by Unlight GW1 doesn't have traditional aggro and it also doesn't have a traditional trinity, let alone a holy one. If your tanks can't reliably hold aggro, they aren't tanks in terms of a trinity, and in GW1, there is no reliable way of holding aggro. CC in that game is designed to counter the lack of true tanks. That's why it can work.
I admit that in most parts tanks aren't used. And I also admit that you usually can't reliably hold aggro (it's pretty much impossible versus ranged enemies). But some of the very high difficulty areas do require tanks. This usually involves very hard hitting melee enemies. There the tanks try to force the opponents to attack them instead of the squishies. I don't see why this would not be considered the same tank as the holy trinity tank. Yes, the holy trinity part is limited to these areas, but it IS there, and it works. Usually just soloing with a Discordway team of 7 necro heroes works fine though (I'm doing that as an Earthshaker Warrior), often even better than with a tank, because of the aggro thing. So you're mostly right.
GW1 doesn't have traditional aggro and it also doesn't have a traditional trinity, let alone a holy one. If your tanks can't reliably hold aggro, they aren't tanks in terms of a trinity, and in GW1, there is no reliable way of holding aggro. CC in that game is designed to counter the lack of true tanks. That's why it can work.
I admit that in most parts tanks aren't used. And I also admit that you usually can't reliably hold aggro (it's pretty much impossible versus ranged enemies).
But some of the very high difficulty areas do require tanks. This usually involves very hard hitting melee enemies. There the tanks try to force the opponents to attack them instead of the squishies.
I don't see why this would not be considered the same tank as the holy trinity tank. Yes, the holy trinity part is limited to these areas, but it IS there, and it works.
Usually just soloing with a Discordway team of 7 necro heroes works fine though (I'm doing that as an Earthshaker Warrior), often even better than with a tank, because of the aggro thing. So you're mostly right.
i don't think it will require tanks. just a very mobile team. it looks to me like anet has tried to let you group with who you want. so, as you said, a bunch of necros can do this or a bunch of thieves. but they'll just need to work together, support each other and most importantly: be mobile.
the amount of videos where people aren't doing much rolling shows this mechanic hasn't yet infiltrated unconscious gaming. but it will. and when that happens, i think anet's vision will be perfectly clear.
they're not encouraging sneaky ways to become a trinity.
Originally posted by headphones i don't think it will require tanks. just a very mobile team. it looks to me like anet has tried to let you group with who you want. so, as you said, a bunch of necros can do this or a bunch of thieves. but they'll just need to work together, support each other and most importantly: be mobile. the amount of videos where people aren't doing much rolling shows this mechanic hasn't yet infiltrated unconscious gaming. but it will. and when that happens, i think anet's vision will be perfectly clear. they're not encouraging sneaky ways to become a trinity. they're encouraging mobile and dynamic combat. and that has more wow to me than WOW.
We were actually talking about GW1. Sorry for going a bit offtopic. But you're right, GW2 will not require tanks. In fact, it will be impossible due to a lack of targeted heals and everybody being about equally resilient. Anybody getting focus-fired will die very quickly. Also, since there is no body blocking, it's not really possible to force enemies to attack you.
Comments
I am willing to bet cash money that this will become truth. Every game ends up this way it seems, and it kinda sucks...
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
I'm willing to bet that a heal specc'd ELE,Engi, or guadian will be very sought after I still think that dungeons will be doable with a cc heavy team or a damage soaking team or 4 glass cannon's that are really good at avoiding damage.
It doesn't matter at all if its true that people will feel it that way, it only matter if it is the truth that certain classes are required.
to set this in perspective a qoute from developer Eric Flanum can help: he replied on this on guru
I'm just curious how an all Thief group would function in a dungeon setting, especially since Eric referred to condition removal being a necessity.
Eric then Answered
"This is the part where we aren't done with the game quite yet
Thieves will have other forms of condition removal in addition to the trait you mention. "
It took most of the player base years to realise that mesmers didn't suck in GW1. Truth takes time to be known, and bad habbits take time to clear.
Imo, people just need to get their hands on the game. I know theorycrafting is fun and should be done, but since the game is so much different from your previous experience, it may be hard to grasp the combat from a distance. I am not saying they will succeed with this concept or that it is well implemented, but the only thing that really needs to be changed beside roles in the game are mob encounters. Those are the ones that need to be challenging within the combat design.
The thing is even if you want to tank, you can't, even if you have heavy armor, you can probably just take a few swings more before you die.
You can try to be healer, you can try to be tank, but soon you will die over and over and can't figure out why you just wiped 5 times in a simple PVE fight.
The players that can switch their weapons and chain combos and boons are the ones that will succeed. Those that have 100 health left and is still fighting in range of the mob instead of switching to long range attacks and heal themselves and put buffs and debuffs will keep dying.
Those that can move their characters to LOS attacks, and those that can dodge and recognize the enemy's attack animations will be the ones that people remember.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
The part I find most amazing here is all the people who appear to honestly believe a healer does absolutely nothing but spam the same 3 heal spells all day.
Show of hands from the healers out there, how many of you do nothing but healing in an instance?? No buffs, no debuffs, no side DPS, no CC, just a couple basic heals and nothing more??
I can tell you this, having played a healer in every game I have ever played over the past 8 years, I have yet to find the luxary of just tapping the heal button. In my opinion, if everyone here thinks thats all a healer does....
Honestly though, there isnt much a switch from a traditional healer role to a support role with some heals. All it will be is a minor focus change from main healer role to backup healer role with a bit more DPS thrown in. The tank is going to be the one player that has to make the biggest changes to thier playstyle. The wont be able to do anything they are used to doing in GW2.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
First of all, you are extremely correct to say that as a healer you aren't just pressing 3 buttons. A good healer is one that knows when to use their skills and when buff and debuff.
Don't get me wrong, if you have a heal that can heal me when I make a mistake and got hit, please do, but in GW2 you aren't responsible for my survival, I am responsible for my own survival.
Its not like because I am not an real tank, I can't knock back or cripple and control the mob with my skills if i have them. I will do what i can to ensure everyone survives. Its just harder because we are all responsible for our own mistakes.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
As previously stated in this thread or another, those trying to play this so called "trinity" bs will just have to fail till they learn how to play in GW2..
All hail the Barn Owl! oh.. and the RED SQUIRREL!!!
These kind of threads should end, because we already knows that the Trinity as we know is doesn't exist anymore.
Stickies have all the informations,
we got traits that you can look over
we got current skills available for all class to be reviewed
Anet already stated that they are making sure a full team of thiefs, elemetalists, engineers , warriors, guardians, mesmers, rangers ...etc will be viable to clear dungeons. ( changes coming )
So why is there still a huge discussion on whether or not trinity exists? Lets start talking about how classes can benefit one another and how they should be played. That kind of discussion will be more beneficial and useful, then discussing about trinity that we all know doesn't exist in GW2.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Well having played a healer in Rift, I have to say that all I that game was heal and nothing else. No in-combat buffs, no debuffs, or CCs. Sure I had some of those skills available to be, but the only a efficient way to play a healer in Rift is to heal. Doing anything else was a waste of mana and a waste of a GCD.
Anyway your theory on how it will work in GW2 is quite flawed, because support heals are nothing to be relied upon in GW2. Can you honestly tell me that a player dropping a AOE heal every now and then can be compared to playing a dedicated healer?
IMHO the problem is that people try to fit everything into a trinity scheme. In the end, you will need someone to deal damage and someone is going to take it. That's like saying Battlefield is boring because all you do is shoot people in the face. The most controversial part of trinity is the healer/support role and there was a nice post on GW2Guru explaining how support in GW2 differs from other games. In WoW, tank exists because you HAVE TO take damage, no way to avoid it, just trying to minimize the hit. In GW2, most attacks can be dodged, avoiding them completely. Same with support. In WoW (I am saying WoW but I mean any WoW-like game or EQ-like game) the way of supporting is buffs on allies and debuffs on enemies. More armor, more damage, more speed and the opposites for the enemies. Where GW2 differs is that it has positional combat. If your ally is attacked and you use stomp to kick the attacker away, you are already doing defensive support in a way that isn't really possible in WoW. If you use eg. your flamethrower to pull the enemy to your warrior, you are doing offensive support.
Yes, in the end you are going to make sure your HP bars stay up as possible and enemies HP bars go down, but trying to force it into trinity scheme is gross oversimplification of the game rules.
I can see a case where a game could have no aggro but there are tanks. Any game with collision detection can allow the tank to stand between the enemy and their fragile friends. That's generally how real combat works as well. I'm not a fan of the trininty anymore, only because of the pain of finding groups, but it doesn't require aggro to work effectively.
I totally agree!!! start one up and I will be there!
All hail the Barn Owl! oh.. and the RED SQUIRREL!!!
Are you positive? Think carefully about playing WoW and imagine doing it without threat tables. How long do you think the average boss encounter would last? Or forget the bosses, just think about the trash. Collision detection would only save you if you can confine every encounter to very small choke points, and the chances of that happening are somewhere between slim and none. Even then, you still can't control the ranged attacks which ignore ZoC, so again, an inevitable party wipe.
Without aggro, *everything* comes tumbling down in seconds with traditional trinity mechanics.
In the end, it will just require people to learn a new system. It will seem fresh for a while, it *will* be fun to those of us looking for something different from the trinity, but there will be patterns, there will be ideal ways to do things, and the bad ways to do things.
This whole debate reminds me of a school board reviewing and drastically changing the ciriculum of a school district. New ideas and ways of teaching and learning are being put out there, and people will have to learn how to deal with it.
My hope, is that it is fun, and easy enough to remain fun, but hard enough to be challenging. If Anet can pull that off, this will rock.
If it becomes another "ideal build" needed, then we have just replaced the trinity with something else. The only thing that will determine this is actual playtime by the masses. We can theorize and speculate our brains out, but until a LOT of people get time at the keyboard, it's all moot, arguing either side.
No dedicated healer is a great way to play.
Plus from what I've seen you'll have to get taken down a lot to actually "lose" the encounter. A lot of classes have great second wind type abilities and it'll just mean the fight will move along in stages; rather than just wipe because someone missed a stroke on a specific command string.
This is fine.
I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
Let's have some games that aren't trying to be wow 2
doesn't require aggro to work effectively.
Are you positive? Think carefully about playing WoW and imagine doing it without threat tables. How long do you think the average boss encounter would last? Or forget the bosses, just think about the trash. Collision detection would only save you if you can confine every encounter to very small choke points, and the chances of that happening are somewhere between slim and none. Even then, you still can't control the ranged attacks which ignore ZoC, so again, an inevitable party wipe.
Without aggro, *everything* comes tumbling down in seconds with traditional trinity mechanics.
GW1 has holy trinity without traditional aggro. Seems to work fine there.
"I'll lead, you follow."
GW1 doesn't have traditional aggro and it also doesn't have a traditional trinity, let alone a holy one. If your tanks can't reliably hold aggro, they aren't tanks in terms of a trinity, and in GW1, there is no reliable way of holding aggro. CC in that game is designed to counter the lack of true tanks. That's why it can work.
this. seriously.
that killing the triinity means in applicaiton is that sometimes you will need more healing than one toon can provide other times you will need more tanks than one can provide.
not that hard to wrap your mind around.
The problem is bigger than forgetting the trinity... it's forgetting roles altogether. If you think about it, combat itself can be broken down into damaging the enemy, controlling the enemies actions and supporting your allies. When you look at the skills in GW2, you see that these attributes are spread out onto the skills, often more than one per skill. The way skills are set up, you pretty much have little choice but to incorporate all these aspects into your character. Everyone talks about the guardian as a potential "healer" type or "tank" type, but when you look at the skills you see that they're not meant to be pigeonholed in such a fashion. Start with any weapon, for example...
Mace:
Chain attack. Smash your foe.
(Not listed)
Self-heal upon hit.
Symbol. Smash a mystic symbol onto the ground that damages foes and regenerates allies.
Surround yourself and nearby allies with a shield. Grant protection to yourself and nearby allies if counter attack hits.
1 is a damage chain for all three with a self-heal.
2 is damage and support both.
3 appears to be a support based skill.
So taking a mace, even though it feels more supportive, it's very essence is in damage; you need to be attacking the enemy for 1 and 2 to do anything. Look at the off hands that can go with it:
Focus
Off hand
Pass a ray over foes and allies. Foes are damaged and blinded. Allies gain regeneration and lose 1 condition.
Create a shield to block the next several attacks. If the shield is not destroyed, it explodes, damaging nearby foes.
Shield
Off hand
Create a shielding wave in front of you that damages foes and gives protection to yourself and up to 5 allies.
Create a dome around you that knocks back foes and then absorbs projectiles.
Torch
Off hand
Throw a cone of celestial fire in front of you, scorching foes while removing conditions from allies.
Set yourself alight, periodically burning up to three nearby foes.
Ignite your foe with a fireball. Puts your Zealot's Flame into a 40 second recharge.
Focus - damage, control and support all in one for (4), support and damage (potentially) on (5).
Shield - damage and support on (4), control and support on (5).
Torch - Damage and support on (4), Damage on (5).
Then of course you add in traits, utiilty skills... if you step back and consider that the skils themselves contain these different facets of combat instead of the player representing a particular role, and you look at how much easier it is to build a character with skills that give you a variety of ways to perform all three facets compared to trying to specialize it becomes clear that the game is, at its very core, designed to have balanced characters all contributing relatively equally to damaging the bad guys, controlling the bad guy's ability to damage you and supporting your allies with buffs, condition removals, etc.
In a nutshell, the combat in GW2 favors a lack of roles, instead each character simply using skills in a balanced fashion to do what's needed in combat. You can flavor yourself to be a little more supportive, a little stronger in control aspects, but ultimately you need to learn to forget roles altogether and simply use the right skills for the job at the right times.
Oderint, dum metuant.
People are going to be taken out of their comfort zone and will have to re-educate themselves on a new way of dealing with mobs.
Personally I think its a breath of fresh air and should be approached with an open mind. Trinity is old and trusted by many of us over the past number of years. But it also getting old and stale and to predictable, any group with the trinity set up with half a brain can do most content that relies on that setup.
I dont think those that like to solo their MMO's and dont like to socialise might find they are going to have a difficult time getting through some of these dungeons, I just dont see Pugs cutting it out from what videos I've seen. Could be a good thing, could be bad, for me it will be the former, as MMO's should be about people interacting with each other.
I admit that in most parts tanks aren't used. And I also admit that you usually can't reliably hold aggro (it's pretty much impossible versus ranged enemies).
But some of the very high difficulty areas do require tanks. This usually involves very hard hitting melee enemies. There the tanks try to force the opponents to attack them instead of the squishies.
I don't see why this would not be considered the same tank as the holy trinity tank. Yes, the holy trinity part is limited to these areas, but it IS there, and it works.
Usually just soloing with a Discordway team of 7 necro heroes works fine though (I'm doing that as an Earthshaker Warrior), often even better than with a tank, because of the aggro thing. So you're mostly right.
"I'll lead, you follow."
i don't think it will require tanks. just a very mobile team. it looks to me like anet has tried to let you group with who you want. so, as you said, a bunch of necros can do this or a bunch of thieves. but they'll just need to work together, support each other and most importantly: be mobile.
the amount of videos where people aren't doing much rolling shows this mechanic hasn't yet infiltrated unconscious gaming. but it will. and when that happens, i think anet's vision will be perfectly clear.
they're not encouraging sneaky ways to become a trinity.
they're encouraging mobile and dynamic combat.
and that has more wow to me than WOW.
We were actually talking about GW1. Sorry for going a bit offtopic. But you're right, GW2 will not require tanks. In fact, it will be impossible due to a lack of targeted heals and everybody being about equally resilient. Anybody getting focus-fired will die very quickly. Also, since there is no body blocking, it's not really possible to force enemies to attack you.
"I'll lead, you follow."