In Everquest where it originated while discussion was running angrily about roles on the forums it was the holy trinity of Tank/Healer and support but really Enchanter then it devolved sorry I mean ahem evolved to Tank/Healer/DPS and support just died or got summarily merged to some DPS or healer classes to throw out when they felt like it or at the beginning of an encounter.
The reason it was the Holy Trinity was because DPS were a dime a dozen and by themselves unable to do hard content in Everquest and you needed the other three classes to actually handle the content at a pace that would gain experience and if there was a wipe the cleric to give you back a large portion of the lost experience. The enchanter made it possible to split the mobs when they came in and handle them at a rate that was acceptable. The puller was usually a good DPS like a monk ,ranger or some other class that could split the mobs well. Actually there was a lot of strategy in the harder content in Everquest and it made the dungeons truly scary.
So it has nothing to do with how much DPS these three roles could do but what they brought to the group could not be replaced by the DPS classes whereas the DPS classes could easily be replaced if you lost the tank,healer or enchanter the group was done.
However a well played necromancer could handle a whole room in lower Guk because they had cc,heals and a tank and feign death should things go wrong.
I find classes more fun to play when healer is merged with support and DPS or tank is merged with CC (preferably tank, really, as DPS usually can focus on optimal efficiency DPS rotations). An MMO where the healer JUST heals and a tank JUST tanks can get pretty boring.
Of course, if you're shooting for a five party system, tank + DPS + heal + CC + Support would be the most obvious thing an MMO developer should strive to synergize. The problem with CC and to a lesser extent support is that it often bounces back and forth between "too overpowered" and "Nigh useless", often times within the same game depending on the encounter (this problem exists in almost any game with CC and support, not just MMOs, like how in some Final Fantasy games one boss can be cheesed to death with CC and the next is completely immune to it, and supporting spells can make some battles a breeze and/or are mandatory for others while in others you just get dispelled)
When I played Everquest 1 (and pretty sure Everquest 2 was the same) and City of Heroes. There was no trinity.
I could dps, tank or heal. Yes. However. There were also crowd control classes. I could do raids and control the raid mobs. In current MMOs, crowd control in a raid is unheard of. That offered a TON of possibilities.
But there were also buff classes (I know SWG had these). They were a support role. You would dance/entertain (in SWG), and in older MMOs, provide massive buffs to the group which helped other players a lot.
There was no trinity, because trinity is a failed design. But GW2 just removed tanking, but forgot about older MMOs where you could crowd control an entire dungeon, buff entire groups so the other players themselves do far better.
There were TONS of roles to do in a group. And it worked out really well.
There was no trinity, because that itself is a huge nerf to old ways of grouping. Especially when there were so many other roles you could fill into a group.
Nice Troll bait, real subtle how you lay out how you played the classic MMORPG's, layout what the Trinity is and then "claim" their was no trinity.
When I played Everquest 1 (and pretty sure Everquest 2 was the same) and City of Heroes. There was no trinity.
I could dps, tank or heal. Yes. However. There were also crowd control classes. I could do raids and control the raid mobs. In current MMOs, crowd control in a raid is unheard of. That offered a TON of possibilities.
But there were also buff classes (I know SWG had these). They were a support role. You would dance/entertain (in SWG), and in older MMOs, provide massive buffs to the group which helped other players a lot.
There was no trinity, because trinity is a failed design. But GW2 just removed tanking, but forgot about older MMOs where you could crowd control an entire dungeon, buff entire groups so the other players themselves do far better.
There were TONS of roles to do in a group. And it worked out really well.
There was no trinity, because that itself is a huge nerf to old ways of grouping. Especially when there were so many other roles you could fill into a group.
Why do we even have to answer useless posts like above. He honestly believes what he is saying, even though he is wrong. The tank also was crowd control - tanks had taunts......
GW2 didn't only remove tanking, they also removed healers, for the most part and everyone is DPS, self heal and CC. The problem is people wanting to play the trinity in a game not designed to have the trinity.
In early EQ days, I don't even remember DPS being part of the trinity. It was Tank, Healer, Support (Slower/Crowd Control was preferred). DPS was just kind of a by product of filling up the rest of the group, and honestly, in most group content in EQ at the time, your DPS didn't really matter - as long as you could keep the group from wiping (which is what the Tank, Healer, and Support did), stuff would die. DPS meant stuff would die faster, but often you were hindered by respawn timers and camp pull distances anyway.
I had an enchanter as a main for a long time in EQ. It was really fun, until we pretty much got regulated to buff bots - pullers got better at their job, zones were created that were less punishing, and other classes got tools to be able to do some measure of crowd control. Once all of that occured, the only thing we had to offer was a long duration mana buff, and since it lasted several hours, no one wanted to waste a group spot for just that and Enchies were looked on more like gimpy shaman (who became, at least in my experience, the high demand class). That was when I rolled SK.
I was thinking about making a separate post to discuss the differences in combat abilities, but this seems like a good place to talk about it.
I decided to try Neverwinter and Final Fantasy XIV recently. One thing I've noticed is there aren't many abilities or diversity of abilities. In Neverwinter there is a bit of strategic combat at least where you can try to avoid your enemies attacks. In Final Fantasy XIV this is not the case. You have a few basic healing and damage spells for the whole game. The only class I could see with a root or snare spell was archer and it's root breaks when you hit it.
I started looking at the different classes from Final Fantasy 11 and their abilities. There is a much greater diversity there. You have spells that slow, spells that haste, spells that root, spells that drain life to you, etc.
If you got back to a game like Everqest you had spells to teleport, turn invisible, root, snare, change appearance, grow larger, grow smaller, etc. There are actually a lot more effects that I haven't listed. Some of these effects tie into the crowd control the OP was talking about.
Most people will probably ask does this make the game more fun. For me it does because it opens up the possibilities of thinking outside the box. For some classes in a game like Everquest you were rendered to boring combat where you would just run in and try out damage the mob, but for other classes that had access to magic you could find creative ways to beat mobs by using the terrain and keeping them away from you. This could be done by roots, snares, crowd control, fear, charm, and I'm sure I'm missing a few other spells that lead to tactical combat.
The point is that running up to a mob and attacking with the result dependent on weather you have better stats is not fun combat IMO. That is exactly what most of these games present and to make it worse they usually make you so powerful that it's almost impossible to die when you are soloing. At the least they should make it so you have to hit your buttons at the right times to stay alive. For instance hit a button to interrupt a spell, cast a spell that removes a harmful effect at the right time, heal at the right time, etc.
CC and support died because the masses (where the money is) wanted faster combat
"Strong CC" died because it gave players an easy I win -button. It was replaced by weaker CC which requires more skill to be effective.
Support hasn't died either. Just the stupid buff spam bots are gone. And for good reason.
Yes, effective CC was replaced by the more fun "Everyone is just DPS" model. Because DPS has always been the most demanding, group oriented, and careful job in MMO character roles.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
It was Warrior, Cleric, and Enchanter. It comes from EQ. There were three specific classes that were most optimal for forming groups for challenging group content.
The current "trinity" is not that. It was much worse back then.
Anyone who thinks it had to do with archetypes never played early EQ. Bard CC was laughable back then and Clerics had a monopoly on healing challenging group content and raids. Nothing could mitigate like a warrior. It wasn't until Post-PoP release that SoE started being other classes up to par to remedy that issue.
Entire sections of the population were boycotting and bringing raid progression to a halt to bring attention to those issues.
There were major advantages to playing a class that wasn't a warrior, cleric, rogue/wizard. For instance playing as a Bard was actually fun because it had a wide diversity of abilities. All those trinity classes were one trick ponies and you had to be dedicated to play as them. That meant they were fairly rare at higher levels. The point is that every class had something useful in EQ. Enchanters could make a lot of money selling KEI and my friend always got into groups. Necromancers could solo really well, but groups didn't often want them as their damage over time wasn't good for fast DPS. Some classes were for solo and others were more for group. Even others were for other things. People complained about this diversity/imbalance, but it actually make the game a lot more interesting.
It was Warrior, Cleric, and Enchanter. It comes from EQ. There were three specific classes that were most optimal for forming groups for challenging group content.
The current "trinity" is not that. It was much worse back then.
Anyone who thinks it had to do with archetypes never played early EQ. Bard CC was laughable back then and Clerics had a monopoly on healing challenging group content and raids. Nothing could mitigate like a warrior. It wasn't until Post-PoP release that SoE started being other classes up to par to remedy that issue.
Entire sections of the population were boycotting and bringing raid progression to a halt to bring attention to those issues.
At last, someone who actually knows what they're talking about. Thank you, Darksworm.
Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter. The Holy Trinity. Accept no substitutes.
Clearly the OP never played EQ or he would know this very basic truth about the game. There was a trinity and it was very specifically those 3 classes, not roles.
It was Warrior, Cleric, and Enchanter. It comes from EQ. There were three specific classes that were most optimal for forming groups for challenging group content.
The current "trinity" is not that. It was much worse back then.
Anyone who thinks it had to do with archetypes never played early EQ. Bard CC was laughable back then and Clerics had a monopoly on healing challenging group content and raids. Nothing could mitigate like a warrior. It wasn't until Post-PoP release that SoE started being other classes up to par to remedy that issue.
Entire sections of the population were boycotting and bringing raid progression to a halt to bring attention to those issues.
At last, someone who actually knows what they're talking about. Thank you, Darksworm.
Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter. The Holy Trinity. Accept no substitutes.
Clearly the OP never played EQ or he would know this very basic truth about the game. There was a trinity and it was very specifically those 3 classes, not roles.
But why those classes? What did those 3 classes do that made them essential to groups?
It was Warrior, Cleric, and Enchanter. It comes from EQ. There were three specific classes that were most optimal for forming groups for challenging group content.
The current "trinity" is not that. It was much worse back then.
Anyone who thinks it had to do with archetypes never played early EQ. Bard CC was laughable back then and Clerics had a monopoly on healing challenging group content and raids. Nothing could mitigate like a warrior. It wasn't until Post-PoP release that SoE started being other classes up to par to remedy that issue.
Entire sections of the population were boycotting and bringing raid progression to a halt to bring attention to those issues.
At last, someone who actually knows what they're talking about. Thank you, Darksworm.
Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter. The Holy Trinity. Accept no substitutes.
Clearly the OP never played EQ or he would know this very basic truth about the game. There was a trinity and it was very specifically those 3 classes, not roles.
But why those classes? What did those 3 classes do that made them essential to groups?
Ehhh... reading skill decreased.
"Clerics had a monopoly on healing challenging group content and raids. Nothing could mitigate like a warrior."
Only enchanter is non mentioned. Propably because he dealt most dmg.
It was Warrior, Cleric, and Enchanter. It comes from EQ. There were three specific classes that were most optimal for forming groups for challenging group content.
The current "trinity" is not that. It was much worse back then.
Anyone who thinks it had to do with archetypes never played early EQ. Bard CC was laughable back then and Clerics had a monopoly on healing challenging group content and raids. Nothing could mitigate like a warrior. It wasn't until Post-PoP release that SoE started being other classes up to par to remedy that issue.
Entire sections of the population were boycotting and bringing raid progression to a halt to bring attention to those issues.
At last, someone who actually knows what they're talking about. Thank you, Darksworm.
Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter. The Holy Trinity. Accept no substitutes.
Clearly the OP never played EQ or he would know this very basic truth about the game. There was a trinity and it was very specifically those 3 classes, not roles.
But why those classes? What did those 3 classes do that made them essential to groups?
I don't believe any class was essential. The classes mentioned were the most effective at grouping.
The warrior was the best class at holding aggro and taking damage. They had the highest health, all the defensive skills in the game, and had the highest skill caps for those skills. They could also use all weapons and weapon skills. This allowed them access to using different weapons and sometimes shields for keeping aggro off their teammates.
The Cleric had the best heal spells, large hp buffs, good armor, and a bit of cc, group healing, and resurrection. They were usually very effective because they could take a hit if they got aggro, had the most efficient heal spells, and resurrection would quickly get dead players back in action/restore some of their lost experience.
Often times in a group things could go very bad and cause a lot of people to die and lose experience. The enchanter could prevent those situations by Crowd Controlling a mob and stopping the wipe from happening. They also had spells to increase mana regeneration. This was helpful for your Cleric or other casters to recover more quickly (otherwise they would be sitting on their butts most of the time).
One issue I remember in EQ was that mobs that conned red resisted most spells. In those specific situations you had to rely almost entirely on Melee damage (especially two handed weapons). CC and damage spells just weren't effective.
The Bard could easily replace the Enchanter in most situations. They had similar spells available to CC and restore mana. They were also better pullers due to their armor and speed song.
Shaman were often wanted over Clerics as they had haste and slow spells. With haste and slow spells you often didn't need CC as much. They had pretty much everything a Cleric offered and more aside from the resurrection.
A lot of the hybrid classes and casters could solo really well and were fun to play in those situations. They just had a much larger array of abilities overall.
My friend was and enchanter and would often group up with a druid to defeat nasty mobs in PoP. The Druid would snare the mob and he would charm it to fight another mob. People used a lot of different group formations other than the Trinity in Everquest. That is just the most effective for taking down the most difficult mobs in most situations.
What people are not understanding to this, was that the term "holy trinity" was a complaint, not a structure. If a group already had a tank, already had a healer, already had a cc (be that ench, bard, or snare from druid/ranger), there was little room left in the group. It watered down the xp and loot, divided more times than necessary. Everyone could dps, geared appropriately.
So other classes felt left out, and would complain their abilities weren't best suited for the "holy trinity", said in a snarky tone. They'd log on, sit announcing lfg or camp check for an hour or two, log out, go to the forums and complain their character wasn't necessary because of "holy trinity". Actually, it was more than likely their lack of initiative than the class structure, but that didn't matter, the complaint gained traction.
So to call tank, dps, heal "trinity" is backwards in a couple ways, and was primarily promulgated when WoW became a big thing, so many new people came to the genre, had no clue what the term actually meant and associated it with WoW's slightly different combat structure. "Oh", they thought, "this must be trinity! Let's now plaster our "we don't know what the shit we're talking about" all over Reddit.
So it caught on, and then people tried to make games without trinity, which was a false trinity misunderstanding, which was a complaint people without initiative couldn't get groups. Then you get people defending that, because it's all they know and understand.
What people are not understanding to this, was that the term "holy trinity" was a complaint, not a structure. If a group already had a tank, already had a healer, already had a cc (be that ench, bard, or snare from druid/ranger), there was little room left in the group. It watered down the xp and loot, divided more times than necessary. Everyone could dps, geared appropriately.
So other classes felt left out, and would complain their abilities weren't best suited for the "holy trinity", said in a snarky tone. They'd log on, sit announcing lfg or camp check for an hour or two, log out, go to the forums and complain their character wasn't necessary because of "holy trinity". Actually, it was more than likely their lack of initiative than the class structure, but that didn't matter, the complaint gained traction.
So to call tank, dps, heal "trinity" is backwards in a couple ways, and was primarily promulgated when WoW became a big thing, so many new people came to the genre, had no clue what the term actually meant and associated it with WoW's slightly different combat structure. "Oh", they thought, "this must be trinity! Let's now plaster our "we don't know what the shit we're talking about" all over Reddit.
So it caught on, and then people tried to make games without trinity, which was a false trinity misunderstanding, which was a complaint people without initiative couldn't get groups. Then you get people defending that, because it's all they know and understand.
This wasn't an issue with me. I always played solo classes like Necromancer, Druid, etc in EQ and other games. Ones that had a lot of utility, but weren't always useful to groups. The difference was that the solo content was actually somewhat challenging at times in older games. I know there are people who complained their class was not useful in groups though. It's probably why the Necromancer was bastardized into a healing class at some point and other classes that were better at soloing got things like big heals or resurrection. That's when classes started to blend together in games and become very bland IMO.
This wasn't an issue with me. I always played solo classes like Necromancer, Druid, etc in EQ and other games. Ones that had a lot of utility, but weren't always useful to groups. The difference was that the solo content was actually somewhat challenging at times in older games. I know there are people who complained their class was not useful in groups though. It's probably why the Necromancer was bastardized into a healing class at some point and other classes that were better at soloing got things like big heals or resurrection. That's when classes started to blend together in games and become very bland IMO.
Yep, in EQ there were specific Classes like the Necromancer who were much better at Soloing than in Group, that offered an alternative play-style for people that enjoyed solo. A Necromancer would be able to do content only Groups can manage like Dungeons, and it was challenging and rewarding in a different way, even if leveling was slower. EQ was a more complete game than people might thing, though it wasn't a themepark, there was something for everyone.
Trinity = Tank Heal Dps .. I really hate that definition, its like saying Music = Drum Guitar Vocal. It is such a shallow description of what goes on in a combat scenario. Even WoW which is undoubtedly one of the simpler types, there is so much more at play than describing it as Tank Heal Dps, and if you take something advanced like eq combat the term Trinity gets even sillier.
What people are not understanding to this, was that the term "holy trinity" was a complaint, not a structure. If a group already had a tank, already had a healer, already had a cc (be that ench, bard, or snare from druid/ranger), there was little room left in the group. It watered down the xp and loot, divided more times than necessary. Everyone could dps, geared appropriately.
So other classes felt left out, and would complain their abilities weren't best suited for the "holy trinity", said in a snarky tone. They'd log on, sit announcing lfg or camp check for an hour or two, log out, go to the forums and complain their character wasn't necessary because of "holy trinity". Actually, it was more than likely their lack of initiative than the class structure, but that didn't matter, the complaint gained traction.
So to call tank, dps, heal "trinity" is backwards in a couple ways, and was primarily promulgated when WoW became a big thing, so many new people came to the genre, had no clue what the term actually meant and associated it with WoW's slightly different combat structure. "Oh", they thought, "this must be trinity! Let's now plaster our "we don't know what the shit we're talking about" all over Reddit.
So it caught on, and then people tried to make games without trinity, which was a false trinity misunderstanding, which was a complaint people without initiative couldn't get groups. Then you get people defending that, because it's all they know and understand.
This wasn't an issue with me. I always played solo classes like Necromancer, Druid, etc in EQ and other games. Ones that had a lot of utility, but weren't always useful to groups. The difference was that the solo content was actually somewhat challenging at times in older games. I know there are people who complained their class was not useful in groups though. It's probably why the Necromancer was bastardized into a healing class at some point and other classes that were better at soloing got things like big heals or resurrection. That's when classes started to blend together in games and become very bland IMO.
Necro got more ability because in raids they were consigned to buff bitch. It was a common argument in upper guilds that their necro friends didn't like playing the game, because it wasn't fun, because all they did was sit and feed mana to the ench or healer. Kunark raid mobs brought the necessity of dmf for poison resistance, so they would buff everyone, then feed mana. zzzzzzzzzz
Necro was a great solo class, probably best even over mage for ability to fear kite yellow plus along zone walls and get great loot. When that got old, though, when you wanted to do raid stuff, hang out with people, you were stuffed in a corner spamming mana, and honestly, it was kinda bad.
This wasn't an issue with me. I always played solo classes like Necromancer, Druid, etc in EQ and other games. Ones that had a lot of utility, but weren't always useful to groups. The difference was that the solo content was actually somewhat challenging at times in older games. I know there are people who complained their class was not useful in groups though. It's probably why the Necromancer was bastardized into a healing class at some point and other classes that were better at soloing got things like big heals or resurrection. That's when classes started to blend together in games and become very bland IMO.
Yep, in EQ there were specific Classes like the Necromancer who were much better at Soloing than in Group, that offered an alternative play-style for people that enjoyed solo. A Necromancer would be able to do content only Groups can manage like Dungeons, and it was challenging and rewarding in a different way, even if leveling was slower. EQ was a more complete game than people might thing, though it wasn't a themepark, there was something for everyone.
Exactly right. As a Necromancer you had invisibility to both normal mobs and undead mobs. At some point they added feign death to the class as well. It had CC, pet, snares, healing, and damage. The only thing it lacked was a way to increase run speed. You could get around this with something like the jboots when they were introduced. I recall turning invis and walking through dungeons to a specific mob and attempting to take down rooms by feigning death after one mob died. Then I would try to take down another. This was all a time game though as mobs would respawn to quickly sometimes for you to kill all the mobs.
The only class that was close to as fun for me was the Druid. I always like the Druids speed, regeneration, snare, root, thrones, wolf form, teleports, invisibility, and healing. They were less effective for soloing as they got higher in level though. Their damage spells just weren't as good as the Necromancer.
It was Warrior, Cleric, and Enchanter. It comes from EQ. There were three specific classes that were most optimal for forming groups for challenging group content.
The current "trinity" is not that. It was much worse back then.
Anyone who thinks it had to do with archetypes never played early EQ. Bard CC was laughable back then and Clerics had a monopoly on healing challenging group content and raids. Nothing could mitigate like a warrior. It wasn't until Post-PoP release that SoE started being other classes up to par to remedy that issue.
Entire sections of the population were boycotting and bringing raid progression to a halt to bring attention to those issues.
At last, someone who actually knows what they're talking about. Thank you, Darksworm.
Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter. The Holy Trinity. Accept no substitutes.
Clearly the OP never played EQ or he would know this very basic truth about the game. There was a trinity and it was very specifically those 3 classes, not roles.
But why those classes? What did those 3 classes do that made them essential to groups?
Ehhh... reading skill decreased.
"Clerics had a monopoly on healing challenging group content and raids. Nothing could mitigate like a warrior."
Only enchanter is non mentioned. Propably because he dealt most dmg.
So the OP is wrong. The warrior was being used as a tank and the cleric as a healer. Meanwhile the enchanter was being used to mana regen. And the rest of the group was DPS. Although the word originated from these 3 particular classes it was only because they were capable of doing the tank/healing roles from the trinity gameplay.
Enchanter was crowd control. When I took part in those AOE groups we had wizards suddenly being in huge demand and magicians their AOE damage was good too. However the cleric and tank was still necessary and enchanter for group mez. I even AOEed in Fear.Those groups we were gaining experience like crazy between 55 to 60 this was when the level cap was 60 in Kunark.
OP is uninformed or deliberately trolling more likely the latter.
I soloed ok as cleric. The thing that made people think healers were poor dps was the obsession with stacking wisdom. In that era, a healer could wear wis gear or int gear. Of course wis increased healing, but if you're wearing 0 wis gear, your heals didn't heal for 0, they still had a minimum value. So I was a yaulping (melee hit pretty good), nuking (pretty decent with int gear) halfling who could walk around with a HoT on. In the days after Velious release, I remember soloing up and down in the first vertical entrance chamber in Velk's lab 55-60, in periods in between groups. I considered myself in a race with two other clerics, who got groups a little more often because they were female toons (not nec female, but that didn't matter to hormone strung young men, they spoke as females), and because I was first 60 cleric on the server, I got the first cleric PoG bp. good times.
Of course, over time we got so many PoG breastplates, we were dressing the ice dwarf npcs with them, because we didn't want them to go on the market. They were boe.
Comments
The reason it was the Holy Trinity was because DPS were a dime a dozen and by themselves unable to do hard content in Everquest and you needed the other three classes to actually handle the content at a pace that would gain experience and if there was a wipe the cleric to give you back a large portion of the lost experience. The enchanter made it possible to split the mobs when they came in and handle them at a rate that was acceptable. The puller was usually a good DPS like a monk ,ranger or some other class that could split the mobs well. Actually there was a lot of strategy in the harder content in Everquest and it made the dungeons truly scary.
So it has nothing to do with how much DPS these three roles could do but what they brought to the group could not be replaced by the DPS classes whereas the DPS classes could easily be replaced if you lost the tank,healer or enchanter the group was done.
However a well played necromancer could handle a whole room in lower Guk because they had cc,heals and a tank and feign death should things go wrong.
Of course, if you're shooting for a five party system, tank + DPS + heal + CC + Support would be the most obvious thing an MMO developer should strive to synergize. The problem with CC and to a lesser extent support is that it often bounces back and forth between "too overpowered" and "Nigh useless", often times within the same game depending on the encounter (this problem exists in almost any game with CC and support, not just MMOs, like how in some Final Fantasy games one boss can be cheesed to death with CC and the next is completely immune to it, and supporting spells can make some battles a breeze and/or are mandatory for others while in others you just get dispelled)
I give it an 8/10.
Why do we even have to answer useless posts like above. He honestly believes what he is saying, even though he is wrong. The tank also was crowd control - tanks had taunts......
GW2 didn't only remove tanking, they also removed healers, for the most part and everyone is DPS, self heal and CC. The problem is people wanting to play the trinity in a game not designed to have the trinity.
Support hasn't died either. Just the stupid buff spam bots are gone. And for good reason.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I had an enchanter as a main for a long time in EQ. It was really fun, until we pretty much got regulated to buff bots - pullers got better at their job, zones were created that were less punishing, and other classes got tools to be able to do some measure of crowd control. Once all of that occured, the only thing we had to offer was a long duration mana buff, and since it lasted several hours, no one wanted to waste a group spot for just that and Enchies were looked on more like gimpy shaman (who became, at least in my experience, the high demand class). That was when I rolled SK.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I decided to try Neverwinter and Final Fantasy XIV recently. One thing I've noticed is there aren't many abilities or diversity of abilities. In Neverwinter there is a bit of strategic combat at least where you can try to avoid your enemies attacks. In Final Fantasy XIV this is not the case. You have a few basic healing and damage spells for the whole game. The only class I could see with a root or snare spell was archer and it's root breaks when you hit it.
I started looking at the different classes from Final Fantasy 11 and their abilities. There is a much greater diversity there. You have spells that slow, spells that haste, spells that root, spells that drain life to you, etc.
If you got back to a game like Everqest you had spells to teleport, turn invisible, root, snare, change appearance, grow larger, grow smaller, etc. There are actually a lot more effects that I haven't listed. Some of these effects tie into the crowd control the OP was talking about.
Most people will probably ask does this make the game more fun. For me it does because it opens up the possibilities of thinking outside the box. For some classes in a game like Everquest you were rendered to boring combat where you would just run in and try out damage the mob, but for other classes that had access to magic you could find creative ways to beat mobs by using the terrain and keeping them away from you. This could be done by roots, snares, crowd control, fear, charm, and I'm sure I'm missing a few other spells that lead to tactical combat.
The point is that running up to a mob and attacking with the result dependent on weather you have better stats is not fun combat IMO. That is exactly what most of these games present and to make it worse they usually make you so powerful that it's almost impossible to die when you are soloing. At the least they should make it so you have to hit your buttons at the right times to stay alive. For instance hit a button to interrupt a spell, cast a spell that removes a harmful effect at the right time, heal at the right time, etc.
Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter. The Holy Trinity. Accept no substitutes.
Clearly the OP never played EQ or he would know this very basic truth about the game. There was a trinity and it was very specifically those 3 classes, not roles.
"Clerics had a monopoly on healing challenging group content and raids. Nothing could mitigate like a warrior."
Only enchanter is non mentioned. Propably because he dealt most dmg.
Without crowd control even non-boss fights were lethal. Without crack mana could take 45+ minutes to regen from empty to full.
The warrior was the best class at holding aggro and taking damage. They had the highest health, all the defensive skills in the game, and had the highest skill caps for those skills. They could also use all weapons and weapon skills. This allowed them access to using different weapons and sometimes shields for keeping aggro off their teammates.
The Cleric had the best heal spells, large hp buffs, good armor, and a bit of cc, group healing, and resurrection. They were usually very effective because they could take a hit if they got aggro, had the most efficient heal spells, and resurrection would quickly get dead players back in action/restore some of their lost experience.
Often times in a group things could go very bad and cause a lot of people to die and lose experience. The enchanter could prevent those situations by Crowd Controlling a mob and stopping the wipe from happening. They also had spells to increase mana regeneration. This was helpful for your Cleric or other casters to recover more quickly (otherwise they would be sitting on their butts most of the time).
One issue I remember in EQ was that mobs that conned red resisted most spells. In those specific situations you had to rely almost entirely on Melee damage (especially two handed weapons). CC and damage spells just weren't effective.
The Bard could easily replace the Enchanter in most situations. They had similar spells available to CC and restore mana. They were also better pullers due to their armor and speed song.
Shaman were often wanted over Clerics as they had haste and slow spells. With haste and slow spells you often didn't need CC as much. They had pretty much everything a Cleric offered and more aside from the resurrection.
A lot of the hybrid classes and casters could solo really well and were fun to play in those situations. They just had a much larger array of abilities overall.
My friend was and enchanter and would often group up with a druid to defeat nasty mobs in PoP. The Druid would snare the mob and he would charm it to fight another mob. People used a lot of different group formations other than the Trinity in Everquest. That is just the most effective for taking down the most difficult mobs in most situations.
So other classes felt left out, and would complain their abilities weren't best suited for the "holy trinity", said in a snarky tone. They'd log on, sit announcing lfg or camp check for an hour or two, log out, go to the forums and complain their character wasn't necessary because of "holy trinity". Actually, it was more than likely their lack of initiative than the class structure, but that didn't matter, the complaint gained traction.
So to call tank, dps, heal "trinity" is backwards in a couple ways, and was primarily promulgated when WoW became a big thing, so many new people came to the genre, had no clue what the term actually meant and associated it with WoW's slightly different combat structure. "Oh", they thought, "this must be trinity! Let's now plaster our "we don't know what the shit we're talking about" all over Reddit.
So it caught on, and then people tried to make games without trinity, which was a false trinity misunderstanding, which was a complaint people without initiative couldn't get groups. Then you get people defending that, because it's all they know and understand.
A Necromancer would be able to do content only Groups can manage like Dungeons, and it was challenging and rewarding in a different way, even if leveling was slower.
EQ was a more complete game than people might thing, though it wasn't a themepark, there was something for everyone.
It is such a shallow description of what goes on in a combat scenario. Even WoW which is undoubtedly one of the simpler types, there is so much more at play than describing it as Tank Heal Dps, and if you take something advanced like eq combat the term Trinity gets even sillier.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Necro was a great solo class, probably best even over mage for ability to fear kite yellow plus along zone walls and get great loot. When that got old, though, when you wanted to do raid stuff, hang out with people, you were stuffed in a corner spamming mana, and honestly, it was kinda bad.
The only class that was close to as fun for me was the Druid. I always like the Druids speed, regeneration, snare, root, thrones, wolf form, teleports, invisibility, and healing. They were less effective for soloing as they got higher in level though. Their damage spells just weren't as good as the Necromancer.
OP is uninformed or deliberately trolling more likely the latter.
Of course, over time we got so many PoG breastplates, we were dressing the ice dwarf npcs with them, because we didn't want them to go on the market. They were boe.