Thoughts on getting away from the Holy Trinity..

jesterstear

I'm a long time Lord of the Rings Online player, who got a little jaded with that game's "holy trinity" model, so the freedom to experiment in ESO is quite intriguing.

With LOTRO, each class became increasing specialised since launch. To begin with, all were fairly capable in Melee, especially the main healer class who could wear medium armour, and use a shield.

However, a massive gulf opened between the DPS of DD classes and my tank - to the order of 10x or so. In a six man group, there would typically be two healer/support types. Bringing a tank would mean taking only 3 DPS, and furthermore those three would have to cut their damage output back to avoid stealing agro. Thus, a lot of groups stopped bringing a tank, since that gimped DPS 33% or so, while only reducing the healing requirement 40% - 50%. The healer/off healer had no problem healing through this anyway.

In my opinion, a large part of the problem was that the healers couldn't use their surplus mana to DPS when a tank was in the group. In healing stance you cannot DPS, in DPS stance you cannot heal , and stance swapping takes 10 seconds or so and requires you to not move or use any skills while changing, and is interruptable. Even then, the healer would make a very poor DPS without heading back to town to re-spec, and EVEN THEN, they still aren't a match for a dedicated DD class, having very high power costs for offence skills, long cooldowns on their best attacks, and doing most of their damage though landing large crits (instance bosses have much higher crit defence than world mooks). So, given that around 1/3 of the player base are support clases, the only way to balance the group was to kick the tank.

So, tanks were given more mitigation and other classes made more squishy.

When I last played this game, at 85, i remember running a 3 man instance with a melee bezerker heavy armour dps class , and a healer. We were all so specialised it was ridiculous. The plate-wearing bezerker would be oneshotted by the boss, and two hitted by everything else. He didn't even need to steal agro, the boss hits anyone in a 180 degree frontal arc, and had to be moved around the room as part of the fight... one false step and i'd find myself alone. My tank could weather the boss's attacks for two minutes without any heals... but only did scratch damage and couldn't heal anyone else. I started feeling like a complete one-trick pony - when you're not even the #1 tank in your guild and get passed over for the main raid bosses, your toon really feels useless.

To cap it all, they introduced another tank class, which could generate threat while kiting and had no range limit on its taunt skills - mine were only melee range. So, if the one thing my character could do, was be the second best punchbag in the guild, it was now with the proviso that i couldn't effectively stop spread out range mobs killing our healer, which featured heavily in the new content. 3 man and 6 man instances would now prefer this other tank class as the only tank, my main was now really limited to 12 man raids for taking the bosses - except that i was only second best in the guild at that, too.

How does a game get into this mess?

Whenever i argued against it, i'd get shot down in flames for criticising the holy trinity.

"Each player specialising 100% for their class role is the only way to beat the hardest content".

Let's break it down a little.

First, healing vs DPS.

Lord of the Rings Online places heavy restrictions on those who would do both.

But in ESO?
Is it better to have 3 players with 1 healing skill each, or one healer with 3 healing skills and the other two specialise in DPS with no healing skills at all? In ESO this seems a lot more open.

Second, defence vs DPS/Healing

Obviously, if it is possible to get all the mobs beating on one character, and the rest be untouched, the laws of min/max state that the character getting beaten on should sacrifice everything else to get their damage mitigation as high possible, whilst conversely, the healer/dps types turn themselves into one hitpoint wonders to maximise their output.

However, the idea of all the mobs being tanked by one is unrealistic, even within the confines of the fantasy setting. In practice you are going to have a "front line" of many individuals facing the enemy, each one "tanking" only one mob. Each indiviual controls a space 5 or 6 feet in diamater, owing to weapon reach. To block a dungeon corridor you're going to need two melee at least. From what i have seen from re-enactments, it is also impossible for 8 to attack one simultaneously , also due to the room it takes two swing a weapon. Two can go against one isloated person, while they back up desperately to avoid being flanked. You can just about envisage a third joining in from the direction that person is trying to retreat to, at which point they are dead, instantly, no matter how good of a fighter they are.
Finally there is the matter of differentials. In LOTRO they were just too large. Nobody should turn up to a pitched battle wearing a dress, i don't care what your class is. The difference between the tankiest and squishiest characters should be smaller than in LOTRO. But so should the DPS differential. No, my tank is not a bezerker, does not dual wield and only has a 1h sword, but that sword will still end you if it goes between your ribs, so you can't just turn your back on me and ignore me while i wail away at you.

One thing i like about this game, tanks appear to bring more to this group than just above average damage mitigation. Stoneheart dragonknights buff the defences of the people around them and weaken the defences of nearby mobs, Templar tanks like mine offheal too.

What happens when the trash is dead, and it's just the party vs the boss?
Personally, i hope fights like that are rare, because they are unrealistic, but isn't that a case where you'd be better off with a holy trinity super tough tank and 3 one hit point wonders healing/dpsing?

Perhaps with the Stamina/Magika mechanic, maybe not. If you had two templar tanks, one could tank the boss till he's out of stamina for blocking, then swap places with the other templar and heal while stamina regens. Hopefully, by the time Mana is running low, stamina will have recovered.

Phunny

I stopped reading when you said that stance swapping took 10 seconds. It also put a sour taste in my mouth when you referred to templars as the main healer class. If you actually played that game you'd realise how wrong you are and how stupid you're making yourself look.

jesterstear

Phunny wrote: »

I stopped reading when you said that stance swapping took 10 seconds. It also put a sour taste in my mouth when you referred to templars as the main healer class. If you actually played that game you'd realise how wrong you are and how stupid you're making yourself look.

I wasn't talking about ESO there, I was talking about the other game I was comparing it favourably too. Read before you flame, please.

Zargorius

Phunny wrote: »

I stopped reading when you said that stance swapping took 10 seconds. It also put a sour taste in my mouth when you referred to templars as the main healer class. If you actually played that game you'd realise how wrong you are and how stupid you're making yourself look.

The only person looking stupid here is the one commenting without bothering to read the entire post.

I agree with the OP and like the direction the game is heading though I'm expecting to see a lot of resistance from people used to different mechanics. Hopefully TES crowd will help with mitigating that and starting to break the mould molds (pun intended).

Shimond

This post appears to be more about LOTRO than ESO. I don't think they have a plan to get rid of the holy trinity in this game (I certainly hope they won't try to make pve content like GW2). However I do think they've relaxed in the degree that any class can perform any role, so the trinity is more about your skill choice than your class choice.

Left_Hand

For dungeons in ESO... you need a tank, you need a healer, you need dps...

Holy trinity confirmed. When those classes are not needed, then you dont have the trinity, when they are in one form or another, then the trinity is in full effect.

Gohlar

Left_Hand wrote: »

For dungeons in ESO... you need a tank, you need a healer, you need dps...

Holy trinity confirmed. When those classes are not needed, then you dont have the trinity, when they are in one form or another, then the trinity is in full effect.

Confirmed. ESO is trinity based, what makes it better is any class can perform any role. You do need a dedicated healer and often a tank as well.

thedemiseraphb14_ESO

The trinity is already very much lessened, so I'd have to say they are all for getting rid of it as the go to model. A quad of hybrid builds excels in dungeons. A typical group that wants to have a tank and healer and 2 dps seems to have a lot of trouble. Aggro doesn't work traditionally, so tanks can't tank. And healers do frequently get attacked, so need to be more sustainable. I LOVE that not every group is going to be Healer/Tank/2DPS.

The issue is, you are still going to have tons of people who are going to spam that they need a specific role for their dungeon runs and be unwilling to allow hybrid runs. The player base may end up a bit split here.

Gohlar

thedemiseraphb14_ESO wrote: »

The issue is, you are still going to have tons of people who are going to spam that they need a specific role for their dungeon runs and be unwilling to allow hybrid runs. The player base may end up a bit split here.

Some dungeons do require a healer and tank though. A group of hybrids won't be able to defeat some of them. That may work in the beginning dungeons, but I'm already seeing fights that will cause them problems. The last boss of sewers really wants you to have a tank. Some of the dungeons at lvl 30 really require constant healing. You can't dps and heal yourself at the same time. I imagine this will only become more prominent at endgame.

thedemiseraphb14_ESO

Gohlar wrote: »

thedemiseraphb14_ESO wrote: »

The issue is, you are still going to have tons of people who are going to spam that they need a specific role for their dungeon runs and be unwilling to allow hybrid runs. The player base may end up a bit split here.

Some dungeons do require a healer and tank though. A group of hybrids won't be able to defeat some of them. That may work in the beginning dungeons, but I'm already seeing fights that will cause them problems. The last boss of sewers really wants you to have a tank. Some of the dungeons at lvl 30 really require constant healing. You can't dps and heal yourself at the same time. I imagine this will only become more prominent at endgame.

Also depends on how fast someone is trying to finish etc. So many variables to consider. But in either case, atleast it is not 100% traditional build setup

KerinKor

GW2 has no trinity .. GW2 group content is a chaotic nightmare, aggro is a bizarre mixture of apparently random events, tanks can't control fights and everything degenerates into a zerg before a wipe.

I love some aspects of GW2, but instance grouping is rarely one of them.

jesterstear

Gohlar wrote: »

Some dungeons do require a healer and tank though. A group of hybrids won't be able to defeat some of them. That may work in the beginning dungeons, but I'm already seeing fights that will cause them problems. The last boss of sewers really wants you to have a tank. Some of the dungeons at lvl 30 really require constant healing. You can't dps and heal yourself at the same time. I imagine this will only become more prominent at endgame.

You can't DPS and heal yourself at the same time - doesn't that mean you're doing all three jobs at that point - tanking hits, dps ing and healing - obviously that's not going to work.

Obviously an instance with a tough guy boss is going to need at least one person with top notch damage mitigation and health. Their class skills will make them a hybrid anyway - a stone spec dragon knight has buffs and debuffs that give them a usefulness beyond their tanking.

The group then needs sufficient healing to keep that tank alive and/or debuffs on the boss. Does it matter whether they come from one dedicated healer or a few hybrids?

Basically a group needs balanced defensive and offensive resources. A pug consisting only of squishy nukers isn't going to beat challenging content. I suppose its easy to ask for a tank or a healer when building a pug but if you're questing with guild mates who know each other's capabilities, you can be more flexible.

albelnoxgm

In my years i've never been really interested in DPS roles. I like tanking, i like healing as well. I like my niche roles. I don't care if every single class can fulfill every single role in this game. Hell, it's actually pretty damn great but the second those niche roles are gone, it's my cue to leave the game as well.

Left_Hand

jesterstear wrote: »

Gohlar wrote: »

Some dungeons do require a healer and tank though. A group of hybrids won't be able to defeat some of them. That may work in the beginning dungeons, but I'm already seeing fights that will cause them problems. The last boss of sewers really wants you to have a tank. Some of the dungeons at lvl 30 really require constant healing. You can't dps and heal yourself at the same time. I imagine this will only become more prominent at endgame.

You can't DPS and heal yourself at the same time - doesn't that mean you're doing all three jobs at that point - tanking hits, dps ing and healing - obviously that's not going to work.

Obviously an instance with a tough guy boss is going to need at least one person with top notch damage mitigation and health. Their class skills will make them a hybrid anyway - a stone spec dragon knight has buffs and debuffs that give them a usefulness beyond their tanking.

The group then needs sufficient healing to keep that tank alive and/or debuffs on the boss. Does it matter whether they come from one dedicated healer or a few hybrids?

Basically a group needs balanced defensive and offensive resources. A pug consisting only of squishy nukers isn't going to beat challenging content. I suppose its easy to ask for a tank or a healer when building a pug but if you're questing with guild mates who know each other's capabilities, you can be more flexible.

You are still talking about a trinity, not of classes but of roles, thats what the trinity has always been about, group content that needs 3 fundamental roles to succeed, a tank, a healer and a dps. If the healing comes from a leech healer or from a resto staff healer, it doesn't matter, it's still a healer. ESO doesn't innovate on the concept, even mmo's that allow literally hundreds of viable skill combinations for each role like The Secret World, rely on the trinity concept.

sk8ingeckoub17_ESO

I actually was sick of the "holy trinity" until I played gw2... nothing made me miss having a true healer or a true tank more then that game. But that said I am glad that this games way of getting away from the "holy trinity" was to just say you still will need heals, and a tank, and dps but.... any class can fill any roll and if you can find a hybrid way to do it congrats go at it!

jesterstear

From my brief experience levelling a sorcerer vs healer/tank Templar, it seems levelling a DPS is generally quicker and easier. Being a support class of any type (tank, buff/debuff, cc, heal) is very useful when paired with a dps but solo the lack of ranged dps and the inability to finish opponents quickly can get you into trouble.

A lot of people you run into a low level PUG with are going to be 90% DPS, because that's what works for them solo. They might have the odd piece of armour that isn't light but that does not a tank make. This may give "hybrid" groups a bad name. In effect it's 4 glass cannon dps trying to solo a raid boss.

Guilds in LOTRO were only about finding partners to complete group content with, you'd get to know players and their strengths and weaknesses, it seems a lot of guilds in this game are trade only so low level instances are mostly pugged. Don't think you can really judge a hybrid approach till you're part of a team that's familiar with each other who are using voice chat.

Thechemicals

I feel this threads op has many assumptions and guessing and not enough experience ingame to have so much to say about it. Im not so sure what others are agreeing with but it seems like they may be agreeing about other games?

As far as hybrids are concerned, the designers of this game emphasized this and players are loving it and applying the hybrid skills to great effect. However, the mechanic is always the same, you need specialization for tank/dps/healing in all challenging content. You must specialize in one of the three mentioned above, but thats the genius behind this all. You are specializing skills that are used in two different action bars instead of specializing in a class that would restrict your ability to change. Unfortunately this feature will be optimized by the best players, while most other players will find the technical aspect and work required to function constantly under 2 action bars tedious, and they will revert to specializing the old school way or simply have an overextended mess of a hybrid on there hands.

Orizuru

People really need to stop making assumptions about design goals from ZOS based on inferred and implied data. You can't ask for changes or improvements or even intelligent discussion of topics when the basis for them are based entirely upon an assumption. Its pointless and a complete waste of time.

SDZald

I may be way off base here but the idea of a holy trinity, in fact any predetermined class structure does not really fit this game.

Elder Scrolls even in the single player games are NOT class driven, they are skill driven. You want a plate wearing nuker? Go for it. You want a tank that can deal great damage, both melee and magical? Go for it. You want a healer that can get in there and mix it up? Go for it.

That is the beauty of a skill based system, you are NOT locked into a highly structured class system, you can play any type of character you feel like playing without feeling like you bring nothing to a group.

Try and leave your old MMO class/group ideas at the door, you will have a lot more fun that way.

Shimond

SDZald wrote: »

I may be way off base here but the idea of a holy trinity, in fact any predetermined class structure does not really fit this game.

The big difference between this game and the other Elder Scrolls games it that pesky "multiplayer" part. You certainly have no need for multiple 'roles' when playing solo, because it's just you.

Nox_Aeterna

ESO does not try to break from the holy trinity OP , like many posts above me said.

What ESO does is open up the choices for each role , picking a class at the game start does not close your options later on , you could tank with any class , heal with any class , DPS with any class.

Granted , some choices are not optimal , one class can be better at something to some degree, BUT all classes are viable.

thedemiseraphb14_ESO wrote: »

The trinity is already very much lessened, so I'd have to say they are all for getting rid of it as the go to model. A quad of hybrid builds excels in dungeons. A typical group that wants to have a tank and healer and 2 dps seems to have a lot of trouble. Aggro doesn't work traditionally, so tanks can't tank. And healers do frequently get attacked, so need to be more sustainable. I LOVE that not every group is going to be Healer/Tank/2DPS.

The issue is, you are still going to have tons of people who are going to spam that they need a specific role for their dungeon runs and be unwilling to allow hybrid runs. The player base may end up a bit split here.

I run 1 tank/1 healer/ 2 DD players.

I expect each player to be able to do what they said , i had a tank with 2h weapon once , ONCE , now i just kick them on the spot. I dont care about classes , but people better be ready to perform their role.

Gedalya

I stopped reading at:

With LOTRO

jesterstear

With a few low-level dungeons behind me, I can see that an uncompromised defence is needed on the one who holds the boss. Maybe you can get away with not using heavy armour if your class skill defensive buffs make up for it - but that's just trading less defence in one area of your build for more defence in another. There's more than one way to hit the armour softcap. And ofc, even a dedicated tank can have a certain amount of dual role potential - my tanking skills are on the weapon line, and use stamina, but my class skills are healing ones and use my limited magika.

As far as healing goes... we did some 4 mans with a nightblade contributing to healing with funnelling skill, bow Templar spot healing with class skills and my Templar tank also spot healing and nobody died. It seems healing can be distributed throughout the party.

Is it still more efficient to build a dedicated healer, rather than three with an off-healing capability as part of their major role?

I'd expect that if you are planning to solo heal, your toon needs to be rather robust as they are going to pull a lot of agro. To a lesser degree, the same holds true for melee AOE dps types.

rawne1980b16_ESO

Phunny wrote: »

It also put a sour taste in my mouth when you referred to templars as the main healer class. If you actually played that game you'd realise how wrong you are and how stupid you're making yourself look.

Templars in ESO are the only class with a dedicated healing skill line.

As such, people will view them as the main healing class. Sure, any class can pick up a resto staff but Templar is the only class with a full skill line for healing.

On topic....

I actually like the holy trinity.

I've been a healer since MMO's began and that's how I like it. I hated GW2 and it's attempt to stray from the norm purely because people spent their time trying to build for certain roles still. You still had warriors sword and board tanking, guardians speccing for heals and even mages going water for healing.

KerinKor

sk8ingeckoub17_ESO wrote: »

I actually was sick of the "holy trinity" until I played gw2... nothing made me miss having a true healer or a true tank more then that game.

Agreed totally.

GW2 shows what a disaster systems without the 'trinity' in some form are, fights are chaos when tanks can't 'manage' the mobs, everything becomes a DPS zerg trying to kill the mobs before they kill you.

Jynai

Combat without Trinity does not work well in MMOs. ESO might have flexibility when it comes to each class, however at the end of the day, you're still going to need, damage mitigation, healing and damage dealing.

Now what ESO seems to get right, is the fact that each person in the group, can share the role responsibilities. You can pass agro around, you can support each other with healing and everyone can do very decent damage.

I think ESO really wants to make playing with guilds/friends/regular groups the king of tackling content. While pugs will struggle sometimes, as none know the weakness or strength of the other, on the other hand, guilds will have a great time mixing builds and coming up with some seriously fun and optimal builds to run with.

While the trinity is there, its open to a number of different methods for groups to implement. Hence why I think it would be a mistake to concentrate on a single role, when every class as the means to do more than just the basic trinity roles.

Hawke

@jesterstear I think the two pages of LoTRO rant was probably a tad much. Your point was made.

TESO needs the Trinity too... most games do (not City of Heroes, RIP) but you keep using the Templer as your example of healers.

You do not need to be a Templer to be an awesome healer. Any class can be an epic healer in this game. The Templar can be DPS or Tank just as much as a Nightblade or Sorcerer can.

There are videos out there of a Nightblade healer and a sorcerer tank duoing a 4 man dungeon, and doing pretty good, considering they were only 2 people.

Hawke

@Jynai Not all MMOs needed the trinity. City of Heroes had ultimate flexibility with group compositions. I remember running a while Storm set group in one of the 'epic' dungeon quests and we melted face with all the knockbacks and debuffs.

But TESO is not geared that way, so we seem to be stuck in the trinity.

Jynai

Hawke wrote: »

@Jynai Not all MMOs needed the trinity. City of Heroes had ultimate flexibility with group compositions. I remember running a while Storm set group in one of the 'epic' dungeon quests and we melted face with all the knockbacks and debuffs.

But TESO is not geared that way, so we seem to be stuck in the trinity.

Sounds interesting, I didn't know CoH was setup like that. Since the shut-down of that game, I've been hearing/reading what people have been saying about it, and kind of regret not giving the game a go, even though at that time I was not interested at all in super-hero games.

Hawke

@Jynai Yeah, I miss that game... It's the game where you could go Dark Defender (a powerful healing powerset) or Radiation (another powerful healing set) and just melt face without throwing a single heal out.

Kroin

No just no, go to a other game if you dont like trinity, most people love it, because we want to be a healer or tank.