Thoughts on getting away from the Holy Trinity..

Orizuru · April 2014

Jynai wrote: »

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.

CoH wasn't setup like this. It was just poorly tuned to allow unorganized groups to finish content. The game was structured around Tank, Scrapper, Blaster, and Controller roles. Every player choose one skill tree as their primary skills from one of the 4 roles, then they could choose a secondary tree to either further focus their primary skill tree for one role, or to provide support. The game lacked a truly dedicated healer and relied on the melee dps (scrappers) and ranged dps (blasters) to provide support and healing for the groups with their secondary skills. The closest thing to a dedicated healer was the Controller role, but some of them were more focused on crowd control than healing.

The game didn't try to move away from the trinity. It just obfuscated it.

Knovah · April 2014

I am one of those brainwashed into the holy trinity play style. I always played a healer and of course healed. I play with a small group of friends' irl so we always had the tank healer dps groups premade. Every game we went to from AOC to WoW we kept up the same same. I figured that is how it is done.

Rift kind of tried to get away from it and I enjoyed that game and still do, but we always ended up with that trinity when we ran. I was back into the old healing game.

When we came here I started out with a templar and of course the guys I was running with kind of had me in that " add a few healing spells you can heal…what ... no wait... NO...vent at the moment was very very silent…

What I did after was to shake up our little group and I am still giggling about it. I rerolled a …..

Battle mage….mmhmm that’s right

I went sorc with heavy armor and staff (switched to two hander just to hear the gasps of my friends

) We are lvling just fine as we are. I am now just in 20's and I still ,on tough fights, rock out that restro staff and make the guys sigh in relief . I can tank a little if need be dps well and heal … Magika down no worries I can slice, dice and sling spells.

I am joining the revolution, I may be a bit late to it, but down with the trinity I am more than just a healing wench. I will not be kept in the back any more……

That’s my story…

Aett_Thorn · April 2014

NaciremaDiputs wrote: »

Jynai wrote: »

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.

CoH wasn't setup like this. It was just poorly tuned to allow unorganized groups to finish content. The game was structured around Tank, Scrapper, Blaster, and Controller roles. Every player choose one skill tree as their primary skills from one of the 4 roles, then they could choose a secondary tree to either further focus their primary skill tree for one role, or to provide support. The game lacked a truly dedicated healer and relied on the melee dps (scrappers) and ranged dps (blasters) to provide support and healing for the groups with their secondary skills. The closest thing to a dedicated healer was the Controller role, but some of them were more focused on crowd control than healing.

The game didn't try to move away from the trinity. It just obfuscated it.

This isn't true at all. CoH had Defenders which provided the bulk of the support roles. Who were you rolling with that had Blasters and Scrappers providing support? The support roles were the Defenders, Controllers, and then later the Masterminds and Corruptors. At no point did anyone expect Scrappers to be helping out with support...they were supposed to be dealing damage.

CoH allowed you to take any group composition into an instance and win. However, certain combinations (having a mix of support, Tank, and damage) made it go much faster.

Saying that the game lacked a dedicated healer class is just wrong. There was still the trinity there in CoH. It just wasn't as Holy.

SDZald · April 2014

The reason I keep asking people to think out of the box and to get away from the concept of thinking only in terms of the Trinity is that they will miss out on the nature of this game.

Most MMOs that employ this strategy are straight forward. Lets say you want to tank, you would have a min/max setup where you would put all your points into armor and taunting. Every battle would be fought the same way and every tank in the game would act the same way.

Now take the guy that was complaining that he can't hold ag and that the only people that seem to be able to get it are healers. Wellllll duhhhh then spend a few points in Restoration Staff and when you lose ag or get low on stam switch to it and heal. Not only will that help the group healer but surprise surprise you get your ag back.

By limiting yourself to the traditional idea of the trinity in this game you are nerfing your own character. The optimal group in a skill based system really needs to have flexible members that are not cookie cutter min/maxers.

Sarenia · April 2014

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.

Or you can have a tank/healer, a DPS/healer, and a pure DPS.
Or...
Or...

Healing, dealing damage, and surviving damage (tanking) are core aspects of an RPG. That doesn't make them bad. ESO lets people splash into varying degrees of each role.

Should ZOS have "broken the mold" by removing the concept of health and making everybody invincible? Or maybe removed the concept of dealing damage, so that we dialogue enemies into submission?

Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. The holy duo. It never changes. How boring is that? But I still love it. You're welcome to break the mold by drinking liquid hydrogen and giving oxygen the middle finger though.

jmido8 · April 2014

If you don't have trinity, every dungeon will just turn into a dps race and anyone who doesn't focus full dps won't be desired.

Shimond · April 2014

jmido8 wrote: »

If you don't have trinity, every dungeon will just turn into a dps race and anyone who doesn't focus full dps won't be desired.

i.e. GW2

mark2472 · April 2014

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

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.

I'm a tank and I use a 2 hander. You're telling me you're going to kick me from the group?

I use two weapon sets... I use a 2 hander on trash mobs and do perfectly fine. I do also swap to sword and board, though, for bosses or on big pulls. What's the harm in that? You won't even get to see if I'm a good tank or not simply because you'll kick me for using a 2 hander on the trash mobs on the way to the first boss...

Isn't that the point of this game and of this thread? To be able to stray from the norm and perform various roles? Trash doesn't necessarily need to be tanked, plus as a Templar the AoE capabilities of a 2 hander helps attract more aggro than trying to use my single-target taunt. So I actually am able to tank more efficiently on trash mobs with a 2 hander than I am with sword and board.

Not to mention the 2 hander skill line has a skill that can be morphed to provide a damage shield dependent on the number of enemies hit by the skill. That damage shield proves to be pretty useful for tanking...

Shimond · April 2014

mark2472 wrote: »

I'm a tank and I use a 2 hander. You're telling me you're going to kick me from the group?

I use two weapon sets... I use a 2 hander on trash mobs and do perfectly fine. I do also swap to sword and board, though, for bosses or on big pulls. What's the harm in that? You won't even get to see if I'm a good tank or not simply because you'll kick me for using a 2 hander on the trash mobs on the way to the first boss...

Isn't that the point of this game and of this thread? To be able to stray from the norm and perform various roles? Trash doesn't necessarily need to be tanked, plus as a Templar the AoE capabilities of a 2 hander helps attract more aggro than trying to use my single-target taunt. So I actually am able to tank more efficiently on trash mobs with a 2 hander than I am with sword and board.

The attitude of instantly kick without discussion or conversation because the candidate doesn't meet whatever specific impression the party leader has that the role should be...is what I consider a cancer in the MMO genre.

People really should have more patience and tolerance. But what we get are people who just want to rush through content without any struggle or effort (or the perception that there might be any) at all. What you describe sounds like it'd work fine to me. It's a pity the guy you quoted wouldn't give you the time of day.

Ciedoc · April 2014

There really is no way to get away from the holy trinity approach. You got to have someone to hold agro and soak up damage. You got to have someone to heal the tank and dps. You can't all just dps. We can already see the effects of this in this game (and a few others) that try not to enforce a tank/healer/dps model. You give everyone the ability to heal themselves or taunt but most people just want to do l33t damage so they never use those abilities and then scream in a group why isn't someone healing me? Why can't someone keep this mob off me? Expecting players to manage themselves...great theory, but does not work in practice.

I play a sorc with a focus on dps. Yet I still have a resto staff as my secondary weapon. Mainly to reduce my downtime, frustrations, and have the ability to heal myself while soloing. In addition to add some utility to my character so I can support heal in a group if needed. Yet 99.99% of the time when I have done a dungeon... I have ended up healing because everyone else only wants to dps.

I stay in dps mode and listen to the rest of the group complain isn't there someone that can heal? I ask can't you equip a resto staff and heal? Oh no I would have to give up my second bow or second dps weapon. Well if you can't be bothered to get a little support then why do you expect others to do it? Because I am not a healer...if I wanted to heal I would make a healer. But this game doesn't have traditional classes....anyone can dps, heal, or tank. Yea well others can take care of healing and tanking all I want to do is dps.

We can all tank, heal, or dps if we want to in an effort to move away from the trinity approach. Yet most people refuse to support themselves or a group and only want to do one thing. They expect others to sacrifice what they want to do to take care of them and fulfill the trinity. You have to play a hybrid when the trinity is not enforced, yet many people only want to do one facet and expect others to fill the support roles so they can do what they want.

You can not dps a boss without high health and armor. But to have high health means you give up stamina or magicka. To have the armor to take hits means you give up magicka regen or crit bonuses. A pure dps character can not take boss hits (see the 100+ posts about I can't kill XYZ quest boss because they hit too hard and I can't siphon enough), and don't have the skills to sustain themselves when they take damage. A tank doesn't have the damage to kill efficiently, a healer doesn't have the damage to kill efficiently or survive being attacked. But a hybrid has the ability to kill quickly and when needed sustain spike damage or even heal themselves.

You want to get rid of the trinity...get players to think beyond topping the dps meters and more towards sustaining themselves so they can dps and/ or support others when needed. Until then, the trinity will be needed and expected.

Knovah · April 2014

I don't see a right or wrong answer here just opinions. That’s the beauty of the game you can do both. I can be that battle mage with my group (see earlier post) or I can heal if it gets really bad. I don't need to be pigeon holed into a play style. Enough players play the game that both sides of the dividing block can be happy.
You can find like minded players of both sides. It should not matter if someone wants to kick another cause he/she wont conform… just leave and find a group that will make you enjoy playing ….Diversity in an mmo is great I think personally.

BKTHNDR · April 2014

Ciedoc wrote: »

Lots of insightful stuff.

I absolutely agree, Ciedoc. Working in a group outside of the trinity will work once people shake the "stuck in one role" mentality that other MMOs have conditioned them to think.

One thing I've noticed when playing in groups is that people don't take responsibility for their own damage mitigation. When fighting tougher enemies, people will stand there swinging their weapons without blocking, dodging, using potions, or busting out a Resto staff to heal themselves/others. This game doesn't work that way and fully relying on someone else to sustain you while you run headlong into a heavy hit from an enemy just isn't the way to go.

I stand by the devs vision that people don't have to be stuck in a specific class to be successful and that can happen when people start thinking outside the box.

MartinXKid · August 2014

If we all knew what abilities everyone had in their Ability bars we all might just need to tweak only some spells of everyone's setups to finally play as close as everyone wanted to.
We shouldn't need to switch our entire ability bars to fit our role as then I won't be playing as I wished it.
I hope everyone understands what I am going for in this comment but let's say as en example you can either be pure DD/Tank/Healer but doesn't necessarily fit your play style with your most favored abilities/spells or every one is a Hybrid and fit their part of the role. A Dual wielding Templar with only 1 or 2 heals from his Restoring Light tree would mean he's got partially the job of healer. Well I (Dragon Knight) could put my Dragon Blood or Obsidian Shield ability to lay off some heal stress and let's say that Night Blade can have Siphoning Attack, Funnel Health or even Shadow cloak to again lay off some stress to healing and give more self-survivability. We're all Hybrids!
The main point and the only thing that manners is that you can survive throughout the battle and defeat the boss! And that Is how I have fun playing trough a dungeon. I didn't need to have a complete set of damage mitigated abilities to fill a "roll" of a "Tank" or a ful ability bar of heals to become "That healer only guy".

Some people like to be pure Healer? No problem again! We'll switch between aggro to whoever has the most HP at that time.
Pure Tank? Well we'll have that one or those two off-tank when you'll run out of stamina to block or run low on HP so you can recover and start gaining that bosses attention again. This is a team-fight.

The thing is the Holy Trinity fills the easiest way to survive an encounter in a PUG when you don't know anyone's build with their weaknesses.
IMO, in TESO, the Holy Trinity are for PUGs. But between friends and guild mates that knows each others build that's where possibilities of different play style comes in and its really fun!

Edit:
I wonder what would happen if there is a boss that let's disease on the tank that cuts the incoming heals on the tank. Off-tank hybrids are there to take aggro before the disease wears off.
Or maybe a long unbreakable stun or Silence on the healer would happen? Off-healer and/or players with self-recovery/self-survivability would be ideal.

And yes I'm on an old thread, so what? I just so happen to bump into it.

Edit 2:
Why is this on the New Players Questions Section?

Venereous44 · September 2014

I see the pro's and con's either way.. personally I'm a fan of the Trinity.

The trinity really facilitates group play when people know their roles and their builds cater to that role. But then people complain against diversity outside of a group settings.

With ESO not fully embracing the trinity you get a lot of unknown variables. If you ask for a tank or healer you really can't be sure what you're getting unless you ask them to give their entire load-out. Otherwise you might end up learning the hard way if this was the healer or tank that you was looking for.

In trinity based games... there was very little of those surprises... if you asked for a tank or healer that's usually what you got.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO · September 2014

@jesterstear: play GW2, see what happens to a game when the 'trinity' is largely discarded, every fight becomes a DPS zerg to kill the boss before it wipes the party.

When no one [aka. the 'tank'] has any battle management abilities, when no one is a 'healer' and everyone is expected to self-heal, when CC is non-existent because it doesn't damage the mob so no one uses it, every fight is like ESO's open world bosses .. a mass of people running about headlessly spamming their 'damage' button hoping to survive the encounter.

ESO largely lacks meaningful CC and has no spot healing, so it's already partly down the zerg road, compounded by Trials that reward speedruns, I often see GW2-like group behaviour in ESO, come to think of it.

I tank in WOW (bear Druid), CC/heal in LOTRO (Lore-Master and Minstrel), main heal in FFXI/FFXIV (White Mage) and DPS in ESO (Templar and bow Nightblade) .. in GW2 I DPS on any class I play, and it gets boring very quickly as the fights are set up for that.