02-27-2012, 03:33 PM
Tank
DPS
Healing
That's the holy trinity.
Assuming we have a "PvPvE" game, can you kill the holy trinity? How?
My thinking is that you can kill the holy trinity classes but not the holy trinity functions.
That is, you need tank-type functions, damage-type functions and healing-type functions, but you don't necessarily need to split those fuctions apart and focus them into one class.
In Pirates of the Burning Sea, for example, the biggest heals were self-only and everyone had them. So you never needed a "healer class". You still had a "healer" function, but it was built into your own class. Similarly, Planetside had "healers" but it was something you did after you broke out of combat -- got someone to repair your armor. (In combat heals were self-only one-time use medkits.)
EVE has "tanks" but it's not really a "class" function so much as a question of how you load out your ship. If you don't need jammers or countermeasures then you can load extra repair gear and make yourself hard to kill. There was no "tank class" but you might want to swap some ship parts.
Guild Wars 2 has had some chatter about eliminating the holy trinity. It's not entirely clear what they mean but I suspect they mean that they have simply split the functions around --
You aren't meant to tank some boss for 15 minutes straight while healers unload on you. Instead, you are meant to swap tanking responsibility with other people. Instead of being healed through combat, you are meant to withdraw from combat (if you can), largely heal yourself and then re-enter combat.
We certainly see that in their PvP videos and from what we can tell about class healing skills -- there's not a lot of targeted heals in the game, but everyone seems to have an ability to "run away and self-heal" and that's exactly what you see happening in the videos. The Mesmer can pop backwards 20 feet, leaving a clone of himself still fighting while he runs away and heals. The thief has a self-heal that also makes him invisible so he can break from combat. Other classes can pop up a shield that gives them a run speed boost and blocks the enemy from pursuit. These all seem like things meant to work in both PvP and PvE. So I suspect the goal is:
* Distributed tanking. Some people can tank but nobody is meant to be "the main tank" that tanks everything.
* Everyone can DPS
* You don't heal through encounters -- you individually break from them as needed and return as able
* Heals are meant to smooth things out and get you back in the fight quicker -- they are not meant to keep you fighting toe to toe indefinitely
At any rate, if that's NOT how Guild Wars 2 is doing it, I think that's a reasonable approach. You've killed the holy trinity classes and the gameplay that revolved strictly around them -- you've distributed the workload.
DPS
Healing
That's the holy trinity.
Assuming we have a "PvPvE" game, can you kill the holy trinity? How?
My thinking is that you can kill the holy trinity classes but not the holy trinity functions.
That is, you need tank-type functions, damage-type functions and healing-type functions, but you don't necessarily need to split those fuctions apart and focus them into one class.
In Pirates of the Burning Sea, for example, the biggest heals were self-only and everyone had them. So you never needed a "healer class". You still had a "healer" function, but it was built into your own class. Similarly, Planetside had "healers" but it was something you did after you broke out of combat -- got someone to repair your armor. (In combat heals were self-only one-time use medkits.)
EVE has "tanks" but it's not really a "class" function so much as a question of how you load out your ship. If you don't need jammers or countermeasures then you can load extra repair gear and make yourself hard to kill. There was no "tank class" but you might want to swap some ship parts.
Guild Wars 2 has had some chatter about eliminating the holy trinity. It's not entirely clear what they mean but I suspect they mean that they have simply split the functions around --
You aren't meant to tank some boss for 15 minutes straight while healers unload on you. Instead, you are meant to swap tanking responsibility with other people. Instead of being healed through combat, you are meant to withdraw from combat (if you can), largely heal yourself and then re-enter combat.
We certainly see that in their PvP videos and from what we can tell about class healing skills -- there's not a lot of targeted heals in the game, but everyone seems to have an ability to "run away and self-heal" and that's exactly what you see happening in the videos. The Mesmer can pop backwards 20 feet, leaving a clone of himself still fighting while he runs away and heals. The thief has a self-heal that also makes him invisible so he can break from combat. Other classes can pop up a shield that gives them a run speed boost and blocks the enemy from pursuit. These all seem like things meant to work in both PvP and PvE. So I suspect the goal is:
* Distributed tanking. Some people can tank but nobody is meant to be "the main tank" that tanks everything.
* Everyone can DPS
* You don't heal through encounters -- you individually break from them as needed and return as able
* Heals are meant to smooth things out and get you back in the fight quicker -- they are not meant to keep you fighting toe to toe indefinitely
At any rate, if that's NOT how Guild Wars 2 is doing it, I think that's a reasonable approach. You've killed the holy trinity classes and the gameplay that revolved strictly around them -- you've distributed the workload.