Is it time to move on from the holy trinity of game play?

Community General Discussion
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For 20 years we have had in dungeons one tank, one healer and 3 DPS.

Back in the day we did have the odd ‘10 man’ dungeon, which was not really 10 man, we could just take 10 in until they changed that. And even than since the dungeons back then didn’t scale you could still one tank it with a single heal, just grab 8 DPS to make it go faster.

Is it time for a change?

In general 20 years of the same thing is a long time, but in TWW we have had complaints about no tanks for keys, lately we have had an influx of complaints about players being hard stuck at 619 iLVL. And they are both related.

No tanks for low keys means DPS find it harder to get into keys or to even start their own group since there are less tanks, less keys means less rating, less rating means even less chance to get into higher keys and less higher keys means no crests to upgrade past 619.

And this mostly because of delves. Players can now spam solo or groups between 2-5 to get content done without needing a tank or healer. WITHOUT A TANK OR HEALER, or even both.

So why not do this with dungeons? You can keep your raids, unless they go 5 man raids I doubt you could fairly balance a 30 man heroic raid without needing tanks and healers. But since delves can be done without tanks or healer just scaling up to 5 people, why then not allow the same for dungeons?

3-5 players, no tanks, no healers, just some DPS going in to clear content without needing to rely on someone who may never show up, or taking someone who will grossly underperform just in the hopes you can finish a key.

I consider myself lucky playing mostly with premades and having too many tanks in my guild, plus I can tank or heal as needed, but at the same time there are 6 tanks and 12 classes, if I want to keep playing at such a cadence I am limited to 6 classes.

And it’s the same for anyone who primarily tanks or heals, you have 6 tanks and 6 heals to choose from, there are 4 classes that many will just never really get to play at high levels unless they level more than one class.

So is it time to take the delves approach and change dungeons to allow for just DPS to go at it and open the opportunities to everyone?

Yeh sure but that’s not entirely the problem.

I can’t even remember the last time someone said anything mean to me while tanking aside from the second tank in LFR who thinks they know what they are talking about and refuses to taunt (this just happened).

But that leads into what I have been preaching, tanks who know how to tank don’t get treated like garbage.

If you can’t tank, go learn, it’s not really hard.

Go read some guides, watch some videos, do heroic dungeons first, join as DPS to watch the other tank, go whack some overworld mobs, go read up on what your spells do, how they interact, what talents you have, go read up on dungeons and raids and what the tank mechanics are because tanks get to do things that DPS and healers don’t, go practice in trivial content before attempting to take on the world and maybe, just maybe people won’t treat you like a piece of donkey.

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no, but also no.

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Typical first response, but thanks for trying.

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No.

If you no longer like the trinity, go play a game that doesn’t use it. Don’t try to ruin this one.

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yw (10 characters)

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I believe the tanks have made the decision for us.

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Tell that to Blizzard for introducing delves.

They brought in content that has exasperated the issues we were already facing by allowing players to not have to bother with dungeons, and by doing it without a tank or healer.

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I love delves.

Delves are never going to be able to be in the same execution and coordination niche as a dungeon. Too many variables. Delves are “I got thirty minutes and wanna smash something out while talking to friends but aren’t completely void of thought like a world quest once you’re in purples.”

You cannot remove the trinity without turning this into either a wildly different game or a terrible game.

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There are ways, there are even ways to make a single tank/healer raid, or even no tank/healer raid, it would just change the dynamic of the game.

For example, say you have 5 DPS in a dungeon, now the boss doesn’t hit as hard and has more health to compensate for more damage, the tank buster spells are interruptible, you get bonus leech so the harder you hit the more you heal meaning you can push key levels without needing a healer.

There are ways to do anything if you want, but time will tell and I think S2 will give a good indication of how the game is going because if people can’t get KSM/KSH and dungeon portals done now they will just give up and Blizzard will have to do something.

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This has been tried before with a couple other games and it’s never worked out well.

How exactly would it work here?

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Short answer: No.
Long answer: No. The holy trinity is core to an MMORPG. If you get rid of it, you get an action game with meaningless, spammy combat that just involves mashing buttons.

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Homogonize this /two bird salute

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And people who play this game because they like being a tank or healer in small group content are supposed to do what, exactly? You aren’t solving a tank and healer shortage, you’re just giving tanks and healers a gameplay shortage – losing an audience that can’t get their fix in many other games, to chase an audience that already has a MUCH wider pool of choices.

Delves are great specifically because they are an additional pillar.

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You need a new game if you would delete any of the Trinity.

The Trinity is effective as it survives for 20 Years. It’s working… up to now.

Vanilla has survived with 1 kind of Tank. We now have multiple Tank Classes.

Scenarios seems an inferior game than dungeons.

DPS are harder to get keys becoz nobody picks them. They have to be competitive to be picked/chosen. If you arent competitive on DPS, play a Tank or Heals. That’s how I see it… if you are bad in DPS, you rather Tank or Heal. It would improve queue times.

But watch out, we can also kick bad Tanks and bad Heals. Just play at low level first then start climbing up.

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Go play GW2.

No.

The Holy Trinity isn’t some phase of the game that’s overstayed its welcome.
It’s literally the core of the entire combat system after leveling is over.

Delves are inherently easier than Dungeons specifically because they’re designed without it in mind. Doesn’t matter what you do to make them hard, they’re going to be easier to be successful in vs relevant M+ key levels.

Removing the trinity is just asking for the game to die as people who prefer tank / support / heal roles just leave en masse.

Now, if the problem is legitimately becoming worse over time…

Consider playing with the ratio. Design and balance dungeons for 1 Tank, 1 Healer, and 6 DPS or something. Get more DPS into any given run.

That said, I feel like it’s just a constant complaint, but not one that’s actually getting notably worse. Feels pretty normal to me.

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And that’s different to how it is now how exactly?

Yes and no. I wonder if Blizzard took into account fringe players, or did they simply design delves thinking it would give additional content and a way for solo players to get gear?

The way it is going I doubt they thought about fringe players, those who ran keys out of necessity and once delves became a thing stopped doing keys altogether.

See I started tanking out of necessity, I enjoy it so I keep doing it, but I also do it because it ensure I don’t have to wait in line as DPS. But there are no doubt players who tanked or healer just because it was easier and now that delves are a thing they have just stopped doing keys.

You can still run with a tank and healer?

They could allow dungeons to scale and change based on whether there is a tank and healer or not.

Some of you are too close minded and think by making any sort of change it will kill what we already have, why not both?

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The combat would need an overhaul which is unlikely to happen unless ppl are just okay with playing third person Diablo.

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No, its the foundation of the game. To take that away is to take away what WoW is.

There are other games where you can do everything regardless of your chosen “role”. Go give those games a shot. Im personally not a fan

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This isn’t realistic.

This results in the design of the dungeon being toned down because it has to be able to be a simple tuning change to make it doable with 5 DPS or whatever.

Unless you’re actually suggesting they add and remove mechanics entirely based on group comp, which is essentially asking Blizzard to make 2-3x the dungeons they make now to accommodate all group comp options.

At which point the playerbase just figures out which version is objectively easiest and ONLY runs that.

Guess which one it would be?

Yeah, the one without the trinity. Because it’s always inherently easier.

There is no world in which you have both options unless its entirely separate content (like it is now with Delves, or as it was in MoP with Scenarios).

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No.
Moving on.

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