Yeah the holy trinity really landed solidly. I would also like to see them finally get a home run on innovating away from that. To their credit, GW2 combat is really really clever and does feel good, but it still just feels like a really well designed game, rather than a generational intuitive paradigm across actual society.
They set out to make it so online raiding wasn’t toxic and hostile, where tying playing with you as a pub was defined by whether or not you were up with a rigid, role based meta, and very much succeed: the GW2 playerbase is the kindest and friendliest MMORPG that there is, hands down, by a massive margin, and people will play with you and help you and have fun with you, regardless of how potato you are or not.
r3g3n3x@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
I’ll probably get blow back but I was never a fan of the combat. I’d prefer tank heal dps. I love literally everything else about the game except the combat.
Nefara@lemmy.world 5 days ago
There’s tank/support/dps in GW2 for sure, but pretty much every class can build for any role and it’s only relevant in raids.
My Mesmer (a mage with the lowest health and lightest armor) is my best and toughest tank in my character line up.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
Yup. My mesmer has multiple builds and gearsets, where as long as I’m out of combat, i can hit a single button and switch between a very hard hitting ranged and aoe dps, grouping dps, extremely good aoe healer, for-fun utility, and some other misc builds I’m working on.
Her strongest role is definitely the raid level healer, but unless we’re raiding or playing the very hardest challenge content, I can mostly do whatever I want.
In GW2, as long as you’re doing anything, the builds are such that you can kinda of get away with anything because everything does something, even if you have no idea what you’re doing. Scaling in efficacy really happens when you start working in synergy of skills and filling in for mechanics that whatever group you’re playing with lacks.
In simple terms, gw2 is not rock-paper-scissors, it’s more like… Diablo? Almost? It’s hard to describe.
TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Come a long way since launch (which like technically could’ve had those builds but no real need since dungeons didn’t have much use for them cuz 5 DPS just blew stuff up before you die) and now raids and fractals have use for roles for either DPS or boon support which comes in DPS, heals, and tank flavors. Every class can do pretty much every role now, which I find nice to be able to find something that clicks with you and not have to switch off that class.
Some classes still have niches, it’s not all mush or anything, but it’s nice.