[Suggestion] Do away with holy trinity in the long run

[Sapphic]

You're complaining about the trinity, acting as if DPS were somehow redundant while completely ignoring the fact that the trinity is designed around the specialist roles built around cooperation of individuals. The trinity wasn't actually something that developers came up with and had it become a standard. The trinity actually developed organically out of early games when players realized that the best way to work together was to specialize at certain tasks: some specialized in being targeted and minimizing incoming damage, some specialized in dealing damage without caring about their defenses because they didn't have to worry about being attacks, and some specialized in healing because they didn't have to worry about being attacked or having to attack.

DPS as part of the "holy trinity" only came about when designers split CC abilities amongst other classes, The holy trinity was Tank, Healer, Mezzer.

[Kitru]

DPS as part of the "holy trinity" only came about when designers split CC abilities amongst other classes, The holy trinity was Tank, Healer, Mezzer.

Back in "ye olden days" there wasn't CC, and, even when it was added, in very few cases was it exclusive to a single class or role. The idea of "mezzer" actually created an additional role within the confines of the "holy trinity" because there were still those specifically built around dealing damage without any CC capabilities; before CC was added to tanks and healers, "mezzer" was simply a subset of the DPS role (since, even then, CC wasn't a mechanism demanded on a constant basis). "Mezzer" was much like "support" as we currently have it: it was a subrole rather than role in and of itself.

[Caraway]

You're looking for Guild Wars 2.

Guh. I honestly hate what they did with class balance and design. When you take away the downsides of a class and let someone do everything, it removes the incentive to actually work together and fights end up being a zerg-rush of "Who can hit it the hardest, fastest".

I think the 'trinity' is necessary in that it is a structure for people to work around, and it's a structure for designers to balance classes so each has a role, has benefits, and cons. Clearly defined so that they mesh in some way.

DPS as part of the "holy trinity" only came about when designers split CC abilities amongst other classes, The holy trinity was Tank, Healer, Mezzer.

As Sapphic here said, the original "holy trinity" as it applies to MMOs was Tank, Healer, CC. And honestly I'd like to see it go back to that.

I do agree with letting all classes be able to provide a notable DPS contribution, but each class needs to have something their poor at to promote the inclusion of other people. It's a grouping game after all, and class balance should be designed around it.

So the Tanks can do damage, but in a sustained fight they will lose because they have no ability to heal themselves. Healers can damage, and heal themselves, but their healing won't outparse the incoming damage they're taking so they'll eventually fall. CC can damage, and can lock down mobs to control what's coming at a party but without heals or endurance they'll still fall under the weight of attack.

I think this is a system designers should be looking into.

One can also argue that you could possibly do hybrids, but you'd have to sacrifice something to do so, and I think the best thing to sacrifice for those sorts of hybrids would be damage potential.

And to comment on Kitru's post above, the whole "Holy trinity" thing was formally an EQ thing, where CC was the third leg of the triad. It wasn't until later that it was changed to mean DD instead, as with a controller, a healer, and a tank you could complete just about anything put in your way.