[Article] Team Structure beyond the Trinity

I find it amusing how even PvE is highlighting how broken the Paragon is as a class.

Posted a link to this on my guilds article page on our wiki, as i do with all good articles/guides i read.

It reflects my guilds playstyle very well, as we use hybrid paragons, ritualists and necromancers in DoA with great success.

I guess I'm less for tank-nuke, and more for nuke-nuke.

Also, if mark of pain is not situational, than what is it? A hex on a foe that does damage only to adjacent foes? wtf? To get the most use out of that you'd have to ball up the enemies, which is something you don't actually need to do in order to kill them quickly.

Also, when you drop an offensive skill on your bar for a defensive one, you are definitely lowering your damage. Your statement that 'taking defensive skills will not lower your offense' defies logic in every possible way.

I keep saying that I don't advocate trinity for every part of the game. It doesn't make sense to advocate trinity when it fails and you die. What I am saying is that because of the ELementalist's nature of damage, the trinity is The Best way to go barring the situation where they cannot kill enemies fast enough, and monks cannot support the team adequately.

How hard is that really? Why the kneejerk opposition to trinity play?

Please read Ensign's "Why Nuking Sucks" article alongside this one. Elementalists frankly suck at damage. Their only advantage is AoE damage. They are easier to use, and simpler. Splinter Weapon and/or Mark of Pain, however, deal much higher damage, very quickly. Hell, a bunch of warriors with 16 weapon mastery make Searing Flames laughable. It's like a rolling avalanche of steel. Just like the trinity, though, the 5-6 physicals are very situational.

Something that many people fail to understand in this thread is that a Paragon carries a spear. Spears have quite high DPS, if you bother to put attributes in them.

Very good article, Avarre, thank you. Bookmarking this one for our guild forum.

Warriors--->lame "tanks" in PvE.

To be fair, that article is a bit outdated, though it was very true at the time. Elementalists have been extensively rebalanced to the point that they can and do deal decent damage. However, they're still not the ONLY source of damage, and they're not particulary strong at single target DPS.

I die a little bit inside whenever I see someone ping a paragon build with 3 spear mastery. I do a lot of inner dying whenever I PuG.

There comes a point on most good caster bars where adding another damaging skill adds a negligible amount of offense. Let's take a (bad) mind blast bar, for example.

[skill]mind blast[/skill][skill]fireball[/skill][skill]rodgort's invocation[/skill][skill]immolate[/skill][skill]incendiary bonds[/skill][skill]meteor shower[/skill][skill]searing heat[/skill][skill]fire attunement[/skill]

You can spend 100% of your time spamming the first 4 skills on that bar because of cast time. You will cast the last 3 offensive skills very rarely, if ever. If you do choose to cast them, that takes away from the time you could have used to cast the first 4, making the gain in DPS a wash. Since we're not gaining much from those slots, there's no reason to keep thing over something else more useful. If we tack aegis, extinguish, and a rez onto this bar, it suddenly becomes a lot more resilient with essentially no loss of offense.

Most caster classes can form a neat little core of 3-4 skills to make their offense, and spend the rest of their bar on utility. Rits, for example, can work nicely with a core of ancestor's rage, splinter weapon and spirit rift, then have a whole bar for defense.

There's nothing wrong with bringing eles for damage. There's a problem if all your builds are single mindset only. You'll wipe more and go more slowly than a more diverse team. In most of hard mode and in many dungeons, packs of eles are just too fragile to do that well.

No one is having a ZOMG I HATES THE COOKIEE CUTERS! moment here. People are just pointing out that there's a lot of room for improvement to trinity play, from bringing multidimensional characters to bringing classes with more flexible offense.

Touche, I agree with this. But what about other classes outside of the trinity? Bringing them would be directly lowering your DPS, at least when it comes to upfront damage only elementalists can bring.

If I said that rangers, mesmers, paragons, dervishes, assassins and ritualists were unneeded and actually suboptimal for most of GW play, would you agree or disagree?

Note: I said MOST, not all. MOST meaning more than 50%.

There's no need to bring a diverse build when most of GW PvE is easy. Trinity builds that have 5 SF eles completely destroying monsters (ie first cast is burning, every other cast is 90 dmg ftw) within the first two seconds (no need to wait for spiteful, no need to wait for splinter weapon to activate with attacks) is more desirable in its total efficiency.

A diverse group build will always be suboptimal in damage output than a nuke heavy build. The only reason a diverse group build is any good is only later when monster offense is overwhelming, otherwise there is no good justification for taking the other marginalized classes.


EDIT: The issue I have with Avarre's article is that he assumes all trinity groups follow some sort of unbidden protocol where the warrior is a 'tank' (I hope he doesnt mean the warrior brings stupid defensive skills like dolyak signet) and 'grabs all the aggro first' before the nukers move in. This is not how a trinity group must work, and in fact does not need to work.

Also, elementalists are superior in DPS in PvE, because their DPS is magnified through multiple targets. Not only that, the AoE effect of their skills is also quite large. He argues that pure roles are inefficient. What? I'd say they're MORE efficient. The only reason they seem inefficient is when their measly defense cannot hold up to stronger monsters. That is when they become inefficient, and therefore a better group build must be formulated. It is NOT a given that a more diverse group is a better group. It is NOT a given that to have a 'more efficient' group you should bring a paragon, or a ranger, or a mesmer.

Paragons also used to be 'the shit' so to speak, before they reduced PvP to a morass of bullsh*t. Now they are appropriately nerfed to a shadow of their former selves and no longer allow people to go around wherever they'd like, half naked, with no weapons and only a res sig on their bar. Finally, a paragon in the party means that you'd be removing another midliner. Who will it be? The MM? The SS? The Eles? The interrupt ranger? The interrupt mesmer? To add a paragon usually means you lose someone with a more vital function or with better offensive capability.

The damage numbers in that article are outdated, it is true, but the concepts in that article I still find worthwhile. That article also largely ignores AoE, and states that upfront. I should clarify my statement on Elementalist damage. I'm not disputing that they deal decent AoE damage, not at all. They are a very simple, very good source for that. They are not the only option for AoE, however, just the most popular one.The problem with holy trinity parties is that "nuking" elementalists are largely the ONLY source of damage in the party, and should anything go wrong, "nuking" eles are terrible at single target damage. Most "nukers" don't even bother with defense(lol, Aura of Restoration, I'm looking at you), some don't use energy management, and they are "squishy." So the party wipes.

Some of the arguments I'm seeing here amount to, "diversity allows me to play badly and get away with it"; e.g., if something goes wrong, if execution sucks, if Bad Things happen, etc.. Accounting for ****-ups is fine, but only if you're not sacrificing efficiency when you don't screw up. Why not build assuming that you play perfectly - and then try to play perfectly?

The bar above is a terrible example of an offensive elementalist bar, which invalidates your argument. Rather than 8 damage skills, the later half of a nuker's bar is usually emgt to allow more constant spamming of the first half, or else other skills that improve their ability to do damage in an indirect way (skills that reduce recharge, skills that increase damage of other skills, etc.). Taking out any of those for defensive skills is, by definition, a decrease in efficiency.

The problems with Mark of Pain that do not exist with elementalist nukes is that: a) Mark of Pain counters its own effectiveness by expiring when the hexed foe dies - specifically, the target needs to be hit a lot in order for it to be effective, but if the target is hit alot, the hex expires faster. It is particularly ineffective in standard physical damage parties where the damage is in large packets (e.g., Dragon Slash warrior) of 70+ damage, rather than many lower damage hits. b) Adjacent area-of-effect. Searing Flames, to pick a perennial favorite, is 'nearby', which is a lot easier to work with than adjacent.

Someone earlier mentioned that with non-trinity, you'd have characters that no longer stared at red bars only. If you're trying to imply that monks do something other than monking in non-trinity builds, I think you're full of ****. The backline has almost always been purely defensive - PvE, GvG, whatever. If you have smiters, they are in addition to standard backline. And I frankly don't see how your vaunted passive defense is strong enough to obviate the backline.

Another issue here is that many are speaking in terms of absolutes - either it's Trinity or it's not. Frankly, this kind of categorization makes no real sense. What if I take a standard Trinity build and put two wards on the eles (e.g., by taking Herta)? Is it suddenly, magically, no longer a Trinity build? If all it takes to not be a trinity build is that one of my elementalists has to take Aegis, then this is just a superficial argument over semantics. If not, then what exactly constitutes non-trinity? Rather than the tank holding aggro, I can ball up in wards and nuke them that way, and it only takes one character with wards.

Really, if the argument is limited to, "Eles should take wards or Aegis", I'm not sure how significant or insightful that is - if you need 'em, take 'em, obviously. If you're getting to the point that you're substituting entire slots in the team for characters that do strictly less damage, I agree with Yun and say there's no point in doing it if overwhelming damage will do the same job faster.

Other classes are quite capable of dealing damage. Below is a pretty bad build I'm running just so I get to see big numbers. Splinter is even more insane if you spam it on your teammates, which leaves your whole bar free for other stuff. Hopefully I shouldn't have to go over how things like warriors, dervishes, assassins and paragons can kill anything that moves.




Mesmers, questionable. The others, no, not even a chance of it.

Note: I said MOST, not all. MOST meaning more than 50%.

Single target damage is significantly weaker in a pack of eles. Armor ignoring damage is lower as well. I strongly suggest you bring a pack of warriors/dervishes/assassins and watch how insanely fast everything dies. Eles are not the only source of damage, nor are they the best. They just have nice AoE. I'll agree that in most of normal mode, brainless nuking works, but in most normal mode PvE, c + spacing with no skills on your bar works too. Much of hard mode and many dungeons are likely to wipe the floor with you if you're not packing any defense other than a couple monks.

Shit happens, nobody ever plays perfectly, No exceptions. This is the same logic people use when they don't bring a single rez spell. Murphy's law applies, whatever can go wrong will.

Clearly you are bad at eles if you think a mind blaster needs to fill his bar with energy management, glyph of elemental power, serpent's quickness or any such trash. Hell, even the nukers in holy trinity DOA bring utility on their bar.

The difference between mark of pain and searing flames is that mark of pain is one non-elite skill that requires no other skills to work. I'm actually not a huge fan of MoP, but the logic still applies.

Passive defense means your backline's job becomes a lot easier, to the point where you can get by only running a single monk. If we're talking about GvG, I'd like to point out aegis chains and paragay as examples of why passive defense is really, really good. If passive defense is strong enough, you can actually get by without running a single monk, as in zergway, bloodspike or ritspike.

The issue isn't teams with warriors, monks and eles. The issue is one-dimensional, inflexible bars. If you're running ward eles and aegis, it's no longer the case. It should also be noted that warriors, monks and eles are not the only classes in the game, nor are builds containing these classes necessarily the most effective.

The thing is, packs of eles aren't as overwhelming as other forms of damage and aren't as fast as groups with a ton of passive defense that can steamroll through and never bother with pulling.

"Much" and "many" should be edited to "some" and "a few", respectively, for greater accuracy.

Also, we're starting to deal with a split argument - 1) Trinity yes or no? and 2) Elementalists yes or no? Elementalists might not be the best source of damage for certain areas. That doesn't mean overwhelming damage instead of balanced defense won't work; rather, all I have to do is sub out elementalists for the more appropriate form of massive damage and continue rolling.

Somebody should organize a race. Vanquishing a zone, using /age screenshots when complete. See who's faster.

Yeah, single target damage sure is weak with a bunch of eles..after they've flattened everything else in the first two seconds, that is.

The reason why people bring elementalists and not 6 melee classes is precisely because elementalists have AoE damage. Not only that, it is pretty hard to shut an elementalist down. Most monsters won't interrupt beyond one spell, and large packs of mesmer monsters that have anti-caster skills are rare as well. A shatter on the elementalist's attunement may remove their ability to spam for long periods of time, but we are banking on the fact that we don't suck at guild wars and a fight won't last longer than 15 seconds.

In comparison, many different hexes, deep freeze, a simple blind or weakness essentially removes the usefulness of a melee type class. Also, the fact that melee type classes tend to ball up around a target make them particularly vulnerable to aoe type hexes, aoe blinds, or just elementalist damage. Add in the fact that there is NO monster deterrent at all (hey..at least elementalists will make monsters run away from AoE, or KD them with meteor shower) essentially puts the monks on their own.

I argue that elementalists do the most damage, and you agree that brainless nuking works in normal mode, so naturally this leads me to the conclusion that you may as well nuke brainlessly as much as possible in order to be most efficient. When the brainless nuking no longer works it doesn't make sense to continue that build, but WHILE IT WORKS OTHER CLASSES ARE JUST SUBOPTIMAL.

I'm not as good as Burst Cancel in laying out my argument, but I hope this makes it a little more clear.

EDIT:
Well, you say this, but things go wrong so rarely for me that I don't find myself packing a paragon under almost any circumstance. The last time I used a paragon was for HM Missions, but even then I tend not to bring Paragons. I don't bring defensive abilities on my casters either. I may bring draw conditions on my MM.

Oh, and my version of pulling is just aggroing them along a wall... whoopdeedoo.

FWIW, my team build is:
Warrior (DPS), 2x Necromancer (MM, SS), 2x Elementalists (SF/SH), 2x Monks, Elementalist OR Ranger/Mesmer Interrupt.

If I'm playing alone in PvE I just bring 2 Eles, 1 MM and 2x Hench Eles, 2x Hench Monks.

I once played on a team of warriors with a couple monks.

We never wiped. None of us ever actually died. We tore through everything.

I hope you don't play fighting games. Just because people don't play perfectly all the time doesn't mean you don't play as if you do. Pulling a fighting game analogy - I'm not going to gimp a combo to account for me "not playing perfectly". Rather, I'm going to assume that I nail that combo perfectly every time, and go for maximum damage. The only time I'm going to try to account for ****ing up is when I don't have to sacrifice *anything* to do it (e.g., option selects, auto-throws, auto-blocking, invulnerable moves, etc.).

And clearly, Mindblast is not the only viable Elementalist elite, nor would I imagine it to be even the most popular one. I don't see what you're trying to accomplish by arguing a point from an extremely narrow (and, more importantly, non-representative) example.

That doesn't address my argument, which is that Mark of Pain simply isn't as effective. If you take a skill with lower effectiveness in order to free up slots for defense, you are lowering your damage output. In most areas of the game, the defense is unnecessary and you are gimping your damage for no good reason.

Those gimmicks aren't good examples of your point, because spike teams work on the principle of cutting the opposing team to pieces before they can really do anything. Spike teams usually fall apart if they fail to kill people quickly - exactly because their passive defense isn't as solid as balanced builds with two monks. And frankly, if your passive defense is so strong that you really no longer need monks, you're overcompensating - you could, instead, have run the two monks and devoted your other 6 characters to damage. Even an SF trinity build has more raw damage output than Bloodspike, for instance.

Okay, so to be clear, if I just put Aegis on my eles, I become "multidimensional" and I rid myself of the Trinity stigma? What are we arguing about then? Haven't MMs been one of the most popular PvE builds in the game?

You're basically arguing that pulling and nuking takes longer than whatever a passive defense team is doing ... which is what? Running face-first into a group and ... not using AoE? Killing things one or two at a time? Exactly how does that represent time savings over balling everything up and nuking it all at once? You also make it sound as if you don't have to care about aggroing the entire map - a rather unbelievable concept, frankly.

If something "works" and can be taken to extrme, it does not mean by default that it is best and other approaches are suboptinal.

You, just like Burst gravely underestimate damage capabilities of non-elementalist classes.

Well? Guess what. We dont sacrifice anything either.

Thats whole point that you & YunSooJin dont really listen to.

Everyone who is thinking about this in terms of speed is looking at this in the wrong way. In situations where you can reliably aggro, tank, and nuke the enemies, then of course the AoE Nuking approach is going to be faster. But thats not the point at all:

The point is that everything that a "tanknspank" group can beat, a "multi-dimensional" group can defeat as well. It may take a few extra seconds, but they'll get the job done in a timely manner, becuase warriors and paragons built for offense are very painful.

However, there are several situations in which a "tanknspank" group will fail, but a "multidimensional" group will succeed because of their superior endurance and more solid (physical based) damage model. Here are some example situations:

- Your group Over-aggroed
- The enemies scatter instead of remaining clumped
- You are in a difficult area where the groups dont die in 10 seconds.
- Mallyx

I'd say its a very good trade-off to take a few extra seconds defeating each regular group, if it means you have an advantage in the battles where the outcome may be in question.

If you're trying to claim that there is actually not one 'best' build for a particular situation, then I would humbly suggest you are insane.

EDIT: Also if you are so intent on refuting my posts, please reply with some actual content, instead of your poorly conceived notions of what 'damage' really is.

This argument is degenerating into semantics, frankly. Reading over the past several rebuttals, my conclusion is that our thinking is not actually that different, and we are just tripping over terms.

In the interest of resolving this non-issue quickly, I submit the following:
1) Damage doesn't have to be eles. They're just an obvious and easy example. If something else happens to do more damage, you obviously take that instead.
2) If you're being wiped out by the enemy, you obviously don't have enough defense. It goes without saying that you should beef up in that category before investing in more damage.
3) However, in the event that #2 is not true, there is no reason to 'overdefend' and account for situations that you simply do not need to account for by, for instance, playing well. I would argue that outside of elite dungeons and a handful of hard mode areas, there isn't enough opposing damage to justify taking increased defense. If you need it, take it; otherwise, you're giving up damage for nothing.
4) The argument that you can bring defense without gimping damage is generally without merit. Certainly, depending on the exact damage builds you are running, it is conceivable that there is "room for" defense on your bars. However, I submit that in any given situation, you could craft a higher damage bar if you didn't have to care about defense at all. For instance, rather than taking 4 skills that do okay damage on their own, you could take a different skill that requires 7 other skills in order to use effectively, but when doing so, results in much higher damage.
5) Warriors do not outdamage strong AoE in situations where AoE is actually hitting most of the enemies. It doesn't have to be elementalist AoE, although they are the most obvious source.
6) People already take wards, aegis, and shouts. Furthermore, they also take MMs, which are pretty much the textbook definition of offensive defense. The concept is nothing new, and if all we're arguing about is whether eles should take Aegis when Executioner's Strike does 200+ damage against them, we're really not arguing about anything.

i tend to go through stuff faster with a more defensive build tbh, just makes things easier *shrug*

Yikes, just got back from class and read through my old posts. Quote wars FTL. All I'm saying is that

1) Tank + nuke is not the only way to win PvE, it's not always the best way, and there are tons of viable builds not using the holy trinity that are just as, if not more effective.

2)Skillbars with utility and depth to them are a good thing. It's easy to squeeze utility onto a bar without sacrificing any significant amount of offense.

A few other idle points not really for arguement:

-Elementalists aren't the only viable form of AoE. I tend to run AoE on my warriors. My current setup is myself as a rit with splinter weapon and a bunch of other stuff, Koss as triple chop/cyclone axe warrior, and Melonni as a reaper's sweep dervish. The rest of the slots aren't as constant. I kill things just as well as I do on my ele, who runs a mind blast bar a lot like the revised one I mentioned, along with a pack of other eles.

-While I'm on it, monks aren't the only viable backliners. If they were, ritspike would never have been a problem.

-Moving along, warriors aren't the only viable melee class. See mobius/death blossom, reaper's sweep, melandru, lyssa, etc. for examples.

-The game is boring if you play the same build all the time

-I like pie

Having played every single profession and having characters of them all except for monk (whom i decided to replace b/c people are crazy with monk builds and refuse to accept anything non-cookie cutter) I know that each and every prof can be useful. Heck, I love my sin and have done tons of stuff with him that others constantly complain about not being able to do (eternal grove masters first try for example which people find hard for some reason). I made my mesmer into a PvP only char because of all the mesmer hate (which has been lessening lately). Now the paragon is probably my least played profession, but i can still see that they are an extremely useful and efficient class. The problem is people don't want to think for themselves. They do not want to be creative. If they see a build that people say will be great for doing this or that they go for it without thinking. They don't even try to come up with a good build themselves first. I think most of the blame goes to laziness and people seeing someone fail at a profession and then they stereotype the whole profession( think the Assassin is the best example of this due to the amount of people who had a hard time and some still do staying alive).

i still think casters do the best damage and have the best defense in pve. an earth ele goes a long way in some areas. furthermore, prot spirit+spirit bond can keep anything alive. i make builds centered on eles+necro hexes with a warrior or dazing ranger, depending on the area.

almost every mob in gwen has those blind suge or blind flash things and i've seen monster healers with SOD. it's a hard life for wars, rangers and paragons imo. i think hexes and armor ignore damage are much more efficient.

You are misconstruing my argument. Nowhere do I argue that trinity is the best way or the only way in all situations. Rather, I argue that non-trinity is not the best way or the only way in all situations.

'Significant' will depend on the situation, and again, there's no reason to make even an 'insignificant' sacrifice if it's wholly unnecessary. If I could guarantee that I'd never get cavities, I wouldn't even spend $10 a month on dental insurance.

Not only do I never claim that elementalists are the only form of AoE, but I actually state to the contrary.

Warriors are an example. Again, there's no point getting hung up on the exact classes here. The main point is whether there's any merit in taking defense when it isn't necessary.

Playing the same build over extended periods allows you to get better at it. Execution, in particular, improves to the point where it no longer requires thought, and you hit buttons in reaction to situations. Changing builds often doesn't help your playing at all. Maybe this is boring to some people, but it's a non-issue to me.

i've moved away from the "trinity" team structure a long time ago. actually, i've never played in any team that fits the "trinity" team structure.

personally, i find that a team focused on shutdown as the most consistent. being able to negate the danger before my team is affected by it is much more effective. it's kind of like why prot monks are so much better than heal monks: why patch up after the damage, when you can prevent it from happening in the first place? same goes with team structure. by shutting down the most dangerous component in a mob, it's just a matter of hacking away until they drop.

my team in GW:EN currently is structured like this:

me: BHA interrupter
master of whispers: SS necro with splinter weapon and warmonger's weapon
livia: OoV/blood necro with splinter weapon and warmonger's weapon
gwen: blinding surge/domination interrupter
devona, talon, lina, and mhenlo rounds out my team.

as you can see, my team can handle just about any situation by using mass shutdown, and the combined pressure of OoV+2 warriors+splinter weapon can blast through anything. often i lock gwen on a caster boss, with me locked onto the healer, while the rest of my team clear out the minions.

is it the easiest way to go through pve? of course not. pve in whatever form is too easy for me, and i enjoy a challenge. in fact, there are no passive defenses (as in wards, shouts, chants, etc) in the build. however, this particular team structure is effective just about anywhere. with smart positioning and interrupting, it can conquer any area while being a blast to play.

Good article; I like that you kept it impartial at most, and didn't go into discussing the mesmer and sin class design. Still, most of the pugs still play in this prophecies structure, just because that it is indeed easier to set up and like said before, almost anyone without practice can play it. I also believe that as soon as people start to understand the game mechanic, they feel more confortable trying other things. I'm not sure if this counts as active defense, but kitting and disruption/shutdown have been incorporated in some setups after the ai update, and imo, those are much better than passive defense. I still don't trust heroes to deal with shutdown, because of the nature of the AI. An example is giving norgu 3 interrupts and diversion; he will interrupt the first spell he gets, and casts diversion afterwards, because he just can't stand idle to, let's say, interrupt 2 key spells in a row. Again, well written.

Some version of tanknspank works against just about anything.


Why is number of skills the limiting factor? How much does the 5th or 6th or 8th DD on an Ele matter? Time is the limit most bars run into. The number of *characters* that you can have maximally devote resources to dealing damage is a more practical limit; tanknspank is necessarily down a character for that.


Less useful. Very low usefulness. Again the whole point of tanknspank is to ball mobs and kill with AoE. It accomplishes next to nothing outside of that scenario. The question you want to ask is if it is faster under ideal circumstances, and that's entirely a function of mob size. With a few notable exceptions, tanknspank is decidedly slower than plowing through things with robust templates.


Because you get to cut single-purpose defensive characters for more offense. In the simplest scenario you cut the tank for a 6th offensive character. If 6 guys with no defensive tools on their bars can roll through a zone, cut a Monk. The whole point is that you have the extra defense when you need it, since everyone can switch modes; against the easier encounters, you have significantly more offense since your otherwise unnecessary defensive characters are pumping their time and energy into damage.

I agree completely with this article.

My experience with PvP has seriously compelled me to create unorthodox prof combos - - - > Sousuke runs E/P with some very tasty shouts these days.

Honestly, if people realized what a good skillbar can do, you'd see a lot more variety in groups.

My groups these days always have 1 para - I <3 Paras.