Why Do So Many Games Have Tanks, Healers and DPS?

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Tanks, Supports and Damage Dealers are a staple of... too many games to count - and no matter where you look this holy trinity seems to be growing more and more popular over time, but why?
A veteran of MMOs, Hero Shooters and all sorts of tactics games, The Architect has squeezed into an ill-fitting helm of domination and waded out onto the battlefield to work out why the holy trinity is so common, and what effect it has on our favorite games.
You Saw:
Overwatch- 2016
World of warcraft - 2004
Gears Tactics - 2020
Rocket league - 2015
Teamfight Manager - 2021
Guild Wars 2 - 2012
Final Fantasy 14 - 2013
Outriders - 2021
Divinity Original Sin 2 - 2017
Darkest Dungeon - 2016
Starcraft 2 - 2010
Apex Legends - 2019
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition - 2020
For The King - 2017
The Hex - 2018
Super Smash Bros Ultimate - 2018
Runescape - 2001
Fire Emblem 3 Houses - 2019
Total War Warhammer 2 - 2017
Star Renegades - 2020
Deep Rock Galactic -2020
Chrono Trigger - 1995
Spellbreak - 2020
Humankind - Not out yet
Dota 2 - 2013
Fortnite - 2017
Tabletop Simulator - 2015
Super Mario 3D world - 2013
New Super Mario Bros Wii U - 2012
Telltale's The Walking Dead - 2012

[@ArchitectofGames]

I need healing! Quick! *Support* me on Patreon! (this is a very clever joke, you should laugh): www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames *Tank* you for following me on twitter! Let's hope it doesn't deal too much *damage* to you!: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot I promise most of my jokes in the actual video are better than this.

[@drogoultra33]

The Power of the player to measured in damage, speed, and health also play a large role, as well as our human tendency to specialize. Why do something different when what I'm already doing works well enough? So in our focusing on our power to survive, kill and escape (Health, Damage, Speed) and our ability to work in a team to d the same (Tank, Dps, Support). While this design philosophy is prevalent it is also due to the needs of having space(speed), time(health), and conflict (power) exist within a game, and managing player interaction with these elements. but rather designing for viable use of hybrid and unique playstyles and roles among the three specialized ones will create more diverse and interesting gameplay as a strong baseline allows for building upon what came before.

[@squa_81]

thank you, your essays are refreshing and quite eye opening. amazing content of consistent quality.... ....that's impressive. i hope you have fun doing these videos because, i can imagine the work that goes in each and everyone of them. may you never get tired of video games!

[@drogoultra33]

@@Arcental Change Which to Healer

[@catStone92]

ok regarding the guild wars 2 bit, it's not true that the players gravitated to the classical roles, at the start of the game there were no classes well suited to be dedicated healers but on the fist expansion they added them as well as the gear for healer (there were some options before). So it was actually the devs that went back on that (although to this day gw2 doesn't have tradional tanking. It's on a boss by boss basis but there's no aggro system like in WoW or FFXiV)

[@evolvingdragon1793]

When watching the video I kept thinking about how Paladins have some characters the stretch and bend the trinity a bit Raum a tank that relies on doing damage in order to actually tank Furya a support that does more damage the more you heal your allies Then you mention on how different characters are good a stationary or mobile attack and Palladian also do this Mobile or stationary tank\ defence Many different forms of healing for support Area or single target for attack

[@hyperteleXii]

The abstract classes are: Win more, Lose less, and Adapt situationally.

[@pawedziedzic3250]

True, these even apply to archetypes in deckbuilding games

[@hauntedhoody2976]

And Pokémon

[@typemasters2871]

Win more, DPS Lose less, Tank Adapt situationally, Support

[@koyko4]

And even teams in companies

[@koyko4]

And also army training

[@Coeurebene1]

Boomer moment: the thief wasn't a damage dealer in the 1st edition of D&D, it was actually a... thief. He shone in the non combat moments.

[@GodwynDi]

Same into 3rd edition as well. Sneak attack was nice, but not as good as 8 skill points/level *4 at level 1.

[@The_True_Mx_Pink]

@@GodwynDi 5th edition thief laughs at all of you in daddy issues.

[@malachihormel7994]

4th edition rogue bard hybrid multiclass assassin stares in the mirror and questions why their existence is pain.

[@nicholasmorgan7609]

There were a bunch of ways shine outside of combat in 4e's skill challenges. They're a neat concept and I wish it caught on. "Revival: A Dungeons & Dragons Realplay Podcast" has a lot of skill challenges and they're all quite interesting.

[@GodwynDi]

@@nicholasmorgan7609 Once they fixed them it wasn't bad. First edition they were completely broken mathematically though.

[@MortarMike]

The fourth element is definitely Crowd Control, not as famous but needed in almost EVERY PvE scenario in a RPG. They're the last resort against overwhelming odds, allowing you to prioritize threats and restrict enemy progress. It's often tossed into the "Support" role as it should be, but it's more of an Offensive Support than the Defensive Healer role.

[@baitposter]

Abstracted, healers, CC, and tanks could all be grouped together as Death Mitigation roles While DPS is more like... Death Instigation CC and Tanks mitigate. Healers/Supports give sustain. DPS race to the finish line.

[@gabrielabatista6016]

Yeah, I remember playing some RPGs that had no crowd control and it ALWAYS sucked when I had to fight large groups of enemies, particularly if I was in an open space and/or alone. Sometimes even on groups it sucked, and I'd eventually give up because combat was always either too easy or too hard and there wasn't a lot of balance. I feel like that was one of my favourite things about playing with CC characters in Genshin. It's super fun to have all those ways to either group the enemies or damage crowds of them at once (depending on the character), it was the first time in a while that I had played a game that tackled this problem head on like that, it's pretty fun. For all it's faults, the game is still pretty fun and I appreciate it.

[@leobastian_]

mobas usually have tanks have group crowd control, supports have protection against crowd control, and damage dealer having individual crowd control.

[@big_azzy]

I'd consider it a tank thing. Stopping an enemy from attacking in the first place is effectively like tanking the hit.

[@Void_Everfrost]

this element suck in most rpg due to the fact most bosses have cc "immunity" not just "resist". so rendered your existence as cc tank almost useless and your only purpose left is taunt and tank

[@yqisq6966]

My first thought: the existence of the trinity is a result of health bar, a one dimensional entity that can only increase or decrease. To break it you need to redefine "winning" beyond reducing an enemy's health to zero...

[@elmajore4818]

This is were things get complicated / mainstream boring; for players more focused on objectives/story rather than killing some games, not mentioned here, have sadly a had similar updates, e.g. Heros of the Storm (no more specialists). Environment, Economy or Control Points are usually the alternatives. However, those are in my perception more viable in games less focused on pure Shooter content.

[@yqisq6966]

@@elmajore4818 Yeah true. For shooters I think they could introduce a more realistic experience by modelling different body parts differently, instead of treating the whole body as a bullet sponge. The technology nowadays should be able to support such design. The health bar system was really a legacy of the past when computer was not powerful enough to simulate complex systems.

[@elmajore4818]

@@yqisq6966 yeah. Sometimes different body parts react different to enemy fire. E.g. in Sniper Elite (3/4) center mass shots are easier to hit but only kill in one shot if certain organs are hit (especially if only a pistol or MP is used). I also think it may be a simplification in terms of game design to focus more on other aspects of the game. Some other games use this simplification to their Advantage and break in other ways with the trinity. Slime Rancher and Astroneer, while technically having enemys (in the form of Tarr/Terr Slimes and Plants respectively) their main source of Death is environmental (gravity, ocean, oxygen), one could even argue it is only environmental as slimes and plants are not that antagonistic in nature (pun intended).

[@christianjadot4459]

One shot kills bring on a whole new dynamic.

[@volbla]

I think things could change while still keeping the health bar. All you have to do is add more dimensions to it, i.e. add more conditions for making the health bar decrease. It could be basically anything, and depending on what it is it could create different roles or objectives.

[@s.a.m7297]

"ok priest stay in the back" "Wait the boss is undead type.. priest murder him, we'll stay on the back"

[@APersonOnYouTubeX]

Priest: TF man…I am a lvl 5

[@mikailnascimento3380]

"Yeah you gonna stomp him, poor guy"

[@APersonOnYouTubeX]

@Andrei Salvaleon cleric: Dies* Everyone including the tank: Surprised noise*

[@tails183]

*Starts launching X potions*

[@s.a.m7297]

*thief using hiding skill

[@ToxicBastard]

"Are you a support, DPS or a tank?" The Engineer: "Yes."

[@elemangell2981]

YEEEEE

[@ToxicBastard]

@@elemangell2981 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[@insaincaldo]

Or something like Paladins.

[@QuintessentialWalrus]

Honestly I was surprised TF2 didn't get a mention in this video. The in-game UI literally groups the classes into the Offense/Defense/Support holy trinity, but in practice it's far more dynamic and unique than it lets on. Depending on your loadout and strategy, EVERY class can fulfill multiple rolls at once. On a side note, I always thought the default holy trinity grouping was a little insufficient. I think it makes more sense like this: Assassin (Scout, Sniper, Spy) Damage (Soldier, Demo, Heavy) Support (Pyro, Engineer, Medic)

[@seya8282]

@@QuintessentialWalrus i agree that the tf2 classes are more dynamic and unique. but i sometimes i also find ironic pyro labeled as offfense is offten used as defense against soldiers, demos? and spies. especially if there are sentries demo and heavy could be sometimes seen used offensively (multiple heavies on a cart is just...no

[@LilBoyHexley]

One thing I think wasn’t mentioned is that there is an extent in which the trinity ENABLES more class variety. Since the roles create very simple metrics to balance classes around (DPS, Healing/mitigation, mitigation/survivability), it allows you to go about creating classes that have very distinct *FEELS* (melee, ranged, DoTs, burst, fast proc-y rotations, decision-tree rotations, unique resources. Classic heals, HoTs, shields, buffs that proc heals, etc.) while being reasonably sure they can all take part in content without much issue. In games like MMOs where you spend tons of time playing one class, you want some assurance that you’ll always be viable. Tons of class variety with amorphous roles is great on paper but creates a massive balancing challenge, and an incredibly unpredictable meta. Roles that are too amorphous also limit the ability to design encounters that don’t gate people out. GW2 had this issue as well. The designer can’t predict what players will be doing, or what a particular group’s actual capabilities are, so they must paint with a broad brush or risk creating an incredibly restrictive meta.

[@krishivagarwal5189]

Yep in gw2 ele is dead

[@Homiloko2]

What's a decision-tree rotation?

[@haitebodesu]

@@Homiloko2 Prios/situational "non-rotations"

[@encouraginglyauthentic43]

Too bad mmos aren't complex enough to do it effectively.

[@coreblaster6809]

​@@encouraginglyauthentic43 ?

[@julesmasseffectmusic]

I enjoyed Vanilla WoW. one mate was pally and I was a rogue, one day we paired up as our other mates werent playing and he was stunned at how 1 rogue and 1 pally could do so many quests, so quickly, then he discovered he was not speeding me up much at all but he was saving me a fortune in food/healing/bandages. meanwhile i was cutting in his questing time in half.

[@WwZa7]

Every game: "We need tank, healer, and DPS, who's healer?" Warframe: "Alright boys, if any one of you sissies can't nuke entire room in less than a nanosecond, you're lucky I'm here. Just don't make me wait in extraction too long."

[@comet.x]

hoogh. Flashbacks. How's the game going since fortuna and railjacl?

[@christophermarsh1580]

@@comet.x Better. The room-nuking carry builds are less of a thing when you do Steel Path; and everybody has a job when you're blasting railjack crewships

[@WwZa7]

@@comet.x I think it's amazing, Fortuna was buggy but overall it's amazing, and Railjack is my new favorite mode

[@diepixeldie8725]

This is rly true like in warframe the holy trinity is only decimation if you can’t clear room in less than a second you ain’t playing right except that’s me I play with stealth I’m a stealth warframe player

[@poutineausyropderable7108]

@@christophermarsh1580 Room nuking was a good thing. Old Warframe was better. Fight me. They should have just gone the power creeps way and made stuff for the veterans with ever-increasing higher-level enemies. Room nuking would be less possible if you can'T kill fast enough. Back then, because of the Tower system, there was an incentive to fight powerful enemies, so support had uses. Now, every new update they add is just a new hard reset, (The plains for exemple, made your gun useless against Terralisk.) And, they keep stuff relatively low level. WF was a strategy game where a healer could become a nuke and a dps could become a tank. The stat, thinking and strategy part was just done in the builds, especially when 4 player can each use their own specific build for the mission. It was done before the mission ever started. The fun was creating methods as effective as possible. Creating new meta changing build weekly was possible if you and your friend knew the game well and knew how to think, me and all of my friends all knew our own secret stuff that wasn't on the wiki or anywhere on the internet, The game had a shit ton of depths, 100x more than the devs intended because everything interconnected, and so, even with relatively low content, every piece of content was worth 10 times what it was intended. So much so, you could call people with less than 1000 hours noobs. Now, they removed all creativity with their nerf, which removed the interconnection between the element in the games. It also exponentially lowered the number of possibility. It became a TPS grinding machine. The need to have all player make a mission specific build is now gone since you don't prepare for 100 waves of survival. Raids were just playing mini games till the boss lost is imortality and it took one player less then 2 seconds to kill the boss. They should have doubled back on the tower system. The incentive to go into harder mission should have increased. Skils in a grinding games should be about how efficient you can become, not how patient you are.

[@metalgear6531]

1:29 The name "tank" makes total sense when you remember that a tank's primary role is to provide support for advancing infantry. This was especially true of the first generation of tanks, which were built to break the trench warfare stalemates of World War 1.

[@Sorain1]

That was the original intention, but then when they became more mobile and infantry anti-tank options didn't keep up they became a more offensive tool most of the time.

[@fenixmeaney6170]

@@Sorain1 sounds about right for tanks

[@CoastToGhost]

I’d also heard it explained back in the day as drawing a connection to the character/classes large health pool or “tank” of hp.

[@BlueTemplar15]

@@Sorain1 Except when infantry anti-tank options failed to keep up, towed then fully motorized anti-tank guns took their stead as "damage dealers" (they did look a lot like tanks themselves, but carried much weaker armor and bigger guns) : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_gun Though by the end of WW2 they indeed kind of merged with tanks... and later missiles replaced them as "damage dealers".

[@kamikeserpentail3778]

And yet infantry are still useful. Because war has a lot more factors than the Trinity. Like mobility, and cost. It's not like tank sit there getting shot and focusing only on surviving, while infantry sit behind them shooting while expecting the tank to absorb all the damage for them. That's the main reason I hate the triangle is people become brain dead under it. If the damage dealer died it was the tanks fault for not keeping them alive, not their fault for being a stupid position. If the tank does high damage it's the DPS fault for not doing more damage, not the tank's credit for finding opportunities.

[@gregorclegane7563]

When I started playing World of Tanks Blitz, I thought "Oh cool. Everyone is a tank." Turns out there are tank classes as well. 😁

[@Tiniuc]

I remember back in Guild Wars, one of the most novel classes to me was the _Mesmer_ . They specialized in messing with the enemies' energy, rather than strictly their hp (damage) among other things.

[@matthewgagnon9426]

That was just a common thing back then. Everquest had crowd control as a whole thing for years, even early World of Warcraft had abilities like Sap, Polymorph, and Sleep that were very important to use.

[@Tiniuc]

@@matthewgagnon9426 I know. I loved D&D, which those games drew inspiration from. Mesmer was something... different. It was just a weird class.

[@Aerowind]

Which is funny. I recently jumped back into GW1 and the mesmer is the preeminent damage dealer in that game now.

[@cat-vv9xb]

@@matthewgagnon9426 Mesmer was a lot more in-depth than just "here you have a button that stuns for 5 seconds and here's another button that allows you to cc something for 60 seconds that breaks on damage".

[@cat-vv9xb]

@@Aerowind In PvE at least, because AI will cast and attack regardless of the debuffs they have, but human players generally can choose to wait out spells, interrupt or cleanse it right off.

[@jolteonstorm1]

im saddened that everybody misses the opportunity to call him the artist formerly known as skeleton king

[@ArchitectofGames]

This is unironically funnier than any joke I could've thought of and it infuriates me

[@pinkajou656]

@@ArchitectofGames LMTOOOO BEEN THERE

[@chiffmonkey]

Did he abdicate or what?

[@zealot9262]

@@chiffmonkey He was too similar to Leoric, or rather, he is Leoric. Back in DotA (the mod for Warcraft 3) they used existing characters from other Blizzard games. As far as I know, the only reason Valve have given is; 'On December 10 of 2013, Skeleton King was removed from the game for "pressing ceremonial reasons".' He was then 'removed' from the game and an event called 'Wraith Night' happened and he returned as the 'Wraith King'. Weirdy still called Ostarion and summoning skeletons to fight for him, 'ostó' meaning bone in Greek. Although now Valve has confused a lot of people by releasing "The One True King" Arcana (a cosmetic) to replace him with a new and updated skeleton king model. Probably a little more information than you expected, but there it is.

[@sheepsauruszillarex1332]

@@zealot9262 and now all we have left is a VERY expensive skin :(

[@redspine2859]

One thing that explains why the Holy Trinity is so predominantly intuitive in MMO is the fact thinking in terms of roles is so effective. If Divinity wasn’t turn-based, I bet you’d have one character dedicated to cleaning the area of oil and poison. Because if it was everyone’s job, you’d see team members wasting time and abilities at the same time to do the same thing. Having to focus on one thing while trusting others to do what you’re not supposed to care about is infinitely more efficient in a party of multiple persons than not doing it.

[@000Dragon50000]

Mmm, Turn based games can challenge the Trinity style stuff much easier because everyone has enough time to think about how best to use the tools they have, which means situationally something like a Celestial Warlock in D&D might usually deal damage but still has the ability to use most of the important healing magic when it's neccessary. (Not to mention in tabletops there's also out of combat stuff like Pass without a trace, or Rogues with things like Expertise)

[@xk445g]

oh man, can't wait for the Mop class to be added to Divinity

[@gerythionargarys7848]

Divinity does have roles, just not the "trinity". Heal, Support, DPS, and Tank. Yes, you can make a character that focuses on all four, but you will not be as effective at any as someone who focused on one or two of them.

[@000Dragon50000]

@@gerythionargarys7848 I focused on D&D and other Tabletop RPGs in my comment, not Divinity.

[@gerythionargarys7848]

@@000Dragon50000 wasn't replying to you, though? Plus, even D&D has roles.

[@KnakuanaRka]

Another interesting aspect of the trinity is that there’s a form of interaction that is often overlooked. If DPS is self-to-enemy, Tank is enemy-to-self, and Support is self-to-ally (and terrainist is self-to-environment), then Crowd Controller is enemy-to-ally; CCs are based around using stuns, slows, barriers, knockback, etc to slow down enemies and interfere with them attacking your allies. However, a lot of games tend to fold these into the Support role (and a bit into Tank), so it isn’t really seen as distinct.

[@Wolf-oc6tx]

I feel like its easier (balance and versatility wise)to fold them into other roles then to build a character around the idea since if they stun and related mechanics is strong to to carry the character it trivialises at least some encounters(by prevent the enemy from acting) but if it isn't the character ends up subpar.

[@airmanon7213]

But wouldn't a class focused on manipulating the environment be considered a different kind of support because they set up stuff for the rest of the team?

[@cericat]

Usually yes, there's two basic forms of support you see even in trinity heavy games namely healers and buffers, that is their powers are mainly into improving the abilities of your team or dismantling those of the enemy. Changing the field conditions would fit into the latter category since it changes the dynamics of the play.

[@justawhim]

think of it like this. We are not interacting with Allies and Enemies but change the rules of the game. If everyone is playing a game of football Environmental basically tilting the field so the ball always will roll towards the goal.

[@KnakuanaRka]

Yeah, Crowd Controllers tend to get folded into the Support side of the Trinity, but they could also be seen as their own thing.

[@Wolf-oc6tx]

@@KnakuanaRka Where I would place them depends on what direction there design leans, some lean towards support, some tank and the odd one is basically a damage dealer with stun mechanics.

[@dagroth123]

you're onto the right point; the video frames the 3 roles as tank/healer/dps but, that's not actually whats going on. Control, Sustain, and Dmg is whats going on and everyone contributes those factors, usually in different ways. Something the video could of gone better into was different ways to achieve those 3. there was a point mid-video where i started to see this discrepancy show up and was hoping the writer would adapt on the fly... to be disappointed.

[@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts]

I was surprised to hear "Tank, healer, damage dealer" at the beginning of a theology video. Then I realised.

[@kamikeserpentail3778]

It makes a lot of sense. Yahweh sure has a lot of my aggro.

[@JudicialBrat]

Father (Tank) The Son (DPS) The Holy Spirit (Support)

[@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts]

@@JudicialBrat I would argue that the Son counts as a much better tank, dying on behalf of others was kind of his thing.

[@sylviadailey9126]

Jesus was a pacifist that healed and even rented people. I think he would make great healer material.

[@SomeTomfoolery]

​@@sylviadailey9126 This is a good point, Jesus literally healed people, kinda a big part of his story

[@tuftyindigo]

I think there's a big factor that's not mentioned at all in the video: individual players' different motivations. Some players are super-competitive and come to the game specifically to win a faceoff with their opposite number. Others want to feel bad-ass by taking everything the enemy can throw at them and standing strong. Others most enjoy helping out their team-mates and pushing everyone forward. This is a big reason why this kind of role specialization will form even if the game doesn't lean on it at all, and why a lot of successful games are explicit up-front about roles and let players choose the team position that they enjoy, especially if it's with familiar terminology and concepts.

[@maximumoverstat]

Yeah. Resident support here, I kinda just like the instant queue times and playing "fill the bar up" all the time.

[@BobTheTesaurus]

Indeed, i enjoy playing Support and Tanks mainly for similar reasons, ruining the Enemy Damage Dealers day. Few things are more satisfying to me than watching the DD blow their whole kit on me and being able to walk off with barely a scratch, or blow it all on an ally only to watch them survive, and then get back to full health because of my supporting. Its most satifying against Assassin style Damage Dealers. because they are assholes who deserve to fail

[@julianogodoy964]

Don't forget a good deal of player agency. I never quite liked tanking in WoW because it was unsatisfying, but once I played TERA, it awakened that desire to take everything the enemy could throw at me, because there was more I could do that made it feel like it was my skills doing the tanking rather then just my build

[@antoineguerrier2965]

​@@BobTheTesaurus I share the sentiment. Playing a healer / support in a PvP game isn't an ally on ally interaction, it's an ally on enemy one. Your teammates are merely tools for you to ruin the other team's day. Supports and especially those that provide healing / shields are priority targets in PvP games. In a lot of situations, you won't get anywhere unless you manage to kill the enemy support. Pulling off a big rez as Mercy in Overwatch after the enemy team blew 2-3 ultimates to kill yours was extremely satisfying, not because you helped your allies, but because by careful positioning and timing, you completely ruined 45sec worth of effort from the other team. Even better, by the time they'll be able to do that again, you'll be there, with your shiny button ready and you'll cuck them all over again. Ah, that spell was so fun. It being gone is probably the reason I'll never play that game again.

[@Jerhevon]

@@maximumoverstat Heh. In WOW I loved tanking, but Healing was my go-to do things but relax position. My heals are critical, but there's less rotation and fight specifics to know. I can go, I can help people out, and I can actually watch the fight! Tanking? Great fun, but I'm always visually lost at monster feet and attack effects. DPS? WOW rotations at the time are punishing. Not standing in fire is hard when visually I found myself focusing on the rythm game of cooldowns and ability procs That said, at least at the time, the healers especially could have used a touch more DPS. In Betas I would routinely level a paladin healer and provide feedback on how rough that was to play the solo content.

[@therilyncobrin2372]

Sombra is an interesting character and adds that fourth level of interaction because her intended gameplay is disruption, interrupting the other team's ability to utilize their intended roles. It's still ally vs enemy, but in a more meta way

[@saparapatepete]

debuffing or sabotage is a fascinating role. Inflicting status effects is a fun way to mess with an opponent. It could be used offensively or defensively depending of the nature of the debuffs.

[@KnakuanaRka]

Yeah, I think that could be classified as Crowd Controller/CC, a role that's often folded into Support.

[@therilyncobrin2372]

@@KnakuanaRka not quite sure what you mean with this. CC in a shooter is usually about zone exclusion with barriers, aoe damage, or force weapons such as repulsion or gravity. I suppose you could extend that to hacking medkits as a form of area healing denial but calling debuffs crowd control feels a little abstract. I agree that it's under the support category but it's a disruption of the meta itself which is a way different type of role compared to just dishing out heals or shields

[@KnakuanaRka]

@@therilyncobrin2372 Oh, sorry; I'm not familiar with how Sombra works, and may have misunderstood what you meant when you talked about disruption.

[@Posby95]

"Enemies have two defensive stats. This is a fairly substantial nerf to damage dealers, as units usually only deal one type of damage, meaning they'll only be effective against roughly half of units. This helps to mitigate players relying on a single unkillable megaunit." That would only be the case if the enemy composition was 50% physical units and 50% magical units. But it's not. The vast majority of enemies in Fire Emblem deal physical damage. Because enemy mages are so rare, a playable physical tank is good enough to take most of the enemy's damage output. Now in the map Cog of Destiny in FE7 Hector Hard Mode, enemy composition is flipped on its head and suddenly your physical units (most of your army) are very vulnerable. It becomes a game of glass cannons where they have low defense and you have low resistance.

[@BramLastname]

While that is true, games like Pokemon where Special Attackers are a lot more prominent Show that even if it is an even split A lot of people will gravitate towards the single unkillable mega unit. Because it's easier to learn how to effectively use and circumvent the weakness of a single playstyle, Than to interact with every encounter on multiple axis.

[@encouraginglyauthentic43]

All this shows is the lack of challenge of that game.

[@korinoriz]

@@BramLastname And that's how you play most of the FE games. You basically raise a super unit or two that basically ignores the intended weaknesses.

[@korinoriz]

@@encouraginglyauthentic43 FE 7? Three Houses?

[@GIR177]

​​​​@@korinorizThat's both true and false, it all depends on the FE game in question. In games like Binding Blade, New Mystery, or Fates Conquest, the enemy quality is inflated enough that your units always at risk of getting 2HKO'd or 3HKO'd, discouraging the player from just juggernauting with one or two units, and they are also pack plenty of glass cannon enemies that encourage greater participation from the rest of team. These games also have chapters with side-objectives and many maps that do not focus on routing the enemy, so player is forced to be proactive to complete them and not just turtle. This is in stark contrast to enemy-phase focused titles like Blazing Sword, Sacred Stones and Path of Radiance, which are filled with weak, inaccurate enemies don't demand precision on player phase to the same extent as strong, accurate enemies. Bulky enemies in these games are just begging to be deleted by a juggernaut, and all of the nasty tricks in the world don't mean anything if a dracoknight can still rambo through the map.

[@madtufguy]

Listening to the "football" description, I'm realizing that volleyball is literally these three roles converted into allowed actions: Bump/tank, Set/support, Spike/damage.

[@TheHunterTheory]

It's similar for all types of sports. In rugby, it's said that the Backs (quick, tricky guys) win games and the Forwards (big, hitty guys) decide by how much. Pretty much, Backs are DPS if we abstract damage dealt into yards ran, as they are both the main progress resource toward victory. Forwards are Tanks/Support because they win rucks, tie up opponents, and generally make it easier for the victory-generators to do their job.

[@erichdegurechaff9515]

Anything that has a "fight" will have this, because is the most efficient way to "fight". Any team sports, any team game...

[@NicD]

You're right that it fits volley-ball in a way that doesn't apply to other sports: the rear players ONLY defend against enemy attack, and the setter ONLY interacts with his own team. I don't know of any other team-vs-team sport with a role that never interacts with the opposing team.

[@angrygopnik2317]

Real life football is much more complex as strikers can be used as supports (holding the football and passing to an attacking minded midfielder) or as defence (using height/strength to defend corners). Same goes for other roles.

[@NicD]

@@angrygopnik2317 I *have* to believe you were just watching this year's Super Bowl.

[@MaruMaruPoyo]

Nowadays it's more of like "Are you dps/tank/healer?" "Yes"

[@hayrotheguye7511]

I am engineer gaming

[@trollegeeldritchlordofhorr4461]

Noelle from genshin impact agrees with this statement

[@tiagox3275]

@sir, this is a Benny's it almost has if you consider the passive talent that gives 20s of shield every 60s when you drop below 30%. or if you use her as a dps/healer, as every 4 hits her shield CD goes down by 1s, which means it's ready to use again right away if you keep spinning on the face of enemies lol

[@user-vr8qd4hk6y]

@@tiagox3275 Let's not forget about additional shields from crystalization.

[@iaxacs3801]

Depends, if I try to tank as a DPS in an MMO I'm gonna have a very bad time

[@mkanatlar]

A great video overall, just have a small problem with Rocket League's analysis. It does have an established gameplay system similar to the holy trinity but with one cruical difference: it is dynamic. 3 Players are usually named 1st man, 2nd man, and 3rd man. 1st man is what you called as striker, he's usually the playmaker and the one expected to score and get some plays in there, he's tasked with creating the offence. The 2nd man is the "support", he tries to give the striker opportunuities and he's there as a backup attacker if something goes wrong., he's tasked with connecting the defence and the offence in harmony. The 3rd man is the "tank", he waits a usually behind the midfield line in case of a counter-attack or a long clear, he's tasked with cleaning up the defence. The thing is: these roles aren't specficially assigned to a player. The whole system is called "rotation" because each player take turns in these roles. 1st man goes for a shot, doesn't score so he rotates back to gather boost while the 2nd man moves to the 1st mans positions. 1st man takes the role of the 3rd man as the 3rd man moves into the 2nd mans position. In this way, players keep rotating to play in harmony and with speed. Sure, you can try to assign each player a role and play the game like that but it almost always ends in defeat as the opponent has a lot more boost and better positions than you. Even in pro play, there players "better" at specific roles but the team will fail if a player can not undertake the other roles. Like you've mentioned in the video; if the holy trinity must be used, the best way is to create a dynamic role system where each player deals with different aspects of mechanics dynamically. Edit: There are some pro teams who try different tactics such as using 2 better striker players to create an offencive pressure with a solid 3rd man. On the other hand, there are teams who has two 2nd mans or two 3rd mans to create a defensive powerhouse. While the system provides a "guide" on the type of player you can be, you can play around with it in higher levels.

[@Longlius]

I miss the old fourth role we used to have in online games - controller. It made games so much more tactically rich. Then WoW came along and parted out conventional controller staples like CC and buffs to other roles. I guess it makes sense that we'd see simplification but I miss playing enchanter in EQ.

[@lv100Alice]

actually wow only killed that later. paladins had all the good buffs and so did shamens. even a hunter in melee groups is just *cheff kiss* they later removed parts of that slowly until it don't really exists anymore.

[@Sammysapphira]

Paladins and shamans were brought exclusively for their buffs in vanilla wow, but everybody hated being a complete buff bot. The gameplay was not engaging. Supports are fun when they can contribute themselves.

[@haitebodesu]

@@Sammysapphira I think there is an important distinction between a class designed for the controller role and a class whose only desirable abilities fell into that category

[@nicreven]

@@haitebodesu CC is the thing that appeals to me the most in games, always It sucks that a lot of games stray from it; e.g. warframe nowadays (Some enemies can be really powerful and have special abilities, all the while COMPLETELY resisting CC)

[@annaka5687]

You mean 4th class as support class like in Rift online?

[@nolanwestrich2602]

I've just noticed parallels from an old meme here. *protecc* *attacC* *got your bacc*

[@colinnewey7965]

I would have spelled it attacc

[@nolanwestrich2602]

@@colinnewey7965 Oh I meant to, guess I just did the normal spelling out of habit.

[@SifArtorias]

Can't help but see that as Dunban, Shulk and Reyn lol

[@copperboltwire320]

And the summoner does all those in one individual using his summons, because he is the smartest of the trinity. Work smart, not hard.

[@Sorain1]

@@copperboltwire320 Summoner brings their own trinity in miniture.

[@cornzzn]

"supports are boring" me who actually enjoys being the support: am just tryna help :')

[@colossus4219]

Same, mmos and other multiplayer games, i always opt for a support class, be it healer or something similar

[@DaemonetteBait]

Support is more frustrating than boring, "GET IN THE HEAL BUBBLE!" and "STOP RUNNING AND LET ME HEAL YOU!" or "ORANGE GLOWING FLOOR IS BAD" FFXIV makes me feel many emotions but playing healer makes me understand what it's like to be a primary school teacher. Most of the time it's nice to watch them learn, and sometimes you even learn something yourself. Other times your wondering how the hell little Timmy managed to eat an entire pot of glitter when you weren't looking.

[@optiTHOMAS]

Yeah man, I tend to play support roles for most games! I enjoy helping the team and trying to be useful if I can. 😁👍🏻

[@cornzzn]

@@optiTHOMAS yuhh, honestly i feel like there are mainly two reasons why people play as supports.. 1) they just genuinely like helping the team and providing much needed assistance or 2) they literally suck at everything else and decided that the best option is to just be a support i'm definitely with the 2s LMAO

[@cornzzn]

@@DaemonetteBait you can't be more right, there's just something so fun and rewarding in helping your clueless teammates it is frustrating at times when they leave you to fight off enemies for example.. like bro i'm a support!? i can't handle this alone!! *falls to the floor in tears while enemies run rampant* and i can't do my job and assist y'all either if you keep leaving our base unattended gdi but i'll be lying if i said that majority of the fun i get from playing the support role isn't from the constant light-hearted screaming towards my teammates, i often find myself in both tears and hysterics it's so weird but i like it

[@michaelshields1861]

I found that I really like getting up close and dealing large amounts of damage, but hate following a Ridgid rotation and like breaking it up with buffs for my allies. Sadly this DPS/Heal hybrid is super rare and if it ever appears it leans heavily to one side or the other and is sub-optinal locking me out of high tear gameplay.

[@wesley6442]

I feel ya, as a tank build I like getting up in the enemy's face and squaring off against them. but my low mobility makes it challenging, thankfully some games allow you or allies to teleport you to where you want to go. I love how in divinity I can regain lost armor and also get rid of negative status effects, I like to keep myself and my team "healthy" I guess is the word, so they all function like a well-oiled machine. It's kind of funny though, as a tank you are usually the last man standing, I've had this happen on so many occasions where all my friends got killed off in a game and I was all that was left. and the enemy couldn't really finish me off nor could I deal enough damage to get anywhere, it was like a stalemate. so we'd have to restart and everyone but me would have to take a different approach to either finish the enemy off more quickly, heal more or hide behind my shield xD

[@irispounsberry7917]

Great video - 3 main feedback points on this topic. 1 = As someone else mentioned in the comments, most of the trinity focus stems from the fact that the enemy health bar is the only metric that matters in most games. So, even in trinity obsessed games, the healer is encouraged to use their damage abilities to contribute in the attack when possible. This happens often because many games are calibrated to a low common denominator for the widest possible potential audience so outside of some specially marked raid/extreme/challenge modes, there's little actual healing required for the group if the players are actually not standing in fire or getting hit with dodge-able attacks and the tank is using their damage mitigation skills properly. 2 = Guild Wars 2 tried to get away from the holy trinity to cut down on the amount of time players had to wait for a specific role to show up (nearly always tank or healer). In the vanilla dungeons, this led to a zerg-y feel since you really weren't doing teamwork so much as crowding around all doing damage together. They have since hardened their soft trinity of support/control/damage with the addition of elite specializations for the classes that do healing (to aid with the then new raids) and have added a new mechanic, break bars, as a focusing point for players wanting to specialize in control. GW2 also has 2 flavors of dps, direct power or d.o.t. conditions, which cover a range of enemies with different defenses. The cool thing is that the level of customization in the game means that any class can do any of these roles, perhaps not optimally but viably, with the choices available in elite specialization, traitlines, weapons equipped, utility and elite skill selection, gear stats and runes choices. 3 = Speaking of control as a role, I did like Rift's idea of the Support role addition, where they would target the enemy but primarily stun and debuff. I'm surprised that it didn't get a mention in this video since you did point out GW2 as an attempt to break the holy trinity's mold.

[@xavibun]

In fighting games, our archetype trinity is Rushdown, Zoner, and Grappler.

[@tacomeme429]

I now wonder how these classes would translate into other genres/playstyles of games

[@Valigarmanda]

@@tacomeme429 It's hard. Since zoners and grapplers would fill the same niche with translated into a moba, for example. Zoners could either be mages or tanks that are great for area-denial. Grapplers could be the cc heavy tanks that also deny the area around their range. Rushdowns are generally fast and unpredictable but is typically pretty straightforward.

[@Thriving_in_Exile]

My man. 🤜

[@omargoodman2999]

If you consider that the most abstract reduction of the trinity is win more (damage dealer), lose less (tank), mitigate loss (support), then the equivalencies would be as follows: "Winning" = winning neutral to initiate your combo. Win More: Rushdown (equivalent to damage dealer). Lose Less: Zoner (equivalent to tank). Mitigate Loss: Grappler (equivalent to support).

[@travismurtland3257]

In real life boxing they have a trinity as well, the brute (not technically brutish, just wait for the opening, then hammer it home in one blow), swarmers (flurry of blows, wear down the defense), and Outriders/Outboxers (wear down the opponent by draining them, an endurance fighter). Like in games there's obviously crossover, as all out offensives are common, and quick people tend to play with the idea of dodging and launching large offensive flurries as well

[@archmagusofevil]

But why would Jesus be the... ooohhhh, he is the one that drew aggro.

[@mikec6111]

I thought he was the healer?

[@VeganAncientDragonKnight]

@@mikec6111 he's heals us through the power of the Holy Ghost the ultimate cleanser of the soul! Jesus protect us from our sins and eventually hell! So he's the Tank against all evils. He absorb all our sins and died for it! So we don't have to be in Hell for eternity! 😇👼🙏🏻 It that not tanking... then I don't know what is!

[@mattmorehouse9685]

@@VeganAncientDragonKnight But without him there would be no threat of Hell... so does that make him a damage, tank hybrid?

[@VeganAncientDragonKnight]

@@mattmorehouse9685 Hell is made by the Father not himself literally. He's doesn't want anyone going to Hell at all. That's why he sacrifice himself to protect all of us from the ultimate wrath of his Father.

[@Mbeluba]

@@mattmorehouse9685 Hell in Christianity is not created by God, it's more an absence of God.

[@nickyliu8762]

The Art of War recommends to play into your strengths exploit enemies weaknesses. Vice versa you should avoid situations where the enemy is strong, whereas you are weak. It really comes down to game design. If the only way to defeat a boss is to reduce their HP to 0, you want to deal damage. If they attack your HP, you want someone to redirect the attack. If they inflict effects, you want someone to mitigate those, if possible. But if HP is not the only objective, this is where different damage types come in. If in order to incapacitate a boss, you have to destroy a chunk of its neck, you want cutting damage. If it was armored, you want armor piercing. If the spot was on the back, you want mobility, or greater armor penetrating firepower. The Art of War, which discusses more about winning wars, rather than winning battles, also puts economy and intelligence gathering as decisive factors.

[@andrewamann2821]

Xcom 2 had an interesting way of playing with the Holy Trinity problem: skill buys from other classes. Being able to flex into certain skills meant that you could use your soldiers in some very interesting ways.

[@kanten8775]

xcom never really had this problem to begin with by just making tanks and supports mostly useless. In xcom just killing the opponents before they act is the best option by far.

[@Markus-zb5zd]

In XCOM every soldier has to carry his own weight

[@AVeryBoredMouse12312]

@@kanten8775 "mostly useless" nah they fixed it by making everyone be a damage dealer with other options for when they can't deal damage it took me a while to realize this, but smokes are single handedly the strongest option when you don't have good odds of hitting or your position is bad

[@ThrottleKitty]

It's rock paper scissors, but you can only throw the one you picked at the start of the match over and over

[@Redymare]

Which is one of the reasons Overwatch got popular very quickly at launch. And why it lost popularity by restricting choices increasingly over time.

[@ridori7376]

@@Redymare That's something that League does too and it drives me nuts. Every time they're like "we're releasing a new tank top laner, oh and we also nerfed this other champ because he's being played in top and we don't like that" it makes me want to blow my brains out.

[@ridori7376]

And then they'll pat themselves in the back because "Look! We made a "support" who's ALSO an "assasin", isn't that WACKY? Lmao we're so crazy buy more skins"

[@deepdarksecretful]

time to venture into Dota 2 then, my dear children... where anything works anywhere if you're good enough >=3

[@Ramsey276one]

WHOA That seems so PERFECTLY CLEAR... XD

[@kingdomkey2262]

I remember when I switched to a healer build and my friend switched to a shield build in the division when skirmish came out, we almost never lost cause the enemy team pretty much just ran all dps builds, the holy trinity usually is just the most viable way to play most of the time in a group

[@odanemcdonald9874]

Yes. It's all our understanding. He's saying developers are more creative when they find fun ways to make other thing viable

[@wesley6442]

What frustrates me is when games are unbalanced and tank builds get one shot. You buy a bunch of gear and have heavy armor and fully decked out and the game completely ignores you are wearing a helmet. I always call my class survivalist and enjoy buffing my armor to help soak up the hits. I also like any skills that remove negative effects afflicted to myself or allies like in Divinity II super useful

[@condimentking3395]

@@wesley6442 Yeah improper balance is always super annoying. It’s just as frustrating when the tanks can do hella damage and they just are an unkillable damage. But divinity definitely has the tank getting one shot problem, at least in higher difficulties where I don’t think I ever managed to have a tank character because everyone would die immediately regardless. Cc was way more important

[@animedrummerboy]

I’m defense of gw2 you don’t have to assume traditional roles for the post game content if you choose to it just makes it more efficient but the games design still allows for the trinity to be completely avoided and be successful as long as you understand the particular fights mechanics

[@awesomefuzz4008]

Maybe, but efficiency typically ends up taking priority over how a game was meant to be played, frequently even to the expense of more interesting methods. Not to mention that this gets FAR worse if you've decided to play said more interesting method outside of a group that went into the game with the same goal. With a group of friends, it can be a blast to, say, have a pocket Lucio and Mercy paired with your Bastion to speed around the flanking routes and get the drop on the enemy team with your 600DPS leveled straight toward their backline. But if you do this in solo queue, or even if you've only coordinated with the Lucio and Mercy players, chances are you'll be reported for throwing and have the rest of your team leave the match. Not to mention if you play champions in unusual roles in League of Legends; even your own team isn't the limit. If you play a ranged champion in the top lane, you'd better invest in wards and boots ASAP to help survive every enemy in the game running across the map just to kill you, and you might as well abandon any hope of your team helping out as they've already written you off and decided to surrender at the earliest opportunity because of your champion.

[@DrownedLamp]

Him: In Div Orginal Sin u can interact with the environment Me: Theres fire...everywhere Even the air is on fire

[@theshinken]

Divinity II theres eldritch fire-tentacles and elditch mist-locusts - which are on fire occasionally. Sometimes pure death-air. But one of those effects is absolutely everwhere.

[@FernandoIncetta]

Oh wait a minute, the fire is now cursed and can't be extinguished.

[@Nukestarmaster]

It's really great when you can start combat by TKing a conveniently placed barrel of oil right onto your enemy, then there's even more fire.

[@gannielukks1811]

@@FernandoIncetta Can be extinguished with a rain... OF BLOOD.

[@JohnWhitneyTheFourth]

Very interesting note on the use of tank. In 99% of games tank means chunky unit with high healing, shields, damage mitigation, or hp that lets the soak hits. However, specifically in Pokemon, players call the units that can only take damage and not do much Walls, while bulkier units that are able to actually threaten damage in return are referred to as tanks. I found this tid bit of higher accuracy to namesake interesting and thought I'd share.

[@waleedkhalid7486]

I knew about the term ‘wall’, but I typically refer to my bruiser type mons as ‘the guns’. 😂

[@JohnWhitneyTheFourth]

@@waleedkhalid7486 valid

[@WarLoqGamer]

also its worthwhile noting that pokemon has many delayed effects. (poison, that one psychic move that hits 3, turns after, etc) and enviroment effects (spikes, sharp stones, etc). Walls usually involve being an extremely bad trade for one type of enemy, while also having terrain or support abilities, including anti-terrain abilities that clear the terrain

[@JohnWhitneyTheFourth]

@@WarLoqGamer sure, perfect examples are toxipex or blissey with toxic to put the opponent on a timer to force them to switch out generally into hazards like steathrocks or spikes.

[@fdagpigj]

Tank for a high hp target isn't inaccurate though. Tanks are very hard to deal with without specialised anti-armour weaponry. Survivability is why tanks exist, as opposed to skipping the heavy armour and just sticking as many guns as possible on a motorized vehicle.

[@ejciicollins3200]

That's also their weakness is that you get locked into a position and a playing style that you can't really deviate from. Then on top of that you have to deal with the people that won't let you in the group if you don't have a certain spec or certain gear. Now it feels more like a job and not a game and you stop having fun. I like games that give you more character control like the old-school D&D and I also like games that allow you to have hybrid classes so you can truly play the game that you want and not fit into someone else's role of what they need.

[@tylerwellman8252]

Thats the one department where I think Everquest beat out a lot of other MMOs. Many hybrid classes that could fill the void. Also Crowd Control was it's own thing separate from the trinity and very much needed in the harder content.

[@Wolltazar]

That’s why drg is so great. Any class has something to offer and you almost never get to the point where you’re kicked out for playing one class or the other..

[@uwumacaronitime]

Actually, Streets of Rogue is a really good case study for the Trinity- Because of it's unique almost completely reliant on systemic gameplay, it actually has a ton more depth- characters aren't necessarily a damage dealer , tank, or support, but more a stealth, charismatic, or combat builds... Every character is (for the most part) alright at every other role (through sometimes unorthodox methods), but the clear outline in specializations allow for extremely unique situations where your usually stealth / pacifist-based character suddenly learns how to use a gun better than your blunt force combat class midway through a run. It essentially destroys the trinity entirely wand focuses on its own thing, annd while you could argue "blunt force" is just "damage dealer" its hard to say that simply being pacifist and sneaking by your enemies or convincing them to just leave is a support or tank.

[@mystak3n]

Why has literally every game design youtuber posted in the past 5 days Not complaining though

[@ArchitectofGames]

We all agreed in the Secret KZbinr Council meeting last week

[@sjjdkxjcbejsj]

But you didn't put persona 5 thumbnail and didn't talk about it

[@grfrjiglstan]

They have Discord groups, these things happen. One time all the Smash youtubers got together and posted videos about Wendy Koopa in the same day.

[@mystak3n]

Shhhh we don’t want him getting in trouble with them

[@achillesa5894]

yall got any game design youtubers to recommend? I saw Daryl Talks Games, DX and Bricky all uploaded today, but I need more!

[@pepi7404]

Monster Hunter handled this fairly well so far. The recent one even has spicy enemy to enemy interaction.

[@MyNameIsMir]

Monster Hunter does it well because its system doesn't allow the trinity to happen while also making the trinity the best strategy. Think of it this way: damage in monster hunter is always avoidable, if you are damaged you're going to be punished for it by not being able to attack and waste resources and even if you're playing a shielding weapon, there's also no agro mechanic which makes them harder to play in multiplayer. Whenever you see a rpg trinity you also see no mechanic that reliently lets you avoid damage. The reason there's a tank is that damage cannot be avoided, there's a healer because tanks can't regenerate health as fast and a damage dealer because it the previous roles don't have the damage to dispatch bigger enemies in a timely manner. That being said, if you were to play a version of WOW where raids have very telegraphed attacks and no "auto attack" or unavoidable damage then you'd stop seeing tanks as part of the meta because if all damage can be avoided then why have damage sponge in your team?

[@Shakzor1]

Well, you can only at most really utilize the trinity lite. You can try to tank with Lance by using the Silkbind move and the Diversion skill trying to get more aggro, but the monsters still attack anything and the only two weapons really effective at support are the Hunting Horn and Sword and Shield, but those were like that since the beginning and effectively, you still want to maximize dmg and reduce the need to heal/support with those. Ideally, everyone completely focuses on dmg and don't take any dmg at all, hence none of the weapons are really tank, dps or heal but rather all dps with one being able to slightly TRY to tank and two being able to support but doing less dmg when focusing on it, making the hunt longer in exchange.

[@114418514]

@@MyNameIsMir Just a correction: there always has been a hidden aggro mechanic in all MHs (at least from freedom), in MHRise there a deco called diversion jewel which raises your aggro more.

[@silverbullet11793]

@@MyNameIsMir There is an agro system on MH. Namely it agroes to highest damage dealer in the immediate area. It also agroes to someone who uses healing potion in an area. I know this since being a HBG main if I agro the monster by dealing crap ton of damage the monster will head straight to me even if i am quite far. And you do not want to agro the monster if you do range since it will prolong the hunt.

[@PipPanoma]

Reading these replies, I think the reason the holy trinity almost doesn't exist in Monster Hunter is because the Enemy to Ally and Ally to Ally interactions are very limited. The game is almost exclusively Ally to Enemy. There's a few skills that can do those things, but the developers made sure to compensate the lack of options with self sufficiency. You COULD play a healer, but why would you if other people can heal themselves just as effectively. The limited healing resources also play a role in this. Limited potions will cause the healer to run out of heals very quickly, so it's best for the healing resources to be spread out over the party.

[@DevourerDragons]

I think that League of Legend's roles are actually very smart: There are seven classes in total, with average of two subclasses per class: Controllers (supporters), divided into enchanter (healer) and Catcher (CC/utility); Fighters (off-tanks): Juggernauts (DPS tanks with low mobility), Divers (High mobility, med defense, burst); Mages: Burst (single target magic damage spike), battlemage (low range DPS with self sustain), artillery (high damage, high range paper tissue with usually little to no self defense); Marksman: No real subclasses, but you can divide them into ability and auto attack based, they deal physical damage at range; Slayers: Assassins (can be magic or physical, burst and mobility, but low defense), skirmisher (duelists, basically melee marksmen with better defense and mobility); Tanks: Vanguards (engagers, jump in, do your CC, take no damage, have fun), Warden (defensive tanks, worse engage, but they can keep divers and assassins effectively at bay) And specialists. Which is just everything else, and shapeshifters. They excel at zone control, and psychological damage. (invisible poison landmines, turrets that attack on their own, you name it)

[@iaxacs3801]

Mentioning the environment being a 4th type of class made me think about pokemon and how competitively there is 4 major types of Pokémon "classes". Sweepers are DPS, Blissey is a great example of a tank, status ailment inflictors play the support role, and in a vein aligning with but being separate to support is hazard/weather setters like Tyranitar who alter how the entire fight will go by just their mere presence. The proof it exists is in how Gen 5 competitively revolved entirely around weather and almost since the beginning of pokemon hazards have been a massive part of competitive play

[@tarvoc746]

Another element that's ignored in the Holy Trinity is Enemy-Enemy interactions. Classes that interrupt enemy supporters or even turn enemies against each other, or otherwise disrupt or control enemy-enemy interactions on the battlefield, could be a fourth pillar and might be damn interesting to play.

[@jacks1368]

Crowd control used to be considered the fourth role. Over time it got folded into the others.

[@no-lifenoah7861]

pick classes and crowd controllers

[@waleedkhalid7486]

I really like abilities that let me influence my enemies to turn them against each other, the issue is that they tend to be either OP as hell (why even bother with a healer if the enemies are just going to kill themselves?) or almost useless (the ability only effects enemies up to specific levels).

[@AdamChan318]

I'm not too convinced with it being called enemy -> enemy or the "forth pillar", what you're describing sounds more like an ally -> enemy -> enemy scenario, where the ally is usually a type of hexer, debuffer, disruptor, etc. It is definitely more interesting than a plain ally -> enemy at least haha

[@tarvoc746]

@@AdamChan318 Well yes, it can't be *pure* enemy -> enemy, because obviously, your own character has to get involved somehow. But more generally speaking, enemy -> enemy is a relevant interaction on the battlefield, and the easiest to overlook when it comes to designing character roles precisely because your character isn't directly involved in it. Messing with it would thus always be messing with an element of the game that is normally outside your own agency and interaction, and I actually think that is what makes it particularly interesting.

[@neoshenlong]

"A Tank isn't a force of destruction" *shows Overwatch* Yeah. Actually....

[@buttsmcgee50]

Also, healers are expected to DPS too. People complain that Moira players get too caught up in dpsing. Ana players are considered good if they use their nade offensively rather than defensively. Lucio players meme about spawn camping people. Baptiste can do almost as much damage as soldier 76. Zen is pretty much just a DPS with a healing orb.

[@GodlySchnoz]

@@buttsmcgee50 and a debuff orb

[@Bomber679]

@@buttsmcgee50 If Zenyatta wasn't meant to flank they would have given him footsteps.

[@Sarindanvelor]

except mercy then you just walk the dogs

[@crinsombone5380]

A tank is a force of destruction that's just more specialized than the dps

[@googiegress7459]

Renaming "Healer" to "Support" is one thing that strengthens the trinity concept more than it actually is, because it takes roles like info gathering, area denial, deception, mobility, economy, buff/debuff which easily breaks the trinity, and crams it in under an ill-fitting trinity category. The real trinity is "attract enemy damage to my health bar and mitigate it", "lower the enemy health bar while avoiding having it attack me", and "increase friendly health bar", and that trinity exists because of the usual single win condition of someone's health bar hitting zero, but does not preclude dozens of distinct variations on those three characters in the same game plus other characters who don't interact with health bars at all. Which is to say the trinity is only as real as the game is simple.

[@masonkennedy8089]

“Fire emblem stops you using a mega unit” In I come with my Heavy Knight Hilda who takes no physical damage at all and has high resistance and crits on counterattack 50% of the time, and usually counterattacks twice…

[@Marta1Buck]

in a game of dota, you can be the three at once. It depends on how drunk icefrog has become.

[@user-mc2lg4iw9e]

Damn, you just released my childhood memory of slark becoming god lmao.

[@willwalsh7591]

Io players be like

[@astuginmalupit6531]

Im playing lol currently. Remembering viper is long range and his playstyle is tank makes me realize that dota had a chaotic balance system.

[@Valigarmanda]

@@astuginmalupit6531 and yet people still look to dota for "decent balancing" sounds like dota players have stockholm syndrome with their game as well.

[@noobiedogg670]

Like who? Can't think of anyone who can tank heal/support or be the main damage dealer , unless you talking about being 6 slotted which doesn't make sense

[@insanemang9983]

Essentially it creates order in fights with multiple players, because otherwise team coordination would be 10x harder if everyone had to act individually at specific times with specific abilities and in a specific order so that abilities that otherwise would only be juggled by a handful of players aren't being wasted by multiple people using them at the same time.

[@MrStoffzor]

Pretty much Guild Wars 2 group PvE

[@stevetoalacox]

No, thats just how things started, and its bacause its reasonable. Adventures and stories all of them are conquered by a PARTY, a PARTY where each member help each other with their different habilities, having only 1 overpowered character makes things unreal and boring. You see, RPG video games were based on table RPG, and table RPG was trying to build an epic story in which the participants werent overpowered people, just people with an hability. You see, having an archer that can cast magic and heal is very weird, and really makes no sense. Just remeber the lord of the rings, everyone has to play their part, other ways it would be so boring to see some overpowered guy going against Sauron's army and coming out victorious, that would be horrible. The thing is that nowadays Most games are about overpowered characters and thats why I think this guy had to explain it even tho he did it pretty bad, and actually didnt explained where the "PARTY" thing came from.

[@stevetoalacox]

@Barley what?? 😂

[@youngpharaohdisciple3962]

@@stevetoalacox what the fuck are you talking about ff4 was fine with an archer that can heal and d&d is fine with bards that can use bows and do magic

[@wozify]

@@stevetoalacox But it also facilitates encounter design by the developers. In a table RPG, unless you've got a sadistic GM, if they're familiar with the party going in then they're not likely to design encounters that the party will be cripplingly bad at dealing with. Similarly, if the party has a naturally good Trinity balance then they can cope with more situations more effectively, which is a benefit both to party and GM. When you translate that to MMOs, where encounters are intended to provide a fixed level of challenge, very rapidly it descends into "We need a minimum (x) tanks, (y) healers and then the rest should be DPS to get us through the encounter ASAP" and/or before enrage timers kick in to prevent abuse of the system such as 1 tank + 5 healers and a party willing to be patient in exchange for a guaranteed win. The developers then need to ensure each class has the mechanics to do it's role effectively, and can build the encounters around that, which basically enforces specialisation and, as the video points out, throttles you into optimising your build in highly predictable ways - especially as the difficulty level of encounters goes up. That isn't necessarily a problem, until you include PvP - at which point, the rules change and the Holy Trinity becomes increasingly garbage. Tanks aren't allowed to enforce aggro mechanics on other players, and so need a totally revamped set of abilities and/or game modes where it's actually useful to have a specific character be hard to kill. Support also need some incentive to be support rather than, y'know, just bringing another DPS - typically that means ensuring a team with a support class does more damage / takes less damage than the equivalent team without it, which a) tends to make them slightly overpowered and b) brings them into conflict and overlap with Tank classes, especially if all classes have a spread of mechanics that make them viable in solo play. GW2 at least took a crack at disrupting this, and in some ways and on some levels it worked - but in practice, there still tended to be a lot of specialisation back into the Trinity because of the additional efficiency this gave to player groups in both PvE and PvP.

[@wagyanbabangg]

I like the example of Guild Wars 2 because I happen to have experience with it, and while in 5 and 10 man pve content these roles do exsist, they exsist with a broad spectrum of differences and classes that can provide support in some form and still provide damage (Such as Firebrands and Soulbeasts). While it is not impossible for a whole squad to bring well rounded gear into an encounter, it is much simpler for people to focus in on a role they enjoy instead of doing a little bit of everything. The variety of classes and their mechanics also provide enough flavor for people to enjoy playing the same role on different classes in different ways. Just because it is more efficient to specialize into one of the trinities roles does not mean in this case that they all feel similar at all, and even the changes from say one support to the next will change up your gameplay significantly.

[@Motidur]

Guild wars 2 is a great example! Although I dont play it religiously, Its been my "home" game since it launched. Almost any class can do any role, in a completely different way from eachother. In some situations the guardian might be a prefered healer, in some other cases a druid, or elementalist might be the better choice. The Tank, healer, dps trinity is a very blury thing in gw2 xD. What is also very fun is how experienced groups can switch it all up immediatly at a click of a button: Me doing the healer role for a few dungeon runs to my group: Me: Hey guys, I wanna deal damage too! :D Friend: Aight, I wanted to heal, wanna switch? Or When we suddenly lose a player cause they went offline or wanted to do something else: Friend: We just lost a healer/Dps/"Tank", anyone wanna do it? Me: Sure, we needed some CC for the next fight right? Gimme a sec to switch to the right skills.

[@MultiMVirus]

Back in the day, there were games that tried to escape the holy trinity. Guild Wars 2 and Champions Online tried to make everyone the healer, dps and tank of their team! However, this was counter to how players believed the game should function.... They added more and more to the support playstyles such as buffing, healing and tanking... Until it basically flattened into the holy trinity being the main particular playstyle with some buffer/CCer roles.

[@nikolajriedel7048]

@@Motidur that pretty much sums up my experience too. There are always competitive people who want to things in an efficient meta way and that may be true for the peak contents, but if its just casual t4 or strikes more often than not you find some chill groups or leaders who are fine if there is anyone who can bring a certain element. And the content is very doable without having to be minmaxed to the very top. Experience and Communication are key Elements in Raids and whatnot but i very much like the not so strict content and switching my necro playstyle on the fly or trying out different content with different classes and just having fun trying stuff out and still being able to tackle the open world if you are not too reckless. And honestly, running around with the nighttrains zerging worldbosses was such a goofy and wholesome environment, love to all GW2 Players :D

[@mattbosiak5005]

It was interesting to hear the environmental effect stuff classed as another dimension, since I have always considered those things to be partially within Support and partially within Damage.

[@squidheadss7105]

Meanwhile optimal dungeons and dragons 3rd edition roles be like -the caster -the caster -the caster -the caster -the caster

[@saraolt]

you don't need to heal anyone or tank anything if your opponent is already dead and/or cant move :))

[@this_is_japes7409]

the company isn't called *wizards* of the coast for nothing

[@normal6483]

Tanking: Cleric/Druid summons monsters to take damage and draw aggression, or alters the battlefield to limit enemy engagement. Healing: Cleric/Druid casts healing spells, buffs, and removes harmful conditions. Damage Dealing: Cleric paralyzes enemy and lands a coup de grace with their deity's favored weapon. Druid wild shapes and goes sicko mode on the enemy. Unsurprisingly, the CoDzilla (Cleric-or-Druid-zilla) can fulfill every single role the party might need, all within a single build. I think this might actually be why the original Tier system came about - all the "Tier 1" classes were capable of engaging with every single issue a party might come up with. Be it enemy-on-player, player-on-enemy, or player-on-player. The whole Holy Trinity, all in one.

[@GrimoireM]

@@normal6483 To be fair Summoning and Minionmancy basically does this to every caster in early D&D. Get to a high enough level and some Outsider will likely solve your problems and then some. It's not unique to Druids. Clerics and Druids just have an easier time setting themselves up for success because they get full access to their spell list and get to beatstick in the early levels even harder than the Fighter. Yet in spite of that most people consider the 3.5e Artificer to be the only Tier 0 class because with enough time they can mimic any spell period by crafting it, but they're essentially weaker than the Wizard (widely regarded as the best of the Tier 1s because Arcane Magic has some really busted 8th and 9th level spells that the Cleric/Druid don't get access to for nothing (If you're casting 8th and 9th level spells your Deity should be involved in the plot as a Cleric and you can no longer ignore Climate Change as a Druid), because unlike the Wizard they rely 100% on spell research, which the DM can (and should) regulate or take note of.

[@theshinken]

2nd ed: Fighter/Mage/Cleric Fighter/Mage/Cleric Fighter/Mage/Cleric Fighter/Mage/Cleric Fighter/Mage/Thief

[@NotARussianDisinfoBot]

It took me a while to realize this, but the reason "Tanks" are named such is because tanks in real life combat are often used as a shield for soldiers to hide behind. Still kind of confusing because you would also think tanks can do a lot of damage, but it makes more sense now why they soak up hits for their allies.

[@kirtil5177]

i guess its because tanks are prominent for their armour, meanwhile their cannons can be used by frail artillery guns and as such aren't that unique, and also the word itself is simple and short

[@Gaehhn]

Vehicles are tanks, Infantry is DPS and Artillery is Support This also plays into the trope that some support classes end up as very viable DPS in certain cases.

[@commander5983]

The reality is much more complicated and definitely doesn't translate well. I would say it's probably not recommended to use vehicles for cover because they attract enemy fire, and due to their defenses/size it's usually HEAVY enemy fire, they may also accidentally flatten those around them and explode quite violently.

[@rafaelbordoni516]

Before tanks existed, there were European knights that would charge onward and disrupt enemy formation. There were also elephants used on war for the same objective, but larger and less mobile. And back at the bronze age, most civilizations used chariots for that role as well. It just evolved into armored vehicles and got that neat name later, but that role always existed. It's funny because in all cases, the "tanks" were absolute forces of destruction that couldn't be ignored. The staple defense focus came to be on WoW, where your enemies have a stupid abusable AI. I think dota 2 and lol have the closes approximation to their real world counterparts, where you always hear the classic "ignore the tank, go for the dps" but it's near impossible because they will maul your team if ignored. Tanks are still like this in D&D as well, tank and dps are the same role there, often referred to as martial. Some can focus on dps and be unable to take many hits, but these are often not that better at dealing damage than the martials, but they make it up by being good at other stuff, often non-combat related.

[@erock.steady]

a tank come rolling in first, stealing the spotlight in hopes of inspiring panic thus compelling all eyes remain glued upon the BEAST that it is to instill an overalll sense of disarray, dreadfully aware of the fact they've shot their load to no avail and the only recourse at their disposal is to YELL AND SCREAM BLOODY HELL AND MURDEROUS CHILDREN ABOUT THE YARD!!! while the snipers take up positions and shred the opposition. rinse repeat, because - support!

[@MissBeeBonnet]

As both an Ecologist and a Gamer, I’m HIGHLY amused to find a wider body of Gamers discovering and exploring the concept of Niche Partitioning, which is exactly why the Holy Trinity and its many offshoots and derivatives show up so much; it’s actually a fairly interesting mirror of why a number of individual species and the broader ecosystems they inhabit are the way they are!

[@reyhaz]

I remember the time, when our whole raid group wiped at Heigan in Naxxramas (WoW:WotLK), only the pally Main tank survived.. and he soloed the boss for us while we were watching dead on the floor. And it was waaay before Ulduar or Trial of the Crusader were introduced, so we were just started gearing up in Naxx.. also in a different game (where you can de-level by dying too much): healer says: "Why should I heal you, when I can res you?"

[@LeaksHater]

"A tank isn't a force of destruction..." LoL tanks: "Let's agree to disagree."

[@arzr_er]

Why I stopped playing They could fend off ADCs, they could fend off assassins, they could fend off mages and casters, they could fend off bruisers and they could fend off other tanks How the fuck is a class that wins every 1v1 matchup be balanced? At least Kog Maw was decent against them

[@meanwhileinmyhead1877]

The best case of this is D&D. Ironically, despite being a progenitor of the trinity itself, D&D tanks have always been very high on damage. This is mainly because its tabletop nature means there's no exploitable AI for a tank to keep aggro on, and instead all the enemies are controlled by a real person. If tank builds were *only* meat shields, competent enemies would have no reason to prioritize them instead of just rushing down your squishy casters. Barbarians solve this by having good base damage, improved crits, and the option to fish for them with Reckless Attack at the cost of defense. They essentially adapt into top-tier damage dealers unless actively forced to tank. A barbarian left to spam Reckless Attacks unchecked will have some of the best damage in the game. Paladins are similar, flexing into damage and support as needed. Paladins don't have particularly good damage output with their regular attacks, but they offer auras, crowd control spells and defensive buffs that make them an obvious first target. And given the option, paladins can nuke any single target they can get in melee range of on-demand with Smites.

[@JDReC100]

Tanks in League are so....strange some tanks can transition into pure nukers other are able to be too defensive to kill but deal uncomfortably large amounts of damage (so expect them to get permabanned or hard nerfed) and then there are the ones who do Crowd control well, but dont have enough survivability to last a few seconds... being a tank main is a weird (and at times frustrating) gig

[@leetri]

That's because 90% of the champions people call "tanks" aren't actually tanks. You're not gonna see Rell, Alistar, Braum or Taric decimate an entire team. Most of the time when people say "tanks" they mean Juggernauts or Divers, champions like Mundo, Illaoi, Volibear, etc. League tanks still deal a fair bit of damage, otherwise they'd just be ignored, but they're not gonna get a pentakill on their own (unless supremely fed).

[@zeehero7280]

Laughs in every FF14 tank class, (it also happens to be far and away the most class balanced MMO out there right now)

[@debrisposting4904]

Kenshi's combat is really interesting! There's no support classes! There's the huge sword guy, the small sword guy, the crossbow guy, the guy who kicks limbs off and the medical team for when the fights over and everyone is missing limbs and bleeding out!

[@Snarfcakes]

Couldn't agree more, kind of finicky without some mods sometimes but it's still so enjoyable.

[@debrisposting4904]

@Lumiar PROJECT TACTICS?! IN KENSHI HA! Ya definitely raise a good point but kenshi tends to break the mold of the class system since alot of battles rely on numbers and the skill of the fighters. Though dodge taunt tank are a possibility I'd say most times it won't be that effective when dealing with extremely powerful enemies or alot of enemies in general! But thanks for the idea! I'm definitely gonna have try it next time I play!

[@Dilligff]

I agree that Kenshi has to be one of the most unique games ever made, and I love it. But Kenshi is ultimately a single player game that is akin to the Sim's with combat. The trinity dynamic will almost invariably come into play when you have multiple players involved and systems that allow for specialization. I personally go against the grain in most of my MMO's by picking utilitarian features, giving me something of a hybrid advantage. I'd get chastised occasionally for not being 'optimal' dps, but praised frequently when I finished off a boss when it seemed all hope was lost. Roles are unavoidable, but I think more games should encourage pushing boundaries.

[@debrisposting4904]

@@Dilligff oh for sure, counterpoint: scary giraffes

[@Dilligff]

@@debrisposting4904 F*** beak things.

[@Devastish]

Oddly enough, I actually used to do something like this with my friends in COD. The roles were just slightly different and much more fluid: Slayer, Objective, Defense. Slayers go hog wild and try to keep the enemy off balance. Objective players focus on the win condition (be it capping flags or planting bombs) Defense sets up in a power position to control the map and draw attention. You can easily switch back and forth between them as the situation demands and based on where you are on the map. OBJ's would quite often switch into defense or slayer roles once they took the objective in "take and hold" situations. DEFs could move up, and Slayers could fall back to help with the objective as needed. I suppose you can apply the logic to any team game, so it's no wonder that the trinity permeates multiplayer.

[@IAmMrGreat]

I'd just like to say that "Tank" makes perfect sense. Guns and cannons were a thing before tanks came, tank destroyers are specifically made to penetrate and destroy armour. Originally they were called landships but the British codenamed them tanks because the hull resembled a watertank. The name is because of it's ability to protect it's crew, just like a tank in videogames.

[@grfrjiglstan]

15:26 That actually is a perfect illustration of Nintendo's 4-step design, what the fuck

[@dolraithonyxblade5998]

There is one more aspect that I think you glossed over a little bit. Each of the three pillars brings its own type of satisfaction. Damage dealing is the pleasure of watching numbers go up, bars go down and things explode. It is the most straightforward and the easiest to measure. Tanking has the pleasure of control. People who like to feel in control love tanking, and for good reason. The attitude of people who LIKE tanking (and don't do it out of necessity) naturally tends to make them leaders, and in a way gives them authority over the team. Thus when the dpses are exploding all the enemies and the fight goes smoothly, the tank feels good. The healer is the trickiest of the three, as its satisfaction tends to come from watching over the team and being appreciated. Anyone who has used random groups can tell you this is rare to the extreme, but feels very nice when it happens! (Note, often most appreciation comes from the tanks, who keep track of the situation and can actually see what you're doing). However, if you delve into steady pre-made teams, such as guilds or friend groups, healing pleasure becomes much easier to find. I think that most people who play are looking for the big boom. And this is why the typical ratio of tank:dps:healer tends to be around 1:4:1 when left alone.

[@tarvoc746]

Hmmm... I'm someone who loves to feel in control, but I prefer damage over tanking.

[@lizardlegend42]

@@tarvoc746 it's a general sentament, not a rule

[@thorveim1174]

Even without being leaders, tanks are satisfying in another way: being able to just go into the thick of a fight withotu being instantly vaporised. Feeling you can go confront anything the game throws at you without dying as long as peopel are supporting you is thrilling. Also, tanks are few in numbers for another reason: unless a fight has multiple enemies that need to be tanked separately in a fight, it is just way more efficient to have only one tank: it makes it so support is focused instead of split up, and more tanks than necessary don't bring anything to the table beyond safety should one fall down, which shouldn't happen in the first place. But yeah, also being the cornerstone.. because if you die? The team will swiftly follow.

[@Sorain1]

The funny thing I've realized over decades of playing healers in MMO's is that I enjoy things the most when I either don't have anything to do. (it's all going great.) or I'm the only reason we didn't wipe. (it ALL goes wrong.) There really is a fantasy of being that quiet member of the team in the back seemingly doing nothing important, and then when it hits the fan being the reason people survived.

[@WaveOfDestiny]

I love being in control of what happens to my character. But control can also take the form of shooting your enemy's head before he does. I don't like betting on luck, betting on the failure of my enemy, or betting for my ally to do the job right. Support seems to be a nono for me unless it can sustain and survive by itself. But I can choose both damage and tank, it just depends on what role has the highest skill to reward ratio. I like tanks because they have enough health that if they die, it's more their fault for bad positioning, not just the enemy that popped off. I like dps because you can survive by killing the enemy first. Roadhog in overwatch is tank, dps with the hook, and self sustains with self heal, it's not perfect but it hits right in the spot, but in Paladins I go sniper because the game lets you self sustain and win fights by yourself with skilled shots.

[@Awfulturtle]

Idea: you can see a seperate stat in the corner that is different from your normal stats. Your defence, damage, and heals are all at 100. Whenever you heal, healing goes down by 10 and the other two go up by 10. The number’s minimum is 10 and maximum is 100. The higher the number, the better it works. Also they all go up 10 every 30 seconds if none are at 100, 10 every 20 seconds if 1 is at 100, and 10 every ten seconds if 2 are at 100, but it would be slower or non-existent during battle. This forces you to use a mix of attacking, defending, and healing, or be 10% as powerful as you would’ve been.

[@Darkness-qp8bc]

Other than the DnD mistake, there was also one about Rocket League, as in the game there are no classes at all, as dividing players into "you attack" and "you defend" goes against the proper way of playing, which is every player playing any position at any time. Yes, there should be someone who scores, someone who supports/passes to the striker and someone who defends a counter attack, but unlike other games, in Rocket League it's important for every player in the field to know how to play any position instead of "maining" one over the others, this focus gets more obvious the fewer players are on the field; with 3 players on each side (the "default" gamemode) you can pause a replay at almost any moment and identify which player is playing which position; with 2 on each side, one player is a mix of the striker and the support while the other is a mix of the defender and support; and with 1 player on each side, obviously, you have to play all three positions at the same time always.

[@sawlsberrysteak]

The FF14 roster is just DPS with a few classes that just happened to tank and heal when they aren't dpsing I love it

[@piedpiper1172]

Never forget we used to not even turn our tank stances on because we are disciples of the church of SWOL DEEEPZ

[@zeehero7280]

@@piedpiper1172 Glad they fixed that by changing the tank stance and removing dps stance lol. But yes a tank is supposed to deal damage, and so is a healer. DPS isnt ONLY the dps job, because enemies have HP. if you are not dealing damage at all you are not at peak performance end of discussion. No, of course no one said tanks and healers should do as much dps, but about half under good conditions? absolutely reasonable.

[@zeehero7280]

This should be the example for other trinity MMOs. Healbotting and meatshield tanking are sad excuses for the roles, and really really un fun.

[@piedpiper1172]

@@zeehero7280 Bruh I’ve finished normal roulettes of trial and raids as top dps as a tank. Preaching to the choir. I have uploads of the first SB tier parsing as GNB.

[@sawlsberrysteak]

I remember tanking the last two thirds Stone Vigil as a monk because our tank dced lmao

[@Dharengo]

FF14 has evolved into a state where DPS is now everyone's job. Conversely, the DPS's job aside from dealing damage has become "Stay Alive, Because The Healer Healing You Is A DPS Loss".

[@TheMaxCloud]

yeah, he shouldve said stuff about FF 14 and how it handles the holy trinity. Because in that game: even if you heal you also have to DPS. If you tank: you better also do good DPS. And if you DPS: You better do good DPS and not take damage cause a healer healing is a DPS loss.

[@piedpiper1172]

I like how they worked gcd healing into WHM dps.

[@DarthRadical]

Yeah - I think that WoW lost something from older MMOs by adding taunts - or at least by makin them so good. It's pretty easy to maintain aggro in WoW just by cycling a few abilities. In older MMOs the tanks still needed to deal enough damage to maintain aggro, and damaging characters would sometimes even limit their damage to avoid claiming aggro. Added more of a tactical element. The DPS needed to be durable enough to take a few hits in case aggro got pulled, and sometimes they'd just accept getting hit by weaker foes when dishing out AOEs while the tank focused on the elite. I do feel like a system could really lean into that as a core gameplay pillar - though it'd be a tough line to walk.

[@Dharengo]

@@DarthRadical I can only think for myself. But making the game in a way that a DPS literally is disallowed from going full burst is just bad design. Why give people a tool which kills them if they use it?

[@DarthRadical]

@@Dharengo It wasn't always a bad thing to do. Good for finishing someone off. Or for dealing with the minions along with the main threat. It just wasn't a matter of always cycling through your highest DPS combos all of the time or risk attracting aggro. It was situational. If you're going full burst all the time - it's not actually interesting IMO - it's mundane.

[@stem3009]

something that came to mind is high-mobility characters that can't really do dmg, tank very well or support allies but instead, merely by existing they attract enemy fire, so for example "flank" class in paladins or scout from tf2, your job would be to divert enemies to lock onto you, like a tank but you are staying alive just by zooming around the map instead of relying on your healer, popping in and out of combat like an annoying fly, or you can spring to objectives and use crowd control abilities that manipulate enemy's positions such as windblasts or gravity-type moves also an inspiration from last airbender, since i assumed firebenders to be dmg dealers since all they do is hurt, earthbenders can be tanks as they are more on defensive sides and waterbenders that can heal or freeze enemies, that leaves us with airbenders who are very mobile and can fill on recon/crowd control/assassin roles in your typical hero-shooters so what im saying is, the 4th core class should be someone that breaks/fixes the holy trinity altogether another idea is to divide healers and support from each other, supports should do everything that healers cannot so again, crowd control/recon/debuffs/etc.

[@mikejh1604]

I have to add this here, Darkest Dungeon (one of my fav games) also pushes the limits of the trinity. Although there are healers, tanks and damage dudes, there are multiple other ways to interact. The jester and hound master are both support, but don’t heal, and only recover stress. The antiquarian does basically nothing, but allows you to find better treasure. I think the game really pushes the system’s limits and makes it far more interesting

[@josephzs1208]

All you need is one guy being bad at their given job for the entire holy trinity group to fall apart no matter how skilled the rest of the team is. It is way too powerful and yet way too fragile.

[@katomamundara8106]

That's why it's called "Teamwork". If you don't work as a team, then the team falls apart and requires quick thinking to compensate.

[@WadeAllen001]

Unless it's a dps. In a 5 man dungeon in a game like WoW you can always afford to have 1 dps running into a wall for 8 minutes straight, sometimes even 2 of them. And in a 20 man raid you can have like 6 dps not know what they're doing. And in a 40 man raid in classic WoW you can have about 18 dps doing nothing and get away with it.

[@katomamundara8106]

@@WadeAllen001 And in FFXIV in 19/20 different cases in a Savage/Extreme/Ultimate Raid you have one DPS being dead weight and you're probably going to be cursing up a storm as they're slowing down/wiping everything. Dungeons and normal 8/24 man raids are a different story, ofc. :>

[@shutup1037]

@@WadeAllen001 that's why people with dps role become thrashable kek

[@garrnk]

@@WadeAllen001 true but once you get into the mythic dungeons and raids 1 dps can ruin the run and wipe the group. This goes out the window with enough clears and gear ofc but at the start yeah 1 person not doing their role and doing it well will eventually fail

[@Tobascodagama]

I've never thought of mapping the trinity roles onto types of interaction before, that's a pretty genius way to reframe the discussion.

[@misterbrady100]

The only way I can think of to move past the trinity successfully is to allow players to simultaneously be dps and support (with each class doing it differently) at the same time.

[@saparapatepete]

In many games an easy way to implement this is to make the effect depend on who you are targeting, for example, a wizard shoots balls of lighting that electrify when hitting enemies but if it hits an ally it grant an electric field that increases their moving speed. Another option could be to make an effect that can be good or bad depending of the context, for example, a beam that makes you trade places with the target, be it an ally or an enemy. You could use it to protect a friend or to put an enemy into a horrible situation.

[@kazfirepsn614]

I think Dofus did a wonderful job of class based tactical combat back in 2004. The game featured 12 playable classes, and each class had very different playstyles. Classes that went beyond just dps, tank, and heal (even though they existed). They had other classes that added great dynamics to a turn based, grid combat system like summoners that let their summon AI do the fighting, trap setters that had a lot of "3 turns ahead" based planning, a class that either healed or damaged an enemy based on a luck of the die method, and even a class that increased the drop chances from combat while providing cool support skills. It was a really cool game that had a pretty decent balance, much so that no matter what you played there was content specifically built in mind for you. Not every dungeon could be beaten by a single class, and it heavily relied on everyone providing a strong presence in the field. Over time that changed though, and the game it is today is far from the gold standard it set for itself. It still has good charms though, and more of a nostalgic factor for old players. It actually is so old it's an app on Google play now lol.

[@waiwai3704]

Actually, using the Triforce to represent DPS, Tank and support is pretty accurate, since it leaves the middle free for the fourth archetype: Utility. Which plays into and assists all adjacent archetypes, depending on the situation, and also does it's own thing. Like Utility Wizards and Bards in dnd. Even if the only thing bards really play "into" are barmaids.

[@erock.steady]

... what level is your bard, bro lol?

[@AnaseSkyrider]

A lot of games simply use some variation of "support", which fulfills different kinds of battlefield control or buffing/debuffing more broadly, and takes some of the CC power away from the tank and some of the buffing away from the healer to compensate. This is very similar to utility.

[@mortisCZ]

@@AnaseSkyrider In my books, utility characters are mostly out of combat problem solvers. PC games tend to have less of that content which makes those characters weaker.

[@sempersolus5511]

I keep hearing this stereotype, but every single bard in every group I've ever been in has been just as asexual as everyone else. That's not something you roleplay with friends.

[@Green24152]

Oh. That's a good one.

[@ananinunenon5092]

Looked at the description and was surprised to learn that Chrono trigger is coming out in 974 years.

[@jacob7718]

Well... I mean they gotta get it out before star citizen releases.

[@mtguille7193]

Wow this video was extremely enlightening with the player interaction axis bit. Thank you.

[@nexus1g]

I always thought the tank was so called because it was a heavily armored damage sponge that took quite a lot to take out. Like a tank on the battlefield.

[@luminouswolf7117]

That’s how I see it It draws enemies attention precisely because it can take hit after hit It taunts to get attention away from the healer and dps Because it’s the only one that can handle it

[@luminouswolf7117]

That way, healer and dps can focus on their strengths … and not die

[@rodrigobueno8652]

Just one correction: Thief was not at the first launch of the dnd, and its really debatable if he is a pure dpser in 1e ( or other editions but 4e) as a lot of functions a thief does in the party are more about his interactions with the environment ( stealth, disarming traps, scouting)

[@lustforlike]

Rogue/thief isn't a DPS class until at least D&D 4e. Before that, they have moderate combat abilities, and are more geared towards out-of-combat utility.

[@IONATVS]

Yeah, I’d characterize the 1e AD&D “base classes” (since the vid is clearly talking about that, not the OG or B&E versions of the games) as Fighter: Main Tank AND Main Melee DPS Cleric: Main Support, Off-Tank, Off-Utility and Specialized Off-DPS vs Undead Magic User: Main Ranged DPS (and the ONLY guy with real AoEs), Off-Utility Thief: Main Utility and Specialized Off-DPS (only effective if undetected) Monk: Main Melee DPS, Off-Tank (Evasion type) and Bard: True Jack-of-All Trades. The other classic AD&D classes were treated as variants in AD&D (Ranger, Paladin, Barbarian, & Cavalier = variant Fighter, Druid = variant Cleric, Illusionist = Variant Magic User, Thief-Acrobat & Assassin = variant Thief, Monk and Bard didn’t have variants in the PHB or UA), so gonna use that as my excuse not to discuss, even tho they frequently had significantly different roles than their base class (Assassin being an ACTUAL DPS, for instance)

[@iaxacs3801]

So what I'm hearing is that Environment has always been a part of the "Trinity" from the beginning, hidden behind the scenes

[@IONATVS]

@@iaxacs3801 Well the term “the trinity” comes from MMOs, not D&D, people just like to retroactively (and incorrectly) apply it to the classic D&D archetypes...and forget the magic user, bard, and monk. So at the origins of the TERM, it was largely accurate, because most early MMOs either didn’t bother with environmental challenges or gave everyone equal tools to notice & play around them (or fail to). But yeah, that dimension of play where you’re protecting the party from traps and spotting ambushes to level fights in your favor has been there since the beginning.

[@xristoskoumpourlis1614]

in 3,5 the rogue is most certainly a kind of dps class but has utility through his skills and later his pecial abilities

[@TheAurgelmir]

My favorite "Turn order manipulation" board game was in "Samurai and Katana", where the player with the least points each game round would become Emperor, and dictated each turns order in that round. The one with the most points was Shogun, who gained some advantages in combat. (I seem to remember) It makes for an interesting catch up mechanic, but also enables a lot of in game diplomacy. If the emperor likes you, he can forego some of his advantage to help you get ahead too. Or in some of our games, one player would often not play to win, instead playing to be the emperor and screw with everyone.

[@Ramsey276one]

Link please?

[@kid14346]

This video is so interesting because I keep seeing characters from games i play doing things that aren't their jobs in the trinity. Like watching that Rampart with a gold backpack revive a Lifeline got me twisting in my skin. Seeing the Specialist GREMLIN Drone being used as a damage dealer instead of a long range Healer got me a bit ruffled too, like I know it can do that, but it isn't my playstyle for them as a support class.

[@Dismiazs]

Like you said, trinity are based on how the player interact in game. In tactical FPS for example where player can die with one bullet by any player, the classic tank-dps-support doesn't quite work. However, in valorant for example, they have a more 2D scale between aggressive agent and defensive agent. There are officially 4 type of agent. From the most aggresive to defensive there are; Duelist, the one who enter the site and do the first contact. Initiator, the one who sets things up so the duelist can have the upperhand in the first contact. Controller, the one who controls the information and enemy position. Lastly Sentinel, who defends an area. It's also interesting that even csgo despite all player have the same power, roles are still divided.

[@RobleViejo]

This is why we need to give more credit to Heroes of the Storm Talent System, you can have the same character have a main role yet opt for talents that allow them to sort of cover other roles. For example ETC, the guitarist Tauren, is a CC based Tank, but he has a Talent at lvl 1 that allows you to heal teammates after completing a Quest. And is a very sizable heal. Most of the time I take it when we dont have a Healer and it actually works pretty damn well.

[@JayDee-vq5rf]

Yea you are correct. Great game on launch btw, but terrible matchmaker like all acti-bilz products.

[@cremecrimson9035]

That fourth class is probably just called “Control.”

[@hugog9788]

That’s what it’s called in DC online, nicknamed the troll, it focuses on cleansing, cc and power(mana) regeneration

[@LeoStaley]

So in quidich, (or however it's spelled, I only watched the movies.) there are two possible goals. Points and snitch catching. Let's say we added a new possible win condition to LOL, like a find and capture the flag(s) that are buried or hidden throughout the level. If one team finds and returns a certain threshold, they win. This would create a space for an entirely new set of roles, dedicated to finding the flags, protecting the flag finders, etc. You could even make it so that the dps character's skills all also happen to be the support for the flag finders, or the healers have a tank like role in relation to them. Make the flags themselves as possible permanent consumable buffs, and you have some serious and interesting choices for whether to collect them to win or consume them to win via the normal route.

[@cremecrimson9035]

@@vincentcircharo8259 support tends to be healer, buffer, debuffer Controller is more of controlling the map. Moving the team around, creating new terrain...

[@Joccaren]

​@@cremecrimson9035 This then falls into either tank or DPS: DPS: moving enemies into disadvantageous positions that cause them to die faster. Tank: moving enemies into positions that are disadvantageous as it reduces (Debuffs) the damage they can do. Support: Moving allies into positions that improve (buff) the damage they can do, or their resistance to damage of the enemies. Without a 'goal' outside the DPS race, all interactions eventually boil down to this, as explained in the video because of what they represent: Enemy to Ally, Ally to Ally, and Ally to Enemy interactions. Without a third subject, all interactions fall into one of those three categories, and thus fall into the Holy Trinity.

[@brainstormsurge154]

​@@cremecrimson9035 Ya, and when it comes to popular or well known games I would say that Thresh from League of Legends is the easiest example of a Controller. I know there's City of Heroes with the Mez but that's not as well known.

[@TMek42]

A part of the issue is that usually any indirect effect on the battle is either assigned to the support role (in order to make it appear more involved) or as flavour for when there are multiples of the same role. You can't really interact in other meaningful ways that don't affect enemies or allies or both - so at best it'd just be a hybrid class still within the confines of the trinity. The only way to break out of the trinity is to recontextualize the trinity or to add in more (or deepen existing) win conditions.

[@bulldozer8950]

The reason it’s so common is because there are basically two ways for people to form a team. everyone is good at everything and and no one is exceptional at anything. This is basically just a group of individuals. Or the true team, where everyone has a role. Once you do that though, the roles become pretty obvious. You want one person to maximize damage, one person to protect that person (and others), and one person to help do all the other things (healing if that’s an option, cc if that’s an option, or maybe some kind of crafting or non combat thing). Generally, this works good for any party, as it scales up very well. A support generally just increases the general power of the power multiplicatively, meaning you tend to only need one-2 supports, even if the party is significantly bigger than 3. As for tanks, you basically minimize the number of tanks to still keep the backline safe, and the rest is damage. Having 2-3 pure damage dealers in a 5 person squad is way more effective than 1/3 of every person being damage. That’s why this party is so ubiquitous, it tends to be far more effective than everyone being a generalist, and it’s the most logical way

[@bytoadynolastname6149]

I've always played healers with the mindset of "The rest of the group is my DPS". If anyone in the group complains about it, they can do so from their rez point.

[@DrakeSilmore]

Healers are just pet builds with slightly better AI for their pets.

[@beautifulnova6088]

My favorite quote about healers: "Oh, sure, _you're_ not the one killing the enemy team... But you're the reason they're dead."

[@user-et8vm9cc3t]

So, an officer mindset? "My main weapon are my soldiers!"

[@travcollier]

@@user-et8vm9cc3t Yes, and healers/support are natural to lead the team in most cases. They have to keep track of the other players and overall strategy to be effective. There are more than a few games where support units are literally "commanders" or whatnot ;)

[@user-et8vm9cc3t]

@@travcollier Interesting. I've always thought that in ESO dungeons, tanks were leading the pack, with the healer maybe as second-in-command. I would indeed imagine them as "commanders", as you say. But then, I'm pretty much a new player to the MMORPG genre, so my knowledge is fairly limited.

[@rashkavar]

I mean, the Tank is so named because it's like the original Tank: an armoured transport used in WWI to cross no man's land with minimal casualties. Yes, they had a big gun or a machine gun nest or two on them, but the main goal was a big unstoppable moving wall for infantry to hide in/behind. Today, armies have diversified the roles of tank to the point where tank is primarily used for the high combat role, with their original intended role being fulfilled by a class of vehicle known as the Armoured Personnel Carrier, or APC. But the original tank was far more APC than it was Main Battle Tank.

[@ToxicBastard]

It's funny, if the original WW1 tanks were made today they'd be classified as APCs, IFVs or tankettes.

[@rashkavar]

@@ToxicBastard Yep. Probably IFV, going by what Wikipedia indicates the differences are. (APCs are considered defensive, having only weapon mounts necessary for self defense, while an IFV is intended for a direct combat role, providing supporting fire for infantry. (Indeed, the picture of an IFV on Wikipedia features a cannon that seems fairly comparable to the cannons mounted on the male Mark IV tanks. (Weird bit of WWI trivia - they made male tanks with fairly substantial cannons and female tanks that had extra machine gun mounts, and yes, male and female is how they were referred to.) Tankette, on the other hand, appears to be a somewhat antiquated term, apparently referring to small, roughly car sized tanks that were developed in the tail end of WWI and in the interwar period. Their small size resulted in less armour, which proved to be a fatal design flaw for a tank when WWII hit. I think the closest thing we have to one today is the LAV, though you don't send those into a tank fight and expect them to come back in one piece.

[@ToxicBastard]

@@rashkavar Yeah Tankettes and female tanks in general seem to have died out/been reclassified since WW1. Strange that they gendered them, normally when things are categorised as male and female it's things like plugs or the ends of seatbelts.

[@rashkavar]

@@ToxicBastard I mean, the male tanks had a big throbbing cannon that burst occasionally but powerfully. The female did not. The metaphor is very obvious, it's just not something I'd expect to be in official use with 1910s sensibilities about propriety.

[@sealedtugboat9965]

I think limnus gate is a really good example of a sort of evolution of the holy trinity, while every character can deal damage they go about it in very different ways. some more defensively some more offensively, there’s one healer character and two to three fast characters. And since you’re playing every role yourself you get to experience every part.

[@SinkkingTurrtle]

One way some games handle the holy trinity is by making the least favorite class, the medic or other support the most powerful class in the game. Valve knew that healing your team is inherently less fun than shooting the enemy gamers so they made the medic by far the most impactful player on your team which causes the medic player to be the highest priority target for every enemy player without giving any bonus points for killing the medic or anything. It means that the medic's positioning is so much more important than any other class because their lives are more impactful and their self defense tools are really bad. Then the power classes are dps and tank in one and the pick classes are designed with the sole purpose of taking down key targets (namely the medic) rather than necessarily dealing tons of damage using range, invisibility, or speed. The living on a knife edge gameplay of the medic and risk evaluation for a trade by pick and power classes makes the support fun to play even when you're playing healthbar seesaw. (Also they added the crossbow which is just a radical gamer weapon for medics who like shooting gamers but need to heal still because it's their job)

[@GerackSerack]

I think "Crowd Control" should also be addressed here: it's an "ally to enemy" interaction, but not a damage dealing one. It also can be one (if not the) of the most interesting interactions in MMOs.

[@Beregorn88]

That fall in the "support" category

[@Len923_]

@@Beregorn88 it used to be the fourth pillar, actually. now, however, it's been rolled into the other three (mostly tank in the form of aggro and support in the form of mass debuffs)

[@umbrellaeyethingguy4665]

I feel like that usually falls into tank as you are controlling how the opponents are able to interact with your team, although it depends on the implementation. It's something of a "lesser archetype" like a character that can do something without spending as many resources as others would or a character that is able to remove enemy support effects. They're design concepts that create roles outside of the holy trinity, but that still mirror it in a sense. A character that kills with poison unaffected by armor has a "wall breaker" hole that differs from the normal dps, but they are still focused on offense, and despite being slower at it they still try not to waste time. It's a different role in terms of team composition, but the mindset of one of the trinity prevails.

[@CottidaeSEA]

@@Len923_ Support roles that aren't healers are generally outside of the trinity, they kind of circle around the other three in a way.

[@Salsmachev]

In the classic D&D quadrinity, the controller role (exemplified by the wizard) uses environmental control, damage, and support abilities with the key difference being that they're not using damage and support for their own sake, they're using damage and support as a means to the end of control. Just like how a tank uses damage to draw aggro, the threat of a wizard's 40' diameter fireball prevents enemies from creating tight formations. I don't think it's fair to describe a wizard as dps because of fireball, because the damage isn't really the point.

[@R3GARnator]

I actually love being a healer. Makes me want to play the song "Holding out for a hero!" while i do it.

[@hugofontes5708]

The noblest role, the chooser-of-life-or-death

[@nooooooooope3809]

That's what's so great about League of Legends champ design. There are a TON of subsets of all these. For example, there are tank supports (Sejuani, Nautilus, Blitzcrank), caster supports (Morgana, Janna, Seraphine), healer supports (Soraka, Sona), etc.

[@jetsebouma175]

I think the term 'Tank' makes perfect sense; Armoured Slow moving Slow firing And (tho not in all cases) decent burst but bad DPS

[@HSnake5]

You should've talked about the origin of the "Holy Trinity" and how it started off in Ever Quest (do correct me if I'm wrong) as a natural dynamic that a specific guild used to speed through the game's hardest content. The game was not made with the HT in mind, it's just that it is the most optimal formation with the least amount of roles necessary.

[@MrTripleM3]

EverQuest might be the first game where the roles were given those names, but the Trinity has been around since the edition of DnD.

[@Ditidos]

@@MrTripleM3 Not really. DnD has a somewhat diferent set up, after all, generally speaking the roles are four, not three. And dedicated tanks aren't really a thing, they double on DPS. Well, in general there aren't true DPS. But tabletop rpgs do have to handle out of combat scenarios too, and thus have classes dedicated around that. like the thief and the arcane caster (although the arcane caster can do support too, and DPS).

[@ultimatecalibur]

@@Ditidos You need to study your TTRPG history. DnD started out with 2 major roles: Vanguards and Rearguards. Vanguard classes (such as Fighters, Paladins and Barbarians) stood on the front lines of combat and absorbed attacks from monsters while dealing damage as the primary combatants while Rearguards stood in the rear of the party and had a few subroles (OoC utility (Thief/Ranger), limited healing/support(Cleric/Druid/Bard), limited instant win/instant success utility(Magic-User)) and might not do anything during combat. As combat became a greater and greater focus of games (often due to the influence of VRPGs and CRPGs) Rearguards were altered to allow them to have greater abilities to interact in combat. OoC Utility classes were given greater damage output gradually transitioning to the physical Dps Role while limited healing/support and limited instant win had their limits reduced more and more solidifying the healer role and caster dps role to increase playability. So Vanguards mostly maintained their capabilities taking the title "tank" while Rearguards gradually developed combat specialties creating the other 3 roles which later more or less devolved into healer and dps.

[@PH03NIX96]

Holy Trinity doesn't exist in DnD when the DM can just ignore the tanks. Lol

[@redjack2629]

It goes back further. Something similar naturally evolved into Ultima Online, too. Not quite as directly, but for the most part. Then you have people who played like me: a support mage/bard who focuses on taming... Which isn't a thing in most games with dedicated classes.

[@Laezar1]

I'm making an RPG (well trying xD) and one thing I've done is remove healing entirely. Damage resistance is also based on your current stamina (basically mana) meaning that using your most costly ability leave you with low defense. This is also complemented by a lane system that has a front and back lane aswell as a "support" lane. So the point isn't exactly to break the trinity but to make it more dynamic. Any class can go in any lane (though they usually heavily favor one or two), but they'll have access to different option depending on where they are. A time mage might be able to disrupt opponent in the back lane while they get access to powerful temporary shield ability in the support lane. A ranger will rain down arrows in the back lane at low stamina cost but get access to strong but costly dagger attack in the front row meaning they'll be able to quickly finish the opponent off if the frontline falls (as all lane move forward in that case) but unleashing everything too early might leave them exposed to major damage. A paladin has access to powerful stamina regeneration making sure they can soak up damage and they have control abilities in the front lane while they can boost morale in the support lane while preserving it's control abilities for the end of the battle. (morale being both an alternate wincon, basically a team health bar, but it's also an alternate ressource pool shared by the team to use strong ability). This is weaved with another "trinity" of classes with tactician giving weak boost to the team that increase over the course of the battle (so you want to protect them if possible), fighter classes relying on stances that give them personnal passive buff they can modify on the fly, allowing them more adaptability and independance at the cost of less powerful effect, and mages have a personnal regernating shield allowing them to soak up a lot of damage in the long term but requiring some precise control of the ennemy team to make sure they don't get overwhelmed and killed in a single turn before their shield regenerate. This basically let them tank aoe while being weaker against focused single damage target. Ideally I'm trying to get a system where every classes has it's advantages and disadvantages but in which roles are flexible and vary more based on ennemy ability than predefined static roles. That's also the point of having two win conditions. While reducing morale can be a support disruption ability reducing the ennemy team ability to use their most powerful skills, against ennemies with low morale generation it becomes a main damage dealer ability (yes this means morale generation is technically healing sort of), and allies that inflict health damagei in a fight focused on morale might have to switch to a control role or they might try to focus everything on a single target to take them out making the victory easier to achieve. (while they might have otherwise prefered to spread their damage to preserve energy as skills have cooldown and using everything on a single target might lead to using less energy efficient skills). That's the theory, hopefully it'll work out in practice but I think the main takeaway is that defined roles in a fight bring clarity and give meaningful choices as taking out a target is like taking out a specific system in FTL, removing some key ability from the ennemy team, making for interesting strategic choices. But too much specialization leads to kinda boring gameplay with less adptability which in turn remove strategic depth. So it's a balancing act. You want focus choices to have a meaningful effect on how a fight plays out but you also things to be flexible enough that there isn't always a clear dominant strategy that works in every situation.

[@kiritoequalspotato493]

Tanks were actually used to shield troops as they pushed up in ww1 and 2 so tanks working like this in games makes since since tanks deal damage but mostly they protect those who can do more,even though tanks still were really powerful for destruction as well in the wars

[@JAEvans]

Support types: i wish i picked any other class, i can't do damage and buff my team at the same time Hunting horn mains: boy do i have news for you

[@imadeyoureadthis1]

Tank, healer, damage. Best combination to interact with your team and the enemies at the same time. Everyone feels they contribute to the team.

[@suiton20]

In classic wow, I play as a Druid main. Some dungeons I played in with groups, sometimes i had no dedicated healers there but a 2nd Druid. We had to frequently rotate healing and tank roles mid battle or out of battle when the healer runs low on mana. Sometimes we had the warlock tank with his minion if things got bad. Improvising with hybrid classes when it can be done was one of my most fun times in wow. Retail lost that with specializations.

[@charlespanache7047]

I forgot about my voidwalker? Big purple lock pet always pulling aggro from tanks. Then i learned how to cc with it

[@suiton20]

@@charlespanache7047 I once grouped up with a warlock and rogue at stranglethorn vale. We were fighting a skull leveled mob that we had to kill for a quest. We were determined to kill it even with the level differential. It was so much kiting and jank involved. It took us 3 tries to do it. I had to apply perfect mana management to pull it off as I was tanking, healing and running the whole time

[@xFaTeDxReFleX]

EverQuest 2 does a great way of adding to the trinity with a 4 role which is called “utility.” Depending on the xpac, some classes really excel at a certain type of buffing or debuffing which makes sense essential to certain dps checks in raid

[@MeuFilho-EL]

Basically, combined arms forces is the synch (coordination) of specialized agents to create a competitive advantage (asymmetrical) in a tri or tetra cycle game mechanic.