Unseating the current Holy Trinity

Since the beginning of Guild Wars 2, Arena Net proudly stated that there isn't and never will be the holy trinity. However, that's where we are now (with minor twists).

Every raid consists of 1-2 Heals- DruidEvery raid consists of 2 Support/Tanks- ChronoRemaining are top DPS professions plus one dedicated PS

That is almost a perfect holy trinity.

Here are my thoughts on how we got to this point.

Mesmer's niche has gone beyond the point of overpowered.

Overpowered in this usage doesn't mean dps wise, but the amount of utility/support it brings to a raid can't be ignored. Mesmer has a monopoly on group evades, alacrity, and quickness. Combine those three, and it allows for raid mechanics to be ignored and/or allows for high amount of forgiveness for players who didn't pay attention to damage mechanics.

Druid's healing out weighs other healing specs.

Grace of the land gives up to 10% damage increase added on top of it's better on demand healing. The only spec that comes close is elementalist. However, elementalist is one of THE strongest dps classes (that's a different topic). Even now, the utility druid brings plus healing out weighs elementalist' healing capability/support.

PS War's Might Stacking is King

Might is one of the biggest damage modifiers currently in the game. Warriors that run phalanx strength still bring a substantial amount of damage plus 25 stacks of might. There's not another profession that can get even close to that amount of might output.

Why should it matter?Just as the holy trinity, having classes that have a monopoly on certain aspects of the game kills spec diversity. We can say, "Just don't run with elitists", but truth is no one wants to spend two hours longer clearing content. Instead, go back to the way original gw2 started. Remove easy buff stacking, and damage modifiers. Tone down dps specs (this will help with pvp/wvw too), buff active support trait lines that EVERY profession has, and adjust raid content accordingly.

Let me know what your thoughts are.

Cheers,Windler

Ah yes, the easy solution to a way more complex problem.

The core problem is not Mesmer, Warrior or Ranger at the moment, those classes being desired is just the result of said problem. The core problem is and always will be peoples desire for maximum efficiency. No amount of nerfing, rebalancing or changing will affect this (unless you actually get 2 classes to perform the exact same function within minimal difference to each other). Sure you might shake it up and have other classes take the place of current desired classes, but that would just mean exchanging class A for B.

This is not unique to GW2 by the way. You can see it in any challenging game mode of MMOs (check WoW Mythic+ dungeons for example and how the meta changes there constantly too even though differences might be minimal between roles). The more difficult the content, the higher the demand for maximized group compositions as to reduce the chance of failure.

Also prentending like this was not an issue at the start of GW2 is a pure lie. First off, there was no challenging game content at launch, and even the most challenging content (I'd go with dungeons before fractals were added) had a developing and established priority of which classes were prefered. The amount of maximisation simply increased with higher challenge. Fractals had a very clear optimal group preferance (and still do). Pretending like the game changed even though it did not will not do your argument good.

My recommendation:

• don't expect every class to be similar desired for raids, ever! It won't happen, ever.
• wait until the new raid meta comes in within the next couple of weeks (after patches, nerfs, balance changes and playtesting of highend guild) before making any type of argument about change
• play multiple classes (at least 1 desired class) if you are serious about raiding.
• get good at things most people can't or won't do: Handkiting at Deimos, orbs at KC, tanking, etc. You get a very fast feeling for which things are desired the most, since those are usually the roles/classes you have to wait for the longest.
• start leading your own raids with your own rules. The fights are by far easy enough to take suboptimal group compositions, especially when players are good at their class. I'd take a good necromancer over a poor elementalist anyday as dps for example.

I think the trinity is interesting. Without the trinity you have 10 raid roles all playing the exact same game. WIth the trinity, you have different roles that all play quite differently. Healer plays differently from dps, and tank etc. I like that. Its fun to play different roles.

Additionally, I think gw2's system is kinda nice. Having a loose meta, makes it easier to organize pug groups. Yes, 6 slots are pretty much predefined, but 4 spots are pretty open. It gives you something to start with when organizing a group, but also room for customization.

It also gives players some safety when gearing up their first raid character. Right now, if a player posts on the forums asking what to gear up for their first class, we can give them a relatively safe answer, either condi ps, magi druid, or tank chrono. While dps roles are a lot more volatile. You might suggest condi firebrand, and then next month its nerfed into the ground. The stability of a few classes being guaranteed is helpful for new players, who have a lot more trouble making their first ascended set. Meanwhile, the dps roles changing constantly is fine for experienced raiders, many of whom have 10+ ascended sets.

Personally, I wish they had just made all group buffs affect 10 players, so that you wouldn't want to stack 2 of each meta class, but rather 1. Since that is pretty much impossible at this point, I would say first focus on making another might stacker with a unique 10 player buff, so that it becomes meta to bring 1 condi ps (bringing 2 banners) and then one of the new might stacker. This is the easiest change, as banners already affect 10 players, and empower allies is almost worse than burning arrows in condi groups. In fact, this had almost happened with condi might stacking ele, it was meta on large hitbox, the nerfing of wildfire is ultimately what killed this possibility.

Next, I would focus on making a second healer meta. GOTL affects 10 players, and a good druid can upkeep more than half the max stacks. The real problem is spirits, which affect only 5 players.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Ah yes, the easy solution to a way more complex problem.The core problem is not Mesmer, Warrior or Ranger at the moment, those classes being desired is just the result of said problem. The core problem is and always will be peoples desire for maximum efficiency. No amount of nerfing, rebalancing or changing will affect this (unless you actually get 2 classes to perform the exact same function within minimal difference to each other). Sure you might shake it up and have other classes take the place of current desired classes, but that would just mean exchanging class A for B.

Well said. This is exactly what people do not see or simply ingore in their desire to be allowed to play their favorite class more often. There will always be an imbalance towards one build being more efficient at any given task unless they completely cut away everything that makes classes unique.Usually nothing more than replacing the current A,B,C with a new D,E,F if they go that far. And it could be even worse, as in one class, let's say D, being buffed to a degree where it can already replace A and B by itself. Hell, one class was able to replace A, B, C and D back when they introduced the old condition warrior and people started to cheese bosses with 5-6 warriors per squad. Too bad we didn't have dps meters and golems testing back then. Would be interesting to see if the damage was actually that good.Even giving every class their powerful unique class buffs has downsides. People would complain that they have trouble to find a spot in any squad because the play a popular build and people do never bring more than one of them due to the increased efficiency when stacking as many unique modifiers as possible.

Just want to point out, we don't take warriors for might gen. Every class can assist in doing that. It's because they have banners and EA.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Ah yes, the easy solution to a way more complex problem.

The core problem is not Mesmer, Warrior or Ranger at the moment, those classes being desired is just the result of said problem. The core problem is and always will be peoples desire for maximum efficiency. No amount of nerfing, rebalancing or changing will affect this (unless you actually get 2 classes to perform the exact same function within minimal difference to each other). Sure you might shake it up and have other classes take the place of current desired classes, but that would just mean exchanging class A for B.

This is not unique to GW2 by the way. You can see it in any challenging game mode of MMOs (check WoW Mythic+ dungeons for example and how the meta changes there constantly too even though differences might be minimal between roles). The more difficult the content, the higher the demand for maximized group compositions as to reduce the chance of failure.

Also prentending like this was not an issue at the start of GW2 is a pure lie. First off, there was no challenging game content at launch, and even the most challenging content (I'd go with dungeons before fractals were added) had a developing and established priority of which classes were prefered. The amount of maximisation simply increased with higher challenge. Fractals had a very clear optimal group preferance (and still do). Pretending like the game changed even though it did not will not do your argument good.

My recommendation:

• don't expect every class to be similar desired for raids, ever! It won't happen, ever.
• wait until the new raid meta comes in within the next couple of weeks (after patches, nerfs, balance changes and playtesting of highend guild) before making any type of argument about change
• play multiple classes (at least 1 desired class) if you are serious about raiding.
• get good at things most people can't or won't do: Handkiting at Deimos, orbs at KC, tanking, etc. You get a very fast feeling for which things are desired the most, since those are usually the roles/classes you have to wait for the longest.
• start leading your own raids with your own rules. The fights are by far easy enough to take suboptimal group compositions, especially when players are good at their class. I'd take a good necromancer over a poor elementalist anyday as dps for example.

Although you make a valid point I have to say that even though maximum efficiency is desired in most structured content (this goes for all game modes, PvE PvP and WvW), you can still reduce the desire for the current trinity by introducing valuable alternatives. Of course you will never reach a point with similar desire for each class but it's certainly not unthinkable to have a threshold where the standard deviation of damage/healing/support output is within equal range. Taking a Scourge over a poor Weaver is one of these examples given by you, that one is easy to justify since it only requires DPS as a variable. But where are the alternatives for Warrior, Chrono and especially Druid? Replacing a Druid with a Tempest or Firebrand healer will be fine for healing but at the same time significantly reduce offensive support buffs. There is no alternative for the Druid's offensive support buffs that theoretically add up to 20% of the total damage. Same goes for warrior specific profession buffs like EA and banners. These classes hold a monopoly over those support roles. Despite certain efforts (like making Grace of the Lands target 10 allies instead of 5) to balance these buffs out we have yet to see any changes in the support meta. I'm looking forward to the Firebrand making it's entrance as a quickness bot but other than that I don't see many changes on the horizon (which I did expect with the release of 9 new elite specializations).

In traditional trinity games, there are only certain classes that can play certain roles. In this game, the only thing limiting the raid meta is ourselves. Any 10 people who understand the mechanics can succeed at the encounters. There are different levels of success, including speed clearing, PUG clearing, and so on. There are definitely riskier team compositions, but there's nothing that forces us into the comp described in the OP.

It's a social problem, not a math problem: people prefer a simple and/or standard approach that makes it easy to see if a team will succeed before it starts. And we know that certain compositions tend to do better in more circumstances. But the fact is even with people running meta, it still depends on the skill of the players involved.

There are lots of good reasons to balance & rebalance and I'm sure we all wish ANet would do it more often. However, it's impossible for anyone to figure out a way in which there won't be a most efficient comp. And once there is, people will gravitate towards it and some will reject any other possibility as non-viable (even though what they really mean is, "not as ideally suited as possible).

@Noah.4756 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Ah yes, the easy solution to a way more complex problem.

The core problem is not Mesmer, Warrior or Ranger at the moment, those classes being desired is just the result of said problem.

The core problem is and always will be peoples desire for maximum efficiency.

No amount of nerfing, rebalancing or changing will affect this (unless you actually get 2 classes to perform the exact same function within minimal difference to each other). Sure you might shake it up and have other classes take the place of current desired classes, but that would just mean exchanging class A for B.

This is not unique to GW2 by the way. You can see it in any challenging game mode of MMOs (check WoW Mythic+ dungeons for example and how the meta changes there constantly too even though differences might be minimal between roles). The more difficult the content, the higher the demand for maximized group compositions as to reduce the chance of failure.

Also prentending like this was not an issue at the start of GW2 is a pure lie. First off, there was no challenging game content at launch, and even the most challenging content (I'd go with dungeons before fractals were added) had a developing and established priority of which classes were prefered. The amount of maximisation simply increased with higher challenge. Fractals had a very clear optimal group preferance (and still do). Pretending like the game changed even though it did not will not do your argument good.

My recommendation:

• don't expect every class to be similar desired for raids, ever! It won't happen, ever.
• wait until the new raid meta comes in within the next couple of weeks (after patches, nerfs, balance changes and playtesting of highend guild) before making any type of argument about change
• play multiple classes (at least 1 desired class) if you are serious about raiding.
• get good at things most people can't or won't do: Handkiting at Deimos, orbs at KC, tanking, etc. You get a very fast feeling for which things are desired the most, since those are usually the roles/classes you have to wait for the longest.
• start leading your own raids with your own rules. The fights are by far easy enough to take suboptimal group compositions, especially when players are good at their class. I'd take a good necromancer over a poor elementalist anyday as dps for example.

True, which is exactly what I said. If they made 2 classes perform almost equally well the desired function, they would be alternatives. That's close to impossible though. Let's assume a complete copy of mesmer was made which has the exact same ability to produce alacrity, quickness, tank, damage and distortion with a different playstyle: the class which is easier to play would get preferential treatment still. I do agree though, no buffs should be completely unique. (That said, mesmer I believe is THE least played class in the game at the moment. I can count the amount of mesmers I've seen in PoF on 1 hand, and I've played a significant amount and that's counting bounty squads too).

The balance issue is far more difficult than "let's change some dps here and there" or "let's give class xyz this mechanic". How this ends up can be seen with the Renegade and base Revenant. They have alacrity, and no one cares.

@Noah.4756 said:Taking a Scourge over a poor Weaver is one of these examples given by you, that one is easy to justify since it only requires DPS as a variable. But where are the alternatives for Warrior, Chrono and especially Druid? Replacing a Druid with a Tempest or Firebrand healer will be fine for healing but at the same time significantly reduce offensive support buffs. There is no alternative for the Druid's offensive support buffs that theoretically add up to 20% of the total damage. Same goes for warrior specific profession buffs like EA and banners. These classes hold a monopoly over those support roles. Despite certain efforts (like making Grace of the Lands target 10 allies instead of 5) to balance these buffs out we have yet to see any changes in the support meta.

Agreed, though balance is a package deal. Buffing other classes around 1 game mode just so raid balance "works" (and even then there will always be ideal classes) could severely compromise other game modes (be it fractals, spvp or wvw). I stand by my suggestions ealier, especially the one where it's best to never expect every class to be present in the raid meta. That's a near impossible feat to accomplish.

I might even add a suggestion:

• if you want to raid, play a support class instead of a braindead dps and you'll not have issues finding a raid spot

@Noah.4756 said:I'm looking forward to the Firebrand making it's entrance as a quickness bot but other than that I don't see many changes on the horizon (which I did expect with the release of 9 new elite specializations).

Not really, most new elites are clearly niche and/or spvp and wvw focused. There won't be significant changes to the support meta unless old elites are nerfed and new ones rebalanced, except for the dps spots simply because those are the easiest to replace.

Turn Alacrity into a Boon and make it more common. Delete GotL.

@Nokaru.7831 said:Turn Alacrity into a Boon and make it more common. Delete GotL.

Then you can very well delete the Mesmer from the game.BUT you forgot that the Alacrity is the unique mechanic (according to ANet) belonging only to the Chronomancer......... What you said? It belongs to the Revenants too? ... Hm.... At least only the mesmers have the Moa ! ..... What? The Engineers can hatch Moa also? GRRRR !! ..... Well, we still have the Port..... WHAT? Everyone can have the Portal? And with Adrenaline Mushroom they can use it without CD? Incredible !! GW2 is full of Mesmers?

So, your statement is a little bit wrong. The correct one is: Turn Alacrity into a Boon and make it more common. Delete the Mesmer

Hyperbole. Mesmer brings more than just alacrity. Make it more widespread and you might eliminate the second support mesmer from the meta and have it replaced by a firebrand, but I don't see a lot that could reasonably replace the tank mesmer. That's one spot and exactly what every class should have in a raid.

@Cyninja.2954 said:The core problem is not Mesmer, Warrior or Ranger at the moment, those classes being desired is just the result of said problem. The core problem is and always will be peoples desire for maximum efficiency. No amount of nerfing, rebalancing or changing will affect this (unless you actually get 2 classes to perform the exact same function within minimal difference to each other). Sure you might shake it up and have other classes take the place of current desired classes, but that would just mean exchanging class A for B.

This is not unique to GW2 by the way. You can see it in any challenging game mode of MMOs (check WoW Mythic+ dungeons for example and how the meta changes there constantly too even though differences might be minimal between roles). The more difficult the content, the higher the demand for maximized group compositions as to reduce the chance of failure.

While this statement isn't totally wrong, it is way too strict. There certainly is the desire for optimum efficiency and making different class combos exactly equally efficient is virtually impossible in a complex game like this. However, this isn't about absolutes. If we tried to fully replace the current support trinity WDC with alternatives XYZ, I'd estimate we'd end up somewhere in the order of magnitude of 50-60% efficiency. For quite some buffs, there hardly is any alternative. If we had alternatives that could reasonably reach 90-95% efficiency, I'm confident that we would actually see them in raids. No need to get to 100%. There are games with much harder content but substantially less meta mentality than GW2.

Unfortunately, I don't see ANet offering any potentially viable alternatives to the current trinity buffs. Firebrand might have been an attempt at doing that (I still don't know what they want to achieve with that spec, besides being just condi dps), but it definitely falls short. For the moment, I'd probably like a simple 10-man target cap for all buffs in raid environments. That leaves us with the support trinity, but at least reduces the raid spots occupied by them to 3 instead of 6, thereby substantially improving overall diversity. And no, I don't care whether such a step would trivialise already easy content.

Three very simple suggestions.

ChronoGive chrono some base boon duration (300 concentration) on a trait. Remove quickness from signet of inspiration. Remove alarcity from wells ending. Chrono will be unable to maintain 100% quickness period and its effectiveness will be diminished. Chrono will be able to spec for more damage to compensate

DruidGrace of the Land only boosts power damage. Would help to reduce the condition supremacy. Reduce base healing and increase scaling so that condi druid is flat out not viable.

WarriorPhalanx strength grants might to allies but the warrior receives no effect from might (ie "Channel your might to your allies" on the tooltip). Tone down warrior's + condi duration buffs from +33% to +20%. Would keep warrior as a powerful support but cPS would do dramatically less damage bringing it in line. Condi warrior would not be terribly affected.

The issue is that these builds are consistent and game-changingly strong. Nothing should be like this. Builds should be situational and game changingly strong or consistently good and cPS, mesmer, and druid need to be nerfed to such a level.

@TexZero.7910 said:Just want to point out, we don't take warriors for might gen. Every class can assist in doing that. It's because they have banners and EA.

Same way we don't get druids for the heals. Ventari revs and either aura or staff water eles can heal just as well. But they don't bring the group dps buffs a druid does.

The thing is, while the trinity severely limits the group diversity, it creates space for teamwork skills. Things like learning to distort your teammates and learning to trust your chrono to distort so you can keep your dps up. I would rather have this strongly specialized roles in a group than a bunch of random classes, every one playing on their own. I would prefer we get alternatives to the trinity rather than trying to eliminate the support as it is.

The trinity isn't the problem (odd how nobody ever derides the existence of one third of it, only of the other two thirds), it's lack of build diversity and the existence of buffs that are 1) unique, 2) very powerful and 3) not squad-wide. I admit I didn't do much group content here, but I remember very well how much more "healthy" and fun grouped content in WoW became when they loosened the overly restrictive class roles from vanilla over the course of the expansions. Making non-warrior tanks better, giving druids an out-of-combat res, giving more CC options to classes lacking them, this and more all added up to more diversity and much less of the odious "you need this exact combination of classes". Mix-maxers could obsess about that, but it never trickled down to the rest of the playerbase, who were much more accepting of "bring the player, not the class". And the increased build and role diversity most certainly did not make the different classes feel any less different from each other.

I remember no holy trinity was supposed to be a big pro of GW2. Now we got a much more restricted (worse) version of it. lol.

I don't think getting a replacement for the chrono/druid/ps meta is the way to go.Although it's much harder to balance well, what I'd like to see is a way to replace all 3 with another 3 builds.So (example here) Chrono/Druid/PS brings the same dps boost as Firebrand/Scourge/Renegade

Why?Because it would make it possible for purely PoF builds to be competitive in Raids. Imagine what will happen when they release the PoF raids and every team requires Chronos, Berserkers and Druids. What would that do to those without HoT?

I think having the same total dps boost (200% dps increase) and spreading it to 3 professions on each expansion is the way to go. So following the example above, in expansion 3 we'll get the last 3 professions, Elementalist/Engineer/Thief

In that way there will always be a "holy trinity" with each expansion so later Raids won't "require" buying previous expansions. They are supposed to be standalone remember?

@Substatic.6958 said:I remember no holy trinity was supposed to be a big pro of GW2. Now we got a much more restricted (worse) version of it. lol.

This is something foreseen before GW2 launch. But I was booed on the forum when saying that. In a MMO, too much freedom kills the freedom, because of the min-maxers. It is healthy to have "official" barriers, restrictions created by the devs, because they are usually less restrictive and more logic (i.e according to lore and roleplay) that the restrictions created by the min-maxers. I would prefer Anet making Warrior, Guardian and Rev official tanks then allowing the min-maxers to decide the only tank is a pink light armored wizard.

There's that, too. Classes tend to imply things, and many new players in particular pick a class not based on exhausive research into the "meta" but on the "feel" of it. It's hardly odd to expect the heavies to be the first choice to for doing what passes for tanking in this game instead of the magical deceiver class. Breaking the mold a bit can be interesting, but I'd also like the devs to apply some "logic" to this instead of apparently letting the chips fall where they may.

Don't get me wrong, I would never want to remove mesmer tanks or druid healers -- partly because as far as possible I'm of the opinion that it's better to give people things/options rather than to take them away, for various reasons including fairness towards people who busted their butts grinding for the expensive niche gearsets required for support roles.

It hardly matters whether you have "official barriers" of the kind you suggest or not. That's just formalities. The question that matters is pretty simple: does the class have the tools to do the job? Currently, mesmers have an amazing toolkit for pseudo-tanking, while the other classes don't. Min-maxers just react to what the devs give them, so in any way it ends up with the devs.

@Windler.4815 said:Since the beginning of Guild Wars 2, Arena Net proudly stated that there isn't and never will be the holy trinity. However, that's where we are now (with minor twists).

Every raid consists of 1-2 Heals- DruidEvery raid consists of 2 Support/Tanks- ChronoRemaining are top DPS professions plus one dedicated PS

That is almost a perfect holy trinity.

Here are my thoughts on how we got to this point.

Mesmer's niche has gone beyond the point of overpowered.

Overpowered in this usage doesn't mean dps wise, but the amount of utility/support it brings to a raid can't be ignored. Mesmer has a monopoly on group evades, alacrity, and quickness. Combine those three, and it allows for raid mechanics to be ignored and/or allows for high amount of forgiveness for players who didn't pay attention to damage mechanics.

Druid's healing out weighs other healing specs.

Grace of the land gives up to 10% damage increase added on top of it's better on demand healing. The only spec that comes close is elementalist. However, elementalist is one of THE strongest dps classes (that's a different topic). Even now, the utility druid brings plus healing out weighs elementalist' healing capability/support.

PS War's Might Stacking is King

Might is one of the biggest damage modifiers currently in the game. Warriors that run phalanx strength still bring a substantial amount of damage plus 25 stacks of might. There's not another profession that can get even close to that amount of might output.

Why should it matter?Just as the holy trinity, having classes that have a monopoly on certain aspects of the game kills spec diversity. We can say, "Just don't run with elitists", but truth is no one wants to spend two hours longer clearing content. Instead, go back to the way original gw2 started. Remove easy buff stacking, and damage modifiers. Tone down dps specs (this will help with pvp/wvw too), buff active support trait lines that EVERY profession has, and adjust raid content accordingly.

Let me know what your thoughts are.

Cheers,Windler

You can take support away from mesmer when you bother to give them functional DPS specs that are not tied to a single target with immense ramp up and vanishes the moment a target dies. Give us the aoe we are so bereft of while you're at it.

You nerf chrono, you delete mesmers from raids.

Why in hell would I play a chronomancer with garbage sub-25k DPS if I can't be a king of support. Same goes for druid.

Druid is an elite spec that can only do one thing: HEAL.

It is not a ventari rev or water ele, which is core. Tempest can build both support OR DPS. Warrior can build support OR DPS.

Druid cannot build DPS. It has absolutely nothing in its traitline that allows for build diversity, and celestial avatar is entirely used for healing, having no offensive value outside gotl buffs.

Both druid and chrono are completely rigid traitlines. If they're going to be less flexible than the other elite specs, then they deservedly ought to reign in their niche.

@maddoctor.2738 said:I don't think getting a replacement for the chrono/druid/ps meta is the way to go.Although it's much harder to balance well, what I'd like to see is a way to replace all 3 with another 3 builds.So (example here) Chrono/Druid/PS brings the same dps boost as Firebrand/Scourge/Renegade

Why?Because it would make it possible for purely PoF builds to be competitive in Raids. Imagine what will happen when they release the PoF raids and every team requires Chronos, Berserkers and Druids. What would that do to those without HoT?

I think having the same total dps boost (200% dps increase) and spreading it to 3 professions on each expansion is the way to go. So following the example above, in expansion 3 we'll get the last 3 professions, Elementalist/Engineer/Thief

In that way there will always be a "holy trinity" with each expansion so later Raids won't "require" buying previous expansions. They are supposed to be standalone remember?

They'd need Vipers (Grievers don't really replace those), so they'd still need to have HoT.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:I don't think getting a replacement for the chrono/druid/ps meta is the way to go.Although it's much harder to balance well, what I'd like to see is a way to replace all 3 with another 3 builds.So (example here) Chrono/Druid/PS brings the same dps boost as Firebrand/Scourge/Renegade

Why?Because it would make it possible for purely PoF builds to be competitive in Raids. Imagine what will happen when they release the PoF raids and every team requires Chronos, Berserkers and Druids. What would that do to those without HoT?

I think having the same total dps boost (200% dps increase) and spreading it to 3 professions on each expansion is the way to go. So following the example above, in expansion 3 we'll get the last 3 professions, Elementalist/Engineer/Thief

In that way there will always be a "holy trinity" with each expansion so later Raids won't "require" buying previous expansions. They are supposed to be standalone remember?

Gear is only part of the problem and the "big three" don't use Viper's anyway, but I guess they use other HoT-only gear so their PoF "alternatives" will need to use those gear stats too, which makes the problem even worse.

I'm curious now: You can select PoF stats on HoT raid gear. However, can you do that if you do not own PoF? If you can, then the opposite will be true and allow players to select Viper's on PoF raid gear.

@Zenith.7301 said:Both druid and chrono are completely rigid traitlines. If they're going to be less flexible than the other elite specs, then they deservedly ought to reign in their niche.Not when their niche is 20% of the raid and the class presence can be extended even into dps slots, while every class should mathematically have just 11%. Ranger, mesmer and warrior should be able to fill a dps slot, but on the other hand other classes should be able to fill their support slots.

@CptAurellian.9537 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:Both druid and chrono are completely rigid traitlines. If they're going to be less flexible than the other elite specs, then they deservedly ought to reign in their niche.Not when their niche is 20% of the raid

and

the class presence can be extended even into dps slots, while every class should mathematically have just 11%. Ranger, mesmer and warrior should be able to fill a dps slot, but on the other hand other classes should be able to fill their support slots.

Sure, but the point is that outside warrior, those two DON'T. There are no DPS chrono or DPS druids. Similarly, ranger DPS builds until condi soulbeast were nuked out of orbit and mesmer DPS builds continue to be suboptimal due to their ramp up and horrendous cleave/aoe and lack of target switching outside axe 3.

And that niche that's 20% was put into place so people would bother bringing in those two classes, since the only reason mesmer was used for before hand was portal gimmicks in dungeons where they would be given the boot in favor of a guardian if portals were not abusable.

The classes must have a dps spec, not necessarily each single elite spec (at least not a fully competitive one). We already have 18 of them, so we can't get all into a raid anyway. Rangers have their dps spec with soulbeast. Dunno whether mirage is capable of doing the job for mesmers, but in doubt, that's an issue specifically for the mesmer dev(s).

Besides, there is no justification for the 20% niche. It is technically possible to make it a 10% niche, which would be a much more healthy short-term solution to the entire issue.