I hate the holy trinity. I really applauded Arenanet's attempt to break away from it. But ultimately in PvE terms it doesn't quite work. Fights end up with everyone running round doing their own thing in chaos, group skills not being used and fights lasting forever doing the same thing whilst someone kites a boss around.
I don't see the whole 'everyone running around in chaos' as a bad thing. That's what combat is in every other game outside of MMOs; fighting against chaos. In GW2, you watch for fields to execute combos and help anyone who's downed. Yeah, there's lots of kiting, but if a giant monster with a war hammer is bearing down on you, getting out of the way seems more interesting than taking the hit because your stats allow you to.
I don't disagree that fights take too long though; a lot of that has to do with the absurd levels of HP that dungeon bosses have (Butcher in HotW, I'm looking at you). That's something they'll likely change as they revamp the dungeons, since none of the three bosses in AC are especially chunky. That doesn't feel like a "no Trinity" problem, though.
Before the game launched Arenanet outlined the 'roles' each class could take in fights - earth specialised elementalists as tanks, engineers as support etc. That hasn't played out at all - other than the guardian class for buffs. Now it's possible that at the very high levels of play you need to work better together and play like that but up to fractal 15 and most dungeons it doesn't.
To be fair, they didn't. Earth-specialized Elementalists are built around
control, not tanking. Tanking is standing there trading blows and keeping the enemy focused squarely on you; that's not something that's ever going to happen in GW2, nor was it something they said, implied or alluded to before launch.
I don't know Eles well enough to comment on how their Earth Attunement works, honestly, but a quick glance at the wiki shows lots of cripple and immobilize. Every weapon set has at least one cripple, most have an immobilize, a few have reflects, one has a blind. There's also an invulnerability skill (focus) and one that grants +250 toughness (scepter). They're not perfect, and I'm sure other classes have better, but Elementalists are meant to be a jack of all trades-type profession so that's to be expected.
It also falls in line with what ArenaNet has stated about control, support and damage being everyone's shared responsibility. A lot of the cripples are short duration, but everyone's supposed to be contributing to the control of an enemy, so it's not meant to be the responsibility of one person.
But they could make some good changes to help:
I agree with a lot of those, honestly, especially notifications on boons and conditions. I've gotten used to recognizing the boon and conditions, and knowing who they're coming from just by virtue of they way they're applied, but that's me playing almost every day for months. I also think enemy AOEs could have a better indicator (something vertical that isn't just a flat ring on the ground; a ring of nasty spikes or something).
I do disagree with your point on making roles more uniform. Again, that wasn't the 'original idea for the game' because from the start they've said control is not supposed to be a role to fulfill, but something everyone contributes to. If people aren't contributing, that's their fault, not the game, isn't it? Do people expect a team of Heavies to always win in Team Fortress 2? If you're running groups with 5 DPS, that means there's five people focused solely on DPS and nobody traited, geared or making choices to control... so why
should there be any control?
I also don't think we need any kind of UI notification for enemy attacks. I think some of the telegraphs could be improved, but I don't like the idea of having 'casting bars' because that sort of forces you to watch the UI and not the game.
(And lets not talk about the big dragon fights, which are honestly some of the worse content I've seen in an MMO).
Agreed. That's a part of the game that just feels like it's there to be farmed, and despite the changes to the way chests work, it still feels like 'the best way' to play... but also the most boring. When we've talked to the Devs about it, they've only said that they don't like the stationary, boring dragon fights either and they want to change it, but the engine can't do it 'yet'.
It's certainly more challenging to play than the average class because you basically build your guy to survive more than the average person, then load up on toughness to attract aggro. What follows, is you needing to be able to handle that aggro (I.e. know when to dodge, etc.) Although it sounds more boring than the average build, it does demand far more from a player as your active existence basically allows everyone else to nap during fights.
