Talk:Team roles

Frontline

→ moved from Talk:Frontline

Is this article specific to PvP? If so the notion that frontline characters primary job is to tank damage is incorrect. If the article is about PvE and PvP then surely a note should be made that rarely are frontline used as damage absorbers other than NPC tanking. The frontline position is a requirement in order to pressure backline, not to put yourself in harms way. 83.104.169.126 02:20, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Split proposal

The frontline, midline and backline roles aren't exclusive to PvP. -- Gordon Ecker 03:07, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

But their general reasons for being designated as such are somewhat the same, even if what they do in those roles is different. Would make more sense to move to a area-neutral title and provide subheadings within each role for PvE. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 04:36, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Split the article, so in the new headings it can give tips oriented to PvP or PvE.--ShadowFog 13:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Feature

This article needs some serious work before it's accurate; please don't feature it until that's happened. :\ — Raine Valen 2:02, 27 Sep 2010 (UTC)

you should make that comment on the feature page.- Zesbeer 02:03, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

My sentiments, exactly. — Raine Valen 2:07, 27 Sep 2010 (UTC)

External links

what is the purpose of them? — Why 20:21, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

No idea. Why link to forum threads about GvG? --Silver Edge 03:28, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Pew pew. Ryuu - Matters. ≡ 05:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Changes

Changes so far to the "intro section" to remove specific references and translate into examples, also moved experimental into its own section. moved table up as just a place holder, please do not move it down, it may not look pretty but it provides some information. Ideally a new table should be made to accomodate this, instead of using a table which seems to scale with the section improperly. Sorry for not signing in the changes, I am working from a public computer.

Also made a new table, integrated into the article, if i can figure out how to move it to a seperate page and keep this one cleaner I will. Please do not revert, as it removes changes which have been made, insead improve the page with your suggestions so i dont have to spend an extra 20 minutes of time looking for the changes.

"roles"

Almost all of the roles mentioned in the introductory table are builds, not roles. Here's a hint: It's not a role if the page starts with "<x> is a <class> which...".

I would argue that the roles are spiker, nuker, control (focusing on the positioning of enemy players, including builds such as linebackers, cripshot rangers, sword warriors, and what have you), utility (focusing on empowering allies or making enemies not run at full power, including non-spiker mesmer and necromancer builds, shutdown builds, and commandagons), defender/"healer" (focusing on keeping allies alive, including builds such as motigons, bonders, prot and heal monks, rits, and so forth), and toolbox/flagger. I could also see an argument for a "pressure" role, but most individual pressure builds are just bad versions of other builds.

"Tank" is not a PvP role. It's not really a PvE role, either, since SY exists (and even if it didn't, there's plenty of ways to make yourself a big dps character that just happens to be unkillable), but eh.

Furthermore, a ton of these "roles" are outdated. Beast Master? Battery? Minion Master? Spirit Lord? Infuser? Seriously? The best of these is infuser, but again, infusers are monks that fill <role> and just happen to have infuse on their bar because it's a good skill and they're good at using it.

-- Armond{{Bacon}} 05:46, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

So change it :S MeiOfTheNorth 19:51, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Ancient comment, but I'm working on it elsewhere because this page is currently rather hopeless. -- Armond Warblade 02:32, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree on the comment of tanks being "not really a PvE role, either, since SY exists". While it's not necessary it is a role nonetheless. IMO, there are three "levels" for this topic - four(+?) "categories" of team roles, each having multiple "kinds" of that role, and each "kind" having a different set-up (aka build). Categories are: Utility, Damage, Support, and Tank. Support is divided into 3 kinds: Healing, Defender (or proting for GW), and Decoys (setting up false targets for the foes to focus on - MMs and spirit spammers are the closest to this om GW, but they fall more under damage due to how offensive they are); so on and so forth. Utility is the largest category in GW, with tanking being the smallest (filled with only two kinds: Armor tanking (focused on high health and high defense - e.g., defy pain-centric builds) and (as I call it) negation tanking (preventing the enemy from doing damage to you - e.g., the old shadow form). The "holy trinity" is merely 3 specific "kinds" - a healing support, an armor tank, and a spiker damage - but because they're so common people tend to use them as examples of "roles" and thus put various "kinds" into the category level. Of course, this is my own personal take on how it is innately set up.

At the comment of outdated - minion master and spirit spammer (spirit lord is a term I've only seen Falconeye use, and he is constantly trying to make the wiki use it) are far from outdated builds. Konig/talk 02:04, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

This page needs a major rewrite. I agree largely with Konig. In fact I'd go so far as to say Tanks are *only* a PvE role. Which group of players in PvP is going to ball around a warrior tank the same way monsters do? anyways... could we really try to rewrite this so that new players can get something out of it...MeiOfTheNorth 07:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Technically speaking, the purpose of a tank isn't to have foes ball up (for the others to nuke), but rather to take damage for the team - in a way, a bonder can be argued to be a cross between support and a tank as it redirects damage to itself - and, of course, survive. Most of the time, tanks utilize the tactic of pulling and being a decoy, which is how tanks work best in GW. Though it can be used in PvP, but of course it's not going to be very effective since tanks have minimal offense (usually) and as such can be avoided by those who know wtf they're doing. Konig/talk 07:48, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

tanks are control -- Armond Warblade 14:51, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

"Control is the act(s) of manipulating enemy movement, damage, as well as many other game mechanics."; tanks do not do this, they merely act as a decoy. They do attract enemies, but they do not manipulate them (at best, they exploit). Unless there's some other definition to what control does. Konig/talk 04:15, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

They manipulate enemy movement to be all in one place; they manipulate enemy damage to be directed at themselves. Or am I missing something? -- Armond Warblade 15:27, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Then the very act of aggroing is Control... But that's not really manipulation. One can equally argue that tanking is support as you're keeping your allies with high health via not being targeted (the purpose of a decoy - likewise, tanking doesn't always "manipulate" enemy movement). Konig/talk 18:17, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Tanks are control; if GW had an aggro mechanic, manipulating it would be the job of a tank. GW doesn't have an aggro mechanic, so the tank simulates it by taking advantage of deficiencies in the AI.

But this is really beside the point. I'm not sure who replaced the frontline/midline/backline setup with this framework like in other MMOs, but it doesn't really fit. Consider a Shadow Form sin, for example; it tanks, but very often also does damage via Whirling Defense, Sliver Armor, or any other punishment skill. Or a 600/smite team: the 600 is tanking, obviously, but the smiter is simultaneously damaging and supporting. Okay, so these are specialised builds, but they do see a lot of use. Even in non-speedclear teams, mesmers can deal damage and mitigate it at the same time via Mistrust, Ineptitude, Clumsiness, Keystone Signet etc.

In fact, the very presence of idiosyncratic builds like this could be considered one of the signatures of GW. The game can handle more than the standard trinity of damage/tank/heal, so people will take advantage of that to create builds that don't neatly fall into one category. -- Hong 18:51, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

... which actually makes me think: the reason the sin got looked down on when Factions came out is because it was a DPS class in a framework without a place for DPS. It does plenty of damage, but has a glass jaw: the classic description of a damager in WoW, EQ or any other MMO. Unfortunately, in GW frontliners are expected to be able to take it as well as dish it out, and thus Anet has had to spend the last few years toughening the sin up. -- Hong 19:38, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I admit I'm moving more into using my definitions than those made by anyone else, but I never thought any one build would focus entirely on one role (in fact, those that do are generally bad, unless they are absolutely amazing at that one role). For example, a mesmer might be built primarily for damage, but being a mesmer, he's also going to have a fair amount of control. GW has never really been about the single role build thing, with the exception of monks (who generally only support and rarely do significant damage or control - but even then, roj smiters in pve and tease heroes wherever).

Konig: Tanking isn't support at all. Support is buffing allies, healing damage, or lessening the damage taken when an ally is attacked; tanks do none of these things. Tanks prevent enemies from attacking allies, which is clearly a control thing. (Snaring melee is a very basic example of that same thing.) So, yes, aggroing is a very basic form of control; it's also manipulation, as you're... manipulating the enemies. As for enemy movement, tanks always ball up enemies and keep them where they can be aoe'd.

Hong: I always thought of frontline/midline/backline is referring to the squishiness and (in an often vauge sense) primary role of the character. Frontline characters are often tough, as they're vulnerable to attack from many fronts, and tend to focus on damage with a side of control (or, in some cases, support, such as a Dwayna derv); midliners are less vulnerable to attack (and thus tend to be squishier) and tend to focus on control with varying degrees of support (e.g. paragon, ward bsurge/etc) or damage (ranger, dps ele, mesmer, etc). Backline tends to be especially squishy both because of their vital role (support) and the difficulty one has to go through to attack them, and focus less on secondary roles.

But getting back to your point, the sin was looked down on because, at Factions release, the sin was designed for a game with an agro table - he was squishy and lacked significant control. That becomes less of an issue when your paragon yells at you until you stay alive, but at the time, that wasn't an option.

-- Armond Warblade 20:00, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. The sin slots perfectly into the damage/support/control framework. It damages, without much consideration given to other things. However, it doesn't fit so perfectly into Guild Wars (at least in the form that it had in 2006). This suggests that the D/S/C framework is not the best way to treat Guild Wars.

Really, what was wrong with the front/mid/backline split that was there until the start of 2011? Was it too broad? That's unavoidable, given how GW works, what with free multiclassing and attribute lines that are rather haphazard. -- Hong 20:20, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Front/mid/backlines still exist, even if they're not always utilized. Some teams eschew a standard front/mid/backline setup; commonly, the midline and backline get blended together (both being made up of casters), but the frontline and midline can also blend together (in the case of paragons or, to a lesser extent, rangers).

Let's take a believable example: a team goes into HA with eight eles. Five are fire, one is water, and two are healers using ridiculous energy management. The frontline is completely forgotten, and the midline blends with the backline both in terms of positioning (it's much harder to visually tell a healer ele from a nuker ele than it is a nuker ele from a healer monk) and role (if some of the fire eles don't have rit heals, they're doing it wrong). However, the frontline has only disappeared because the team feels the fire eles can do enough damage fast enough to make up for the decreased survivability of bringing a warrior and/or a dervish (who would have higher armor, stronger control abilities such as frequent knockdowns, and would force enemy players to kite them, decreasing the time they can spend dealing damage or healing).

It looks like you're under the impression that front/mid/backline assignments replace damage/support/control roles, which isn't true. An individual skill can fill the role of damage, support, or control (or a combination thereof) and be used viably on a character that spends his time on the frontline, midline, or backline. The damage/support/control triangle is just an extra (and, in my opinion, more useful) way of describing a role, and while I think it was used to a point throughout the game's history, it wasn't really put into words all that well until ANet did so in one of their articles.

-- Armond Warblade 20:50, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not saying front/mid/backline positions must exist in all teams. Look back at the examples I gave: a SF sin and 600/smite. In the first, it's just a single frontliner, and the second is a front/backline combo. I just think that framework does a better job of describing and organising roles in GW than does damage/support/control. It could do with some expansion though, to provide more detail on what each line actually does. Thus a frontliner usually (but not always) does damage, a midliner can either do damage or prevent it, a backliner keeps the team alive, and so on.

As an aside, gimmicks may be annoying to play against, but they sure are fun to watch! I've obs'ed a GvG team of 6 Invoke eles and 2 monks against an unsuspecting balanced team a few times, and it was hilarious. People would be running around bashing each other, and all of a sudden, someone would explode. -- Hong 03:20, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

What I am saying is there is nothing wrong with frontline/midline/backline designations; just that they're used in tandem with damage/support/control designations. One describes positioning, the other describes actions. -- Armond Warblade 16:36, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Battery

I strongly disagree with the "battery" categorization underneath the support role, primarily because it's already covered by offensive and defensive buffing. Energy and adrenaline are, in and of themselves, useless; having 50k energy doesn't actually do anything until you use it. (This is also why people don't run eles with max energy of 200.) Thus, any energy or adrenaline you grant to your teammates as a battery is used to fuel their offensive or defensive skills and falls under the appropriate buffing category.

Also, Falconeye, I'd suggest waiting a day or two after I post something before you copy it to the namespace. Everything you put up here is stuff I jotted down between customers, and it really shows.

-- Armond Warblade 04:48, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Battery is Utility, rather simple. Konig/talk 05:52, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Utility is support and control, actually. -- Armond Warblade 07:17, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

The Utility page disagrees with you until Falconeye changed it recently ("Utility is a term used to describe skills, builds, and/or character roles that offer a team something other than the holy trinity of tank, DPS, and healing" - healing being support and, by your own argument, tank being control), but honestly I don't give enough of a damn to start another "this is that and that is this" argument like above. In any case, all team role related articles (and, for that matter, tactic related articles) more or less need vast amounts of improvements and, most importantly for team roles, clarification. Konig/talk 07:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Purpose of the article

I think we might have lost track of the goal of a team role article: it's merely a convenient model for explaining a variety of tactics/strategies and useful in developing successful builds. In fact, it's arguably the most important first step towards becoming a better player. However, I can think of at least 10 viable models that might be called team roles, including:

1. Damage | Support | Control | Other → This is the model that ANet is espousing for its GW2 design; it makes a lot of sense to use it for GW1's wiki, too.
2. Damage | Heal | Other → This is a traditional cRPG and MMO model. It's also a lot simpler, but it is competitive with the above.
3. Backline | Frontline | Midline → This is a traditional sports model, but it applies well to MMOs (esp. in PvP); it complements DSC/DHO models.
4. Direct damage | Buffs | Counters | Other → This is a traditional cRPG model that owes a lot to Paper & Pencil games. It's more nuanced than any of the above.
5. Infantry | Ranged | Logistics | Mechanized/cavalry → This is a primitive military tactics division; it works better in RTS, but it has some utility for to MMOs (even Modestly multiplayer games, such as GW1).

I tend to use these (and others) when discussing strategy, organizing groups, or planning 7H builds; I choose the one that works best for the situation. But the wiki should pick one and stick to it. If the article gets too involved, it loses its value as a learning/teaching tool.

My preference would be #1, since it's ANet's model for GW2 and it's useful for helping people get unstuck when they hit the wall (usually in some HM dungeon or attempting Beyond using their VQ-faceroll teams). I think we also need to cover #3, b/c it's in widespread use.

We then have to be clear about what me mean by each of the main roles (D/S/C and B/F/M). That will make it easier to resolve debates about whether Battery is Support or Utility. And whether or not the team roles navbar ought to include builds that exemplify various roles. And whether or not we need individual articles about each role (I'm not sure that we do, if this article is solid).

As it stands, I think the article doesn't fulfill the promise of establishing a simple model, explaining what it is and how it helps game play, and serving as a launching pad for helping players improve their gameplay.

Assuming there's some agreement that we'd like to proceed in a different direction from the current evolution of Team roles, I'll come up with a draft that we can use as a place to start (and discard or improve as needed). – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 01:05, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the article should be written so that new players/teams can also know stuff like: an MM might possibly be a substitute for a Tank (not always), but unlikely to substitute for a Healer, or a Shutdown Mesmer. Whereas a Shutdown Ranger might substitute for a Shutdown Mesmer.

There will be problems if we insist on being stuck in the "Holy Trinity" mindset. There is no holy trinity in Guild Wars. It's not WoW or the other WoW-wannabes where Tank, DPS or Healer can cover most of the builds (and that's why I like GW1). In GW1 a shutdown mesmer, minion master and cripshot are as different from each other as a tank is as different from a healer and a nuker. The way you play them is different. Also in PvE there are Damage spirit spammers (e.g. SoS) and Protection spirit spammers (e.g. Soul Twist).

So to me there's Damage (reduce enemy health: subtypes= pressure, spike, AOE/Nuker), Healer (increase ally health), Tank (preferred target for the mobs to attack: tank/minions/pet), Protector (reduce damage). Then Control: Shutdown (prevent/reduce enemy skill activation/effectiveness), Snarer (prevent/reduce enemy movement), KD (prevent/reduce enemy skill activation and movement). Then Support: Batteries (increase energy regeneration), Shouts/Buffs/Wards/etc. Then Misc: Runners, Corpse Teleporter (sometimes a team really really needs one, don't you love GW1? ;) ), etc. We should not be too generic. Teams say "need tank", "need healer", "need prot", "need nuker", "need mesmer". That's about as generic as they go. I've never seen them generalize further to "need control" or similar. So if we're going to have a practical guide on team roles for players I think we should go as general/wide as what is done in practice and maybe just one step further for concept/discussion e.g. "Control", but always keep in mind on how it can help new players. It would be good if players can know that cries of "need monk" might be satisfied by a "healing/prot ritualist" or "prot e/mo" or even a necro/elementalist ritualist. While "need nuker" could be satisfied by a build that does significant AOE DPS. 121.121.81.143 16:02, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

GW1 was a decidedly PvP game, and "team roles" was originally a PvP article detailing the different positions a player could hold in a GvG or HA match. The PvE is hardly difficult enough to warrant a full page guide on how to c-space cowboy through joke content. -Auron 00:31, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

So the Team Roles page should be deleted since GW1 PvP is practically dead and GW1 PvE is so easy? Or we're just keeping it around for historic reasons? After all there's no point rewriting the page to help people for "joke content" (PvE) or dying content (PvP - only a very few GvG - and often it's just people farming set-up matches). 173.254.216.68 11:08, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

User: Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) has left this proposal last December and didn't come back with a draft. As it stands since then, the page has four section stubs. The time gap between the latest version until today is large so I think its better to re-write it all over from scratch (userpage sandbox) than starting to add little bits which will surely make the reading flow feel weird as it wasn't composed by a single mind. Whoever this un-identified IP user is, register an account and elaborate a substitute article for the community to evaluate. Yoshida Keiji (talk) 10:06, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

As is, this isn't an article as much as it is a POV essay. It is a de facto interpretation of how the game should be optimally played. However, it is neither necessary nor sufficient for success. It is basically evangelizing the balanced build, and the factual content about how that build is played should be transferred to that article. 65.87.26.122 23:42, 30 October 2012 (UTC)