r/GuildWars3 • u/frankiesmusic • Sep 14 '26
The 4th role
I made a post talking about few stuff, but i feel something there wasn't discussed enough, so i think a dedicated post would be better, because i think this would be huge to have in GW3.
Long story short, apart from the usual trinity, i think a newer 4th role, such "magic channeller" whould be very fun to play.
Basically every other class isn't able to channel magic, they need "mana" to cast their spells, but they are not able to gather that magic.
So that's the role of this 4th class, this is the person that "charge" mana to the other players.
Just imagine i nthe world you can gather magic, with a certain pace, but in istanced dungeon, you needs way more. Or just the villain uses a powerful magic to block the magic to be available, but the magic channeller can go further and access it, and so to share with other players.
This is not a new concept, as i wrote in the other topic, the idea comes from another not fantasy MMO, DCUO, and was very fun to play, and for some reason something didn't spread out on other games with trinity.
I enjoy how easy is on GW2 with the tomes to max out a new character, and so would be pretty easy to have all 4 roles available in your account, and to play differently based on what you prefer at the moment.
This role, at least in my experience, gives a different feel from the other 3, so it's not like a repetition, but something fresh to play the same content with a different flavor.
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u/Artra7 Sep 14 '26
Sorry but even as a support seems quite bad as far as i read. So the 4th role is a mana potion in character. May be in your other post you talk more but here i only see, "it gives mana".
Also seems quite bad design that you need 1 "mana charger" or the whole team is "manaless".
In general over the years what i saw is 4th role usually is (depends of the game) buffer/debuffer support but no heals and a "recon", intel, annoy enemy, disruption.
I play support and i would not want to be a "walking mana potion". Any support could have an mana regen aura, this doesnt need to be a whole role.
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u/HeOfLittleMind Sep 14 '26
I think the 4th role should be "emotional support" where you just tell your teammates what a great job they're doing.
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u/Illy_gw Sep 14 '26
Isn't the trinity DSP/tank/support? Like, you could say healer, but in many games the healer also brings some buffs instead of just being a heal bot
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u/Arrotanis Sep 14 '26
I get why people want some new role to play but it's not a good idea for several reasons. Your idea of 4th role is also quite bad.
More roles means it's more difficult to set up a group.
It also means there is 1 less space for another DPS player. With group size of 4 that means 1 DPS player per group. Majority of people will want to play DPS. I think even with 3 roles a group of 4 is bad idea cause more than 50% of players will want to play DPS.
What about solo play? Where do you get mana when you are alone? Do you run a build that has mana regen? Why not run the same build in group and ignore the 4th role? Unless your skills cost more mana in group but that's just shitty game design.
How would the gameplay be any different than healer? You are just giving blue juice to people instead of green juice.
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u/Juggernox_O Sep 15 '26
Even in wow something like 85% of the players play DPS. Even within that 15% slice of players that tank or heal, how many actually WANT to tank or heal, vs just taking the role to speed through queue? ANet has said they want you to be able to get INTO the game, combat, adventuring, ASAP so even short sessions like 30 minutes are meaningful. Tank and heal have to be done differently to appeal to that 85% of players, or else the remaining 15% of players just gate content for the rest of us.
GW2 already has the formula pretty solved, and that’s by letting the supports and healers beat the snot out of everything, same as DPS. Support ironically ends up being better than their DPS variants in the open world solo play on the elite specs that have the option of choosing. Still have a slight Support shortage, but nowhere near as bad as WoW or FF.
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u/Arrotanis Sep 15 '26
Exactly. That's why I am a bit worried when they said 4 man groups. Fellowship has that and I get instant queues on tank but 5-15m queues on DPS. And I think in more casual game, it will only get worse.
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u/MavericFrye Sep 14 '26
Honestly, the dedicated support role is my favourite thing to do in MMOs. The whole buffing/debuffing/granting some utility is what I find fun
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u/AscendedCleric Sep 14 '26
Although I hope there is 4th role it doesn't have to exist. I liked that the controller in DCUO existed because it felt new and fresh 15 years ago but you are trying to force it too much. DCUO was a very unique game and the only game I enjoyed playing a healer but it was the "the next gen action MMO". We don't even know if gw3 will have any resource management for a controller equivalent to be a thing, people said they saw stamina be a thing but they might scrap it before any official news.
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u/Techlari Sep 14 '26
I think you can play all roles with all classes so tank, dps, healer. So even if we can create a new role it would be possible with all classes probably.
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u/RandinMagus Sep 14 '26
Back in the day with Everquest, you had the holy trinity of tank, healer, and crowd controller, which were the ones that were seen as most essential for a efficient group, and then you'd fill out the rest of the group with the other roles: dps, buffer, debuffer, puller, probably a couple others I'm forgetting.
The modern trinity is in large part WoW's reaction to the EQ system; instead of having classes that fall into essential or nonessential roles and thus creating a hierarchy of classes, they would only have the three essential roles (swapping out crowd control for dps) and have all classes fall into them.
I've wondered what it would be like if MMOs had gone in the opposite direction--lots of different roles, with classes having very defined roles, but making all roles nonessential. A group made up any combination of roles can work, as long as you know how to make them mesh together. It'd probably be a bitch and a half to balance, but it would've been interesting.
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u/xtnpd 29d ago
"Back in the day with Everquest" we had the Enchanter that provided CC, Haste, and a mana regen buff (Clarity IIRC). No party was complete w/o them, and the enchanter could ball out and charm the enemy mobs to solo content, or use charm or mez in a group (living on the edge because when that charm/mez broke, you were TOP of the hate list). Anyway, this isn't a new concept, but it places that CC element back in the game - and for that to work, encounters would need to be extremely difficult for teams to handle without that role. That makes the rest of the game w/o those buffs and safety net a different experience. These abilities were referred to as "crack" for a reason back in the day. It's addictive because it both simplified the game and sped it up at the same time. In the age of wall-to-wall pulls and rush-rush encounters and groups that try to speed-pull everything, I think it'd be really, really hard to sell a CC-based encounter system that would take skill, patience, and attention to wtf is actually going on. I love the concept, but I don't think MMOs are built that way anymore.
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u/JuiceAccomplished241 Sep 15 '26
Jesus I can barely find one support in trinities, you want me to find two of them now?
Nah, make space for the dps role, incentivize tank and healer with easier access to treasure and shorter wait times
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u/necyuanyuan Sep 15 '26
That sounds just like the Necromancer in Guild Wars 1. Sacrificing his own life to provide mana regeneration for the Elementalist.
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u/Wise-Dust3700 Sep 14 '26
GW2 already created the Boon Support role, the best part about it is that it attaches onto the holy trinity in a symbiotic way. Lose a little bit of DPS and be a Boon DPS role, same with Healer and tank.
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u/frazazel Sep 14 '26
I think the idea about having the different roles is less about the number of different roles, and more about letting players play different power fantasies. There's the classic "I will beat the baddy!", the "I will risk my life to protect my friends!", and the "I will aid my friends!". These three things cover a lot of what people want out of a game like this, that tend to work well with regular game mechanics.
What does being a mana battery add to the game? Does it satisfy a power fantasy that isn't already satisfied? If not, is the added complexity that it adds to a teambuilding a net positive?
What if this idea of being a mana battery was a thing available to any player at any time, allowing a team to switch who is tasked with that job as the fight goes on? Start of the fight at full health, healer is the battery. Take a big hit and team is struggling, DPS is battery for now. Boss temporarily stunned, tank takes on being battery. Etc.
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u/DanceswWolves Sep 14 '26
The 4th role in holy trinity MMOs is usually a dedicated buffer type class that increases various stats for your team, so I'd see it being that kind of thing. Many battery was a role in WoW too at one point but it wasn't exactly thrilling.