[MMO] Is "the Trinity" really such a bad thing?

Alright, so bear with me a moment, because I want to discuss something controversial in the MMO space. I would also love to hear everyone's opinion on the matter, but only in such a way where the entire issue is explained logically.


Now, one of the major selling points of Guild Wars 2 was the removal of the Trinity. For those that arn't in the know the Trinity is the standard "Tank, Healer, DPS" model found in World of Warcraft, and many MMO's like it. Now, I want to start out by saying that I am in no means implying that Arena.net should have kept the Trinity model. Innovation in the industry is a great thing, and something that can only be accomplished by trial and error. It was only a matter of time before someone made an MMO that tried to do away with the trinity, and I'm glad it was Arena.net.


All of that said, I want to talk about why the Trinity is such a horrible concept to people. Especially people around the GW2 community. It seems like people think that nothing good can come from a game that features the trinity ever again, and the entire system is outdated and trash. I'm not joking either, sadly. I've read some pretty horrible (and seemingly bias) criticisms of the trinity. "Why would you want to wait 30+ minutes to find a dungeon group! That's all the trinity does, down with it I say!" Seems to make up the bulk of the arguments against the trinity. To that particular claim, I offer this, should more people learn how to tank or heal? It would shorten the time it takes for a DPS to find a group, and it would certainly shorten your own time to find a group. If you hate waiting that long learn another role. Most people who seem to have a huge issue with the trinity hate it because they come from a game with a dungeon finder and they find it "unfair" that Tanks, and Healers (to an extent) get groups almost instantly, while they have to wait, because they are unwilling to try and Tank/Heal. I mained a Healer for years in WoW, and I almost never have to wait over 5 minutes when I wanted to run a dungeon. Now in Mists I'm maining a Tank. I personally prefer the Tank and Healer roles because I don't have to wait as long, and because generally speaking? There easy. I would almost say that DPS is hardest role to be good at. Healing would probably be the second hardest role, and the easiest? Probably Tank. Yet everyone likes DPS because while it's the hardest role to be good at, it's the role with the least impact on the group, and therefore the easiest to be bad at and still make it through the dungeon. Mind you, these are my opinions, I'm not saying that they are facts.


With that, I my main argument for the Trinity is this: should we be trying to abolish it, or should we be trying to improve upon it? Some people like the idea of "I play this role, because I like this role, and I feel good at it." In a game like GW2 you can't really have that feeling.


I almost feel like a better way to improve upon the Trinity would be to try and add in more roles to it. I know that 5 Man design is pretty crowded as is, but I think you could (and for the most part people already do some of this) split ranged dps and melee dps apart, and even add in a 5th support type role. That is a role that's dedicated to making sure things get cc'ed , to be able to dps when needed, or heal if needed, and generally just be flexible to whatever the group needs. "Oh a bunch of adds spawned, but the tanks are dealing with the boss, I can pick those up"


Another way that the trinity could be dealt with is to just make the dps role carry more responsibility in general. Make it so that all of the DPS need to be good in order to make it through the dungeon.


Just some suggestions, as I mentioned above I would love to see what everyone else thinks.