Of Portals and Pouncing
Hi. 80 Mesmer here on GoM. I read the linked material….but I guess I’m not understanding.
The links refer to all the problems with a massive amount of people getting invisible/not rendered quick enough when sent through a portal into an enemy zerg. I don’t see anyone talking about using portal to bypass a keep with a standing gate/wall, which seems to be what you are claiming takes place.
Could you link a video or post that specifies how and when people are using the portal skill to traverse from the attacking side of a gate/keep to the defending side?
As a side note, I am totally all for Theives being able to shadowstep up to defenders/walls, so long as Elementalists and Mesmers can use their Blinks to do the same (as it was in the BWEs). It would make people actively defend against threats versus zerging a keep, dropping a ridiculous amount of upgrades and then the defenders leaving it alone to zerg another location, which is what seems to happen on WvW when one team has a huge amount of map control.
I see nothing wrong with allowing thieves to shadow step onto a keep wall. It really isn’t as “unfair” as some people think. I loved “Bypass Defenses” on my Marauder in WAR. That said there needs to be some sort of safeguard from allowing two dozen thieves to down a keep lord without any gates or walls being destroyed.
Champion Phantom
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An easy fix would be to simply give the defending Lord NPCs a power scale or buff that makes it harder/impossible to down them while the keep/tower/etc remains “intact”, and the buff simply fades when a wall or gate is destroyed. This would allow Theives/Mesmers/Elems to get up onto the walls and deal with the wall defenders during an assault, but wouldn’t allow them to single handedly bypass defenses and capture the location outright.
Hi. 80 Mesmer here on GoM. I read the linked material….but I guess I’m not understanding.
The links refer to all the problems with a massive amount of people getting invisible/not rendered quick enough when sent through a portal into an enemy zerg. I don’t see anyone talking about using portal to bypass a keep with a standing gate/wall, which seems to be what you are claiming takes place.
Could you link a video or post that specifies how and when people are using the portal skill to traverse from the attacking side of a gate/keep to the defending side?
As a side note, I am totally all for Theives being able to shadowstep up to defenders/walls, so long as Elementalists and Mesmers can use their Blinks to do the same (as it was in the BWEs). It would make people actively defend against threats versus zerging a keep, dropping a ridiculous amount of upgrades and then the defenders leaving it alone to zerg another location, which is what seems to happen on WvW when one team has a huge amount of map control.
Here’s what I know from what I’ve read on various complaint posts on the forums, as well as experiencing it firsthand in WvW. The slow-rendering of players passing through portals allows players to traverse thin objects (such as the water-gate in borderlands maps). This was something that happened several times in the past few days, resulting in my servers loss of keeps. We originally thought it was flight-hackers, as the gates/walls of our keep were never breached, but the lords were still being killed. Additionally, portal placement at these weak-rendering areas also allows troops access into keeps using the same rendering mechanic (issues? flaws?) suggested in the post that Anet responded in (saying it was legit).
An easy fix would be to simply give the defending Lord NPCs a power scale or buff that makes it harder/impossible to down them while the keep/tower/etc remains “intact”, and the buff simply fades when a wall or gate is destroyed. This would allow Theives/Mesmers/Elems to get up onto the walls and deal with the wall defenders during an assault, but wouldn’t allow them to single handedly bypass defenses and capture the location outright.
I LOVE this idea. It makes perfect sense. Thieves can still assist from the walls, but they won’t just be able to take stuff over on their own – this would also apply to the Mesmer portals too.
I’m not against leaving a portal in there or something (I’ve even hidden in keeps that were taken before lol), it sounds pretty fail if they can send people through walls via lousy rendering though. I don’t play WvW much anymore… between not seeing people I need to see, and the fact that the more you capture the easier it is to hold (always, always either winning massively or losing massively – so boring!) it really seems like more thankless work than entertainment.
If Mesmer portals are being abused to completely bypass a Keep/Tower from the OUTSIDE (will explain in a second), then that issue needs addressing.
I have, however, gotten a team into a tower through gates by hiding after the tower fell to the enemy, then sticking around until they thinned out their defenses, and dropping a portal inside first, then going to the outside and bringing people in.
That’s really just them being sloppy about not making sure their tower is secure IMO. However, warping through from the outside and taking the location through any means other than bringing down a gate or wall seems to trivialize the assault and seige mechanics central to WvW play, which doesn’t sound like what ANet is sanctioning in that post.
I feel he’s merely saying that there isn’t a problem with Mesmers using portals in zerg vs. zerg tactics to warp a large amount of people into the heart of a force to disperse their enemy. Both sides can do this, and aside from rendering issues (which I believe would be felt by both sides), I can stand behind ANet’s sanctioning of it.
The response from Arenanet had nothing to do with the exploitive use of portals to bypass walls/gates from the outside in. ( Ala the water gate ). You REALLY need to clarify that in your blog as well as in this thread. Arenanets comment was on portal bombing, not glitching into a keep.
Yeah I updated the blog post, can’t change my thread posts though for some reason.
would love for thiefs to somehow bypass defences to help kill the defenders on the wall (but making ti impossible to kill the keep lord before a wall or gate is downed), not for mesmer to get inside unless they hidden in there from the past where they had access too it (owned the fort/keep, or had the outer door/walls down prior)