Guild Wars 2

I just started playing a few weeks ago and I’m a level 71 mesmer. I started doing WvW about a week ago and it’s a lot of fun. I saved up skill points and got my portal ability. I’ve been told it’s really good to have a few mesmers with it in WvW. But… I just don’t know when and where it’s best to use. I know it’s great for running people through the jump challenge but because I was portaled through it I’m not sure how to help people with it myself.

Any advice? Maybe sometime someone can actually show me? (I’m on Northern Shiverpeaks and and I’m usually in EternalBG)

On a side note, I’m finding the GW community to be the most helpful and friendly gaming community I’ve ever been part of.

As a mesmer myself, welcome to the best profession! =)

Portal is amazing in the hands of a good mesmer. Add me if you want me to show you how the jumping puzzles work. I can show you the one in EB, and then the one in the borderlands is the same between all 3 (but you can still do them and get rewards, just same layout)

Using portal usually should be requested by the commander or guild leader that you’re with. If you want your zerg or roaming group to use it, you’ll need to coordinate on voice chat. But mainly they would stay hidden. You would want to use veil, decoy, mass invis, and blink to get close to the zerg without them noticing. Then you drop the other side of the portal. If I’m getting hit already, I’ll usually take the portal back, then again just to lose aggro. If possible, try to place the portal behind the group you want to attack. That way you can still keep form, and you’ll be mainly aiming at the squishes first.

Using portal by yourself is a little different. You can place it far away as an, oh kitten plan. Or you can use it to stomp somebody that might have an interrupt. I generally just like to pop some clones and use f4 to ignore any interrupts during a stomp.

Osicat has some fantastic videos both on using portals for yourself and in a group fashion.

I kept thinking of suggestions for how to use portals that I was going to tell you, but Ethics covered all of them :P
oh, one more: after Invaders capture your keep, hide in a corner inside the keep somewhere, then when the zerg leaves, make a portal to let your buddies inside the keep then kill the Lord and recapture the keep without having to destroy any gates. Most zergs know about this threat and will quickly scour the keep looking for mesmers.

Ethics made a good foundational post.

Just remember, its just a skill that can move you, and anyone around you, from point A to B repeatedly within a certain time frame. I consider portal one of the most useful skills in the game.

Portal kiting is one of the most effective tactics available, as well as being applicable almost universally. You can even use portals to move people to different “siege zones,” where you have preset siege that all focuses on defending the other zones. With portal, you can move a group almost immediately between the zones.

Experiment with it, and I am sure you will even come up with ideas that havent been tried yet.

Just also remember entre and exeunt (or however you spell that…), are only allowed a certain distance between them, that is in no way indicated ingame. One situation in particulare not covered where this is REALLY annyoing is when moving golems, a ver y effective tactics if used right have a 3-4 golems build at a supply camp or nearby tower then a couple mesmers chain up portals moving them quickly to enemy keep to take down the doors, but if you end up placing you two portals a little too far from eachother well they wont be usable at all, and the golems may have to slowly walk that distance themselves xD

Thanks for all the advice guys!

I can see voice chat being really important. Ethics, sometime in the next few days when I get the chance I’ll add you. Thanks for the help!