Before I get into the actual content of the post, I want to state that I don’t think it is necessary for the game for portal to be removed. This thread is merely a place for a discussion of the implications of the removal of portal and is based on a conversation I had with my team last night.
Before touching on how the game would be different without portal, lets look over the strengths of portal. In competitive play, portal is primarily used by a mesmer to place a portal on its team “natural” point so that the mesmer is able to engage elsewhere on the map with their team and quickly return (and with allies) if the point comes under attack. My team refers to the back point watcher leaving their point as “cheating” and I will be using that term throughout the rest of the post, and although we call it cheating we do not mean they are doing something that is not allowed.
Since a mesmer can bring back as many people as necessary, countering a cheating mesmer with extra numbers near his portal does not matter if he and his teammates are able to return together (often after winning the fight at the previous point due to the numbers advantage they would have while you are in transit to the point which has the portal on it).
There is only 1 other ability that is even somewhat similar to the mesmer portal, the thief ability shadow trap, which is not activated on demand (enemy must step on the trap) and only teleports the thief.
The use of portal to repair the trebuchet in khylo is one area where I think portal is clearly too strong and regardless of the long term future of portal I think it should no longer be possible to interact with the portal while carrying the kit.
The current strength of portal has resulted in nearly every competitive team running a mesmer in pretty much the same fashion. My team uses it because it so effective, but I think that it limits the number of effective strategies and team comps.
So finally onto that magical world where mesmer portal no longer exists….What would change?
Cheating off your home point to assist in a team fight will be a much higher risk activity rather than the standard play (like taking out the goalie in hockey in the 3rd period when down by 1 etc).
This would increase the value of mobility as well, since teams with more mobility will be able to cheat more effectively/neutralize the enemies point when they are cheating before their cheater can return to the point.
This would be an indirect nerf to guardian bunkers who are in general the least mobile of the bunker classes and are often shuttled to various points via portal in the current meta. Going with a double bunker comp would be less ideal because it would be easier to leave a bunker idle at a point or force them into a high risk cheating scenario. Bunkers tend to be pretty worthless from long range as well, so a long ranged dps watching over the home point that could cheat and help from a distance might outperform bunkers in the role of watching the home point.
I think this would lead to teams more often playing all 3 points leading to various 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 situations to arise compared to the game currently which tends to revolve around a lot of 4v4s and in the case of foefire 5v5s.
Any other experienced players want to chime in with their opinions? Do you think the game would be better or worse without mesmer portal? Are there any other balance/gameplay implications that I didn’t consider?