Stormbluff Isle
Toons: Monstadon, Blood and Shadow
(edited by Baelish.9850)
Mesmers have already been nerfed in terms of damage output recently (or so I understand. I don’t play mesmer so I don’t know the details… but something about their ‘berserker’ ability’).
And yet, they may get nerfed again because people are crying over their portals. Saying they’re “ruining the game” (they’ve been in the game since the beginning, buddy. Did you just join WvW yesterday?)
They’re a strategy. If you think it doesn’t take strategy to pull one off, especially in tight circumstances when you’re cornered and outnumbered… then you probably don’t play in a skilled group of WvWers. And by skilled, I mean strategically intelligent. I’ve seen attempted portal bombs fail constantly.
A good mesmer needs an intelligent, experienced knowledge of the terrain, and relative distance to pull off a good portal bomb. Otherwise the portal will fail. And though I’m sure there’s sloppy players just throwing portals down out there without regard or intuition to the distance cap and how it relates to the terrain they’re in… those mesmers aren’t the one who make differences in really tough fights. Because in really epic fights on T1 — a sloppy mesmer gets roflstomped before he/she can drop anything. And given my experience with 2 of the T2 servers, I doubt its any different there.
Portal bombs are also easy to counter. Though they usually change the gameplay a bit, they don’t stop a good team that knows what to look for and has quick reaction time. If a portal bomb is capable of completely owning you when you would’ve otherwise won a fight… you may need to face the fact that your response time sucks as well as your vigilance in minding your surrounding.
here’s a video of SF during the 1st week of SoS/JQ/SBI match… where we got last place and most ppl were doing PVE and not even logging on. We were horribly outnumbered the entire match and still, you can see us countering portal bombs at 8:30 that are fielding huge, superior numbers by blocking a potential portal and having good communication/response time. You see dozens of people attempt to portal in, and then immediately portal back because of the ‘feedback’ we threw on it preemptively (which is just plain funny. What a buncha wussies. They had superior numbers. They could’ve made a serious dent in our flank regardless of our readiness. They just didn’t want to be wiped for the sake of making an impact).
At 8:30 in the video, you can see Hoschi slam into the portal bomb as everyone disappeared. Notice also how he knew it was coming, because our team had GOOD COMMUNICATION.
(edited by Baelish.9850)
It’s really not that hard to stop a portal bomb, or to overcome one. I remember when people were crying over ‘turtles’… which used portals to cram people into one place spamming AoE heals… and even that was absurd. Because most organized teams could decimate them with a flash-built ballista or arrow-cart.
But now that turtles were ‘fixed’ (never saw a problem with em, personally. They were annoying but we took em down quite often. Was blown away to hear of random PVE kids in dungeons saying theyre not coming back until turtles are ‘fixed’)….
And yet… after turtles are nerfed, now people are whining about portals in general? What’s next? Crying about ppl having superior siege, built using their skill pts and collections of standard blueprints? Crying about thieves being able to be invisible for longer than 3 seconds near a dolyak? Crying about people playing in groups larger than 4 after 12pm ET? Crying just because… well, you feel like crying while playing GW2 because you saw a cheesy Ryan Gosling movie?
Can we be honest for a moment, and just admit that you’re upset you were killed when you thought you were about to easily win while spamming your 1-5 keys?. That having a zerg running in one direction towards a smaller group didn’t work for you as easily as you thought it was? That Pvdoor isn’t the only way to win an objective?
Portals add color to this game (literally and metaphorically), and I like them. I don’t play a mesmer… don’t know even the slightest about them other than they can drop portals and make clones.
And I’ve been killed/foiled many times because of a portal bomb. I never whined that it was unfair.
But if you can’t take it.. then please go back to killing dragons and leave PvP for those of us who like variety and can handle beatings now and again… and actually -like- everything not being super-predictable in an already rather predictable environment. I mean, WvW is so repetitive… if you’re honestly surprised by a portal bomb still, then you have that beatdown coming. Usually most experienced players know when to expect them.
/rant off.
Mesmers have had enough nerfs. Their role in WvW is important, and we’d like to keep it that way.
Please reply in solidarity to support mesmers if you agree. The whining over their portal ability by a vocal minority of QQers has become ridiculous. To me, the fact that they sacrifice one of their utility skills on something that only benefits party members, is enough of a sacrifice on their part for them to be allowed to use it.
I’m with you man.
There is seriously nothing OP about portal. The only legitimate complaint people have regarding portal has to do with the rendering bug, which is NOT a problem WITH portal…it is a bug, and should be fixed.
IMO, portal is an ability that allows a smaller but well organized group to have a tactical edge over a big brainless zerg.
I used my commander book on my Mesmer, and not my Warrior, for all (and more than) those reasons why some people cry about Mesmers.
I agree with you, I don’t understand the aggression towards mesmers and portals.
Are they annoying, of course they are, but there preventative measures you can take to make these threats obsolete. If you take a tower or keep, take a minute to sweep for mesmers. My server does this, and we rarely ever have a problem with mesmers portal bombing their ways back in. Aside from that, as a tool on the battlefield, portal bombing is strategic and actually requires a lot of coordination. A successful portal bomb should be applauded, not condemned.
I /cheer every time I get the zerg to stop zerging for the few seconds it takes to set up for a bomb.
I’m with you man.
There is seriously nothing OP about portal. The only legitimate complaint people have regarding portal has to do with the rendering bug, which is NOT a problem WITH portal…it is a bug, and should be fixed.
IMO, portal is an ability that allows a smaller but well organized group to have a tactical edge over a big brainless zerg.
Thank you — for adding this very clear, simple piece of logic.
Personally I haven’t figured out countering portals yet. I assume the main method would be to see it before it happens, but I’ve found that to be really hard. Nevertheless, I don’t mind their current implementation.
I don’t want to question their balance until the culling bug is fixed.
Personally I haven’t figured out countering portals yet. I assume the main method would be to see it before it happens, but I’ve found that to be really hard. Nevertheless, I don’t mind their current implementation.
I don’t want to question their balance until the culling bug is fixed.
They have annnounced they are working on fixing culling but what if it is never fixed. This is a server/engine limitation. It is possible that they will reduce it but never fix it. The issue currently with countering portals is that when the enemies all come through the portal they are stacked together. Our AoE is limited to 5 targets so we can’t focus down the group with AoE because we all won’t be hitting the same targets. I don’t even care about the portal with culling but it has become the only strategy because it is extremely quick and efficient. I was looking for long drawn out battles with the attackers having to outsmart the defenders to breach their castle however as soon as a wall goes down. One mesmer will run inside stealthed up so they will not be seen and portal everyone in. I just find it less fun.
Personally I haven’t figured out countering portals yet. I assume the main method would be to see it before it happens, but I’ve found that to be really hard. Nevertheless, I don’t mind their current implementation.
I don’t want to question their balance until the culling bug is fixed.
So think about it this way…
The people coming out of the portal have the same rendering bug that you do. So if you can’t see them, they probably can’t see you.
The difference is, you KNOW where they all will be. They have no clue where you all are.
Carpet AoE the portal.
Personally I haven’t figured out countering portals yet. I assume the main method would be to see it before it happens, but I’ve found that to be really hard. Nevertheless, I don’t mind their current implementation.
I don’t want to question their balance until the culling bug is fixed.
They have annnounced they are working on fixing culling but what if it is never fixed. This is a server/engine limitation. It is possible that they will reduce it but never fix it. The issue currently with countering portals is that when the enemies all come through the portal they are stacked together. Our AoE is limited to 5 targets so we can’t focus down the group with AoE because we all won’t be hitting the same targets. I don’t even care about the portal with culling but it has become the only strategy because it is extremely quick and efficient. I was looking for long drawn out battles with the attackers having to outsmart the defenders to breach their castle however as soon as a wall goes down. One mesmer will run inside stealthed up so they will not be seen and portal everyone in. I just find it less fun.
To be fair, if you are outnumbered in a siege, and they knocked your walls down…you are basically screwed regardless of if they portal bombed you or not.
There is no secret sauce in the portal. The players that come through are just players. If they destroy you after a portal bomb, they probably would destroy you just by flooding inside your door.
Also…your AoE is ALWAYS limited to 5 targets, portal once again has nothing to do with this. In fact, when you carpet AoE a portal during a bomb, you are actually GUARANTEED to hit the maximum amount of targets your AoE can hit. If you are just AoEing players on the field, they are usually not as stacked up, and you may not hit 5.
So how is the players being stacked up a “detriment” to the people defending against the bomb?
People won’t be happy until they’re left with nothing but the ability to auto-attack each other and ram gates down without being harmed.
Im in support of keeping Portals. I think they are one of the things that make a mesmer such an intresting proffesion in WvW. And all classes have thier special talents built into them.
Rangers for example are very great solo-scounts, and theives can hide-scount for thier world. Ele’s are walking seige(sometimes), and necros can take on an entire zerg and live through it for a good while. Warriors can stand in an oil-pot and laugh(they have the most versatility of all the proffesions imo) and mesmers have sneak tactics like portal. Engineers can use thier lovely machines to turn a tower into a tower of terror(Yes, Ive seen one Engi set up turrers everywhere in sneaky locations whilst he was away, and my little 5 man sneak team got sniped with secret turrets). I think all proffesions have quirks and advantages in wvw, and portals are one of the mesmers many. They should not be nerfed…Ever.
Although the 5 man aoe thing can burn in fire…I think aoe should hit EVERYTHING IN IT’s AREA OF EFEFCT. I mean, just caue five people are with you standing in lava, does not mean your magicly immune to it. That can go away, and should go away. Discourges the player from fighting zergs with aoe.
They have annnounced they are working on fixing culling but what if it is never fixed. This is a server/engine limitation. It is possible that they will reduce it but never fix it.
The engine is software. Software can be changed. Being a engine limitation does not mean it is set in stone.
A good mesmer needs an intelligent, experienced knowledge of the terrain, and relative distance to pull off a good portal bomb. Otherwise the portal will fail. And though I’m sure there’s sloppy players just throwing portals down out there without regard or intuition to the distance cap and how it relates to the terrain they’re in…
Mesmers do not need an intuition for that. Just minimap properly ajusted. And only if reauired distance reaches “red zone”. Which happens not that often in the battle where you don’t have a lot of time to pull it off.
A good mesmer needs an intelligent, experienced knowledge of the terrain, and relative distance to pull off a good portal bomb. Otherwise the portal will fail. And though I’m sure there’s sloppy players just throwing portals down out there without regard or intuition to the distance cap and how it relates to the terrain they’re in…
Mesmers do not need an intuition for that. Just minimap properly ajusted. And only if reauired distance reaches “red zone”. Which happens not that often in the battle where you don’t have a lot of time to pull it off.
I beg to differ. I’ve seen the difference between good and bad mesmers… and the in between. We have a mesmer commander who’s trained up other mesmers… and I’ve yet to see anyone who can rival her ability to drop a bomb with the right distance in some of the perfect spots. She knows the map like the back of her hand because she knows its her job to do so.
Other mesmers learn from her, and I’ve seen them clearly get better over time. Because its a very specific skill, and I’ve heard/seen people not pull it off as well as others.
Once again, I’m sure there are many mesmers out there who keep things simple. But the ones who don’t… it takes skill, patience, and intelligence.
This mesmer I speak of is not only good for bombs… her intuition of the map is good for knowing exactly where to drop ballistas and trebs for counter-siege, etc. intuition of distance on a map is more than just adjusting the mini-map…. which is not nearly accurate enough to show you great spots for hiding, getting behind the enemy when they’re outnumbering you and think they’ve got every approach covered, etc. There’s vertical aspects of the terrain that have a lot to do with that. And a good mesmer knows that stuff better than others because that’s where their advantage and contribution to the team lies.
Hiding your numbers during a fight and getting someone to an opportune spot during a fight… especially heavily defended siege… takes a lot of skill and experience. And I’ve seen way too many mesmers try and muck it up to chalk it off as easy.
So, yeah. Keep things simple, and the requirements are simple.
Leave Mesmers alone! Nerf the NooB!!!
Fix renderring before you look at any more Nerfs for characters...
Wanted to put this back up as a reminder that the people raging/QQing about mesmers are a minority.. and having a thread to focus the nerd rage doesn’t reflect the community as a whole.
Mesmer portals are perfectly fair for anyone who has an adaptable strategic mindset.
Unless your server, your guild, or your account doesn’t have access to creating mesmer characters — there’s nothing ‘unbalanced’ or ‘unfair’ in their capabilities.
Its a strategy. Available to both sides. And anyone who thinks it doesn’t take skill to be a good mesmer — clearly hasn’t spent time playing with a good mesmer. Anyway — my detailed thoughts on this are in the OP.
bump.
So, yeah. Keep things simple, and the requirements are simple.
I was addressing your point about portal working distance only. If you use intuition to measure that, you are not a good mesmer.
Portal placement spot and timing – that of course is a matter of skill. Big time.
Portals are fine, don’t need nerfs. l2p
o wait this is a positive post? +1
My opinion is that mesmer portals are fine. It’s the being able to res mesmer corpses through gates and wall-jump style exploits that I believe need to be fixed.
Mesmers who can legitimately hide are awesome and deserve their kudos.
Wanted to put this back up as a reminder that the people raging/QQing about mesmers are a minority.. and having a thread to focus the nerd rage doesn’t reflect the community as a whole.
A thread about how good it is doesn´t reflect the community any better though.
When one single skill is the extent of strategy…i´m not all that happy.
I´m not against portals themselves, but for gods sake, we need more similiar skills (similiar in their effect on gameplay, not similiar in mechanics).
If portals get a nerf , I will be so angry. My portals are the only thing that makes me useful to my WvW guild! I am not losing that feeling of knowing that I was a crucial part of the plan.
People quit being a Mesmer cause “it’s too hard”. We few who stick with it should not be punished anymore.
If portals get a nerf , I will be so angry. My portals are the only thing that makes me useful to my WvW guild! I am not losing that feeling of knowing that I was a crucial part of the plan.
People quit being a Mesmer cause “it’s too hard”. We few who stick with it should not be punished anymore.
Very few people know how true this is, mesmers are only as good as the players, and most players who pick up mesmers don’t know how to play it, which is why a majority of the players are good at being mesmers and people cry OP. Everytime i see a thief in wvw i have a feeling that 70/30 that the thief is bad because stealth+hs doesnt equal win.
Very few people know how true this is, mesmers are only as good as the players, and most players who pick up mesmers don’t know how to play it, which is why a majority of the players are good at being mesmers and people cry OP. Everytime i see a thief in wvw i have a feeling that 70/30 that the thief is bad because stealth+hs doesnt equal win.
There´s plenty of good mesmers, but the majority? Nah.
/signed
Expanding options is never a bad thing. The more utility each class has, the more options for counterplay in a game about strategy.
I don’t mind expanding but each class also has something that makes them unique in their own way. Portal would be the mesmers, or you could argue timewarp. I don’t know about the other classes except engineers in which would be weapon kits and no cooldown swaping. elementals and their 20skills on attunements. so on.
I don’t mind expanding but each class also has something that makes them unique in their own way. Portal would be the mesmers, or you could argue timewarp. I don’t know about the other classes except engineers in which would be weapon kits and no cooldown swaping. elementals and their 20skills on attunements. so on.
…because swapping a kit/attunement has just as big of an effect on battles as portal…
It doesnt to be honest, but its unique is what i’m trying to say. If honestly your server is losing because of portal and portal alone, then maybe you guys need different tactics. portal will either be a death trap to those that use it when countered correctly, or a way to destroy siege with inferior numbers. how do you destroy siege with 10 players vs 30? just curious question.
Mesmers have already been nerfed in terms of damage output recently (or so I understand. I don’t play mesmer so I don’t know the details… but something about their ‘berserker’ ability’).
And yet, they may get nerfed again because people are crying over their portals. Saying they’re “ruining the game” (they’ve been in the game since the beginning, buddy. Did you just join WvW yesterday?)
They’re a strategy. If you think it doesn’t take strategy to pull one off, especially in tight circumstances when you’re cornered and outnumbered… then you probably don’t play in a skilled group of WvWers. And by skilled, I mean strategically intelligent. I’ve seen attempted portal bombs fail constantly.
A good mesmer needs an intelligent, experienced knowledge of the terrain, and relative distance to pull off a good portal bomb. Otherwise the portal will fail. And though I’m sure there’s sloppy players just throwing portals down out there without regard or intuition to the distance cap and how it relates to the terrain they’re in… those mesmers aren’t the one who make differences in really tough fights. Because in really epic fights on T1 — a sloppy mesmer gets roflstomped before he/she can drop anything. And given my experience with 2 of the T2 servers, I doubt its any different there.
Portal bombs are also easy to counter. Though they usually change the gameplay a bit, they don’t stop a good team that knows what to look for and has quick reaction time. If a portal bomb is capable of completely owning you when you would’ve otherwise won a fight… you may need to face the fact that your response time sucks as well as your vigilance in minding your surrounding.
here’s a video of SF during the 1st week of SoS/JQ/SBI match… where we got last place and most ppl were doing PVE and not even logging on. We were horribly outnumbered the entire match and still, you can see us countering portal bombs at 8:30 that are fielding huge, superior numbers by blocking a potential portal and having good communication/response time. You see dozens of people attempt to portal in, and then immediately portal back because of the ‘feedback’ we threw on it preemptively (which is just plain funny. What a buncha wussies. They had superior numbers. They could’ve made a serious dent in our flank regardless of our readiness. They just didn’t want to be wiped for the sake of making an impact).
At 8:30 in the video, you can see Hoschi slam into the portal bomb as everyone disappeared. Notice also how he knew it was coming, because our team had GOOD COMMUNICATION.
I disagree. If 1 ability can change the tide of a fight that large, it needs to be removed or balanced.
In all honesty portal is a game changer when used correctly, but it’s a hell of a lot better than stalemates that force you to just sit for hours trying to cap something or defend something.
And no i dont mean open field battles, i mean keeps and towers. If properly defended and sieged correctly, a force of 20 could hold against 40 or more easy, so how do you break the stalemate? just because the 40portal bombs the 20 doesnt mean its an iwin situation either, if the other 20 players see it, they would throw all skills/aoe siege skills on the portal basically just destroying that force. It’s counterable when seen. It’s hard to react sometimes, but mainly its because people’s attention span is elsewhere.
It doesnt to be honest, but its unique is what i’m trying to say. If honestly your server is losing because of portal and portal alone, then maybe you guys need different tactics. portal will either be a death trap to those that use it when countered correctly, or a way to destroy siege with inferior numbers. how do you destroy siege with 10 players vs 30? just curious question.
How did you conclude that we´re losing?
Just so you know, we use it too and more than often succesfuly. I personaly don´t have any problem using it or having it used on me.
What i have problem with is that one single skill can define battles this much. There ought to be more skills with similiarly profound effect.
Mechanic being unique to some profession has nothing to do with it. Ele conjures are unique, but unless they add conjure trebuchet i don´t see them even compareable to portal.
It doesnt to be honest, but its unique is what i’m trying to say. If honestly your server is losing because of portal and portal alone, then maybe you guys need different tactics. portal will either be a death trap to those that use it when countered correctly, or a way to destroy siege with inferior numbers. how do you destroy siege with 10 players vs 30? just curious question.
How did you conclude that we´re losing?
Just so you know, we use it too and more than often succesfuly. I personaly don´t have any problem using it or having it used on me.
What i have problem with is that one single skill can define battles this much. There ought to be more skills with similiarly profound effect.
Mechanic being unique to some profession has nothing to do with it. Ele conjures are unique, but unless they add conjure trebuchet i don´t see them even compareable to portal.
Dude i think you need to relax, i said if, i’m just trying to respond constructively in a nice manner and you are just full out raging on a forum post.
Even so, would you just have it gone with? what would it accomplish? would you rather 5-6classes run around with portals, easily portaling golems anywhere on the map in a the flash of 20seconds with coordinated guilds?
Dude i think you need to relax, i said if, i’m just trying to respond constructively in a nice manner and you are just full out raging on a forum post.
Even so, would you just have it gone with? what would it accomplish? would you rather 5-6classes run around with portals, easily portaling golems anywhere on the map in a the flash of 20seconds with coordinated guilds?
o_O raging, what part gave that impression?
I wouldn´t particularly want it gone, nor would i want more portal skills. Like i said before i would want more skills with similiarly great effect on gameplay, not with same mechanics.
Failing that i think it needs to be toned down. Having 1 single skill define strategy, is not good.
I like portal bombs, I think it’s a really nice concept for breaking stalemates.
At the same time, I find it hilarious that everyone I run with is so used to certain SoS groups using them that we recognize and spot them so fast that it doesn’t even work so well.
As long as you’re prepared and properly communicating, they can be handled easily. Especially since turtling no longer works, so stacking in a ball is not always the greatest idea in some cases.
o_O raging, what part gave that impression?
I wouldn´t particularly want it gone, nor would i want more portal skills. Like i said before i would want more skills with similiarly great effect on gameplay, not with same mechanics.
Failing that i think it needs to be toned down. Having 1 single skill define strategy, is not good.
Well the first part of your post came off as hostile like you thot i was attacking you and your server. More skills that could change the game would be great if thats what you mean, but if you mean every class should have portal then no. Portal is game changing, but i dont believe it to be game breaking. Who knows what new skill anet would even add to give balance to something like this for other classes, conjurable trebs? a little too OP i believe unless it had a high CD as well as supplys to build it would be 150 instead of 100, just my 2cents on it.
Mesmers have already been nerfed in terms of damage output recently (or so I understand. I don’t play mesmer so I don’t know the details… but something about their ‘berserker’ ability’).
And yet, they may get nerfed again because people are crying over their portals. Saying they’re “ruining the game” (they’ve been in the game since the beginning, buddy. Did you just join WvW yesterday?)
They’re a strategy. If you think it doesn’t take strategy to pull one off, especially in tight circumstances when you’re cornered and outnumbered… then you probably don’t play in a skilled group of WvWers. And by skilled, I mean strategically intelligent. I’ve seen attempted portal bombs fail constantly.
A good mesmer needs an intelligent, experienced knowledge of the terrain, and relative distance to pull off a good portal bomb. Otherwise the portal will fail. And though I’m sure there’s sloppy players just throwing portals down out there without regard or intuition to the distance cap and how it relates to the terrain they’re in… those mesmers aren’t the one who make differences in really tough fights. Because in really epic fights on T1 — a sloppy mesmer gets roflstomped before he/she can drop anything. And given my experience with 2 of the T2 servers, I doubt its any different there.
Portal bombs are also easy to counter. Though they usually change the gameplay a bit, they don’t stop a good team that knows what to look for and has quick reaction time. If a portal bomb is capable of completely owning you when you would’ve otherwise won a fight… you may need to face the fact that your response time sucks as well as your vigilance in minding your surrounding.
here’s a video of SF during the 1st week of SoS/JQ/SBI match… where we got last place and most ppl were doing PVE and not even logging on. We were horribly outnumbered the entire match and still, you can see us countering portal bombs at 8:30 that are fielding huge, superior numbers by blocking a potential portal and having good communication/response time. You see dozens of people attempt to portal in, and then immediately portal back because of the ‘feedback’ we threw on it preemptively (which is just plain funny. What a buncha wussies. They had superior numbers. They could’ve made a serious dent in our flank regardless of our readiness. They just didn’t want to be wiped for the sake of making an impact).
At 8:30 in the video, you can see Hoschi slam into the portal bomb as everyone disappeared. Notice also how he knew it was coming, because our team had GOOD COMMUNICATION.
I disagree. If 1 ability can change the tide of a fight that large, it needs to be removed or balanced.
I disagree, if one ability can change the tide of a fight, there needs to be more like it. People whine about portals without realizing that if you take it away, you give the victory to large uncoordinated zergs, you pigeonhole people into zerg v zerg, you severely reduce the effectiveness of strike teams. This line of thought is shallow and its a poor excuse for the nerf/removal of the skill.
mesmer portal should be nerf either by party member limit to 5 or limit by 30 squad. thats all.
Until culling is fixed everything that abuses and causes it’s effect to alter the outcome of a fight needs to be nerfed/removed.
Period.
Yes, portals aren’t an issue without culling.
Stealth isn’t an issue without culling.
HOWEVER culling exists, and it is thoroughly breaks both of those abilities in WvW as long as it does exist.
My only complaint about portals is being able to portal-bomb into towers/keeps. Because you can’t knock someone out of stealth having a single nimble jabroni can completely counter a server’s defensive strategy. It is too much reward for so such an easy strategy to execute.
My main gripe with Mes portals isn’t the mechanics of it, but rather I wish all characters had one WvW-impact ability. I say this, purely because the devs at launch stated the Mes portal was designed foremost as a WvW strategy tool.
I actually like the portal ability (despite being killed by them several times XD). I think it adds great potential for strategy and intelligent gameplay, and stops WvW from becoming too linear. My only wish is that the devs would expand this dynamic to other classes, and introduce different WvW-impact abilities, so that all classes could pose a strategic threat on a greater scale.
To play devil’s advocate (against myself), I could concede that Engineers have potentially a similar dynamic with the mortar ability, but some arguments regarding other classes (i.e. warrior can take out camps single-handedly) isn’t really a WvW-impact ability, but rather just a well-spec’d class playing to their strengths: AKA in inherent strength of the class.
It may be scary to some, but I’d love to throw down the gauntlet to the devs at ANet to come up with other devious skills that can turn a WvW battle. Not unfairly, but rather give chances for smart strategy to shine through. The devs are smart and experienced enough to do so – I just wish someone would give them a push
I can’t think of anything brilliant off the top of my head…but does anyone else have an idea of a new WvW-impact skill, on par (close to) the Mes portal?
(edited by Kuuzon.7340)
The portal used to have massive range to it and the nerf to the mesmer berserker basically just said “you don’t hit any siege on walls besides the cannons and burning oil.” These haven’t seriously changed the class, but the range decrease on portals seems to have been meant to just give clients more time to render players as they get near them.
As I understand it the whole player culling issue mainly resulted when they increased the player caps in WvW over what they had in the testing period. Perhaps what’s needed more is a map redesign so that we can have this many players in at once but reduce the potential size of zergs. This would be a rather huge undertaking but then again having these fortifications within trebuchet distance of each other boggles the mind.
As for nerfing the portal I see a really sensible way to do it- give it five or ten charges that get eaten up every time somebody uses it. You would then require multiple mesmers to move a zerg. This would mostly do away with the single person that stealthed through your defenses to allow the entire zerg to circumvent them- the exception being if the other mesmers stayed behind and used the initial portal to easily place their own portals. Generally this would still allow smaller groups to leverage a good plan for assaulting larger enemy groups but not totally stop the skill from being useful to players that are not in your party (a design decision I heard a lot about before I started playing and am very much a fan of.)
If people want to not have all the enemies stacked so that you can’t choose which ones to focus down with aoe (kind of a wtf statement there but oh well, game mechanics) then just forcing the portals to not overlap would remedy that. If the devs don’t want to complicate things for mesmers simply having them snap to a nearby position on the same walkable surface would result in a web of portals with enemies hopping through at different points. Furthermore this would stagger the arrival of uncoordinated enemies quite a bit as portals vanished out from under people that had not bothered to count themselves and only send the right number to any particular entry portal, and the obvious way for players to do this would very obviously telegraph their intentions allowing the defenders to scramble to try and prevent the mesmer from placing their portal.
Downside would be all the testing to make sure that this didn’t allow mesmers into places they shouldn’t be able to reach- though dagger elementalists can jump a lot of otherwise uncrossable gaps so maybe they wouldn’t really mind.
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But if the devs find those two changes to be both practical to code and effective ways of altering the gameplay it would still probably take months for them to put it together, do a proper bug hunt, and actually test to see if it helped at all. Until then stack a lot of AoE right on the exit portal and you’ll easily foil a majority of portal bombs.
The only really cruel thing I’ve seen done in WvW with portals is to get players above the lord room in garrison keeps and speed build a bunch of arrow carts. When doing this or laying down a lot of siege fire on open choke points definitely do things like put up some chill/cripple AoEs and those guardian walls to make it harder for us to sneak through to some safe position. If I understand how Warlock’s fear skills work that would also result in a hilarious fail for the mesmer trying to lay down their portal, but I’ve yet to play that class.
The rest of the time it’s basically just open field stuff and the group stealth options are diverse enough that you’re not so surprised to find enemies popping up right in the middle of you.
This leaves mesmers porting people past walls but by this stage of the game we know to sweep for mesmers after we push invaders back and lock them out. Still got the rare exploit/hack that gets them past walls but I actually see people reporting ally mesmers that do that these days. Practically not problems at all imo.
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