Guild Wars 2

Something similar in Warhammer Online happened a lot (and honestly it always felt like a valid tactic even though we always kicked ourselves, for when it happened, for not clearing the keep). In WAR, usually a healer class would hide somewhere in the keep. Opposing force takes the keep, doesn’t clear the keep, and runs to the next objective. Healer player walks to the walls, waits for buddies to show and die on guards, and ressurrects them all into the keep. They promptly “ninja” the keep.

A tactic was born that made the attacking force have to “clean house” so to speak. If you didn’t, a small group like this could easily frustrate a zerg. And I’m a big fan of small forces causing frustrating pain to mindless zergs.

Fast forward to GW2. You can’t ressurect players into keeps. Least I haven’t heard of any ability yet. But you can portal them in with a mesmer. Basically switch the healer class from WAR with a hidden mesmer in GW2. Instead of having buddies die on guards, you cast a portal on the wall, hop down outside of the wall, and cast the other end of the portal. You and your buddies can now go right in. This works against towers. In order to do this with keeps, you really need two mesmers for the two sets of walls and probably at least 10 players to deal with the guards and keeplord.

The problem is, is this an exploit or not? I’ve seen more than a few threads claiming players are “exploiting” when using mesmer portals, but this honestly doesn’t sound really like an exploit but more like a really smart tactic.

Any response, from other players or Arenanet folks, would be welcome. I personally think this tactic should be allowed, but maybe I’m just too smart for my own good.

TL:DR: Question: Is the act of using a mesmer portal to bypass keep walls to retake the keep an exploit?

IMHO its just intelligent use of skills. Its called a teleport for a reason. I just wish the Elementalists telerport actually worked a similar way rather than something that “pulls” us to the targeted location and does not work much outside of open field running.

BTW this is coming from someone who does not have a mesmer as a profession.

If you don’t sweep keeps/towers for Mesmers, your gonna have a bad time. All you need to do to counter portal is SCOUT the base you just took, does not take long at all. I have had many occasions where i am barely “hidden” and could of been spotted had someone simply walked anywhere near me.

If you don’t want to take the extra 1-2 minutes to thoroughly sweep your base then expect it to be ninja’d by Mesmer portal. I see no problem with a tactic that relies on your opponents negligence.

Exploiting zerghead stupidity is not an exploit. Yet.

You might also be able to rez people to get them inside the keep using the elementalist glyph. If you cast it while attuned to air it rezes them at your location. Not sure if it works over anything but flat ground though (the elementalist teleport doesn’t). I have not tried it. Wouldn’t be very effective at getting a whole zerg in obviously because of cooldown… but could be useful if it works.

“Exploiting zerghead stupidity is not an exploit. Yet.”

That’s the next step for next generation mmo’s: Pvping made easy. No thinking necessary. Insert sword into slot for 2 billion xp.