Guild Wars 2

I was gonna title this post “In my opinion, Portal makes WvW extra awesome!”or some such. But since no one else uses the “in my opinion” qualifier anymore when making broad sweeping assertions, I felt I’d only do as the Romans do. And instead of making bullet points of why I think it is(been there, done that, and I’m sick of debating it anyway) I’m just gonna tell a tale instead. So here goes mah post!

Wow ya’ll, I love the portal skill! Its so much fun! Last night, in the TC/FA/YB match-up, we wanted to take AH, but the enemy was having none of it.

First we tried a full-on assault, and once we got inside the outer gate, we all headed to the top of the walls. But we didn’t see (because of culling) until it was too late, that we were ridiculously outmatched and everyone died before they knew what hit ’em, literally!(No portal bombs were employed in that bloody slaughter.)

So then we made a tactical retreat*cough*, and rallied again at spawn and proceeded to take a few more supply camps and sentries*yawn* which took around 30 minutes or more.

All of sudden, the commander says, everyone head to AH and stack on me. At first, I was like… no way man, I hope he isn’t gonna try for that keep again right now. We still didn’t have the manpower! And the enemy zerg was still in the zone, with sentries posted and vigilant at AH!
But then the commander tells us that we are gonna portal to the inner. WOW! you mean we have had a mesmer in that keep for almost an hour now!? And we did! (Leroy, you are the man!)
This mesmer had been evading and hiding from the enemy all this time. While our little zerg was happily oblivious, rolling along the landscape, eating up camps, dolyak’s and sentries, getting our stupid badges, karma and XP, this dude was busy making it possible for the rest of us to take AH.

So we took it. Out-manned, but NOT out maneuvered by God! Here, here!

…but then they took it right back*sniffle*

And with a gusto that made it very clear they were none too happy!

Though before it was recaptured, me, leroy and another mesmer had made it a point to find some hidey holes…but it was to no avail. They found me pretty quickly and danced on my body. I actually giggled. “Good for you, man.” I thought. But hopefully the others would have more luck.

They didn’t. The enemy ended up routing us all! But I have to mention, it wasn’t until at least 40 minutes later that good ’ole Leroy calls out in map chat. “Aw, they found me.” 40 minutes!! You go boy.

Our final defeat was a footnote to what a lot of us will choose to remember:
That Instead of beating our heads against a well-fortified wall for a couple of hours, TC had an exciting, morale-boosting windfall of mesmerliciousness, with map chat full of this sort of talk, “We DID IT, We took that $&%#!” …and “For the Coast!”

And what is more fun than that?

To all my anti-portal friends who cry foul, or may say, “no fair!”, or its imbalanced, or game breaking, take a moment to reflect. How does one measure and balance the value of a single player’s exceptional initiative, patience, skill and self-sacrifice against a whole army?

And to Anet: Excellent work with the portal! That was truly inspired gamecrafting. You guys are great at thinking outside the box!

DAYUM THE MAN! SAVE THE MESMER.

I approve this message.

I disagree. It does not reflect real world battle tactics because we don’t have magic in the U.S. yet.

LIke I said in the other thread, I actually am fine with Portal. I wish culling wasn’t an issue, but I’m all for organized magic use moving armies! Mainly, I think a skill like it should be available to more than just Mesmers (e.g., could see Elementalists, Engineers, and mebbe Necros sporting it)

I want to also encourage anyone who has a tale of mesmerliciousness, to share it here! You know, those times when it became clear to you that instead of being game-breaking, but to the contrary, it breathed life and brought balance into a potential WvW snoozefest. For BOTH combatants!

And that perhaps, just perhaps… its what Anet intended all along.
<3

Hehe, you are correct sir! No, its not “real world”…its a game. Agreed. Aspects of real world(ie the people that are playing are REAL, etc) and game world(nothing to take, game over.) are both at play.

I love mesmer portals, it gives a certain level of difficulty, if they nerf the portals then WvW will become just a badge farming place:(

Agree. It’s a very cool ability and can be policed by the players. It’s just another one of those scapegoat things that people blame for why their side lost this or that. Same with culling.

lol cool tale, i’ve sat hidden inside SM and the EB keep before for 2hours plus waiting for people to get their stuff together for a portal in to lord room. The best one was Sm where i hid for 2hours 45mins, we were ready to recap it but got beaten to it by the greens flipping it from blue. So i stayed hidden and hoped….yes we then were ready again and were just beaten to the punch by blue retaking. So i sat there still and none found me for the 3rd flip back to green. This time we were ready and on the 5min mark after the cap i dropped down to the inner wall dropped my portal and legged it past some startled greens to the outer for my team to portal in. Capped for us and they only got 4 into lord room by the time we had it. Mes is so much fun to play when it goes right. And shame on the blues and greens for not sweeping properly for me. It might be an annoyance to some but it can alter a battle and change the tactics people employ, i’d rather have it in than just be forced to beat against a wall or door for ages. Plus if you know your stuff most of what a mes can do with a portal is easily counterable.

Mesmer portals are fine, L2P…

Oh wait, this isn’t a nerf thread, kudos to you OP. Carry on

Wow, Saint. Thats amazing! They almost always find me. Aha! but more often than not, I can find them too, keke.
But really, all I can say is thank you for your patience, and… awesome mesmerliciousness!!

Haldunius.7864:

I disagree. It does not reflect real world battle tactics because we don’t have magic in the U.S. yet.

Wrong! we have chris angel, although he’s a kitten. Also when were we able to cast meteor showers with elementals in the real world?

We had a situation where the enemy attempted to take Garrison and blew a hole in the wall but unfortunately could not get their forces through the gap due to being funneled through the gauntlet of our mass AOE and siege defense. Their only viable option was to sneak a mesmer in and up to the battlements to portal sufficient numbers in otherwise we would have been there all night at a stalemate there’s no fun in that, be better to have a good fight defending it, lose it and have more fun re-taking it making the night that more enjoyable for all party’s involved than have people beating on doors and walls all night with no success.

Hey has anyone ever thought about making mesmer/thief duo teams for keep infiltration? I just thought about how one of my guildies, who is a guardian, tried to act as a decoy for me last night. But now that I consider it a little more, perhaps the thief would be a perfect decoy to help the mesmer avoid being detected. Even if its just long enough to scurry to another hiding place.

Any thoughts?

Mmm, guess that’s a topic for another post though huh… nevermind! One thing at a time. LOL

Keep the awesome tales coming!

Necros should be able to raise dead players so they come out of the ground at the necros feet. Of course they’d be jagged horrors and die in 5 seconds.

Mesmer portals are the perfect way to break stalemates. I’d hate to see them go.

It’s good you feel that way. I disagree and find the game a lot less enjoyable with mesmer portals as out of control as they are right now. I play on Sanctum of Rall which is currently in 2nd place in Tier 2 on the US rankings. Everything we do or our enemies do typically involves multiple mesmer bombs. It’s gotten old. It works which is why we all do it but I find it stale. Because of this skill Mesmers are the most sought after class in WvWvW. Just my two cents. Glad you are enjoying the game

Aw, I’m sorry to hear that Dear Hunter. But I do really feel that once culling is tweaked or fixed(or whatever they plan or can do about it) then the effectiveness of the mesmer portal will not feel overpowered, thus balancing things out for you guys once again.

Like this post refers to. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/WvsW-is-unplayable-because-of-mesmer-portal-abuse/first#post285938

And we all know how people can be with flavors of the month! So have faith, and do the best you can, because I personally would hate to lose such a fun-injecting skill like the portal instead of fixing the invisible invader issue.

I agree Mesmer portals create whole new strategies in WvW. They keep the game from being predictable and boring