Guild Wars 2

Let’s talk about Portals… a skill many use in WvW, and very few believe ruin the game for them.

As an active player in an active WvW guild, we use portals often. We’ve also had portals used against us.

The only time Portals were ever “overpowered” was when there were culling issues and heal-all skills. Those however have been fixed properly. Ever since the culling update, people have been complaining less about Thieves being “perma-stealthed”, showing that the culling issue has worked.

So, why is it ArenaNet is thinking of nerfing this skill that offers mobility of zergs that is not overpowered and simply gives you a tactical advantage if used properly but doesn’t give any disadvantage of the enemy if they play correctly? Mesmers are no longer perma-stealthed due to the culling bug, and I’ve noticed myself seeing enemy mesmers run up to my zerg for an obvious portal. Because of this, we’ve been easily able to counter the portal bombs.

Portals add mobility of zergs and prevent this from being a zerg vs zerg with a no-mans land in the middle and makes it seem more of a tactic vs tactic over numbers vs numbers game.

Portal is fine, and it isn’t broken. Please stop giving into the vocal minority that complains about it because they haven’t experienced the portal bombing tactic yet. This skill is perfectly fine. No more nerfs to it please.

Signed, Portals are fun and add flavour to W3

War dad KISS Guardian

They reduced max amount of players that can use a portal. Just bring more mesmers. It’s been said several times. Stop making more threads. Or post in the mesmer sub-forum about it. When you think about it, it’s obvious the mesmer is a highly valued member of the team due to the fact they can transport an entire zerg into inner keeps from outer. That’s an excellent, but OP ability. I still want it to be possible, but 10 player max per mesmer would still be an acceptable change. Mesmer’s carry teams. Just learn to play better instead of relying on 1 player to dominate the field.

Portals aside, the never-ending clones are more tedium. The mesmer is the Deathknight of this game. They have sooooo many goodies that benefit the entire group. My only regret is not making one sooner. I still don’t have one. My ele is fun, but nowhere near as valuable.

I have 5 puzzles left to do on my main (ele), and always think at the end that if I had’ve rolled a mesmer main, I could have transported all my guildies to the end to save them the work. I love puzzles.

Once again, they have sooooo many goodies. Pull, reflect another pull. I don’t know the actual skill names. They just rule. A portal nerf is the least of their worries.

I still stand by what I’ve said before.
Make portal cap the same as AOE cap.

Then no one can complain and cry either AOE’s or portals are OP.

Mikitten058:

I still stand by what I’ve said before.
Make portal cap the same as AOE cap.

Then no one can complain and cry either AOE’s or portals are OP.

this
PERIOD

Mikitten058:

I still stand by what I’ve said before.
Make portal cap the same as AOE cap.

Then no one can complain and cry either AOE’s or portals are OP.

Getting rid of the aoe cap and forcing players to spread out would be a much better change imo. Who likes fighting 40 people standing in a clump ressing faster than you can down them.

It’s truly only the AoE cap which messes things up. Mesmer portals are supposed to be high risk high return tactics.

It should be 100% ( not sarcastic in any way ) possible for 2-3 people to obliterate 40 people in a massive AoE spam on a badly placed portal. Think about it, if you place a portal into lava, everyone dies, you don’t suddenly not take damage because 5 people already got hit, that makes no sense.

Yes, in WvW now, if I see a portal, I run the hell away from it. I could AoE it down, I mean I am an ele, but what’s the point?! All I would do is hit the first 5, then the rest will kill me without taking a single point of damage.

Instead of nerfing portal bombs they should just provide better counters for it. A net said that their balance policy was everything is OP but they doing the exact opposite just nerfing instead of buffing something else.

I’m fine with portals, its just that there should be a more valid defense against them. Someone once suggested that only 5 could enter every other second or so, the ability to block it for a few seconds with Ring of Warding, etc. Or the more drastic, and less fun, way of having a requirement of an actual physical pathway between the two portals. Give it a standstill casting. There are loads of options other than simply limit it to 5 people.

Portal bombs work because a mesmer is in your keep.

I think I see the problem here…

Portal cd should be reduced back to 60s. At least for pve rules. At the same time, I think aoe cap should be raised to 10.

Well here we go, the WvW nerfing has begun. With each nerf they add they are promoting zerg play over tactics. Portals are one of the few skills that when used properly could make a 30 man group able to fight a huge full queue zerg. The nerf to aoe being reduced to 5 men only and this new portal limit leads me to think that eventually WvW will evolve to nothing more than join the most populated server to win. I guess it was inevitable. I really wish Anet would ask for player feedback before doing things like this. If they had they would have realized that these tactical coordinated skills are the only edge lower pop servers have against massive zerg servers. I really don’t see the logic behind promoting zerg play over tactics. Good job Anet, lets make WvW as dumbed down as we can and give the advantage to easy mode karma train zergs.

I dont know if this has been asnwered, but if only 20 people can use a portal now, is that 20 one way or 20 altogether?
If altogether then I can see it ruining some peoples’ plans if they try to portal in to help another group only to have half the team appear cos 10 people use the portal to escape instead.

As said, if people cannot anticipate a portal or defend against it, then it simply means they arent good enough or were too outnumbered..

And a point made by Smokee.1754

No more turning on the commander tag – Why would we have pugs following us, taking up a portal slot from a geared and specced guildie that is on voice coms?

Indeed, why portal a pug who will do their own thing and not listen, when you can portal a guild member who will do what you need them to do!

How about Anet make a proper counter to the portal instead of nerfing it
They can give another class a skill which can either limit the number coming through if the skill is used in time; though this also means adding a delay to when people can use a portal once formed.
Or a skill which reduced the rate at which enemies can come through the portal.