Guild Wars 2

I’m currently WvW rank 35 I believe. I have never had orders to portal bomb. Why? I honestly believe their is a stigma but I can’t quite place it. Is it too easy? There are countless situations in battle where we give them time to see us march our way up in plain sight when the element of surprise is lost. Is it too Freudian? Do you hate pink?

What do the big boy servers use?

20 people is not enough and when the enemy sees the exit portal it is too easy for them to focus all their damage and CC.

Portal Bomb = bag delivery system

Portal “bombing” is indeed only useful in smaller groups now. It was already a death trap beforehand, once you could see the enemies. Too easy to box them in with Guardian abilities, then overload them with reflects and general AE spam.

One thing we can do well with Portals nowadays though is do a very quick surprise flank.
If you run with say, 40 people, have 4 groups be ready on-command to portal. While running in, Mesmer leaves a Portal, run through, Mesmer drops exit, 20 assigned players split off, you now got 2×20 people on two sides of a 40 man enemy group expecting a 40 hit from one side.

It needs quite disciplined players though. At least if you want to pull it off quickly enough so the enemy has no time to react. The 20 players need to more or less hit the portal ASAP, and then immediately coordinate an attack with the other 20.

Portal bomb a zerg and you are going to have a bad time.

Aside from the points others have mentioned, the portal bomb is quite predictable at this point for the most experienced players. The effectiveness is far less than it one was.

I have also found that fewer players want to take a portal knowing it could be instant death. There have been enough occasions I have taken a portal and immediately regretted it as the enemy downpours AOE.

I think the portal is still quite a bit more effective on the lower tiered servers though as they tend to have fewer large zergs foot pounding the maps and more squad sized groups where a “surprise” tactic like this one can be pulled off with more success.

I have learned to avoid stepping through portals in WvW, 8/10 you end up dead!

Portal bombing without culling is suicide. They are still used quite frequently for flanks and gaining positional advantage.

I’m really glad people don’t portal bomb as much anymore. I enjoy actual fights for a position on land instead 10 second wipeouts, regardless of which side I’m on.

Haha portal bombing… Forget about it. Unless your forces outman the enemy by ALOT, a portal bomb is going to be crushed. But then it was fairly pointless to begin with.

Using portals for manouvering is vastly underrated though.

i cant agree, portal bombs are stil effecitve. If done right.

Portals are for golems, reinforcements and sneaky/hidden flanks, not for bombing.

Friends don’t let friends portal bomb.

Elwin.2583:

i cant agree, portal bombs are stil effecitve. If done right.

I agree with this. Portal bombs can still be quite powerful depending on the situation and placement of the portal. We still use them sometimes, but they have to be done right and you have to be very fast. However, portal bomb and organized guild zerg that sees it coming and you’re going to be a loot bag.

The primary power of portals back in the day came from two factors; unlimited players that could use them and culling. Now that both are gone, they should be used only in certain situations and success or failure is highly dependent on your opponent.

Siege is a big part of it as well… if you have enough people and organization to portal bomb you probably can just drop 5-10 arrow carts and push off the attack. It’s more effective AND safer?

portal bombs. hummm YES haha.

check out one of my videos

i’ll just leave this here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJavzEii12c

Portal bombs are fun, but I like Portal Tactical Strikes.

I don’t think they would work at higher tiers because of the sheer number of people on both sides, but it’s a Portal Bomb with less risk:

First, you need a couple people around you on the wall, with weak enemy siege, or just build sites. This won’t work for any of the higher-defense and HP siege – just the standard ones. Don’t do mass coordination for this – /say your plan and gun for it, because the element of surprise gives the defense the initiative.

1. Drop portal on the wall and use all the cloaking and blinking you need to get to your objective.
2. Blurred Frenzy, illusions, distortion or mind wrack. Bonus points if you have a decent crit build with sigil of fire for that added damage from all the players around the siege.
3. Drop second portal, warp back.
4. Those around you on the wall take the portal, drop their best and fastest spikes, and portal back.

Heal up and wait for recast. This works much better if you’re defending a fortified tower or keep, since this takes time and reapplication to succeed, but it is progress made in sieges that don’t seem to be going anywhere defensively. This is also what I do to break battles at popular choke points like Ogres and some of the supply camps in EB.

As an alternative, for a true portal bomb you could have multiple mesmers “thread” their portals, by dropping them at both ends. The 20-use limit on portals really didn’t change anything except typing a few things in chat to coordinate and work around it, really.

Caliban.3176:

20 people is not enough and when the enemy sees the exit portal it is too easy for them to focus all their damage and CC.

Portal Bomb = bag delivery system

This.

2 reasons.

1-portal bombing without culling and with much better (now experienced) players on the field than 6 months ago, is NOT a surprise attack 90% of the times. And easily counterable. Which means a bad death most of the time. See alone enemy mesmer – his feets get a glowing circle – CC and AoE the crap outof it – ?? – 20 bags profit.

2-considered that the current meta revolves about zoneblobbing or zerging with 40-50 ppl, a surprise attack of only 20 is not as effective as before.

After almost 10 months of this game, Portal bombs aren’t a new thing and every server from lower to higher tiers has a counter tactic against it. Not saying it isn’t viable, it still is, but when done properly. A regular “surprise guys!” bomb in enemies’ faces doesn’t help much since players have matured enough to throw CC and siege weaponry has been equally buffed to take the group down before they have any chance to make the next move. As long as it is used as a bait, or advantage of terrain is taken properly by the bombing group, portal bombs are no longer “surprise attacks”.

In one of the matches a month ago, our keep in EB had multiple broken walls with both opponent servers pushing in while we had outmanned buff. We managed to push one enemy out when the other enemy decided to make a push. I saw a mesmer run in and throw a portal right infront of me inside the lord’s room. And as well known, there’s a slight delay in between portal drop and players taking the portal and appearing at the destination. That delay was enough for me to swap to hammer on my guardian and throw a Ring of Warding right on top of it. The next moment I saw the entire stack lying down to AC fire within that ring.

Once people couldn’t see the portal bombs coming, they were unexpected. Now those portalling have no idea what to expect on the other end. Now it depends on the commander’s & the memser’s understanding of the terrain and surroundings of the area where they are trying to port to.

I play on Ring of Fire and with our numbers 20 people is enough to wipe a zerg. The only reason I don’t order portal bomb is that I’ve had too many bad experiences: waiting 10 minutes for a portal. A mesmer doing a portal backwards rather than forwards or right on the Arrow Cart’s AoE. If I were sure to get a goot portal I would ask it everytime there’s a tower to conquest.

Portaling into the keep past 56 arrow carts on to the walls for example is useful, portaling next to or inside a zerg is the dumbest idea ever. Had a match-up 2 weeks ago with lower tier server and they kept portal bombing and every single time they did it was free 20 loot bags, if they keep this up they’ll only drop tiers :p

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1-f7BF4-18Cjx78loWFUVQ?feature=watch

just watch it, if a mesmer knows what hes doing… a portal bomb is the only viable option sometimes.

Drop a “fake” portal where nobody comes through and watch a zerg waste AoE on the wrong spot ^^

It’s cause portal bombs are mostly death traps ESPECIALLY when used with militia. If you’re pugging expect to not do a portal bomb. If you’re in a guild raid, the option isn’t completely off the menu.

I’m surprised noone does a decoy portal bomb though. How that works: 2 mesmers, both go in to different locations. The decoy drops his portal to port back to the main zerg, the real portal everyone goes through. The enemy zerg will focus their aoes and CCs on air while you wipe em from behind. It can be switched up to where you take the decoy instead of the main, so you have a 50/50 chance of beating a coordinated enemy.

Decoy portal bomb not to be tried with militia though. Half of em will take the decoy and get splattered across the supply camp.

The best way to portal bomb now requires 2 mes(3 and it’s so laughable), 1 as the decoy bomb the 2nd as the delivery guy. You stack as normal the 2 mes get stealthed by a thief then do their thing 1 skirts the enemy under stealth the other charges into the mass and drop his portal. as the enemy unload everything on the portal the other mes drops his just behind the main grouping of enemies. The 1st mes will survive if lucky enough to portal back before dying, if not “kitten happens” you took one for the team. With coordintion this works 9 out of 10 times against forces up to twice your size, also you have to vary it occasionally if facing the same opponent more than once a night otherwise they get wise and ignore the fake portal waiting for the 2nd, that’s when you portal at the 10sec mark on the originally fake portal as 2nd mes drops his portal. It’s all about misdirection.

Portal bomb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6fD_pitmWM&t=4m16s