Guild Wars 2

This would improve the viability of portal when queuing solo so much. It is hardly ever used by teammates because you have no clue where it goes and communication in chat takes too long. And if teammates just use it they risk it being a escape portal leading right into the enemies arms.

Fun story actually, the repeated requests for this sort of quality-of-life improvement for portal led to one of the best trolls Anet has pulled so far.

So before the first feature patch, back when we still bothered keeping track of this stuff, we had a big list of Mesmer bugs and QoL issues that could be fixed. A week or so before the big patch, one of the devs came by and listed off a whole bunch of stuff that was getting fixed/improved. Naturally we were pretty excited, and one of the things listed as being fixed was that portal was getting a range indicator!

So patch day rolls around and we all hopped on to eagerly see how Anet had implemented the range indicator. Unfortunately, we didn’t fully appreciate the depth of Anet’s commitment to trolling our class, and so were surprised to discover that portal hadn’t actually been given a range indicator, but instead simply said on the skill tooltip ‘Range:1200’.

At any rate. Yeah, portal needs some love.

For me it’d be enough if we would get this nice tiny red bar located under each skill for our portal too.
When we stay in range we get no red bar and as soon as we leave the portal range the red bar will appear to indicate: “stop right there criminal scum…” wait wrong game. “stop, you’re out of the 5k range”

While a range indicator would be nice to show when you’re outside of the limit, I kind of like that it forces me to learn distances from point A to point B.

That being said, I think a portal map indicator would be absolutely amazing.

Me Games Ma.8426:

For me it’d be enough if we would get this nice tiny red bar located under each skill for our portal too.
When we stay in range we get no red bar and as soon as we leave the portal range the red bar will appear to indicate: “stop right there criminal scum…” wait wrong game. “stop, you’re out of the 5k range”

• I know this is me saying it is on the player end buttttttttt here goes. There ares some good markings on the map to help you properly place and hence use your portal. For instance you cannot portal from one side point to another on any map, however take temple for instance, you drop a port at the very bottom of the stairs leading up to your home point and you can immediately port back all the way from far point if you please.

• On forest you can go from the statue on keep all the way to the beach and back. Also dropping it in the middle of the beach gives you the fastest access to both side points.

• On khylo you can portal from the tip of your home point to the far side of the clock tower (barely), and you cannot port from one treb to the other.

So yes it would be a great QOL change to have a PROPER range indicator on portal, but we can make it work. Just gotta play it smart. Portal is why I still contend mesmer is the hardest class in the game to master.

jportell.2197:

So yes it would be a great QOL change to have a PROPER range indicator on portal, but we can make it work. Just gotta play it smart. Portal is why I still contend mesmer is the hardest class in the game to master.

This is so absolutely misleading. Yes, portal is really difficult to use. No, using portal effectively does not mean you are skilled.

Portal is difficult to use because it is lacking basic functionality. In order to use it effectively, you simply have to memorize a whole bunch of random locations. Is it difficult to memorize a whole bunch of random locations? Sorta I guess. Is it skilled to memorize a whole bunch of random locations? No.

Fay.2357:

jportell.2197:

So yes it would be a great QOL change to have a PROPER range indicator on portal, but we can make it work. Just gotta play it smart. Portal is why I still contend mesmer is the hardest class in the game to master.

This is so absolutely misleading. Yes, portal is really difficult to use. No, using portal effectively does not mean you are skilled.

Portal is difficult to use because it is lacking basic functionality. In order to use it effectively, you simply have to memorize a whole bunch of random locations. Is it difficult to memorize a whole bunch of random locations? Sorta I guess. Is it skilled to memorize a whole bunch of random locations? No.

You misread. Knowing the locations does not mean skill. Knowing when to drop your port when to use it again and where it is most necessary IS skilled.

jportell.2197:

Fay.2357:

jportell.2197:

So yes it would be a great QOL change to have a PROPER range indicator on portal, but we can make it work. Just gotta play it smart. Portal is why I still contend mesmer is the hardest class in the game to master.

This is so absolutely misleading. Yes, portal is really difficult to use. No, using portal effectively does not mean you are skilled.

Portal is difficult to use because it is lacking basic functionality. In order to use it effectively, you simply have to memorize a whole bunch of random locations. Is it difficult to memorize a whole bunch of random locations? Sorta I guess. Is it skilled to memorize a whole bunch of random locations? No.

You misread. Knowing the locations does not mean skill. Knowing when to drop your port when to use it again and where it is most necessary IS skilled.

When you put a comment about using portal skillfully directly after a large post discussing how to know where to use it, the only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the one is linked to the other.

This whole thing is not about how skillful you are, how good at remembering positions of portals or anything. This thread is a request for a QoL update which makes us equal with other classes.

Warrior Banners have circles on the ground to indicate their range of buff.
Why shouldn’t a portal have a better range indicator?

I don’t know why people are arguing, but my suggestion is to keep this thread on topic for the sake of everyone.