Guild Wars 2

So I kind of wish there was more coordination between zergs and mesmers, at least in my home world of DB, because I feel like there are so many awesomely cool things you could do with a bunch of mesmers and a zerg in WvW. Obviously these things will require loads of coordination (some of them impossibly so), but it’s still fun to think about.

Here are some fun things I thought of:

The Invisible Zerg: Basically accomplished with chains of Veils. Obviously, this would be pretty much impossible with the high CD and short duration of Veil (you would need a ton of mesmers), and the zerg would probably still pop into view long enough for a scout to spot it, but the idea of a giant zerg completely sneaking up on another zerg sounds fun.

The Clone Army: I just saw someone post a video of this, and doing this has been a dream of mine ever since I started playing Mesmer, but basically you have a havoc squad consisting entirely of mesmers that look competely identical and have very similar names. Not sure how effective it can be when enemies can call targets, but I smile thinking about the initial reaction of WTFWTFWTF

Portal Pincer: It always strikes me as strange that when I see a zerg try to Portal bomb, they only send one lone mesmer to be either killed, or have their portal bombed with AoEs. Why not send 2 or even 3 mesmers to place portals all around the enemy zerg and come at them from all sides? Even if they spot the first portal, they probably won’t be suspecting the second or third, and can get melted while they’re focusing on the first portal. Speaking of which…

Portal Feint: Essentially a fake portal bomb. Send out a mesmer to drop the portal and have a few honorable sacrifices (may your names be passed down in legend) to go through and get summarily destroyed when the enemy zerg drops all their big AoEs on the portal. Then have your zerg swoop in and hit them hard while all of their big attacks are on CD.

Again, some of these things probably require more coordination than is possible, and some of them might already be in use on other servers. But I still like to dream about seeing them happen. =D

We have done all those things on Riverside (although I only heared about “The Clone Army”, I didn’t play a Mesmer back then). Some of them still happen although it feels like there are usually not enough Mesmers in our zergs anymore. Most of them switch to either Warrior or Guardian while playing in a zerg or reroll if a commander asks for more Mesmers.

Invisible Zerg: Not worth it for multiple mesmers so sacrifice a utility to achieve something that could be done by good tactic planning and team movement

The Clone Army: AVTR had some great success with it back then when glamour/confusion damage wasn’t nerfed. But yet, if you have ever played with a high skilled balanced guild group, you will find that being way superior.

Portal Pincer: Not worth it for multiple mesmers so sacrifice a utility to achieve something similar that could be done by only 1 portal

Portal Feint: Cool idea, but bait doesn’t have to die at all, pop some cooldowns and move back into the portal.

That is what my guild is all about [DAZE] – Isle of Janthir Mesmers

and it takes 19~ Mesmers to make your Zerg Perm Invs, FYI.

bladeofky.3067:

Portal Pincer: It always strikes me as strange that when I see a zerg try to Portal bomb, they only send one lone mesmer to be either killed, or have their portal bombed with AoEs. Why not send 2 or even 3 mesmers to place portals all around the enemy zerg and come at them from all sides? Even if they spot the first portal, they probably won’t be suspecting the second or third, and can get melted while they’re focusing on the first portal. Speaking of which…

Portal Feint: Essentially a fake portal bomb. Send out a mesmer to drop the portal and have a few honorable sacrifices (may your names be passed down in legend) to go through and get summarily destroyed when the enemy zerg drops all their big AoEs on the portal. Then have your zerg swoop in and hit them hard while all of their big attacks are on CD.

While the feint may actually work, the pincer is a sure recipe for disaster. If the enemy team is actually good and not just a random zerg (where such tactics are pretty redundant), you’re probably going to loose 1/3rd of your group in a second and thus the battle.

Combine the two and you might get it to work

I have been thinking of starting an all one-class guild before on Piken (and since Mesmer is my main, obvious Mesmer is obvious) and just run “fun raids” a little now and then. Unfortunetly since I am a crap commander with the social skills of a sloth and the organisation skill of a moldy tomato, its never happened, lol. It would be interesting to see how it works. I mean its one class, it should be quite simple to design overall engagement tactics since you know exactly what everyone should do. Oh the melee train is rolling over us? Pop sword 2 lol.

About the Portal Pincer, that’s something I often do when asked to Portal Bomb:
Instead of going into the enemy, I send a group – ideally only partial – to the side or behind the enemy.

A Portal Bomb keeps a single, unified target. This is suboptimal, even with AE caps, unless you are falling to 5 or less per group.
Much better to have spread out subgroups (so AE isn’t a viable option in the first place), but your side still has a single point where to attack to.

In the perfectly ideal case, you do this with 2-3 flanking Mesmers, of which only one portals. As people go “OMG OMG MESMERS THEY’RE GOING TO BOMB”, this plays on the way we react to potential Portal bombs. Let them guess which is the bomb! Oh wait, no one was. :P

@Dawdler: I feel the exactly the same: guild, laziness, and all on my own server haha. I’m like, “Man, this would be so cool. Too bad I’m too lazy to oragnize it.”

And with the pincer, for Portal bombs to succeed, they always have to take the enemy by surprise anyways, otherwise you’re just lining yourselves up to die. My thinking is, why not take the enemy by surprise twice? They may spot one portal, but not notice a second one behind them. Even if they do, there will be a moment of confusion where they’re being hit from both sides. Combined with the fact that Portal can now only take 20 people through, it seems like the thing to do. I’m not really understanding why everyone thinks it will fail so badly. Can someone enlighten me?

@sirsquishy: I think it’s awesome that you know that number (although I suppose some simple math could produce it as well) and you make me wish I was on your server.

meichor.7809:

Portal Feint: Cool idea, but bait doesn’t have to die at all, pop some cooldowns and move back into the portal.

If they can survive the onslaught of Meteor Storms and necro wells, then I whole heartedly agree.

bladeofky.3067:

And with the pincer, for Portal bombs to succeed, they always have to take the enemy by surprise anyways, otherwise you’re just lining yourselves up to die

Which is generally why you cant portal bomb – you rarely take the enemy by surprise with it.

Personally I would use it for combat manouverability.

Lets say we have decent size Mesmers raid, 30ish. You engage another raid head on, plowing into them and going straight for the backline. Well, before that you dropped a couple of portals – hidden by the mass of players approaching. You only need to hold your ground for a couple of seconds, pop all your illusions and hopefully get some people down. By this time the enemy melee train should be swinging around to cover them, while their backline is probably manouvering to be on the other side (ie where you engaged from). When the melee train is about to engage you… Pop the portals. You’re suddenly inside their backline again. You’ve already won.

Fun fact: If 30 Mesmers stack and pop one mantra with restorative mantras at the same time, they will heal roughly 400,000 HP. Or bring 20 players from 0 to 20,000 HP in 2.5 seconds. And they can do that every 5 second if they really wanted. Waterfields? Lawl.

Good idea. You could probably pull it off even without too much coordination in the zerg too, since I find pugs tend to just blindly take any open portal they see, regardless of whether they know where the exit is (and then summarily blame the mesmer when they end up going backwards)

sirsquishy.8531:

That is what my guild is all about [DAZE] – Isle of Janthir Mesmers

and it takes 19~ Mesmers to make your Zerg Perm Invs, FYI.

:D

Some amusing thought.. never seen anything too creative done with mesmers, although my server (Gunnars Hold) did once do a minon master open-raid for everyone to join. That was truely insanity.. seeing a 60-80 man blob, all of whom were minion masters.