Guild Wars 2

Scouting a portal bomb does wonders to help defend against it.

You can set up your control spells/AoE in response. Putting siege in positions to cover each other helps to.

I do like the idea of being unable to stealth with an active portal down.

Either that or characters which pass through the portal get stunned or dazed for a short time.

Aiyumu.3542:

Portals are ok as it is imo. It has its strength to move many players to a location (fire power), but its flaw is that they’ll pour out of a single point. Sort of like muta stacking in sc. It is strong, but portal’s color makes it stand out like a sore thumb, making it implode with aoe cc+dmg. I think what could change to make portal easier to counter for our beloved zergs are:
1. Make portal colored by team (maybe just red for all enemy and green for ally, just for wvw)
2. Perhaps after portal is opened, there’s ~3 sec delay before it ‘opens completely’.

I see a lot of ‘use portals x5’ a lot… srsly? Might as well say in a tool-tip ‘for spvp+dungeons only’ or name it ‘spectral marathon’. The nerfs you people think of just want to make portal completely useless, rather than making it counter-able.

PS. I think portal flanking, instead of ‘bombing’ of your location is a lot harder to counter and quite efficient.. but requires actual coordination from 2 sides.

Portal isnt OP because it can transport forces, its that it can trivialize any battle by transporting a limitless number of forces. It is also incredibly easy to pull off and very difficult to counter. Aoe on the portal exit is only effective for small groups since the damage spreads out and can easily be healed through with guardians/eles. Mass melee is countered by pushbacks and eles popping tornado before they go through. Anything that destroys the spirit of combat to such a degree needs to be reevaluated.

Toning portal down isnt going to ruin anyone’s fun, unless you consider using incredibly OP tactics fun.

A lot of people seem to be slanting what side the coordination is on during a portal bomb. Defending Greenbriar last night, IoJ portal bombed us with 50+ people to our 15 or so. We knew they were going to try it so we set up siege, made a choke point, and dropped CC and AoE on the exit portal while bombarding it with siege. We wiped their entire force without losing more than 1-2 people in the battle. If people don’t know that a portal is coming, it works the exact same way as a flank. The enemy defeated you with surprise and not culling. If you know a portal is coming, the enemy is walking right into a massacre. Coordination works both ways. Portal is a tactic that isn’t “faceroll” any more. You need to be careful when and where you place it and you need to come out of the portal using the proper abilities. If you are defending against a portal, you set up your siege, you get your guardians up front, you activate your AoE, you use your siege, and you collect your badges.

Does anyone see the common factor here? COORDINATION. That’s right, a guild in VoIP has a marked advantage over a force that is not a single guild or not communicating at the same level. So what is the solution here? Nerf voice chat? I don’t think so. Portal is only as effective as the group that is using it. Portal in no way means that you will win an engagement or even that you have a better chance to. It is another layer to tactics and assault options that the game provides. Sure, it is the flavor of the month right now, but as long as everyone keeps screaming that it is OP instead of coordinating to counter it, groups will keep using them against you. I really hate using this phrase, but it is honestly a learn to play issue. I can’t wait until Ring of Warding is regarded as OP or we go back to Hundred Blades being too good or whatever the next fotm is for WvW that people don’t want to bother learning to counter. It seems they’d much rather come here and cry about things being challenging instead.

/truth

The obvious answer then is that siege is OP and needs to be removed from the game. Or maybe limit it so that it can only be fired once per hour. I’m sick of arrow carts not letting me autoattack the gate.

The blackgate chap Esoteric.5490 has it right, but unfortunately most people won’t read his post and will just post the same worthless drivel at the end. In essence, the player base is full of bad players who don’t understand higher components of play/can’t accept they aren’t very good and need to learn to play better.

Portal is fine, stop being a bad player. Counters have been given repeatedly.

As to the tired excuse that portal being the game changer in WvW, well, the simple answer is that in every game people always maximize things. Portal simply has the current limelight. If you remove portal, people will just move onto the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing. That’s how it always is with the good players versus the rest of the player base. Pro players see tools and potential, average players lack creativity and understanding and would rather complain than accept others are perhaps better than them. It’s up to those few pioneers to find the new thing and change the meta so all the average players can get back on the forums again and complain about “imbalances” they don’t have the knowledge to even grasp, while they simultaneously employ those same techniques.

It’s a timeless, tired old saga that happens in every competitive game. And nine times out of ten, it leads to the de-evolution of depth.

I’ve read a lot of arguments in here against portal bombing, and they all seem to consider portal bomb to basically be a “class” ability. For example, one person above compares portal bombing to invuln class abilities, invis, or fear. He then concludes that portal bombing is imbalanced because, unlike those other class abilities, there is no easy counter he can use against it.

But see…here’s the thing.

PORTAL BOMBING IS NOT A CLASS ABILITY.

Mesmer does not have “portal bomb” on their bar, you can’t really compare portal bombing to say, mass invisibility. Portal bombing is a HIGHLY COORDINATED assault by a relatively large group of players.

So when you get beat by a portal bomb…you didn’t get beat by “portal” you got beat by a highly coordinated, large group of players. And seriously, what is imba about that?

And as for the rendering bug…number one, it’s a bug, and it sucks…it is not limited to portal, and skills like portal should not be nerfed because it exists. The bug should be fixed, that’s it.

Number two, using portal does not make one immune to the rendering bug. So if you can’t see the “invisible army,” then the invisible army probably can’t see you. You, however, DO know that they will be coming out of the portal, so how about AoEing the portal???

ok so portals are:

game breaking because you cant counter against them.

game breaking because it overwhelms the battles with enemy numbers.

game breaking because it makes mesmers more important then other professions.

i am in a guild on a server that is currently in T1. we use portals and have had many a portal used against us. you have to be organized to use it and organized to defend against it. ie people who use a VOIP and people who know how to play as a team.
even so, are we always successful using it or defending against it.. no. but it is worth the challenge- it makes us try harder to succeed no matter what happens.

there are a lot of times we are overwhelmed by opposing forces – there are times we over whelm the other forces. i can tell you now that even if you limit the numbers in which people are portaled… over whelming forces will prevail anyway. organized groups can get around the map very quickly… portals only work x-amount of distance, so it wouldnt affect you getting overwhelmed ultimately anyway.

players who are savvy and organized enough, will come up with other creative ways to make their enemies succumb, to and including having the number of mesmers to still use portals…if they need to. for those who think its hard to kill a mesmer now because of invisibility… think of what theyll be like when theres more of them.. then what will need to be nerfed?

in my guild each person is valuable. proof of that i have several professions i take in wvwvw. we need our eles, necros, theifs, guardians etc etc just as much as our mesmers. maybe the only difference there is, that our members strive to know how to play their class well and strive to make an effort to use a build that benefits the team.

i really hate the nerf bat always being the first choice, when there maybe so many other options…

I have to admit, I did not read the entire thread, although I did skim it thoroughly.

The real debate here is a philosophical one. Is the game improved or damaged by portal?

Why don’t we take some of the theory out of this and see it in practice.

How? Look at Tier 7. For a long time, Tier 7 was BP vs AR vs GoM. At different points, each server had different levels of players, organization and skills. But the one thing which almost never happened in this tier was portals. I’m not entirely sure why, I think it might have to do with a lack of mesmers. People are very vigilant about sweeping keeps, and mesmers do try to hide, but I have never seen the mesmer portal tactics actually work. Perhaps the repeated failure has convinced the servers to look in other directions, I’m not sure.

How did the lack of portal use effect the gameplay on this tier? Honestly, it has led to tons of innovation. I see new tactics nearly every day I’m on. Some are great, some suck. Many rely on the enemy not anticipating the next more. The battles are very focused on anticipation. Where will they hit next? How will they do it? How can we take advantage of their next move? We have feign attacks, ninja attacks, multi-prong attacks, etc.

It sure sounds to me that on higher tiers, all the good tactics are portal. Of course, if that tactic is the most effective, everyone will use it. It really does appear to me that portal is killing the innovation on higher tiers, but of course I’m just basing that on the debate in this thread. To be honest, I don’t how it goes on the higher tiers, but what I do know is that the game without portal abuse is quite fun.

1. Portal isnt OP because it can transport forces, its that it can trivialize any battle by transporting a limitless number of forces.
- “Limitless number of forces” come from where? I suppose players pop out of ground infront of the portal entrance like ninja karkas when it’s up. I’ve yet to see enough organization where mesmers transport troops from wp to the battlefront (would be incredibly powerful though)

2. It is also incredibly easy to pull off and very difficult to counter. Aoe on the portal exit is only effective for small groups since the damage spreads out and can easily be healed through with guardians/eles.
- … really?… you know that there are ‘aoe damage’ as well (and more classes have them than aoe heals). Plus, the portal’d team will all be in 1 point, while the other will be spread out surrounding them. So they can focus on a single spot if they know what portal does. It’s just matter of defending team realizing there’s a portal there and reacting in time. (but most zerg are probably tunneling their vision)

3. Mass melee is countered by pushbacks and eles popping tornado before they go through. Anything that destroys the spirit of combat to such a degree needs to be reevaluated. Toning portal down isnt going to ruin anyone’s fun, unless you consider using incredibly OP tactics fun.
- aoe+cc =/= mass melee. Just saying. And if anything, portal gives more diverse tactics of combat than digging a trench and throwing mud at each other, or charging in because you have larger zerg.

portal is kind of like paradrop. If it’s successful you can catch opponent off-guard and obliterate them. On the other hand, it can wipe you out instead, because your team will be at the center of focus for all their damage.

Esoteric.5490:

A lot of people seem to be slanting what side the coordination is on during a portal bomb. Defending Greenbriar last night, IoJ portal bombed us with 50+ people to our 15 or so. We knew they were going to try it so we set up siege, made a choke point, and dropped CC and AoE on the exit portal while bombarding it with siege. We wiped their entire force without losing more than 1-2 people in the battle. If people don’t know that a portal is coming, it works the exact same way as a flank. The enemy defeated you with surprise and not culling. If you know a portal is coming, the enemy is walking right into a massacre. Coordination works both ways. Portal is a tactic that isn’t “faceroll” any more. You need to be careful when and where you place it and you need to come out of the portal using the proper abilities. If you are defending against a portal, you set up your siege, you get your guardians up front, you activate your AoE, you use your siege, and you collect your badges.

Does anyone see the common factor here? COORDINATION. That’s right, a guild in VoIP has a marked advantage over a force that is not a single guild or not communicating at the same level. So what is the solution here? Nerf voice chat? I don’t think so. Portal is only as effective as the group that is using it. Portal in no way means that you will win an engagement or even that you have a better chance to. It is another layer to tactics and assault options that the game provides. Sure, it is the flavor of the month right now, but as long as everyone keeps screaming that it is OP instead of coordinating to counter it, groups will keep using them against you. I really hate using this phrase, but it is honestly a learn to play issue. I can’t wait until Ring of Warding is regarded as OP or we go back to Hundred Blades being too good or whatever the next fotm is for WvW that people don’t want to bother learning to counter. It seems they’d much rather come here and cry about things being challenging instead.

/truth

So they portal bombed in front of your siege and not behind your group or on the siege? lol. I don’t believe you when you claim 15 to 50. Did you use the broken down gate as a chokepoint? Everything about your reply screams hyperbole. Portals in their current state are making WvWvW more stale everyday. It is the most efficient method to flank enemies and therefore the only method used. I use portal bombs all the time and I get portal bombed all the time. I see nothing challenging about using the portal or getting people to use them. I have a blue badge and just turn it on and say stack. It needs to be limited to 10 people. It would actually require skill because you would have to make sure that only 10 people are stacked on each portal not to mention that all of your mesmers make it to the enemies flank. It would be less mindless than it currently is. I don’t care about portal’ing into keeps at all. I would prefer longing sieges by having to think of strategies to get inside the outer wall forcing our way through the chokepoint or creating a distraction but it seems most people do not want the ability to port into a keep taken away.

Oh yay, more QQ on portals, lets nerf the Mesmer more so that no one plays one and its a boring class, L2P and counter a portal, its really not that hard if your paying attention.

I keep seeing the argument that a portal bomb take some kind of mastermind to pull off, “Stack here we’re going to portal bomb” that’s it, that’s the massive “coordination” needed to pull off a portal bomb. You do not have to have a PHD to utilize a portal bomb, its as simple as using /s.

The next argument is that it’ll nerf mesmers, only the real fools are saying to delete the ability from WvW. Nerfing the skill to allow a maximum of 10 uses per portal, in no way limits the mesmer itself. If then your argument is that people will just bring more mesmers, then it gives creedance to the overuse of the ability.

To Esoteric: Were you part of the 50+ BG zerg that portal bombed 7 people in Danelon last night…..twice in less than 20 seconds. At that point the only explanation for using a portal bomb twice……against 7 people is to abuse the culling issue. Or to be massive trolls. In both cases completely destroys the “MASSIVE COORDINATION” defense.

Portaling as an idea is good, it adds a layer of tactics to WvW, portaling in its current state devalues the game far more than it should. Currently good on paper, poor in practice.

Dear Hunter.8365:

I would prefer longing sieges by having to think of strategies to get inside the outer wall forcing our way through the chokepoint or creating a distraction but it seems most people do not want the ability to port into a keep taken away.

Then don’t use portal.

I’m requesting that the moderator change the thread title to “In my opinion, QQ is ruining this game.”

Honestly the main thing that I think makes portal bombing a -little- ugly to counter is that you aren’t stopped from, for example, using the prestige or blink or something else to get to your destination “unseen”. IE I can get to my location without you even seeing me coming.

One potential option could be that you are forbidden to use other skills until you open the portal, or you lose the portal. (in a way it would work like the prestige does) Question is, is that completely unfair to the mesmer? I’ve tested out a number of options with my portal and if I have the right skills readied, I can get to my target location without you really having a chance imo.

If I wasn’t able to use my skills, then I would be a mesmer running towards your group and if you can’t stop me well.. sorry? You really do need to pay more attention in that scenario.

This also would add a little more coordination to the use of it. IE clearly me running solo towards your group is probably not going to go well. However if 20 stay behind and 5 run with me towards the enemy then it’s not entirely clear what is going on. Likewise a skilled thief could try to keep me hidden at key locations. Again, requires coordination.

Please understand I’m not picking a fight, just tossing out a potential option that seems a bit more fair to me (and why I think my own abilities are a tad unfair).

Also note I’m very serious in that I want to know if my ‘fellow mesmers’ think that the changes I suggest would be completely unfair/nullify their strength. =)

Thundar.3910:

I keep seeing the argument that a portal bomb take some kind of mastermind to pull off, “Stack here we’re going to portal bomb” that’s it, that’s the massive “coordination” needed to pull off a portal bomb. You do not have to have a PHD to utilize a portal bomb, its as simple as using /s.

The next argument is that it’ll nerf mesmers, only the real fools are saying to delete the ability from WvW. Nerfing the skill to allow a maximum of 10 uses per portal, in no way limits the mesmer itself. If then your argument is that people will just bring more mesmers, then it gives creedance to the overuse of the ability.

Portaling as an idea is good, it adds a layer of tactics to WvW, portaling in its current state devalues the game far more than it should. Currently good on paper, poor in practice.

I thought this was a pretty good post. I am not really strong on either side of the fence on portal bombing, but this makes a lot of sense to me. Having to use multiple mesmers to port, by limiting each portal to say 10 people, add’s the organization and complexity requirement without making it useless.

Dear Hunter.8365:

So they portal bombed in front of your siege and not behind your group or on the siege? lol. I don’t believe you when you claim 15 to 50. Did you use the broken down gate as a chokepoint? Everything about your reply screams hyperbole. Portals in their current state are making WvWvW more stale everyday. It is the most efficient method to flank enemies and therefore the only method used. I use portal bombs all the time and I get portal bombed all the time. I see nothing challenging about using the portal or getting people to use them. I have a blue badge and just turn it on and say stack. It needs to be limited to 10 people. It would actually require skill because you would have to make sure that only 10 people are stacked on each portal not to mention that all of your mesmers make it to the enemies flank. It would be less mindless than it currently is. I don’t care about portal’ing into keeps at all. I would prefer longing sieges by having to think of strategies to get inside the outer wall forcing our way through the chokepoint or creating a distraction but it seems most people do not want the ability to port into a keep taken away.

There is no exaggeration. There is a screenshot posted somewhere in the match thread for us. We built arrow carts and ballistas and we used the stairs as a choke point. They tried to portal and it didn’t work because we countered it by using the chokepoint to ensure the mesmer didn’t get through. If everyone is standing at range, it is easy for someone to walk through a gap. When there are a couple guardians standing in the way, it is a different story. Of course a successful portal should be placed on the siege and behind enemy lines, not in front of them so that they can mow you down, but our strategy was a success so that didn’t happen. We set up a defense, made a chokepoint, and anticipated the portal. Our counter worked and we wiped them. Portals are useful for far more than just jumping into a keep. I prefer them in the open field, honestly. They increase tactics for getting into a keep. The strategy of portaling itself has evolved. Dropping multiple portals, decoy portals, using them to move an army quickly, rolling portals so the army can get from one point to another. This holds a lot of parallels with Blizkrieg or “lightning war”. Quick assaults and the element of surprise are more important than anything.

If an army portals into a keep and you are all standing in there, there is a high probability that you can wipe them because you have siege and walls and they have no supply lines and no way to get back into the keep since no gates/walls are down. The reason everyone hates “keep portals” is because people weren’t observant enough. You can ninja a keep too without a mesmer by only using rams so orange swords don’t show up making observance and scouts still essential. If the enemy isn’t there when it happens, it is called surprise, not being OP. That is the reason portals into a keep are so effective: BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW THEY ARE COMING. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose, but there are many more factors at play than the fact that a portal exists. It is a strategy that requires an equal and effective strategy for a response. If they enemy doesn’t respond with a good counter, they die; if they do, they win. It is absolutely that simple.

The nerf bat is not the answer. If people want to talk about how stale the game is because of portals, it is because of the unwillingness to innovate in order to counter, not because portal exists. There are responses to a portal and it is easy to win against it. Coordination is game breaking, not individual skills. Players in this thread want to take the easy way out and “nerf it!” because it is effective. If your attitude is to nerf first and counter later, you are doomed to fail. ANet sees this pattern and I trust they won’t touch portal or capitulate to the baseless crying.

Thundar.3910:

To Esoteric: Were you part of the 50+ BG zerg that portal bombed 7 people in Danelon last night…..twice in less than 20 seconds. At that point the only explanation for using a portal bomb twice……against 7 people is to abuse the culling issue. Or to be massive trolls. In both cases completely destroys the “MASSIVE COORDINATION” defense.

Portaling as an idea is good, it adds a layer of tactics to WvW, portaling in its current state devalues the game far more than it should. Currently good on paper, poor in practice.

I was in IoJ BL most of last night with the rest of my guild. Don’t think I was in EBG all day. It is likely that was [ICoa], I am pretty sure they were running the map at the time. Sometimes portals can be excessive for a battle, but they also prevent your numbers having to be shown in a certain area running to a location. If they portaled there, it is likely a strategy to remain low-profile rather than trying so hard to wipe 7 people. With that sort of a mismatch, it seems as though the 7 would have wiped anyway. If you wanted to discuss the concept of overkill, then 50 people taking 1 camps is certainly that. Regardless, I wasn’t there, but I wouldn’t portal to wipe 7 people, I’d portal to not give away my numbers, it is possible they didn’t even realize the 7 were there or they might have not wanted to run into siege if there was any set up. I can’t say for sure.

Overall, portaling can be decisive, but you still need coordination. It is most often decisive in a battle of equal size, when you are outnumbered, or when it is used to circumvent a choke point. It can be considered overkill whenever you outnumber a force to the point that you can overwhelm them. Is 8 rams overkill on a door to an undefended tower? Sure. But you don’t see people complain about that since it isn’t a portal. Had those 50 people strolled into Danelon, you would have met the same fate.

papacooldown.9482:

I agree that portal is too powerful, but rather than remove it why not make it so the level of coordination required scales with the size of the force in need of transport? These changes would tone down portal in zergs while remaining useful in small groups:

-The portal vanishes once 5 players have gone through it.
-The portal vanishes immediately if the mesmer dies.
-Placing the portal entrance puts a debuff on the mesmer that prevents stealth. Placing the portal exit removes this debuff.

Those are terrible suggestions. You just nerfed Portal, Decoy, Mass Invisibility, Veil, Shadow Refuge all at the same time. GG.

Auesis.7301:

I am against the existence of Portal in WvW simply because it makes the Mesmer a more desired profession over any other. I thought we could play how we wanted? It’s simply pathetic to hear the mandatory “sweep for Mesmers” EVERY SINGLE CAPTURE.

Sorry if it ruins your pve experience.

Esoteric.5490:

Thundar.3910:

To Esoteric: Were you part of the 50+ BG zerg that portal bombed 7 people in Danelon last night…..twice in less than 20 seconds. At that point the only explanation for using a portal bomb twice……against 7 people is to abuse the culling issue. Or to be massive trolls. In both cases completely destroys the “MASSIVE COORDINATION” defense.

Portaling as an idea is good, it adds a layer of tactics to WvW, portaling in its current state devalues the game far more than it should. Currently good on paper, poor in practice.

I was in IoJ BL most of last night with the rest of my guild. Don’t think I was in EBG all day. It is likely that was [ICoa], I am pretty sure they were running the map at the time. Sometimes portals can be excessive for a battle, but they also prevent your numbers having to be shown in a certain area running to a location. If they just appear there, it is likely a strategy to remain low-profile rather than trying so hard to wipe 7 people. Regardless, I wasn’t there, but I wouldn’t portal to wipe 7 people, I’d portal to not give away my numbers, it is possible they didn’t even realize the 7 were there or they might have not wanted to run into siege if there was any set up. I can’t say for sure.

No, unless they could not count. They knew exactly how many people were inside Danelon, it was right after that reset(Lots of warning on those!…) Both entrances to Dane had about 20-25 BG standing in the doorway, I mean they could of held up a sign with the amount of people that were in each zerg, this was not a case of hiding numbers. Instead of running 20 feet to the 7 people inside, the portaled in, we killed several, again this is 7 v 50, 20 seconds later yet another port opens and the entire mindless BG zerg portals 30 feet. 2 reasons only, to abuse the culling issue, or to troll. Both of which shoot the caps lock spam of “MASSIVE COORDINATION” right in the face.

Now I’m not bagging on BG for using it, do not take it that way, just using an example, just as you yourself did in the reverse.(I found the situation pretty comical.)

I bring it up, because I like the skill in a tactical sense, the current version in my opinion is the exact opposite of tactical. When one ability of one class is used to such an extent as to trivialize several aspects of the game, it becomes the tool of the mindless zerg. Limiting the ability to 10 people, promotes it use as tactical. The ability to hide a mesmer in a keep for hours on end both over values and devalues the class depending on perspective.

Now will come the “Do a better sweep” comment. So, I pose the question: If hiding inside a keep where there are several places in which a person of any class can hide without being seen due to loopholes in graphical design is a legit tactic, and an entire team must search for person or people of one class to negate one ability of that one class is not considered the very epitome of overpowered than what is? On top of that we all have to deal with the current exploitations of graphical errors within the game, which compound even further a problem with portals(More of a problem with futtbuckers who exploit than portal, but we know how they delt with Orb hackers, they just killed the Orbs, I’d rather them not kill the Portal ability due to said futtbuckers.)

What, then, is the issue? If there are 50 people, they don’t need to portal just like a mesmer doesn’t need to drop a Time Warp or a warrior doesn’t have to use his Warbanner. Yes it is comical, yes it might be a bit of a troll move to do it, no the game is not broken because of it.

Running a thief with a mesmer so that they can stealth each other is becoming more common. These classes excel at stealth and deception. These classes are simply doing what they were designed to excel at. A mesmer can’t tank the same way a warrior or a guardian can, should we nerf heavy armor or the base health on a warrior? Similarly, a warrior can’t stealth, should they get a stealth skill? All classes in this game, to a degree, are some sort of hybrid, but each class excels at a certain aspect of the game. Mesmers happen to be good at illusion and part of that is using a portal. Yes, cliche as it may be, better sweeps are necessary if you don’t want to have a mesmer portal an army into your keep. If the portal size was limited to 10, the mesmer would just portal up the 4 other mesmers in their party and the same thing would happen, an army would be portaled into a keep. This is just like if a group of 10 thieves permastealthed each other and then built 2 superior rams on the inner gate and ninja’d the keep, would that be OP?

Every class is good at something. Mesmers happen to be good at portals and those are the fotm currently. There are plenty of counters to a portal; sometimes they will work, sometimes they will fail. Regardless, it is what a mesmer is good at. There are many things that mesmers can’t do meaning other classes need to fill those voids. There is a niche for every class and what they are good at. Mesmers play a strong tactical role for positioning, but their contributions are just a small portion of what successfully portaling somewhere actually entails, especially during a fight. It is the composition of the group that uses the portal and what skills and builds they have created to synergize with the portal that makes the difference. The mesmer simply lays the portal down and it is everyone else that makes or breaks the strategy.

Tried portal bombing for the first time today, I kept putting it off.

LOADS OF FUN.

Seriously, all of you can quit the game, the posters in these forums are barely 1% of the WvW population.
I don’t care who quits for what reason as long as I get to have my piece of fun.
If everyone quits (lol) then I’ll simply move on, games were never meant to last forever.

Let the flaming begin.

Portals are awesome and not as effective as a game breaking elements. On Teir3 Portals due little impact on our battle and they are used a lot.

Portal bombs are common and while they have slowed the progress down they do not determine the outcome of anything. Often I find that our enemies and ourselves have been effective to counter portal bombs often enough or at least mitgate the effects

As for bypassing defences. Rarely have we managed to use a portal to get in a keep and on the side have very often driven out mesmers from our recently taken keeps. To orginize a take back of keep takes more than 2 minutes and orginization. If the mes can survive long enough then grats to hiding in the enemy keep for 5+ minutes.

I didn’t read the thread, but I’m just going to provide my two cents.

Portals require teamwork and are an integral part of strategic maneuvers. If portals are removed or nerfed to allow only a specific number of players to go through, that may fix some issues like rendering but it will ruin a whole lot more. If you are getting portal bombed, you don’t blame the mechanics of the game, you blame the lack of communications. We have gotten portal bombed numerous times, we don’t wipe all the time. Vice versa.

If mesmer portals are removed or nerfed, that may very well tarnish the already lacking WvWvW community

I’m a big fan of portals. They’re like a loot bag delivery service. Learn to counter.

Been hit by quite a few ‘big’ (30+ people) bombs over the last couple of nights fighting and none of them have been what I would describe as being any degree of success. All because it was done in a way to be obvious, or measures where taken to make sure people where aware enough to respond and the good old fashioned ‘gank the mesmer’ on the way in.

….mmm bags.

At some point I think there may be enough mangled mesmers on some servers to form their own “Portaler’s Union” for better pay, OH&S conditions, co-worker harassment and repair bills.

Karmagettie.7231:

Why must everything that is “strong” be nerfed. In no way are portals ruining the game. It takes planning to use them and defend against them. Adapt to it. Dont beg for nerfing on everything you get beat up with.

No it doesn’t. As a single skill there is no equal in terms of how effective portals are in wvwvw.

One single skill can determine a fight on both offense and defense. It can move as many golems across a map as you want in mere seconds. It can give huge zergs unprecedented mobility.

No other single skill comes close to being as useful as portals in wvwvw. The worst part is that it actually doesn’t take very much effort to use them.

Here’s a recap of GW2 PvP Forums so far:
Aug. 25th: IMO, Heartseeker is ruining this game.
Sep. 25th: IMO, Backstab is ruining this game.
Oct. 25th: IMO, C&D spammers are ruining this game.
Nov. 25th: IMO, combat stealth / culling is ruining this game.

Do people just refuse to analyze the situations in which their build/playstyle is deficient?
Because it couldn’t possibly be user error, right?

Target Nearest Enemy + Mark Target is an active counter to Culling issues, and the bane of my existence.
Hell, I’d frankly prefer that everyone kittening about culling just be stuck with it- but since all the QQ’ing on the forums has lead to 6 successive patches of Thief nerfs, I’ll throw the bads a bone.

Tip: Works on portal culling too.

Krato.4729:

I’m a big fan of portals. They’re like a loot bag delivery service. Learn to counter.

Yeah, like blow up the lone Mesmer running into the middle of your group.
Dead mesmers can’t lay portals.

I feel like a lot of people still don’t understand portal only has a range of 5000. That’s the distance of the waypoint of the spawn in at EB barely to the bottom of the stairs. It’s obviously large, but not as big as people make it out to be. In order to transport stuff large chunks of the map instantly you would need a lot of of mesmers (at least 10) and those mesmers would need to be strung out at perfect distance. And even with 10, you’d probably only make it to just outside stonemist. But that sort of thing would take some coordination, because stretching the portal range to its maximum limit with no range indicator is difficult, and if you mess it up, that’s 1 minute 30 seconds down the drain.

It isn’t like one guy can just easily teleport tons of people across the map. It’s pretty small distances, relatively speaking. So that big army that teleported on top of you, yeah, they were like right around the corner.

Please stop whining. Mesmers have had plenty of nerfs. If you can’t handle a strategy in Wv3, then play sPVP, or better yet just play pong.

Pong is pretty fair. But sometimes the other atari joystick has a faster reaction time than yours… so I think not making all of the joysticks in the same factory with the same parts manufacturers is ruining the game.

Jadestorm.8037:

Also note I’m very serious in that I want to know if my ‘fellow mesmers’ think that the changes I suggest would be completely unfair/nullify their strength. =)

That would simply go along the flow of removing whatever is fun to use. Casual use of portals was a fair part of what i loved on the mesmer. With the 90s cooldown, it’s already bad enough, and you propose to also prevent any other skill being used until it’s opened?

Honestly, i wish they’d call it a day, bring the cooldown down to 30s, increase the actual portal duration to 20s (of course, seeing how sword 2 distortion was handled, we’d just get the portal tooltip to say 10s instead) and make the portal use self-only. Frack the others, frack the raid, frack the QQers, i want to play with my skill.

Of course, the day that happens, the next thread will be “In my opinion, time warp is ruining the game”.

I think it’s good that people need to use some strategy/think to counter it. Anything that adds some strategy into the game no matter how little it is, is a good addition. I think the real issue is that there aren’t enough things in the game that you really have to look at to countering. There should be more unique abilities like that rather than less that you have to account for.

Well i don’t mind portals its a part of the game and has some awesome battle moments.
The part i do hate is that you need to search the complete keep/garrison or what ever to find a mesmer because they make your defence weapons useless.

So the only fix i like to see is that you can’t place portals in a keep/tower/garrison.

yes is ruining the game, the name of this game is “guild wars 2” not “portal wars 2”, I do not see guilds see only a portal and I die
(translate.google.com)

Pathetic..people can abuse,accuse of cheating and many things said against Mesmers and they are left for everyone to see,yet i post a reply to some dude who is just making crap up and it’s removed and i get an infraction…

I’m not against it, it has it’s place. I just see changes being made to it because it is the most used tactic in w3, on the higher tier servers. Just like they made changes to abilities (damage) in tpvp and added the code to pve to prevent farming. If it’s not in the spirit of how Anet thinks their game should be played, they will change it, simple as that.

Portal is fine. It adds a factor to the already boring wvw. Mesmer sweep is that factor. It gives mesmer a role in wvw and i think other classes should also have thier own roles to towers/keeps. If you suck at mesmer sweeps it dosent mean portal needs a nerf it means you need to not be a lazy kitten and actuly do a mesmer sweep. Also if 20 ppl move from one place to another by portal then go to where they moved and kill them sheesh. Also if they portal golems then they are using the ability how it is supposed to be used and beside you cant complain about it as it helps get golems to the front line and the enemy just has to counter it. Its not hard to focus fire destroy a golem. Instead of coming on here and trying to get something that dosent need a nerf dosent make sense. I play warrior/thief and made a mesmer and ele last week because i got bored of the other 2.

There is no reason to nerf portal. Just counter it and do mesmer sweeps after takin a tower/keep. Mesmer sweep also gives time for your people to gather for the next move so it isnt anything bad. We have to stop trying to nerf every skill just because we suck at countering it. It dosent make games better it just makes them dull and boring.

Hi,
As the author of this thread I feel I need to chime in now as it’s gotten out of control in regards to class balance / threats / learn to play / trolling / you suck / etc.

One point is common among the masses though; portal is pretty much the most used tactic in world vs world.

I will now reveal a few things.

Yes I am in the T1 bracket. I have been in T1 for months now. I always thought T1 was a lot of fun and never complained about zergs, or thieves, or warriors, or anyone. To me everything seemed balanced. Then, and I hate to say it because I can’t stand calling servers out, but Sea of Sorrows came by and started portalling everything. Every strat they dished out was based around portal, both Defensive and Offensive. And you know what? They won. And they won handily for three weeks.

As they did it more and more for three weeks straight you started seeing more people leave world vs world. The leader of WM, one of the largest guilds I have seen, made an impassioned plea that world vs world was getting “boring.” The bitter truth though is that he failed to mention one of the caveats as to why it was getting boring; which I believe to be Portal.

T1 is so riddled with Portal now that you can’t go five minutes without someone in /t saying “watch out for Portal bomb.” It’s extended far beyond every other tactic employed in the game. All sides would like to do it too, and I do see all three sides employ the tactic, but the matches suddenly become stale speed zerg rushes with 1 second wipes.

There are very little drawn out defenses, very little battles where the offense can turn the tide, it’s all black or white, hit or miss, do or die, win or lose, and it’s all over in a matter of seconds.

This IN MY OPINION (and by the way the mod changed that title I never use the words in my opinion, it’s like saying “in conclusion,” redundant and shallow) is why Portal needs to change. It needs to change so more strategies can grow, battles become longer or more interesting again, defense is not “wait on the wall until mesmer gets down then portal and wipe their siege,” offense is not two zergs hovering around until one can get the first strike with a portal bomb.

I am not posting this to call out SoS. They are a good server and they have definitely shown the world that you can portal your way to absolute victory. The problem is that is pretty much what wins right now, and people are getting bored out of their minds.

To all those who think I want to nerf mesmer.
I do not. My wife plays a mesmer. Why would I want to hurt a class that my wife plays? In fact, I think mesmers could use a buff, but its not happening because so many people quickly turn to how powerful portal is and you guys get left in the dust. Portal is actually pigeon holing your class more than you would believe.

To all those who think Portal is some brilliant strategy that only the most organized can do, it’s not. It is a strategy entirely based around the skill of the mesmer. If they are good and get in a good flank spot you will win, if they are bad you will wipe. There is no communication involved other then waiting for the commander to type “click portal.”

To those who think I have no skill and that I need to learn to play. Well a wise man once said to just admit you have no skill so those who call you out can learn the skill of coming up with a better argument.

That is all.

Well said and makes perfect sense.

Decklan,

He didn’t mention it because maybe he doesn’t consider it an issue? Making assumptions to validate your point of view is somewhat sad.

Also you’re loosing now because they seem to have more coverage than you and are most likely better organized. Maybe instead of complaining here you could be trying to figure out new plays, new counters …

If you find WvW boring right now it’s not (only) due to portals.

No one skill should have such a deep impact on WvW, nerf the portal to 5 people maximum, or group only. Then Mesmer can keep the ability, it functions the same as usual but it shouldn’t dominate WvW so much.

Bring it down to group only. PLEASE.

In my opinion, hundred blades is ruining the game. Instead of learning how to counter it, i just keep standing in it and dying! Loco Bookah.

fellyn.5083:

Karmagettie.7231:

Why must everything that is “strong” be nerfed. In no way are portals ruining the game. It takes planning to use them and defend against them. Adapt to it. Dont beg for nerfing on everything you get beat up with.

No it doesn’t. As a single skill there is no equal in terms of how effective portals are in wvwvw.

One single skill can determine a fight on both offense and defense. It can move as many golems across a map as you want in mere seconds. It can give huge zergs unprecedented mobility.

No other single skill comes close to being as useful as portals in wvwvw. The worst part is that it actually doesn’t take very much effort to use them.

I don’t think you know how portals work…

One mesmer can make his portal up to 5000 distance apart…that really isn’t that big, AND they have to run from the portal’s start to finish to do this. In order to “move many golems across a map in mere seconds,” you would need to literally have a TRAIN of mesmers going from the golems all the way to their end destination.

And then you would have to coordinate the portals so that they were all in the exact right places, and the golems all went in before they disappeared. Yeah, that’s real easy to do I’m sure.

You have to understand…

Portal as a skill, by itself, is not powerful. Portal just allows ARMIES to use more creative tactics. You are not being beat by portal. You are being beat by the enemy army and their tactics.

And you know, even if a mesmer didn’t use portal, a mesmer and a thief could probably use mass-invis, veil, and shadow refuge to sneak their group right into the middle of yours and do a “stealth bomb.” How would this be any different from a portal bomb? Remember, portal only has 5000 range, that is not long…the army that portal bombed you was nearby anyway.

Portal is fine and adds a creative dynamic to the game.

Portal does the exact opposite, it prevents “creative dynamic” because its the only thing thats being used.

digitalfodder.5086:

Portal does the exact opposite, it prevents “creative dynamic” because its the only thing thats being used.

So Portals are being used every time they are off cooldown during sieges? Hardly.

So you think a creative dynamic will be knocking down a gate/wall and then defending that hole every time via zerg vs zerg until attrition takes it’s toll on those that have the farther res point and the other side pushes through and wins? Sounds like a very “creative dynamic” to me.

There are a lot of people posting in this thread that I bet have never even been in a portal bomb or been portal bombed more than once per week and for the sake of adding noise, they just cry that it is OP because everyone else is crying that it is OP.

100B is OP. Spin2win is OP. D/D Elementals are OP. Thieves are OP. Lets all nerf those as well.

You need to learn the Anti Portal tactic cunningly stumbled upon by AG last night when an enemy group kept repeatedly trying to portal bomb us. It involves finding a suitable structure and as soon as the portal appear all run behind it, as said enemy runs around the structure you run out the other side and chase each other in circles.

This is now called the “Benny Hill” and requires everyone on VoiP to hum the tune whilst executing this vastly superior portal bomb destroying tactic.

On a more serious note, we use portals a lot and we break portal bombs a lot. Voice Comms is really the key. Zergs following commanders are always going to lose out to coordinated comms groups, portal or not. I’m happy to run with a mesmer or without one. It makes no difference, as long as people are on comms.

Thuggery.8521:

You need to learn the Anti Portal tactic cunningly stumbled upon by AG last night when an enemy group kept repeatedly trying to portal bomb us. It involves finding a suitable structure and as soon as the portal appear all run behind it, as said enemy runs around the structure you run out the other side and chase each other in circles.

This is now called the “Benny Hill” and requires everyone on VoiP to hum the tune whilst executing this vastly superior portal bomb destroying tactic.

On a more serious note, we use portals a lot and we break portal bombs a lot. Voice Comms is really the key. Zergs following commanders are always going to lose out to coordinated comms groups, portal or not. I’m happy to run with a mesmer or without one. It makes no difference, as long as people are on comms.

LOL! Now I have it stuck in my head.