Guild Wars 2

I have an Idea for the haters:
1. roll a mesmer
2. get your server/team/guild what ever organized
3. start using the portal against your enemies.
4. have a little fun it’s a game

Kelo.4370:

Well if limiting the number of people that can use a portal is off the table then here is my list of what other classes need to bring to WvW.

Necromancer – I have no idea why Mesmer gets the res a bunch of people skill, Necro’s should get something that instantly brings back someone from being fully dead (not downed) maybe make it a small ground targeted AoE so that a group of Necro’s could combat res an entire Zerg if allowed to do so (give it like a 1-2 second cast time). This would make them useful in WvW and not such a joke of a profession.

Engineer – Why the hell can they not repair siege equipment??? The profession is ENGINEER it’s what they do! Engineer should be allowed to repair siege after it’s been placed using up the supply they have. For balance reasons maybe make the amount of supply needed to repair something be 2-3 times the cost of building it (the amount of health to supply required). Just give Engineer something to do other than SPAM GRENADES ALL DAY! It would be really nice and make them unique and required in WvW just like Mesmer’s currently are.

I like these ideas, Engineers should be able to repair siege(costing supplies ofcourse), and give necros the ability to return fighters from the dead, but please, make it so that that happens just ONCE. Otherwise any army with a necromancer is unkillable, also make them die again after lets say 20 seconds(without taking a hit to armor). Necros should have more power over the dead.

I don’t see in any way how portals are GAME-BREAKING. Lol…

I believe Necros do have a signet that revives actually dead players. Mesmers have no such skill of reviving players, at least fully, they are put into a vengence state like the warrior down state, and if they can’t kill any1 they’re dead anyways.

Usagi.4835:

I don’t see in any way how portals are GAME-BREAKING. Lol…

Considering this is now the strategy to do anything in WvWvW it is game-breaking. It would be a lot more strategic to have to get five mesmers to port 5 people each to the enemy zerg than having one mesmer able to port 25 people in at once. Here is a rundown of how difficult it is to combat a mesmer portal if they have basic class knowledge.

1. Mesmers can put the starting portal where the enemies are not able to see it or the people stacking on it. The enemies will not know to look out for a mesmer bomb.

2. Mesmers have a three second stealth and add about a second of culling issues plus a blink which is more than enough to get through the front of the enemy zerg and lay down a portal without being seen so the mesmer won’t get killed or stopped before making it to the designated spot.

3. As soon as the portal is lain down it activates. That means that even if the enemy calls it out right away, they will turn around fast enough to see AoE start forming everywhere around them because the zerg has already gone through.

4. If you were to spot the portal before the enemies came through then you could start laying down AoE except when their zerg comes through the damage will be mitigated because of the cap on targets hit using AoE is 5.

5. The enemies coming through the portal are invisible. The enemies never render coming out of the portal however I have noticed that when we are the ones doing the bombing about 50% of the time the enemies models will stay loaded.

6. They can return to safety if it does indeed fail by taking the portal return before it disappears.

There is no thought in it. Tonight even after the nerf it was used in every single fight no matter how many enemies or allies. This does not need a cooldown nerf it needs a cap on people that can port through. It’s just getting stale that this is the current best tactic in the game and every side is forced to use it to stay competitive and to take advantage of this skill.

Portals have been nerfed, everybody happy now?

SmokeyNYY.7841:

It is pretty strange that the developers made the mesmer utility so strong compared to other classes. Doesn’t really make sense in my opinion. As to why their isn’t a cap on the mesmer portals is beyond my comprehension as well. Its getting to the point where everyone mesmer portals almost 100% of the time now in the upper tiers whether it is needed or not.

It’s just part of the class.

No other class can go stealth as much and long as thieves, because that’s what they do.

I don’t play a mesmer, but I think it’s perfectly fine. It’s a teamskill, and gw2 promotes teamwork

Portal completely ignores one of ANet’s design pillars for skills: All other skills in the game, without exception, affect a maximum of 5 players.

This is a hard limit ANet set to prevent multi-target damage/buffs scaling out of control with large groups. Think of thieves using shadow refuge to stealth an entire zerg for 15s, Guardians giving 100% heals to literally every ally within range, or Rangers immobilizing and applying massive bleeds to every single enemy around him. Sounds bad? That’s the state that Portal is in right now.

Portal is the only exception to this rule, and as a result DOES scale out of control. This is so ridiculously obvious that I’m not sure for what reasons ANet could not see it, blind love would be my guess.

Portal wouldn’t be all that imbalanced if AoE damage had no limit on player count either, as everybody who comes out of the portal would get hit at the same time with every AoE. But right now 100 people could come out of the portal whereas your AoE could only hit 5 of them. This is practically the very definition of broken.

ANet, please realize already that Portal is breaking not only our game experience (compounded by culling issue), but your own design principles as well. And it could all be fixed simply by limiting the max number of portal uses to 5.

I wonder- will Mesmer still be viable if their Portal ability was removed.

If so- Anet should just do it. They’ve waited too long to it otherwise.

Bones.5762:

I believe Necros do have a signet that revives actually dead players. Mesmers have no such skill of reviving players, at least fully, they are put into a vengence state like the warrior down state, and if they can’t kill any1 they’re dead anyways.

Illusion of Life, yes. quite handy. I explain it to people as ‘look, Ive returned you to life, but if you dont prove your actually usefull by killing something soon Im gonna have to let you die again ok?’

tbh, Id rather see that as a necro ability and the mesmers gain something like ‘illusion of health’ grant 2500 health for 20 seconds, lose 2500 health after it ends. Or illusion of speed gain quickness for 15 seconds, followed by crippled for 5 seconds after.

Both skills come from GW1 :-)

As a Guardian I say leave the portal in.
It adds new tactics and can change the battle.
Just sweep a keep after you take it to clear them out.

How about just stop whinging,be happy your childish ranting has caused the zerker nerf,i look forward to standing outside a keep seeing …Obstructed constantly.
If mesmer is so god kitten OP roll one and try if you think it’s so easy.It’s more of a learn to play issue,just because you don’t have a iwin button against a mesmer they should be nerfed.

To me all the people saying that Mesmer’s could not stand competitively on thier own without portals in WvW shows me exactly how much of a crutch portals are. Mesmers would still be quite strong in WvW even without the portal skill existing.

Limiting Portal to 5 people seems very reasonable in my opinion.

5 is the party limit, it is also the new limit for Heals, and has been the cap on AoE since launch.

If you need to move more people, just roll more Mesmers.

Ralathar, the reason we say that is because our DPS is considerably lower than all the other classes. We rely on Phantasms and closes for max DPS which all take time to bring out.. by the time we are able to maximize our DPS we are either dead, about dead or already running for our lives. also our Phantasms are usually 1-3 hits dead which kills our DPS, We use portals to either escape or bring more people in with us. It isn’t My fault some people abuse this and port a whole zerg, which by the way… YOU CAN SEE BOTH SIDES IF YOU LOOK. The range isn’t incredibly far you can literally see the group the mesmer is porting and the range is very touchy and easily made broken by range. I suggest for everyone crying about portals to do a test in Lions arch on the bridge. get 3-4 mesmers that can set their portals at MAX range (may take a few tries) with people on both sides. and see for yourself. you can spot the large group easily (at least on my computer I can) before they can get the portal off. if you don’t have people looking, it’s your fault not ours.

YumeBaka.3428:

Ralathar, the reason we say that is because our DPS is considerably lower than all the other classes. We rely on Phantasms and closes for max DPS which all take time to bring out.. by the time we are able to maximize our DPS we are either dead, about dead or already running for our lives. also our Phantasms are usually 1-3 hits dead which kills our DPS, We use portals to either escape or bring more people in with us. It isn’t My fault some people abuse this and port a whole zerg, which by the way… YOU CAN SEE BOTH SIDES IF YOU LOOK. The range isn’t incredibly far you can literally see the group the mesmer is porting and the range is very touchy and easily made broken by range. I suggest for everyone crying about portals to do a test in Lions arch on the bridge. get 3-4 mesmers that can set their portals at MAX range (may take a few tries) with people on both sides. and see for yourself. you can spot the large group easily (at least on my computer I can) before they can get the portal off. if you don’t have people looking, it’s your fault not ours.

I play with some good Mesmers and I roll a Mesmer myself, albeit lower level atm. I’ve faced a precious few good Mesmers in the field.

You’re doing it wrong.

Both sides have mesmers…

WvW isnt won by mesmers and theives, it’s won by participation, organization, and siege…

FormulaX.8901:

Both sides have mesmers…

WvW isnt won by mesmers and theives, it’s won by participation, organization, and siege…

To be fair “both sides have it” has nothing to do with game balance. Your speaking parity there. Something can be game breathtakingly horribly overpowered and be possessed by both sides. It doesn’t mean that fixing such things, if warranted, should not be done.

Every single class is OP if u play it correctly. a Well geared and traited mesmer can hit 5-7k when thiefs hits 10k’s and wars 15k’s. so u want to take all usefull skills away from mesmer so it would be more useless in WvW. U guys need to learn to play.

PS. Why don’t u suggest that thiefs steath shud be removed like mesmer portals. Portals and stealths are part of class. You need to learn to deal with them.

Beri.3156:

PS. Why don’t u suggest that thiefs steath shud be removed like mesmer portals. Portals and stealths are part of class. You need to learn to deal with them.

Thief’s stealth is an essential part of the profession. Just look through thief skills/traits to see how many are connected to stealth. Mesmer’s portal is an isolated skill.

Mesmers would be more balanced in WvW context without the skill. The main use cases for portals are content skipping, multiplying golem effeciency and abusing culling issue in zerg vs zerg. If those use cases are intended, I would expect to see all professions with portal skill in WvW.

Problem: Mesmer portals are overpowered.
Solution: Learn to use it.

FormulaX.8901:

Both sides have mesmers…

WvW isnt won by mesmers and theives, it’s won by participation, organization, and siege…

Yep, people over rate the importance of portals, they’re sort of nice if you want to flank a zerg with your zerg or move golems, but that’s nothing compared to the dependancy on supply, siege and smart field movements. Nothing.

iorlas.6721:

…and thieves don’t abuse the culling issue? just blows everything you said outa the water.It’s a simple L2P issue.

I believe thiefs abuse the client rendering issue more than server side culling issue. Thiefs prefer to jump on you when you are alone rather than when you are in middle of large zerg.

Nothing is funnier than reveling in a successful portal bomb, 30+ dead invaders at your feet. Back slapping all around. Then 30 minutes later you end up on the recieving end of a well played pb, and you are like……Doh!

God i can see ppl complaining alot about everything first turtles “omg omg we are moar than then and we cant kill we losing kitten voice comms and organised battles cheat cheat lololol” now mesmer portals anothar tactical stuff used to own big unorganized and mindless groups. srsly less QQ more Pew Pew/

Portals are fine. They’re pretty easy to counter and they are not remotely as strong as you make them out to be.

The turtle strategy will be phased out as it’s easy to beat when you’re fighting them efficiently.

I think that the bottom-line issue is that every almost every skill in the game affects no more than 5 other players. AoE certainly. Some friendly skills can affect more than 5 players — run across the line to get a speed boost, etc — but are limited by low time limits and short ranges.

Portals are longer range than any other skill in the game, have as long of a time as any other skill in the game, and affect unlimited numbers of players. It wouldn’t kill it to have charges so that only 5-10 players can use the portal before it collapses. You could still port strike teams where you need them. You could hide multiple Mesmers in a place to port more folks if you are that determined. You just couldn’t have one guy portal an entire server’s worth of folks. (And the limitation of AoE to only 5 targets means that the entire server’s worth of folks standing on the same spot are initially invulnerable to counter attack, to boot.)

Kaon.7192:

Portal completely ignores one of ANet’s design pillars for skills: All other skills in the game, without exception, affect a maximum of 5 players.

Without exception, huh? All skills huh? Veil, Temporal Curtain, Line and Ring of Warding would like to have a word with you. Its a utility effect, not a condition, not a boon, not damage, not healing. Reflection can reflect the projectiles of far more than 5 people, because its a utility effect. Quit making up game design pillars that aren’t there.

Just do what they did to some of our Thief skills (dropped DPS on them ONLY in PvP) and make it NOT work in PvP or limit it to the caster ONLY, we know its doable because they changed our damage output in PvP only and in PvE it works normal.

Or make the portal itself targetable so opposing players can destroy it if its seen. Gives both sides a chance that way.

My idea for a solution

If we limit Portal, that affects mesmers everywhere and I love the way the portal is. Its that basic. Shall the portal be limited, there would just be more mesmers out there where one mesmer teleports a mesmer group and creates four portals bringing in 20 players. That takes five seconds more, so it does not work.

I thought about the feelings of mesmers. I also have a mesmer and it hit me! Every class is able to counter itself with an opposing build of the same class! So here is my solution for all you mesmers out there!

Let me ask you all…How do you counter your favorite class with your favorite class? Simple, we create opposing builds and GW2 is amazing at this…Why not do it for mesmers? (Portal Mesmer vs Anti-Portal Mesmers)

Make a new set of skills (perhaps in the next major expansion or so) which improve the Portal-Build, but also make skills within Mesmer itself to be an Anti-Portaling Build.

Make a skill that in an area prevents an enemy Mesmer from casting the portal or generating the portal. Allow Mesmers the ability to find portals and destroy portals.

Why?

Mesmers are able to create portals and the skill being unique to them, as well as their build allows them also know the best ways to track them, prevent their generation and even destroy them. An enemy mesmer generates a portal, an allied mesmer throw a field preventing a portal from being cast and when mesmers find an enemy portal, they could walk up to it, hit F to destroy it (or use a skill to destroy it) or throw a nasty skill affecting anyone who uses that portal (or a portal in a region)

In this way Mesmers have more duties to counter one another, they become more intricate and rather than being nerfed now have opposing functions within the same class, like the other classes have.

How about this concept?

Work the class in order to have another Function (like Ele has F1 – F4 for atunements). So F5 OR create a skill class. In this skill class pressing F or using a skill can destroy a portal. However, how about these other skills ideas..Nothing set in stone.

1. <Temporal Storm> Creates a Field in the area of range 1200. Disables casting of portals in the area, all players exiting portals in the area are afflicted with 5 seconds of daze and 10 seconds of chill.
2. <Rapture> Destroy target portal damaging enemies on the other side and Stunning them (range from enemy portal 1200) for five seconds.
3.<Capture (WvW)> Take control of an enemy Portal, and safely travel through it. (this would be used so that we can take control of an enemy portal at a keep, portal through it, then rapture it.)
4. <Summon Party (its in what was my fav before GW2)> “Portal your entire party to your current location, range = anywhere on the map, they get a pop up if they wish to come. Very long recharge, once every 10 – 15 minutes.”
5.<Shattered Escape>“Targets an area, then minimap is targetted. Teleports a group of five players 2000 units in the direction chosen. Players have cripple, weakness and daze for 10 seconds” (The skill is used to portal parties away from combat rather than portal parties into combat)
6.<Swap>"range 1200. You and one friendly target exchange places.
7.<Warp> “Create a barrier for three seconds, when enemies pass through the barrier, they are stripped of swiftness, gain cripple and are teleported 1200 feet back.”

I though that mesmers could use portal skills and anti portal skills as a mechanism of some kind.

You see, the more I see and use portal as a utility skill, given its power…The more I feel that it should have been part of the mesmer mechanic itself. I think everyone feels this way because its “just a utility skill, not even an elite.” Had it been an Elite, not one would question it because it is an Elite.

But I think we as players, think of this skill on a completely different level of existence than just common, advanced and elite skills. If this was part of the mesmer mechanic / Fundamentals itself, I would have found that to be on par with elementalists and their four element choices or necros and their deathshroud, since I found that destroying your illusions through the F keys to give effects was kind of weak to me. (Not saying they aren’t powerful when used correctly, but its a lot of sacrifice compared to what the other scholar classes have)

A necro can just death shroud as a mechanic and get a second life bar. An Ele can change attunement to their situation (which is fantastic) and what do mesmers get? They shatter all their illusions for an effect, which in some ways felt like the shorter end of the stick because i have to generate them first. Necro and Ele have their abilities always there. Getting illusions as a mesmer required certain ways of playing to maximize them.

My favorite graphic in a video game right now is the way an illusion shatters.

My guild routinely beats portal bombs used against us. I recognize when a few people sit and talk together can’t figure out a solution, it seems like there likely isn’t one. That’s simply not the case with portal bombs.

WvW may be billed as casual friendly, but it’s best enjoyed with a guild or group of friends who communicate on TeamSpeak/Vent/Mumble. You will find the portal itself is never culled out, ever. As a team people who are sensitive to portals will bark them out on Teamspeak and counter measures are taken. Those should be obvious.

Portals provide much needed strategy in the otherwise bland siege warfare. The game needs to foster strategy more, not reduce it.

Roezz.5460:

My guild routinely beats portal bombs used against us. I recognize when a few people sit and talk together can’t figure out a solution, it seems like there likely isn’t one. That’s simply not the case with portal bombs.

WvW may be billed as casual friendly, but it’s best enjoyed with a guild or group of friends who communicate on TeamSpeak/Vent/Mumble. You will find the portal itself is never culled out, ever. As a team people who are sensitive to portals will bark them out on Teamspeak and counter measures are taken. Those should be obvious.

Portals provide much needed strategy in the otherwise bland siege warfare. The game needs to foster strategy more, not reduce it.

There is nothing wrong with portal bombs for ambushes. There is something wrong with being able to hide classes inside a keep once it gets taken and then bypass half of the keeps defenses and take it before they can even react because 1 single skill in the game lets you bypass walls.

And people are like lawl noob, mesmer sweep!!

Yes you can sweep but it’s toxic gameplay forcing 20 people to spend 5 minutes sweeping a keep only to still possibly miss a mesmer thanks to the amount of hiding places and stealth. Heck most people don’t even run a thief with said mesmer to help them stay stealthed for 20+ seconds if needed.

Oh so 1 person found the mesmer in hills keep? don’t worry they are near a cliff and will almost certainly simply throw that person off the cliff and hide again nearby. It’s not balanced and it’s not fun gameplay when used on keeps.

It’s a perfectly balanced and strategic addition to the game when not being used to bypass keep walls.

The problem with portal bombing is not the tactic, but the effect that it has with culling on low end machines, when combined with the use of AoE stealth skills.

There are a lot of guilds who have figured out how to use portal and aoe stealth skills to keep themselves culled when fighting enemy zergs / groups.

If you exploit the bug having 6-8 seconds of broken culling stealth at the start of a fight is doable and there are many who are taking advantage of this.

You can’t fight what you can’t see. If you see 3 players rather than the 30 players there it is a huge issue.

The culling bug needs to be fixed, but if it ends up being something exceedingly difficult or time intensive to fix, then the abilities that are being used to exploit the bug need to be taken offline.

I.E. portal + aoe stealth.

Ralathar.7236:

Roezz.5460:

My guild routinely beats portal bombs used against us. I recognize when a few people sit and talk together can’t figure out a solution, it seems like there likely isn’t one. That’s simply not the case with portal bombs.

WvW may be billed as casual friendly, but it’s best enjoyed with a guild or group of friends who communicate on TeamSpeak/Vent/Mumble. You will find the portal itself is never culled out, ever. As a team people who are sensitive to portals will bark them out on Teamspeak and counter measures are taken. Those should be obvious.

Portals provide much needed strategy in the otherwise bland siege warfare. The game needs to foster strategy more, not reduce it.

There is nothing wrong with portal bombs for ambushes. There is something wrong with being able to hide classes inside a keep once it gets taken and then bypass half of the keeps defenses and take it before they can even react because 1 single skill in the game lets you bypass walls.

And people are like lawl noob, mesmer sweep!!

Yes you can sweep but it’s toxic gameplay forcing 20 people to spend 5 minutes sweeping a keep only to still possibly miss a mesmer thanks to the amount of hiding places and stealth. Heck most people don’t even run a thief with said mesmer to help them stay stealthed for 20+ seconds if needed.

Oh so 1 person found the mesmer in hills keep? don’t worry they are near a cliff and will almost certainly simply throw that person off the cliff and hide again nearby. It’s not balanced and it’s not fun gameplay when used on keeps.

It’s a perfectly balanced and strategic addition to the game when not being used to bypass keep walls.

Maybe it was a typo but mesmers can’t stealth people for 20 secs. Also, if chained, the longest mesmers can hide for is 14 seconds but they’d need to have torch equipped. I think in the higher tiers, hiding in keeps is more difficult since people are aware of it and always make sure to sweep. The point you made about the Hills is kind of blend; I was hiding near the cliffs the other day and I managed to pull one person off but being found, I knew it was too late. 1) He would’ve alerted the rest of his team 2) There are few viable hiding places in all of the keeps 3) Mesmers cannot stealth for very long and have terrible mobility. If I get found, I know it’s more or less impossible to hide again.

I always make a point of telling ppl, when sweeping, to spam their autoattack/tab button since it will tag any hiding mesmers. It’s already on a higher cool down. Personally I would’ve preferred a person limit since I liked to use it to escape in a bad fight but it’s no longer viable. And five minutes isn’t that long anyway. In reality, it’s probably closer to two minutes or something.

Bones.5762:

I believe Necros do have a signet that revives actually dead players. Mesmers have no such skill of reviving players, at least fully, they are put into a vengence state like the warrior down state, and if they can’t kill any1 they’re dead anyways.

Only downed players.

Remove the keep hiding issue. Remove the culling issue. Let’s set the stage on an open field. Let’s have 10v10.. Side A opens a portal on their end (behind a rock) and a mesmer comes running into the open. Side B sees this and prepares for a portal! Side A’s mesmer drops the portal. Side B decides to drop 10 AoEs on the portal and wait.

Given the game mechanics, upwards of 50 people can be affected by the 10 AoEs dropped by Side B, but we don’t know how the system decides which 5 *. With that said, you might be able to drop 5 people instantly (all 10 AoEs hit the same 5 people) or it evens out (each person on Side A get’s hit by 2). Broken/not broken is a matter of opinion (we don’t know what the intent was), however it is OP in relation to other players and defending.

Some might say " how is that different than open field"? It is different by the nature of how people run at varying speeds and distances from each other. Let me explain in relation to how I believe the AoE system picks a target.

Being a programmer I can only say how I would program the system and therefor speculate on how they do it. I would design each skill as its own object with internal structures and counters. I would take the center of the AoE skill as the center of the object (this is somewhat supported by the fact that until the center of the AoE is moved to an invalid location like over the top of a wall, it stays green). I would start doing collision checking from the center and once I hit 5 targets I stop.

Depending upon how the portal places you once appear on the other side, there could dozens of people in the same ‘spot’ at which point the AoE system would have to pick one at random. The chances of dozens of players being within pixels of each other in broken field running is slim-to-none, so the portal does change the dynamic of the game in a way that renders defending nearly impossible.

I play a Necro and I would love to see them lift the AoE cap. This would require more processing power on their end to enable my AoE object to tag upwards of 2x server population (there are 2 opposing forces for each server). If however they do not lift the cap, I have to say they need to limit the number of persons that can use the portal.

I havent read the whole topic, but I say keep it the same. If anything, maybe borrow a leaf out of WoW’s book and introduce cheap reagents to make it mean something when you use a portal, and if you get forgetful, or wasteful, you run out. Not really necessary though.

reagents is one of the worst mechanics to even consider. it’s a waste of precious bag space for one. and considering they took the bankers out of the border lands I need all the bag space I can muster. I wonder out of all the people saying mesmer portal is op has out ran a mesmer since they have no perma speed boost.. they have a focus weapon skill and blink and portal.

Karast.1927:

The problem with portal bombing is not the tactic, but the effect that it has with culling on low end machines, when combined with the use of AoE stealth skills.

There are a lot of guilds who have figured out how to use portal and aoe stealth skills to keep themselves culled when fighting enemy zergs / groups.

If you exploit the bug having 6-8 seconds of broken culling stealth at the start of a fight is doable and there are many who are taking advantage of this.

You can’t fight what you can’t see. If you see 3 players rather than the 30 players there it is a huge issue.

The culling bug needs to be fixed, but if it ends up being something exceedingly difficult or time intensive to fix, then the abilities that are being used to exploit the bug need to be taken offline.

I.E. portal + aoe stealth.

Now you want mesmer to lose AoE stealth? this is getting pathetic,why not remove all mesmer skills and just leave auto attack?which is obstructed by anything higher than 2cm.Culling is a bug? so by your thinking Thief should lose stealth and EVERYONE who uses the portal should lose their skills or maybe removing portal + aoe stealth will fix culling.

The only problem with those issues mentioned here is the rendering bug. Mesmer portal is a very strong tactical tool if used correctly, indeed, but why take it away from them? Every server is able to have Mesmers on their side, so what???
WvW is not intended to work non zerg basis, there should be also defenders in the keeps/castles etc. which is encouraged by portals, so imho good for the game. Running zerg? Be ready to be outsmarted by mesmer you didn´t found because you´re in a hurry to another keep, simple….
I play a Thief (don´t even have a Mesmer) and the rendering bug bothers me the same as everyone else, trust me… When a group of 20 enemies suddenly pops in front of you, because you are fast moving class, that´s nothing you would like to experience. I understand that the so called “combat perma-stealth” is a big problem, I just have no power to change it, my class mechanic is stealth and I can´t change it. I hope it will be fixed soon, before the ppl cry a hole into Thief and Mesmer classes because of this issue…

well i dislike mesmers. sorry guys you are just a pain to fight:) still trying to figure you guys out.

however I have yet to see a keep or tower lost to a portal. seems like most our guys know to do a quick sweep, and even then 2 to 3 peeps seem to always stay at towers for inc calls and call outs of close troop movement. at SM i all ways see about 3 people on every side of it. my friend and i do this a lot at SM as it is a good way to find small fights as you see a group of 2 to 5 running by it. so even if a mesmer was missed by the sweep would be hard for him to move around unnoticed.

it might need to be changed a little to solve the portal bombing. but if you lose a keep because a sweep was not done and you left it completely empty then that is note the portals fault.

Oh yah, I forgot to mention… It’s enough if you leave a few people behind at a keep for info. If you get them to hang around on the walls, then that makes it more difficult for mesmers to portal people in.

Ralathar.7236:

Yes you can sweep but it’s toxic gameplay forcing 20 people to spend 5 minutes sweeping a keep only to still possibly miss a mesmer thanks to the amount of hiding places and stealth. Heck most people don’t even run a thief with said mesmer to help them stay stealthed for 20+ seconds if needed.

Oh so 1 person found the mesmer in hills keep? don’t worry they are near a cliff and will almost certainly simply throw that person off the cliff and hide again nearby. It’s not balanced and it’s not fun gameplay when used on keeps.

It’s a perfectly balanced and strategic addition to the game when not being used to bypass keep walls.

If it was for me captured keeps would not be insta-repaired on capture but would retain the damage taken during siege so that a team that captured a keep COULD not rush to the next but would have to spend time getting mats into the keep, repair the walls and doors etc.

This “toxic play” is actually what I think things SHOULD be – the rushing from keep to keep is toxic in my opinion.

I don’t want to read All these posts.
My message is for the devs; don’t change anything about the portail, it’s one of the tactics in the game… An amazing one…

Sign: a player that got killed many times by a Zerg poped behind him with a portail, and killed many with the same technique !

HtFde.3856:

Ralathar.7236:

Yes you can sweep but it’s toxic gameplay forcing 20 people to spend 5 minutes sweeping a keep only to still possibly miss a mesmer thanks to the amount of hiding places and stealth. Heck most people don’t even run a thief with said mesmer to help them stay stealthed for 20+ seconds if needed.

Oh so 1 person found the mesmer in hills keep? don’t worry they are near a cliff and will almost certainly simply throw that person off the cliff and hide again nearby. It’s not balanced and it’s not fun gameplay when used on keeps.

It’s a perfectly balanced and strategic addition to the game when not being used to bypass keep walls.

If it was for me captured keeps would not be insta-repaired on capture but would retain the damage taken during siege so that a team that captured a keep COULD not rush to the next but would have to spend time getting mats into the keep, repair the walls and doors etc.

This “toxic play” is actually what I think things SHOULD be – the rushing from keep to keep is toxic in my opinion.

I’m cool with that and that would make sense, but that would only worsen portaling to take keeps as it would become EVEN MORE advantageous because you would have an intact outer wall.

They would have to make repairing a little more rewarding though. It’s dull and dry and gives little rewards as is. “Keep trading” would also be far too easy under this method if two sides agreed to farm each other. Sux, but people ruin everything lol.

Solution: limit portals to 5 players, just like AOE’s.

Contrary to my fellow Gandarian Lyan, I am on the strong belief that should the Mesmer keep this unlimited skill then all skills of this ilk need to be unlimited.
Lets face it the best way to counter the portal is to AoE it but with the AoE limit at 5 and more than 5 players use that portal the AoE is useless against it.
Sorry ArenaNet but you advertised a balanced game and at the moment we are not seeing this at all and in my own personal opinion there are only two options left to balance WvWvW and that is to either cap the portal to 5 or uncap the AoE skills which would also solve quite a few other issues that are making WvWvW unbalanced.

Only got through the first 1/2 page of this post.

Every team gets mezmers.
The portal is a situational usage.
IMO there is no problem with mezmers, or thieves.

Only problem here is the culling issue. Fix it, and you fix uncounted ancillary problems.

Ender.3508:

Kaon.7192:

Portal completely ignores one of ANet’s design pillars for skills: All other skills in the game, without exception, affect a maximum of 5 players.

Without exception, huh? All skills huh? Veil, Temporal Curtain, Line and Ring of Warding would like to have a word with you. Its a utility effect, not a condition, not a boon, not damage, not healing. Reflection can reflect the projectiles of far more than 5 people, because its a utility effect. Quit making up game design pillars that aren’t there.

I stand corrected. But if those skills you mentioned do affect an unlimited number of players, then they need to be rebalanced, along with portal.

You also bring up reflection, which is another good example of something that scales out of control as a result of ignoring the 5 player limit. This should be changed to something that blocks all projectiles but only reflects back to a maximum of 5 different sources. The classification that “it’s an utility effect” shouldn’t exempt this or Portal from balance considerations.