Guild Wars 2

The reason why Ori is decreasing in price is not because of an increase in supply, but because the complements for Ori have gone up in price due to Ascended gear and the Legendary precursor lottery both functioning as gigantic T6 mat sinks.

Demand for T6 going up, means making items out of Ori is more expensive, means fewer people making items out of Ori, means less demand for Ori.

Also, with the treadmill implemented, people are not making as much jewellery as they were before, nor are they dumping as much Ori into cool Mystic Forge recipes for skins anymore (or making new alts that will need Ori jewellery), because catching up to the gear treadmill is more important than pretty skins.

Yes, the recent Lost Shores patch is the reason why Ori is plummeting in price. No, it is not because there is a single Ori node.

When the game was purely thought to be about horizontal progression, I expected more weapons to become available to every class with each expansion or large content patches… thus adding to each classes abilities, and giving them new options on how to build their character, but in a balanced way.

Now since it looks like the game will be a treadmill, I would assume that numbers are going to inflate, and nothing too exciting like making more existing weapon sets available to classes that currently don’t have them.

The only use for candy corn is throwing it into the Mystic Forge when there are low cost mat sinks implemented (commendations now, sometimes there are other options). The other only use for candy corn is to eat a whole bunch of it to puke on someone’s corpse in WvW if you want to be an kitten

Mesmers already have to manage a class specific resource. We have illusions.

A lot of the kittening from the recent changes (all Phantasms requiring buggy LoS) is due to us being denied our class specific resource due to buggy LoS.

As for Elementalists, adding mana restrictions makes them less unique. Allowing Necros and Warriors to use skills that consume life force/adrenaline would be neat though, since it would be a different way to spend those class specific resources and them give more options… not less options (which would happen with adding another resource to most classes).

Also, what is wrong with cool downs being the main resource? People who spam abilities when they are off cool down are still bad players, and are rewarded as such.

Some of those skins may be yet unknown Mystic Forge recipes. Although I think that would be more the case for fancier looking gear, whereas that tribal outfit doesn’t look like it would be some mysterious and expensive Mystic Forge recipe.

mulch.2586:

They were talking about this last year.

But realistically, we’re looking at a long time before they do an expansion.

Generally speculation about expansions involve wondering what new professions and/or races will come with it, Cantha or ??, that kind of stuff.

The talk in this thread… makes it sound like you hate to play GW2. Oh no, I might have to level another 10 or 20 levels! Hey, if it’s exploring a new continent, I’m all for it (when the time comes)

There are a lot of people whose purchase of a GW2 expansion is based primarily on whether there will be a treadmill or not. Story, environments, mechanics are all secondary.

deborah.2068:

and feeling of accomplishment

Why don’t all these people just move to Zimbabwe and just revel in that accomplishment of the country’s currency?

Maybe I am just bias against inflation due to my schooling…. but I absolutely hate the idea of inflation, especially when it is just for the sake of inflation.

I didn’t feel like I actually achieved max level until well after I reached level 80. It must have been a couple of weeks that I simply did not know how I wanted to build my character, which exotics to go for, and which skins, and I still had a lot to learn about the game and my class to improve my skill.

Now I do feel like a max level character. I have a build that I like, I understand the game and my class a lot better. And I have awesome looking armour and weapon skins.

Just earlier today in WvW the commander and his army were discussing which towers and camps they needed to hit. I soloed the second camp they planned to hit (Greenwater). As the commander and his group of 15-20 players arrived in the camp I had just dispatched my last foe. I then took a bow in front of that little army, and we moved onto the nearby tower.

The particular level number is meaningless. What matters is whether you have max stats and you understand your class.

You can still blow up lower level enemies. A Thief friend of mine was doing map completion on lower level areas a little while ago… Dancing Dagger on a power focused Thief means as many kills as there are bounces. Yes, not all lower level content is trivial, but there is still trivial content when you are at your max.

Also, what good is there to being max level if non can oppose you? Playing as an all powerful being does is not as exciting for most people.

Flynch.6034:

Regarding the keys, if you need them badly, just create an alt and storyline them to L10 where you receive one as a reward. Much, much easier and faster this way.

This begs the question: how does story quest rewards work when multiple people are partaking in the same story quest (that they are all on)? A party of 5 players could probably clear the story quest up to 10 fairly easy. Would that be one key for each player (all using the same race and relevant background)?

I do use other people’s little stars to help hunt them down when they are behind terrain.

It seems to be an overall terrible handicap for any class that is involved in PvP… especially so for Mesmers due to the clone thing.

Yes it is true that there are many tells that the clones give off (not moving/dodging, slow attack speed, only one attack, no offhand weapon)… but just adding more just seems silly.

Might as well make the legendary torch and make it extra obvious who the real Mesmer is.

ski.4927:

Blink caused him to lose my target, however the targetting reticle stayed on.

Does the positioning of Blink matter? I could see that if you Blink outside of his character’s field of view it could drop, but if you remain in their field of view does it still drop target?

I’ll just repost what I had posted in the Mesmer forum regarding sPvP/non-sPvP split in balance adjustments… since I had just typed this out just a few minutes ago:

Surbrus

SPvP has completely different rules and objectives.

For whichever reason, the Anet guys in charge of balance determined that confusion was too powerful in sPvP. The same for many other abilities, which is why there is a sPvP/non-sPvP split with many skills.

Example: the change to Portal cool down to 90 seconds is a good change to sPvP, as otherwise a Mesmer could guard two capture points. Where as the 90 Portal cool down is completely unneeded and downright stupid outside of sPvP.

Different game types, which have different objectives and rules, require different balance adjustments.

SPvP has completely different rules and objectives.

For whichever reason, the Anet guys in charge of balance determined that confusion was too powerful in sPvP. The same for many other abilities, which is why there is a sPvP/non-sPvP split with many skills.

Example: the change to Portal cool down to 90 seconds is a good change to sPvP, as otherwise a Mesmer could guard two capture points. Where as the 90 Portal cool down is completely unneeded and downright stupid outside of sPvP.

Different game types, which have different objectives and rules, require different balance adjustments.

Haven’t played the original Guild Wars. Looks like I was really missing out.

I would love to see abilities like this in GW2… but yes it would be difficult to implement with the whole standardized conditions thing GW2 has going for it.

I suppose GW2 does have exceptions, like Basilisk Venom (which is also an elite)… so it does have a precedent for elites that have condition-like effects that are unique.

SPvP is a different gametype, and is balanced as such.

All other game types use the same balance (PvE = WvW).

I thought you were refering to Thieves when you were talking about evading multiple stomps. Also, I see that you don’t play a Mesmer.

Anyways, the downed state is really nice. I’ve always been a fan of it because it makes the battles in WvW feel more real. There is just something nicely immersive about finishing off your opponent on the battle field, you’ve knocked them down, they are near helpless, but have not taken a fatal wound. When your allies are being wiped out, that immersion also comes out where you see your allies, the dead and the dying, reaching out for your hand…. as well as when you are wiping out a large group of enemies… moping up the battle field taking out the stragglers.

Mechanically, it is also nice that you aren’t simply killed outright from some glass cannon that gets the jump on you. If you have allies you can trust nearby, a thieve unloading all his initiative into a big alpha strike doesn’t mean it is simply the end for you.

Perhaps you shouldn’t be able to rally off neutral monsters/NPC’s when engaged in PvP in WvW. Also, the downed hp pool could possibly use a nerf. And perhaps the cap for how many people can revive a single person could be lowered, as well as reducing the rate that dead players are revived (or maybe simply add diminishing returns to rallying/ressing someone, thereby nerfing zerg tactics more).

Khados.8147:

I look at mounts from a monetization standpoint as another easy way to keep money rolling in for development. I find it mind-boggling that a cash shop game would launch without mount skins, housing items, and combat-wearable wardrobe clothes. Add ’em all. Seems like a gold mine to me, and a fair way to monetize without pay2win.

The thing is, the person at the head of the GW2 cash shop doesn’t understand that the consumer base for GW2 is different than the consumer base for Maple Story. Just because excessive gambling worked for one set of consumers, doesn’t mean that it is going to work for all consumers.

Short answer is that the cash shop isn’t working as it should, is due to incompetence.

Mkalafut.1273:

There’s another thread about that, and how this game is steering towards more traditional (WoW) MMO standards and leaving behind what made GW1 great. By adding more levels, more gear will be added as well – and by the sounds of it, not just better gear, but better gear tiers as well. These are bad things.

It is like Anet has forgotten the lesson from the failures of previous WoW wannabes. The sad thing is, they appeared to completely understand the downfall of every single other WoW wannabe before Guild Wars 2 came out… but now they have mysteriously had their memories wiped from their minds and seem fairly adamant in the horribly predictable path of failure that has plagued every single other WoW wannabe.

Those chests are mostly for those players that enjoy gambling.

Personally I am not a gambler, so I knew right from the very start that chests were worthless to me. I just stalk pile my story/daily reward keys for some event to make the most of the keys (like the Halloween event). I am a statistician, not a gambler.

As for T-stones, I simply assume that I will have to purchase them from the gem store. This added cost is simply added into my calculations on how much a set of armour is going to cost.

Fun fact: I once had a Key as a random drop from doing HotW, so they do have a tiny, itsy bitsy chance to drop from enemies.

Moving around WvW is already pretty fast if you are in a group that is stacking Swiftness.

Besides, the battlefield can already shift around quickly enough.

Also, the death penalty is already incredibly lax.

If you were able to always jump right into the front lines straight away from death, there would be a lot less strategy involved in WvW and replaced by a lot more mindless zerging.

If Anet wanted to make smaller areas, they would make the area smaller, not simply give you the ability to run across it faster.

Three reasons:
1) Higher demand for T6 mats
2) Lower supply of T6 mats
3) Inflation

1) Higher demand:
-Crafting Ascended gear is a very big T6 mat sink
-Legendary weapons are also big T6 mat sinks. With the recent Karka lottery event, there are many more people suddenly making their Legendaries

2) Lower supply:
-All the bots are dead. This means fewer mats across the board
-Increased dungeon rewards received in gold, meaning that more people are farming dungeon gold for money, rather than farming for mats to sell on the Trading Post
-Many people are in Fractals, this means more Fractal related drops, and all other drops are lower (Orr drops lots of T6 dust and bones)

3) Inflation
i) More gold entering the market
-more people farming dungeons for gold rewards
ii) Gold sinks soaking up less gold
-less activity on the Trading Post due to people gaining a lot more money from direct money drops and rewards, rather than from selling mats and paying the tax on the Trading Post
-Fractals doesn’t need waypoints
-Cultural Armours are even more so one time purchases nowadays (fear of gear treadmill, less money going into aesthetics, especially for alts)
-WvW (an enormous gold sink) is less popular due to Free Transfers screwing over the balance and sense of community

And that is why you are seeing higher prices for T6 mats.

Arbitrarily increasing the grind to level and gear up is just going to kill people’s plans for making more alts, more builds, and pursuing aesthetics for their existing characters.

The introduction of Ascended gear already killed a lot of people’s spirit and plans for pursuing alts/builds/aesthetics.

What would be the reason for introducing yet more power creep?… other than trying to piss off competitive players and placing more restrictions on people’s self appointed goals (for alts/builds/aesthetics).

There is no subscription fee, therefore there is no reason for needless time sinks in this game. Unless they plan on introducing a subscription fee, or taking on a more P2W model, then I understand why they would need such time sinks.

If you are a competitive player, then the grind for stats is absolutely terrible. There is no debate here.

I believe that you still die and receive damage to your armour when you alt-f4 or drop to character select while downed.

They are purely doing this to deny you of loot out of spite, and because for some reason it is easier on their frail ego.

Personally I use Mender’s Purity with Mirror, as well as Arcane Thievery.

Even though Arcane Thievery is a buggy mess at times, I love the idea of the skill so much… and through a lot of practice I’ve been able to learn when best to use it to reduce it’s high failure rate.

However I generally end up using Arcane Thievery for stealing boons, rather than clearing conditions. I like to have the option to make it more offensive if I don’t think I’ll need the condition clearing. Also, it is always so satisfying when a Warrior or Ranger pops their elite for three boons, or someone puts 10+ stacks of might on themselves, then I just take them. Of course this is assuming that the skill actually works in the first place, meaning no snowflakes, bits of dust or other minor obstructions in the way, which will cause the skill to fail.

I would never rely on Arcane Thievery for my sole condition clearing ability though, it is much to clunky to actually depend on it working…. and this is coming from an Arcane Thievery fanboy…

Most fabulous Charr ever.

Before transmuting this skin (got it for the stats), I just needed a bunch of screen shots of it. It was just too crazy not to.

Oh yes, and I thought this scene from the personal story was just too good to pass up on a screen shot. A Charr, given the title “Champion of Orr”. If only the Orrians of 250 years ago could see this moment, bahahaha!

Then of course, receiving a great boon for my devotion to the true Charr god, Abbadon.

There are many people here that don’t know what they are talking about. I’ll clear up a couple points:

Teleportation skills like blink cannot cross gaps. Only a few certain leap skills can, like the Engineer’s rifle jump, the Warrior’s sword leap, etc.

As for passing through a camped area, that is what the Mystic Fountains are for. As long as you don’t have clueless allies drawing fire onto you, or enemies continuously attacking the ground in the off chance that there is an invisable person trying to sneak by, then you can easily bypass them.

And even if the campers are trying to kill other people that happen to be beside you, it is still possible to get pass them (I’ve overtaken one server at the bottom of the arena being camped by the other server at the top of the arena, then opened a portal to allow my reinforcements to come up and wipe out the campers and the campees before). This is very much within the realm of possibilities.

The high price adds to its lustre.

Now if only Charr light T3 pants and helm actually looked nice….

This kind of whining is what removed the “skill” out of "skill challenges. You should feel bad about even suggesting this.

Disastro.4086:

Do you have “any” condition duration or bleeding duration runes/sigils?

Increased condition duration does not effect conditions handed out by Illusions.

Skar Hand.5037:

I am on HoD, and have been since Beta. I feel bad for SF players who are long time players. Likely the same thing will happen to you as happened to HoD, unless servers are locked soon. You will climb high, then the “groups” that carried you there well bail and you will be left to free fall.

Up until this week, my guild (been on SF since late beta) feared HoD, due to our matchups we had with you guys back in early September before the matchmaking separated our servers (for good we thought). Every time we would be having a hard time in WvW, we would say “well at least we aren’t fighting Denravi”, even when playing Sanctum of Ral immediately after their mass server transfers from Jade Quarry (the previous match was an incredibly even fight, 1st and 3rd place were separated by about 1000 points at the end of the week…. then they had mass transfers and pretty much shut everyone out in the rematch the very next week).

With the free server transfers, sadly it was very obvious things like this would happen… but actually seeing them happen yourself is still fairly disheartening.

Like I’ve said already ITT, I don’t even recognize a lot of my server anymore due to all the transfers… it almost feels my guild and I were the ones that transferred servers.. but nope, we’re some of the few that have been here since Beta.

Oh well, the first month of the game was awesome…

BabelFish.7234:

[blah]

It is not hyperbole to suggest to completely remove the skill. Constantly nerfing a single skill until it is so awkward as to only be viable for ferrying lazy people up jumping puzzles and pulling off large coordinated portal bombs that require a certain amount of people to roll a Mesmer rather than the class they wish to play, is NOT how the game should be balanced. Remove the kitten skill if it is that much of a problem. Not hyperbole, I am a Mesmer that loves the skill, but I honestly believe the skill should be scrapped before turning it into an annoying, clunky, bug infested monstrosity that demands certain class compositions to make the most of it in WvW.

As for the excuse that these are band aids until the real issues can be fixed. Spending all this time changing many skills in the game to account for other bugs that will be fixed, is not helping. Put those resources into fixing the initial problems. Also, changing how skills work is just going to introduce MORE bugs and imbalances.

As for the AoE cap, there is another thread on that so I’ll just be brief: if people are bad enough that they can’t figure out that they should spread out to combat AoE, then they deserve the repair bill. The 5 target cap turns turtling (a boring and completely unrealistic strategy that defies common sense) the dominant strategy. A much better solution would simply put in diminishing returns to AoE damage after it hits x amount of targets (ie: first 5 get 100% damage, next 5 get 50% damage, next 5 [etc]).

Ravbek.7938:

It’s also buggy on the leap finisher…or I don’t fully understand how it works lol.

Using focus’s temporal curtain for the light field and sending my clone through does actually give retaliation but I’ve been trying to get in me not my clone, so leap, curtiain switch I’d have thought should give it to me but I only get it rarely…

Should the combo work for both parts, the first leap or the finish leap. Can you get 2 leap finishers out of it or just one? Do both leap and switch count as finishing combos?

The leap finisher occurs at your position when you cast either the leap or the swap abilities.

Stand directly on top of the combo field, and then use the skill.

The combo will occur for both abilities, meaning that you get two leap finishers. However it almost seems as if the first leap skill has a chance to give the leap combo to your clone, as sometimes my clone gets the benefit, and other times my actual character gets the benefit. The swap skill will always give you the benefit of the combo though.

As for dealing with the buggy skill. I almost always lead into the swap with a stun from Pistol5, after waiting however many seconds it takes for the illusion to get to my target. It is appreciated that they changed the leap to be more like it was in the Beta (clone instantly leaps, rather than at the end of the casting time), but it still acts very buggy much of the time.

However, if you are very, very careful with the skill and accounting for the associated bugs, you can trim down your failure rate to something a little more decent… and if you account for the buggy behaviour of the clone, you can even hit the swap immobilize by only having to wait between 1 and 5+ seconds. Yes, its pretty kitteny, but what else are you going to do?

Ralathar.7236:

Mesmer has many powerful abilities outside of that focus pull, though believe me used in a coordinated group the focus pull is incredibly powerful. Mesmer/guardian AOE pull chains are starting to become common, causing people to be bounced around like ping pong balls during fights unless they have stability.

But lets look at some other abilities:

[blah]

You obviously don’t know what you are talking about. I suggest you actually look into what you are crying nerf about before you cry nerf.

Carighan.6758:

(Hint: It is already limited to 5 players. )

Unfortunately you are incorrect. Too often I have had illusions or pets use quickness, denying a party member of quickness.

BabelFish.7234:

The major issue with portal bombing comes from 2 separate issues.

1) glitching terrain to bypass defenses you never bypassed initially.
2) the limit on AoE targets which makes "turtling"+"portal bombing" unreasonably strong.

Now there’s a few solutions. The easy fix is only 5 people can use a portal+fixing terrain glitching.

It has already been discussed ITT how arbitrarily limiting the portal to five players will do nothing but increase the demand for Mesmers. The exact same issues will be happening, only the side pulling off the portal bomb will need additional Mesmers in their group’s composition.

Also, fix the exploits, don’t nerf abilities simply because there are unrelated exploits.

As for turtling, remove or increase the AoE cap. The idea that turtling like this in GW2 is a viable strategy pretty much defies all common sense (or at least common sense of gamers). Removing the viability of turtling will do much more to make the game more interesting than simply nerfing a scapegoat class into oblivion.

There should be multiple entrances to the jumping puzzle. Or maybe just a Mystic Fountain and not as much of a bottle neck for all the servers before they all meet in the puzzle.

Also, if there are that many people camping the jumping puzzle, then just cut off their reinforcements by taking their keep. Should be relatively easy with 30+ or 50+ of there team inside the jumping puzzle.

Excession.2198:

Now, here we have a Mesmer, who can also stealth into a group of people, but the Mesmer can drop a portal, and allow an infinite number of people to follow them, and kill a lot more than just one, or some, of the group of people, then the Mesmer can portal back out to safety.

Completely different from the Thief. Your thief example is one single person killing multiple people. The Thief player requires much less skill to pull this off than the group of people hunting the Thief.

Your Mesmer example is simply saying that an infinite number of people can defeat more than one player. Even if there was no five target cap on AoE, I am pretty sure that an infinite number of players will defeat more than two players every single time.

What’s next? Make it so that you cannot communicate to teammates if you are a certain distance away, because a single scout can report your server’s positions and allow for their army to out maneuver yours?

Now that I think of it, we don’t really have a clear reason here that would suggest portal needs to be changed at all. There is so much talking about nerfs, that the reasoning for the entire discussion for nerfs has seemed to be forgotten.

IMO the only issue is culling. Therefore the best course of action would be to simply fix culling (even if it is just loading in extremely low res models until the proper models have been rendered).

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

They only part that should be modified is the arena, because every other part can be done with invaders present. But if another server stays at the top of the arena, there is no counterplay.

Incorrect. The only place where there is no counter play to camping is at the very start of the puzzle where the different teams spawn.

I’ve passed through the arena many times when it was being camped. At the very start of the puzzle there is no Mystic Fountain to give you the advantage of being undetected.

Vataire.8302:

I see Zergs wiped by AOE every night as it is, I can only imagine the devestation with no cap. But hey I have all 3 classes I mentioned in my last post so go for it, but mark my words the game would suffer greatly. Warhammer and Bright Wizards has shown what can happen when AOE is too powerful. I know alot of people that quit that game just because of it.

Those zergs that get wiped by AoE aren’t properly abusing the mechanics. If they would simply stand on top of each other (thereby taking advantage of the AoE cap) they would be much safer. Throw in a bunch of healing as well and there is your zerg that is not phased by AoE.

Massive groups die to AoE when they spread out (like common sense would tell you to do when dealing with AoE). Rather than avoiding the AoE, spreading out and trying to avoid the AoE actually focuses more of the AoE effects and damage on you.

The AoE cap will not effect big zergs that are spread out, it only effects the ones that are very concentrated… which which completely defies common sense.

Vataire.8302:

No, just NO, I could see for instance 2 D/D Eles , and say 2 Warrior and a Guardian (5 people) wiping unlimited people simply by being the initiator of a fight, Knockdowns would totally own and coordinated there is no moving out of the AoE. Engineer Bright Wizard from Warhammer comes to mind real quick. I’m sure some other class combos would be as good or better but those 3 could keep a whole group on their backs a long time. There are no CC diminishing returns in this game either.

Then maybe those zerglings should all be standing on top of each other.

They deserve to get utterly destroyed by AoE. I can’t think of any other game or genre that has this sort of AoE cap mechanic, and it never seems to be a problem in other games.

monmon.7081:

T3 Charr heavy armor is best armor

T2 chest, gauntlets and pants called. Your statement is incorrect.

Anyways, hunting for light armour is even more painful than it is for heavy armour.

As for heavy armour, I was always looking forward to something like pic related, just look at that awesome helm!

plasmon.5348:

Since you don’t give a kitten about our problems we don’t give a rat’s kitten about your question. Now go troll some other class’s forum.

It is not that we don’t care about is question, due to him not caring about Mesmer issues, it is that most people here assumed he was trolling since he was asking such a pointless question, and thus he was just ignored… until he kept spamming the trollish question to then people then answered his pathetically easy troll question just to shut him up.

It is a rather pointless mechanic. Perhaps it came about with good intentions (making balance easier), all it did was encourage turtling and bigger more mindless zergs.

Also, it can be extremely frustrating at times. You know what it feels like for a Guardian to channel Tome of Courage 5 for a full party heal in a dungeon… and then a thieves guild/illusion/pet to take a full heal leaving party members dangerously low on HP?… it doesn’t feel good.

If you see everyone travelling in a big clump in any other game you would think that they are stupid… and proceed to kill them all with AoE for being such dummies. Why are those that spread out, or fight in smaller numbers punished so harshly? It doesn’t make sense.

Korgov.7645:

• Player appearing through a portal disables all friendly exit portals in the area for 1 second.

Still has the same issue, however then it just requires the exit portals to be spaced out. I sounds more annoying than anything else, no one wants to play a traffic jam simulator. And again, this would just require even more Mesmers to account for all the incorrectly placed portals.

Sounds like an extremely, over-elaborate way to address culling… and the culling issue wouldn’t even be solved, it would just require a group of experienced Mesmers to bypass for a culling inducing portal bomb.

In my opinion, this would be worse for the skill than simply adding 30 seconds to the cool down. Outside of sPvP the 90 second cool down did nothing but to make Portal more annoying to use, and made it pretty much worthless in some scenarios as the utility slot it occupies is worth more than the 90 second cool down portal (dungeons, bosses, etc).

Forcing people to go single file, outside of portal bombing, only makes the skill more and more annoying to use. If the objective is to make a skill so annoying to use, and not fun, then it should be deleted and simply replaced.

I am not joking around, I honestly believe that the portal skill should be deleted and abandoned rather than see some of these proposed changes. Even though I love the skill, and it used to have a permanent spot on my utility bar (before the 90 second cool down), the skill would be much better removed from the game than trying to make it more annoying to use. Too bad, because it used to be a really fun skill to use.

Ralathar.7236:

I just want mesmer to be overall useful instead of a gimmick classes based around a few powerful abilities. Currently the later is preventing some help to the former IMO. Not that mesmer is helpless or anything atm. It’s not.

Are you suggesting that the Focus4 pull is a gimmick that the Mesmer class depends on? It really isn’t that powerful. It is nice, but people don’t equip a Focus for the pull, most people equip Focus because it is our only way of providing Swiftness, as bad as a ground targeted line giving a boon is.

If you are seeing a lot of people using Focus, rest assured it is not because Into the Void is some amazingly broken skill that makes it into every build because it is so powerful (see Shadow Refuge/Signet of Shadows on Thief), it is mostly just a nice little bonus to make the Focus not as painful for those of us that don’t reflect with Focus skills.

Korgov.7645:

It is to limit the amount of players that vanish and appear in an area within time frame. This is what is causing the rendering issue.

Limiting amount of players per portal would just be defeated by having enough mesmers to portal the entire zerg. This would also lead to mesmers being in more demand than ever.

Let’s say that 10 people are able to pass through the portal in the 10 second duration which the portal is open (the tool tip is incorrect, the duration is closer to 10 seconds than 20). Entering a portal gives the portal sickness debuff to nearby allies. This just means that the entry portals have to be spaced out more (which they probably are going to be spaced out for convenience anyways. Portal entryways that are too close to each other will slow down the transfer, requiring more Mesmers to make more portals to account for the incorrectly placed portals, as well as more Mesmer are required to best take advantage of the underhanded culling issue.

Fifty people are still able to portal bomb through five portals. Just more Mesmers are required to account for Mesmers incorrectly placing the portals.

There will be many more stragglers with this sort of change, as portal sickness will mess up calculations for how many people are going through the portal (delay could result in the portal not working at max capacity, as wasted time means less trips through the portal). More Mesmers will be required to make sure there are fewer stragglers.

Thus, this solution creates even more of a demand for Mesmers than a simple cap per portal.

Korgov.7645:

The main use case for portals is content skipping. Thats why mesmers are in such high demand in WvW. I feel this is not right.

My proposal is 3 part:

• Limit the amount of players passing through a portal in an area. When a player enters a portal all friendly players in the area get 1 second portal-sickness which prevents using portals.
• Require that portal end points have a walkable path between them. No more content skipping.
• Make golems unable to use portals (or unaffected by any boons for that matter).

Golems not being able to use portals, yeah sure thats a decent change. It doesn’t make portal useless, it just addresses one particular use of the skill. Not saying that preventing golem transportation is needed or not though, but just that this change would only effect a single use of the portal.

As for limiting the numbers of people who can go through the portal, why not simply put a cap on how many people can use the portal, rather than having people go through single file? I don’t really see what this sort of proposed change is even supposed to do, besides being annoying and creating opportunities for griefing.

Forcing portals to only work when there is a “walkable path” between the two kills almost all uses of this skill. It would be better to just delete the skill altogether, and replace it with a different utility rather than make this change to it.

BabelFish.7234:

What’s being discussed is portals being used in conjunction with backdooring

I thought the discussion was about abusing culling.

What would be better than that, would be the entire contents of the loot bags in WvW simply going straight into your inventory… a real auto loot system.

When I am in a small coordinated group, especially in a scenario when we want to be moving as fast as possible (utilizing 100% swiftness and Mesmer portals), I often times have to consider whether it is even worth it to run back to that loot bag I missed.

Also, when on a siege weapon and raking up kills, the bags at your feet aren’t ideal either, and a real auto-loot system would fix it. If you sit on your siege weapon too long, the loot bags will despawn. If there are a bunch of siege weapons all near each other, it becomes very difficult to pick up loot bags without your character trying to jump on each and every siege weapon (whether occupied or not) before picking up the loot bags.

Korgov.7645:

The problem is this: I have never done the jumping puzzle except with friendly mesmer providing me a portal. I would assume same is true for many others, too. ANet might as well remove the jumping puzzles and put the treasure chests next to our waypoint.

Then what do you propose? That Portals need LoS to each other? Why don’t you just ask Anet to delete the skill altogether?

“Skipping content” is pretty much the reason why the Portal skill exists in the first place.

You wouldn’t complain about classes staking Swiftness on you so that you can go from point A to point B quicker, so why complain about the Mesmer’s Portal getting you from point A to point B quicker? Time is a highly valued resource, and the Portal skill is designed to help allies make better use of their time.

As for any talk of Portal nerfs, it’s either fix culling or restrict Portal to x number of allies, so that at the very least it will take multiple coordinated Mesmers to execute a culling abusing portal bomb. also, scrape that 90 second cool down nerf to portal, that is just stupid outside of sPvP.