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How are we supposed to use portal now?


SteepledHat.1345

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Between removing it from the PvE meta and heavily nerfing it's capability in SPvP, this patch may as well have been the "destroy the identity of mesmer" patch. Portals duration is far too short now. It's hard to argue for its use now. How do the devs see portal fitting into SPvP? Anything else you think we need to completely destroy? Maybe you can touch rampage next.

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To put this into perspective, if you drop your portal exit on Waterfall and then run towards Graveyard at base movement speed, it takes you 15 seconds to reach mid. That's half your time to portal back just spent getting somewhere else with an objective. It's worthless now. Straight up Smiter's Booned. This needs to be reversed.

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@reikken.4961 said:Portal was the most broken skill in pvp. Maybe it'll be balanced instead of mandatory now.

it still has an enormous amount of power and potential. It's just less insanely broken

How does 30 seconds to go back to where you were equate to enormous power? You literally can't use it to defend. Mesmer's mobility is completely crippled. It's only use is a short range escape. Short range because you can only move so fast and get into a potential danger in 29 seconds.

It's literally useless now.

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@SteepledHat.1345 said:

@reikken.4961 said:Portal was the most broken skill in pvp. Maybe it'll be balanced instead of mandatory now.

it still has an enormous amount of power and potential. It's just less insanely broken

How does 30 seconds to go back to where you were equate to enormous power? You literally can't use it to defend. Mesmer's mobility is completely crippled. It's only use is a short range escape. Short range because you can only move so fast and get into a potential danger in 29 seconds.

It's literally useless now.

portal offers mobility for your entire team. It sounds like you didn't even realize just how strong portal is

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@reikken.4961 said:

@reikken.4961 said:Portal was the most broken skill in pvp. Maybe it'll be balanced instead of mandatory now.

it still has an enormous amount of power and potential. It's just less insanely broken

How does 30 seconds to go back to where you were equate to enormous power? You literally can't use it to defend. Mesmer's mobility is completely crippled. It's only use is a short range escape. Short range because you can only move so fast and get into a potential danger in 29 seconds.

It's literally useless now.

portal offers mobility for your entire team. It sounds like you didn't even realize just how strong portal is

Correction: Was. It's a worse Sand Swell snow that requires you to already have been where you're trying to move your team to and you ability to side node with it has been completely destroyed.

It's only useful with Medic-Portals and Portal Bombing enemy players now. So about 3/5's of it's potential uses have been completely gutted. And even Medic-Portalling is less effective because your ability to Portal teammates to safes paces has been gutted in half as you need the foresight to believe a fight you're about to engage in might go poorly, create a safe exit before engaging, engaging, and it's only useful if the fight goes south in less than 30 seconds which means most fights are going to look stable long after your portal runs out anyway.

Or you're rushing into a fight that is actively going south in the hopes of portaling people out as soon as you get there, in which case it's decidedly less useful than something like Merciful Intervention or Signet of Mercy.

It's been Smiter's booned. It's no longer going to be run over running 2 out of the following 3, Arcane Thievery, Illusion Ambush, or Signet of Midnight with Blink still being mandatory. And without Portal at it's previous level of effectiveness there's no reason to run Mesmers of any kind including Mirage over far better side noders, namely Spellbreaker and especially a Boonbeast who are now the second coming of post Phantasm Rework Chronobunker now that they have on demand Double Protection and Double Protection but against condition damage.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@reikken.4961 said:Portal was the most broken skill in pvp. Maybe it'll be balanced instead of mandatory now.

it still has an enormous amount of power and potential. It's just less insanely broken

How does 30 seconds to go back to where you were equate to enormous power? You literally can't use it to defend. Mesmer's mobility is completely crippled. It's only use is a short range escape. Short range because you can only move so fast and get into a potential danger in 29 seconds.

It's literally useless now.

portal offers mobility for your entire team. It sounds like you didn't even realize just how strong portal is

Correction: Was. It's a worse Sand Swell snow

No it absolutely is 100% better than sand swell.

The duration nerf simply means that portal is now used to perform rotation jukes rather than simply being something that gets dumped on a node and forgotten about.

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@Crinn.7864 said:

@reikken.4961 said:Portal was the most broken skill in pvp. Maybe it'll be balanced instead of mandatory now.

it still has an enormous amount of power and potential. It's just less insanely broken

How does 30 seconds to go back to where you were equate to enormous power? You literally can't use it to defend. Mesmer's mobility is completely crippled. It's only use is a short range escape. Short range because you can only move so fast and get into a potential danger in 29 seconds.

It's literally useless now.

portal offers mobility for your entire team. It sounds like you didn't even realize just how strong portal is

Correction: Was. It's a worse Sand Swell snow

No it absolutely is 100% better than sand swell.

The duration nerf simply means that portal is now used to perform rotation jukes rather than simply being something that gets dumped on a node and forgotten about.

If you want to rotation juke and nothing else play a thief. They're infinitely better at that sort of thing now.

It's only useful with Medic-Portals and Portal Bombing enemy players now. So about 3/5's of it's potential uses have been completely gutted. And even Medic-Portalling is less effective because your ability to Portal teammates to safes paces has been gutted in half as you need the foresight to believe a fight you're about to engage in might go poorly, create a safe exit before engaging, engaging, and it's only useful if the fight goes south in less than 30 seconds which means most fights are going to look stable long after your portal runs out anyway.

Or you're rushing into a fight that is actively going south in the hopes of portaling people out as soon as you get there, in which case it's decidedly less useful than something like Merciful Intervention or Signet of Mercy so you might as well play a Firebrand and just do that better.

It's been Smiter's booned. It's no longer going to be run over running 2 out of the following 3, Arcane Thievery, Illusion Ambush, or Signet of Midnight with Blink still being mandatory. And without Portal at it's previous level of effectiveness there's no reason to run Mesmers of any kind including Mirage over far better side noders, namely Spellbreaker and especially a Boonbeast who are now the second coming of post Phantasm Rework Chronobunker now that they have on demand Double Protection and Double Protection but against condition damage.

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@"kin korn karn.9023" said:Portal was insanely OP, good riddance.

Nerfing portal like this is like halving the range of thieve's Infiltrator's Arrow and Shadowstep. It's a lynch pin of the entire class just like those are for thief, had a very high skill ceiling that greatly rewarded smarter play, is responsible for the most exciting and interesting plays the class can make and in conquest history throughout the entire game mode. But people can't see beyond their nose of think of anything other than "Nerf mesmer." Mesmers of all builds being a thief tier 1v1ers is more preferential to nerfing portal in this way.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@"kin korn karn.9023" said:Portal was insanely OP, good riddance.

Nerfing portal like this is like halving the range of thieve's Infiltrator's Arrow and Shadowstep. It's a lynch pin of the entire class just like those are for thief, had a very high skill ceiling that greatly rewarded smarter play, is responsible for the most exciting and interesting plays the class can make and in conquest history throughout the entire game mode. But people can't see beyond their nose of think of anything other than "Nerf mesmer."

You misunderstand me. I don't think Mesmer as a class needed much nerf, as far as I'm concerned condi mirage has been overrated since last balance update. But Portal itself has always been a BS skill and it's years overdue for a nerf.

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@kin korn karn.9023 said:

@kin korn karn.9023 said:Portal was insanely OP, good riddance.

Nerfing portal like this is like halving the range of thieve's Infiltrator's Arrow and Shadowstep. It's a lynch pin of the entire class just like those are for thief, had a very high skill ceiling that greatly rewarded smarter play, is responsible for the most exciting and interesting plays the class can make and in conquest history throughout the entire game mode. But people can't see beyond their nose of think of anything other than "Nerf mesmer."

You misunderstand me. I don't think Mesmer as a class needed much nerf, as far as I'm concerned condi mirage has been overrated since last balance update. But Portal itself has always been a BS skill and it's years overdue for a nerf.

Again, it's like saying Shadow Step and Infiltrator's Arrows are BS capabilities of thieves because it allows them to decap and rotate faster than anything else in the game and halving the range on both of those things. It completely steam roles the entire class's identity and their entire role in conquest all at once.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@kin korn karn.9023 said:Portal was insanely OP, good riddance.

Nerfing portal like this is like halving the range of thieve's Infiltrator's Arrow and Shadowstep. It's a lynch pin of the entire class just like those are for thief, had a very high skill ceiling that greatly rewarded smarter play, is responsible for the most exciting and interesting plays the class can make and in conquest history throughout the entire game mode. But people can't see beyond their nose of think of anything other than "Nerf mesmer."

You misunderstand me. I don't think Mesmer as a class needed much nerf, as far as I'm concerned condi mirage has been overrated since last balance update. But Portal itself has always been a BS skill and it's years overdue for a nerf.

Again, it's like saying Shadow Step and Infiltrator's Arrows are BS capabilities of thieves because it allows them to decap and rotate faster than anything else in the game and halving the range on both of those things. It completely steam roles the entire class's identity and their entire role in conquest all at once.Fallacy of false equivalence.
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@kin korn karn.9023 said:

@kin korn karn.9023 said:Portal was insanely OP, good riddance.

Nerfing portal like this is like halving the range of thieve's Infiltrator's Arrow and Shadowstep. It's a lynch pin of the entire class just like those are for thief, had a very high skill ceiling that greatly rewarded smarter play, is responsible for the most exciting and interesting plays the class can make and in conquest history throughout the entire game mode. But people can't see beyond their nose of think of anything other than "Nerf mesmer."

You misunderstand me. I don't think Mesmer as a class needed much nerf, as far as I'm concerned condi mirage has been overrated since last balance update. But Portal itself has always been a BS skill and it's years overdue for a nerf.

Again, it's like saying Shadow Step and Infiltrator's Arrows are BS capabilities of thieves because it allows them to decap and rotate faster than anything else in the game and halving the range on both of those things. It completely steam roles the entire class's identity and their entire role in conquest all at once.Fallacy of false equivalence.

Hardly. Thief has always been defined by it's top tier mobility in conquest. Mesmers have always been defined by their ability for skilled players to effectively be in two places at once. It's effectiveness has been effectively Smiter's Booned and made completely worthless.

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@Crinn.7864 said:

@reikken.4961 said:Portal was the most broken skill in pvp. Maybe it'll be balanced instead of mandatory now.

it still has an enormous amount of power and potential. It's just less insanely broken

How does 30 seconds to go back to where you were equate to enormous power? You literally can't use it to defend. Mesmer's mobility is completely crippled. It's only use is a short range escape. Short range because you can only move so fast and get into a potential danger in 29 seconds.

It's literally useless now.

portal offers mobility for your entire team. It sounds like you didn't even realize just how strong portal is

Correction: Was. It's a worse Sand Swell snow

No it absolutely is 100% better than sand swell.

The duration nerf simply means that portal is now used to perform rotation jukes rather than simply being something that gets dumped on a node and forgotten about.

As it should be. Out of all the nerfs to Mesmer this is absolutely warranted.

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Lots of golds and below talking like they understand how to play mesmer. Mort is making great points, and it blows my mind that people believe portal is brainless. It's basically sacrificing a stun break or condi cleanse for it's utility. In no way is it's current form worth running. This change reads like it was decided by someone who never played the class in SPvP.

While I'm far from an expert, I doubt this change was thought through. It basically reads like "We don't want you running portal anymore. We don't want you doing your old job at all." I mean especially if you read the bits about extended fights with mesmer. As if that's what our job has ever been. It's always been plus 1's and rotation focused.

But yeah, boonbeast needed a buff.

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@"SteepledHat.1345" said:Lots of golds and below talking like they understand how to play mesmer. Mort is making great points, and it blows my mind that people believe portal is brainless. It's basically sacrificing a stun break or condi cleanse for it's utility. In no way is it's current form worth running. This change reads like it was decided by someone who never played the class in SPvP.

While I'm far from an expert, I doubt this change was thought through. It basically reads like "We don't want you running portal anymore. We don't want you doing your old job at all." I mean especially if you read the bits about extended fights with mesmer. As if that's what our job has ever been. It's always been plus 1's and rotation focused.

But yeah, boonbeast needed a buff.LOL @ people cherry picking one Soulbeast skill rework that gives a tiny bit more sustain at the expense of damage, and proclaiming the entire Soulbeast balance was a "buff."

GTFOH.

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@"SteepledHat.1345" said:Lots of golds and below talking like they understand how to play mesmer. Mort is making great points, and it blows my mind that people believe portal is brainless. It's basically sacrificing a stun break or condi cleanse for it's utility. In no way is it's current form worth running. This change reads like it was decided by someone who never played the class in SPvP.

While I'm far from an expert, I doubt this change was thought through. It basically reads like "We don't want you running portal anymore. We don't want you doing your old job at all." I mean especially if you read the bits about extended fights with mesmer. As if that's what our job has ever been. It's always been plus 1's and rotation focused.

But yeah, boonbeast needed a buff.

Does any class have access to what is effectively on demand double protection, let alone double protection and double condition damage protection? Like anti physical support tempests were supposed to be real freaking big d support with their traited 40% protection damage reduction. And all added onto unambiguously the strongest side noder in the game.

@kin korn karn.9023 said:

@"SteepledHat.1345" said:Lots of golds and below talking like they understand how to play mesmer. Mort is making great points, and it blows my mind that people believe portal is brainless. It's basically sacrificing a stun break or condi cleanse for it's utility. In no way is it's current form worth running. This change reads like it was decided by someone who never played the class in SPvP.

While I'm far from an expert, I doubt this change was thought through. It basically reads like "We don't want you running portal anymore. We don't want you doing your old job at all." I mean especially if you read the bits about extended fights with mesmer. As if that's what our job has ever been. It's always been plus 1's and rotation focused.

But yeah, boonbeast needed a buff.LOL @ people cherry picking one Soulbeast skill rework that gives a tiny bit more sustain at the expense of damage, and proclaiming the entire Soulbeast balance was a "buff."

GTFOH.

Double protection is "tiny"?

@DanAlcedo.3281 said:Are people really arguing that portal was not busted?

New forum low.

About as busted as thief mobility or necromancers consistently being the kings of corrupting boons into conditions and consistently top tier team fighters.

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@"SteepledHat.1345" said:Lots of golds and below talking like they understand how to play mesmer. Mort is making great points, and it blows my mind that people believe portal is brainless. It's basically sacrificing a stun break or condi cleanse for it's utility. In no way is it's current form worth running. This change reads like it was decided by someone who never played the class in SPvP.

While I'm far from an expert, I doubt this change was thought through. It basically reads like "We don't want you running portal anymore. We don't want you doing your old job at all." I mean especially if you read the bits about extended fights with mesmer. As if that's what our job has ever been. It's always been plus 1's and rotation focused.

But yeah, boonbeast needed a buff.

Yay! Now you can't just drop it at a point and instantly get a decap after the person standing on it leaves to go help their team.


Ranger
  1. Call of the Wild: This skill's fury duration has been split between game modes and will now use a 6-second duration in PvP while keeping its 10-second duration in other game modes.
  2. Moa Stance: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 25 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
  3. Dolyak Stance: This skill no longer applies retaliation. Instead, it now reduces incoming condition damage and physical damage by 33% for the duration of the stance in addition to its other effects. The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 30 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
  4. Griffon Stance: This skill is no longer instant and now evades for 1 second in addition to its current effects.
  5. Spirit Skills: Fixed a bug in which nature spirits could continue to apply effects to allies after they were defeated. The base health of spirits has been increased by 25%.
  6. Soften the Fall: Fixed a bug in which the muddy terrain that this trait creates could last much longer than the intended 10-second duration.
  7. Wilderness Knowledge: The duration of fury that this trait grants has been split between game modes. It now grants 4 seconds of fury in PvP and WvW while keeping a 6-second duration in PvE.
  8. Winter's Bite: The duration of weakness that this skill grants has been split between game modes. It now inflicts 4 seconds of weakness in PvP and WvW while keeping a 10-second duration in PvE.

There were 8 nerfs to ranger in this patch. 6 of them directly affected the meta boonbeast build. I think 33% damage reduction for 6 seconds is a fair enough tradeoff for the whopping 33% cooldown increase DS received.

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@kin korn karn.9023 said:

@kin korn karn.9023 said:Portal was insanely OP, good riddance.

Nerfing portal like this is like halving the range of thieve's Infiltrator's Arrow and Shadowstep. It's a lynch pin of the entire class just like those are for thief, had a very high skill ceiling that greatly rewarded smarter play, is responsible for the most exciting and interesting plays the class can make and in conquest history throughout the entire game mode. But people can't see beyond their nose of think of anything other than "Nerf mesmer."

You misunderstand me. I don't think Mesmer as a class needed much nerf, as far as I'm concerned condi mirage has been overrated since last balance update. But Portal itself has always been a BS skill and it's years overdue for a nerf.

Again, it's like saying Shadow Step and Infiltrator's Arrows are BS capabilities of thieves because it allows them to decap and rotate faster than anything else in the game and halving the range on both of those things. It completely steam roles the entire class's identity and their entire role in conquest all at once.Fallacy of false equivalence.

You're right, it is a false equivalence. Infiltrators arrow can give 12,600 units of distance in 72 sec ((72/6)+2)X900)=12,600). Portal gives 5,000 distance in 72 seconds. With infiltrators arrow providing around 252% more distance per 72 sec it's like comparing apples to grapes.

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@shadowpass.4236 said:

@"SteepledHat.1345" said:Lots of golds and below talking like they understand how to play mesmer. Mort is making great points, and it blows my mind that people believe portal is brainless. It's basically sacrificing a stun break or condi cleanse for it's utility. In no way is it's current form worth running. This change reads like it was decided by someone who never played the class in SPvP.

While I'm far from an expert, I doubt this change was thought through. It basically reads like "We don't want you running portal anymore. We don't want you doing your old job at all." I mean especially if you read the bits about extended fights with mesmer. As if that's what our job has ever been. It's always been plus 1's and rotation focused.

But yeah, boonbeast needed a buff.

Yay! Now you can't just drop it at a point and instantly get a decap after the person standing on it leaves to go help their team.

Ranger
  1. Call of the Wild: This skill's fury duration has been split between game modes and will now use a 6-second duration in PvP while keeping its 10-second duration in other game modes.
  2. Moa Stance: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 25 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
  3. Dolyak Stance: This skill no longer applies retaliation. Instead, it now reduces incoming condition damage and physical damage by 33% for the duration of the stance in addition to its other effects. The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 30 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
  4. Griffon Stance: This skill is no longer instant and now evades for 1 second in addition to its current effects.
  5. Spirit Skills: Fixed a bug in which nature spirits could continue to apply effects to allies after they were defeated. The base health of spirits has been increased by 25%.
  6. Soften the Fall: Fixed a bug in which the muddy terrain that this trait creates could last much longer than the intended 10-second duration.
  7. Wilderness Knowledge: The duration of fury that this trait grants has been split between game modes. It now grants 4 seconds of fury in PvP and WvW while keeping a 6-second duration in PvE.
  8. Winter's Bite: The duration of weakness that this skill grants has been split between game modes. It now inflicts 4 seconds of weakness in PvP and WvW while keeping a 10-second duration in PvE.

There were 8 nerfs to ranger in this patch. 6 of them directly affected the meta boonbeast build. I think 33% damage reduction for 6 seconds is a fair enough tradeoff for the whopping 33% cooldown increase DS received.

Not to mention the whole DS damage doesn’t really change much since ranger could’ve done the same thing in boon beast by just running Guard before this, and we all know how often Guard was run.

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@shadowpass.4236 said:

@"SteepledHat.1345" said:Lots of golds and below talking like they understand how to play mesmer. Mort is making great points, and it blows my mind that people believe portal is brainless. It's basically sacrificing a stun break or condi cleanse for it's utility. In no way is it's current form worth running. This change reads like it was decided by someone who never played the class in SPvP.

While I'm far from an expert, I doubt this change was thought through. It basically reads like "We don't want you running portal anymore. We don't want you doing your old job at all." I mean especially if you read the bits about extended fights with mesmer. As if that's what our job has ever been. It's always been plus 1's and rotation focused.

But yeah, boonbeast needed a buff.

Yay! Now you can't just drop it at a point and instantly get a decap after the person standing on it leaves to go help their team.

Ranger
  1. Call of the Wild: This skill's fury duration has been split between game modes and will now use a 6-second duration in PvP while keeping its 10-second duration in other game modes.
  2. Moa Stance: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 25 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
  3. Dolyak Stance: This skill no longer applies retaliation. Instead, it now reduces incoming condition damage and physical damage by 33% for the duration of the stance in addition to its other effects. The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 30 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
  4. Griffon Stance: This skill is no longer instant and now evades for 1 second in addition to its current effects.
  5. Spirit Skills: Fixed a bug in which nature spirits could continue to apply effects to allies after they were defeated. The base health of spirits has been increased by 25%.
  6. Soften the Fall: Fixed a bug in which the muddy terrain that this trait creates could last much longer than the intended 10-second duration.
  7. Wilderness Knowledge: The duration of fury that this trait grants has been split between game modes. It now grants 4 seconds of fury in PvP and WvW while keeping a 6-second duration in PvE.
  8. Winter's Bite: The duration of weakness that this skill grants has been split between game modes. It now inflicts 4 seconds of weakness in PvP and WvW while keeping a 10-second duration in PvE.

There were 8 nerfs to ranger in this patch. 6 of them directly affected the meta boonbeast build. I think 33% damage reduction for 6 seconds is a fair enough tradeoff for the whopping 33% cooldown increase DS received.

Pretending like boonbeast didn't walk away from this patch the clear winner is being dishonest. The only significant nerf was Moa Stance. Nibbling at the edges of Boonbeast's fury, retal and weakness up time is small potatoes compared to giving them access to double protection and double protection but condition damage as well and them still having loads of fury up time through consume plasma. Boonbeasts were already very difficult to kill 2v1 between their sustain, boon up time, and their ability to muddy terrain and disengage easily with sword. But with Double Protection and Double Protection but for Condition Damage you're looking at something that's Chronobunker post phantasm rework levels of sustain, survivability, and ability to slam down kills.

Also lol @ Boonbeast deserving buffs for the nerfs it receives. It's overperforming and extremely dominant. Everyone knows that before today it was the 2nd best class after Holosmith. It derseved nerfs because it's a 1v1 and 1v2 god, unkillable by any other build in the meta right now. It deserves a lot of nerfs and to not get trade offs for most of them. Where was the trade off for portal's nerf?

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