I don’t think so. As far as I know, Mesmer Portal exploits were not based on Mesmers re-casting Portals - people were/are setting up mesmer chains, then use them to move masses around. It’s not “send a mesmer ahead, use the portal, wait for mesmer to run ahead again,…”
Well, except for the golems porting I guess but even there chains are more efficient.
…and the ability becomes even less useful for any situation that isn’t explicitly attempting to exploit it.
Yes and that’s what concerns me. Portal can be quite a useful tool in mesmer’s day-to-day life - I use it often to steal some crafting material node from risen that crowded around. It also has uses during the combat and it’s going to suck to wait 90 seconds for it. I would rather see the Portal limited to 5 people, no golems, etc. and keeping it on its old cooldown.
So far it seems that legitimate users get hurt and exploiters are not affected. Sigh.
KevinC
4762
Haven’t tried it myself, but according to the forums it looks like Mesmers also got hit with a bug on their GS phantasm, the berserker. Apparently it misses most of it’s initial swings, causing about a 60% damage reduction in the first pass. Mesmer used to be my main and I’d like to go back to it, but so… many… bugs…
Oh shit, ANet fucked up with fixes again. :( According to forums, most of the mesmer skills mentioned in the patch notes are now bugged one way or another. The biggest 2 bugs are iBerserker missing most of its swings and all phantasms often failing to get summoned due to fucked up world geometry and [obstructed] messages.
Way to rain on your own parade, ANet. I haven’t seen so much negative feedback for any patch in any MMO (game?) before. What should have been an awesome experience (new content, yay!) is turning into a freaking disaster.
Wolff
4764
Always do content and balance patches separately!
Hehe, especially if you are also running a Free Trial event. A lot of pissed off players will not recommend the game to friends just in spite.
Substitute Mesmer with game for me … though last character I was running up was also a Mesmer. Argh. I will be playing with relatives some over upcoming holiday but …
I’ve not been playing recently since I have been under the weather,however listening to the two family members that do, and reading boards for changes … its still the bugs. The new content is neat, but … I like the f2p games for relaxation. I’m ok with buying some stuff too. But I’ll play a session until I get bummed with a bug, then log off … unhappy. The shiny events do distract son, but not more jaded me.
KevinC
4767
I hear you. There’s just a staggering amount of class/ability bugs out there and I seriously have no idea what is taking them too long to fix them. Supposedly they have a team dedicated to just fixing/balancing classes, so I want to know what the hell the hold up is. I still really like the game, but it’s ridiculous that we’re approaching 3 months out from release and there are just stacks and stacks of traits or abilities that don’t work as advertised, have buggy behavior, or flat out don’t work at all. This patch note for the mesmer sort of sums it up:
Phantasmal Haste: This trait now works.
Unfortunately, similar treatment is needed across 1/3 or more of their entire set of traits.
Most unexpectedly the quest chain broke at the Hanto Trading post :)
LockerK
4769
The opening event of The Lost Shores was an exercise in frustration over who could put up with the lag long enough to actually do anything. The character pop-in issues were as prevalent as ever and made it impossible to actually see anything. I still enjoy the gameplay but it’s getting old having the same show stopping bugs and issues pop up every time a large scale event happens.
In response to being called out as full of shit regarding what rangers were told they were getting this patch and the pathetic reality, Jon Peters offered as an excuse that the class balance “team” is just two people. So, there’s that…
Fortunately, I have my 80 warrior as my main and, hey, warrior bow damage was buffed this patch because…you know…warriors were in such a bad place…yeah…
This, to my mind, was the real gem of his response: “I see a lot of talk about ranger weapons, but I don’t think that is the real problem. I think sword and longbow are both good weapons, which is why the changes take longer.”
For context, that’s the sword that roots you in its auto attack and gets you killed, and the longbow that has an auto attack that hits like a gentle breeze when it bothers to even connect in the first place.
Chains may be more efficient, but they’re more prone to failure than 1-2 mesmers recasting portals. For example, portaling turtles in WvW to exploit culling / engine limitations. You can have 1 mesmer portal them in place on cooldown. 3 mesmers is harder to coordinate (although not difficult with voice comms).
It does seem like an odd solution, compared to a per-portal population cap or a 1 person per second limit. The cooldown change may just have been the easiest solution to implement.
Similar reasoning may have been applied to the Elementalist changes. Instead of fixing the internal cooldown on Evasive Arcana, blast finishers were removed from the trait completely (including the Earth proc, which is supposed to be a blast spell). Unfortunately, this voids some very fun playstyles that were based around dropping fields and dodge rolling through them for blast combos.
After what was a disappointing event filled with non-stop lag to open the Lost Shores event in LA, the fractals (mini, randomish dungeons) proved to be a blast!
Bryony
4773
This event makes me sad. I so want to play it but the bugs… what’s with Canach? What’s with Miyani sending me the same letter every time I switch zones? I thought they had a QA team - that’s the excuse they used to explain why the Hatchery personal quest was broken and impossible to complete for weeks. The fix was with the QA department and would be released when they okayed it.
Maybe it’s for the best, really. I’ve played so much of this game I’m developing RSI.
Cal
4774
Indeed, some of the best dungeons i have ever played. Very impressive!
The events are basically superfucked on every server. Welcome to clown town.
Derbain
4776
I’ve really enjoyed the four Fractal mini-dungeons I’ve seen. I was quite surprised by them. They were far more elaborate than I had anticipated.
Nesrie
4777
Couldn’t get anything to work. I’ll have to try again tomorrow.
Phred
4778
I enjoyed my first run as well but I have to say, the swamp sucks. Nice random chance to win.
Derbain
4779
Ah, I didn’t see the swamp. I’ve seen the Ice one, the Fire one, the old Ascalon one, and a crazy one on a cliff that was my favorite.
So; is the new dungeon random pickup so you just enter in a queue or do you need to spam LFG on the overflow server until you get a group going?
