mount question

[starlinvf.1358]

@Shena Fu.5792 said:OTOH Jackal teleport is hard to predict where you end up.

It teleports in the direction your camera is facing. Once you know this, you can do some crazy juking maneuvers with it... including a 180 reversal.

As for each mount's quirks....

Raptor leap is quickly messed up by sudden changes in slope. Smooth slopes are generally ok for it, as long as its not higher then its jump height.... otherwise its prone to catching and losing momentum. Separating the Leap and Jump keys can alleviate this slightly, since it lets you clear small obstacles with blowing stamina if you botch it.

Jackal's teleport can slide along some inclines and along obstacles as long as the path is smooth and within a 15 or so degrees of your existing direction. This makes it the only mount that can travel vertically higher then its jump height, as long as the slopes transition smoothly. Unfortunately this is insanely hard to predict, because the collision meshes for maps vary wildly in accuracy and slope angles.

Springer's weakness is lacking horizontal speed with its movement ability. Its intended for use in several POF related Jumping puzzles, and that travel distance is hard to gauge without extensive practice. For anyone doing the JP portion of the Skyscale collection can tell you how much depth perception matters. But with the Buff to its charging speed, its vertical scaling speed is top notch as long as theres ledges to land on.

Skimmer suffers from being largely unimpressive. Its ground speed is decent, and still evades on hover ability, but the lack of speed bursts makes its a rough ride when passing through heavy patrols. Its the mount that sees the least amount of use outside of its designated use cases.

Roller Beetle needs certain terrain conditions to even function correctly. Outside of POF maps, there aren't many places that give you enough clear paths and soft turns to keep your speed up.

Skyscale is highly flexible, but still has its limits. Vertical scaling is solid with full masteries, but it still needs regular landing spots to recover stamina. Its also clunky for clearing obstacles within a certain height band between its jump height and climb angle, as its more likely to grab on to edges you can't clear in one go. Griffon surpasses it in this case, as it simply slides along vertical obstacles until it you either get above it or can't go higher.

Griffon and Skyscale don't really compete directly for the same convenience spot, but share a lot of overlap. Where Skyscale has extended vertical climb, the Griffon has smoother horizontal transitions, and the ability to move the fastest out of all the mounts with enough starting height to do a dive. The vertical clearance is usually why people gravitate toward skyscale. But if you understand terrain features, the griffon can scale uneven terrain a lot faster then skyscale (due to the SS's awkward landing patterns).

Unless I need the Jackal or Raptor for continuous ground speed, I just use Skyscale as the default mount, and have Griffon on a second bind to switch off rapidly as needed. The more you actually travel to places, and don't just stick to easy farming spots, the more use you get out of the various mounts.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

I regularly use Jackal. First it's the fastest speed and 2nd you can teleport on inclining areas, where the raptor just fails. Also it's elegant. But mostly I use Skyscale be cause it's the post impressive mount and very versatile.

Of course for long distances and on high points use Griffon, be cause it's by far the fastest with Dive 2 mechanic.

[BlueJin.4127]

If you want to use the most efficient mounts for a given situation, then the mount tiers for usefulness would be...

Most useful mounts:Raptor - Best mount to use on most flat terrains and short distance travel. Its speed on flat terrains is just so much faster than most other mounts. Not great on uneven terrains or long distance travel, though.

Griffon - The more height you start from, and the longer you need to travel, the better the griffon is. But even if you’re only about 2 meters above ground, you can get nice speed. Just briefly tap skill 1 (not the engage skill) and you can get a decent speed boost. On uneven terrains where you need to go further than the raptor’s 2 jumps, the griffon is the best choice. Not great if you’re on flat terrain, need to go up, or if you’re flying very short distance covered by 2 Skyscale boosts.

Skyscale - On uneven terrains where you need to go a short distance, Skyscale is the best choice. Also, if you need to go up diagonally, the skyscale is the best choice. Not great for speed, or when you don’t need to gain height, or anything past short distance travel longer than 2 raptor jumps.

Useful mounts:Skimmer - The only mount to use on water, so it’s obviously got its use. Too slow on land, and can’t swim, which limits its use.

Jackal - Before you get the fall damage mastery or an aerial mount, this mount is very useful. Once you get both, not so much. For speed, raptor is faster. For falling, griffon is better. Only best for sand portals and going up hills.

Least useful mounts:Springer - Best for going up vertically faster than the Skyscale. It’s rarely useful since just going up diagonally with the Skyscale is often faster and the Skyscale can go up higher than the Springer ever could.

Roller beetle - Best for flat terrain long distance travel the player plans ahead. If the player isn’t going long distance on flat terrain, isn’t sure where/when to dismount, or doesn’t know the terrain, this mount is not useful.

Again, this is only for effective use. Individual player preference will result in different usage for each player. A player who doesn’t care about speed can use the Skyscale all day and never use the raptor or the griffon. A player who just prefers the jackal can use that over the raptor and not miss out on that much speed. Heck, a player can opt to make the Skimmer or the Springer the primary ground mount if he/she wants to.

[Bellefon.1259]

The skimmer may be “the water mount” — and good at it, since on water, its base speed is fastest of all the mounts.

But the skimmer has a few extra tricks that are often overlooked when assessing its utility:

• its natural hover makes it the safest mount to use over large stretches of dangerous ground, such as lava, quicksand, poisoned water, branded lightning, etc;
• it has the longest sustained moving evade, when traited (springer has probably the longest stationery evade while preparing to jump); and
• it can be mounted while on the water’s surface, speeding up a long swim to shore.

My most used:

• jackal on land
• skimmer on water + dangerous land
• skyscale in the air
• warclaw in wvw

I still use the other four mounts, though, depending on the situation.