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For Skyacale owners, did you get it just for the collection or for to use it as your main mount?


Murshid.9854

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Most fun mount to zoom around with. You're slower than the rest in terms of horizontal movement, but it's so much more fun. Not having to switch between mounts to get up a cliff is nice, for short distances the dash is also really quick. Overall it just combined the two mounts I've used the most, Griffon and Raptor, in terms of movement.

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@Murshid.9854 said:Do you think of it more of a cosmatic/collection or high utility all in one mount?

Let's just say you'll never need the skyscale. It does everything the others mounts do, but worse. It's a jack-of-all-trades for exploration, but you'll usually be better with another mount when you know the terrain. I did the collection because it was both a good achievment in-game, and a new mount. Though I'll always regret them repurposing yet again the griffon's skull instead of giving us a wyvern mount...

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I don't think it was really either of those for me. I mean I love dragons and I'd have gotten it even if it was just a skin for the griffon, but it wasn't just for the sake of completing the collection - it's because it's something I knew I'd enjoy using. Something I've wanted for a long time is a good RPG with a dragon mount you can freely control and fly around as you want. There's been several RPGs with ridable dragons but all the ones I know of are either terrible games or the dragons are on rails or otherwise heavily restricted. So to have a dragon I can fly (almost) anywhere I want, whenever I want in what was already one of my favourite games was a big deal for me.

But even saying that I wasn't expecting it to become my main mount and I'm not sure it is. It's certainly versatile but I don't think it's an 'all in one' mount to the point of being the only/main one I'd use and I do still use all the others because there's situation where they're better. Including the springer, the skyscale's ability to fly out from a cliff and hover is useful when I need to work out a path but if it's clear where I can go and there's ledges the springer is faster and to some extent easier because it's less likely to stick in the wrong place.

The skyscale is probably the only mount where I'll specifically decide I'm going to ride it just for the sake of riding it (often while doing treasure maps in Desert Highlands) but in normal gameplay I don't think it's become my main mount.

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I love the Skyscale mount. It can be very handy. The Skyscale is the ONLY mount that can actually fly which makes it irreplaceable as a utility and it can be good fun too. That said, I use the raptor and bunny more than any other mount because they are both pretty fast for short sprints and have good control. Skimmer is somewhat a must for fast travel in water areas. In my opinion you can get around very well with Just the raptor, bunny, and skimmer until you can pickup the rest. Also the Beetle can be amazing, but has its limits. The Griffon is the fastest for air travel, but doesn't actually fly it really just glides with some speed boost from swooping. So although you can get by fine without one nothing else can really replace a Skyscale.

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You'll have players of both opinions.

The short of it is:

  • there is players who value convenience and less hassle at the expense of optimized performance (debatable in some areas since for example the skyscale outperforms the bunny in pin point precision for vertical movement, and outperforms any other mounts except for the beetle in short burst horizontal movement)
  • there is players who enjoy switching mounts constantly and who want optimized performance in all situations

You don't need the Skyscale, but at the same time, many who have it have adopted a play style of nearly only using it over any other mount (with minor exception now that the beetle was buffed) essentially making all other mounts obsolete.

The only things the Skyscale can do which is very hard to mirror on other mounts:

  • dismounting in the middle of a lake from the skimmer and immediately mounting the skyscale, allowing for vertical movement off of water surfaces

Me personally:

  • use the Raptor very seldom even if it's my go-to ground mount
  • use the Bunny never, literally never. The Skyscale is way more convenient for me
  • use the Jackal very seldom, even less seldom than the raptor. Only on uphill movement and even then often the new beetle is faster
  • use the Skimmer as usual for Skimmer movement related things
  • use the Beetle for fast ground traversal if I know the distance is without many obstacles
  • use the Griffon nearly never except on some PoF maps or if I want to cover an entire map worth of distance. Seldom needed thanks to WPs or maps being to small
  • use the Skyscale and all its movement interactions and combinations for almost all movement even as basic as short distance burst quadruple dodges
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Yes the skyscale is jack-of-all-trade but once i get used to the terrains where other mount can do better then it happened. I tend to use skyscale 85% of the time i play just because it way more easier to navigate about everywhere, slow but steady. My second is the beetle, since the last change this mount is by far the fastest mount to get from A to B in plat terrain and with the hovering ability of skyscale make it easier for me to observe foes, fighting field from above before jumping in.

Skyscale for airborne and Beetle on the ground.

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@Murshid.9854 said:Do you think of it more of a cosmatic/collection or high utility all in one mount?

It's the whole deal. It has some nice looking skins for it. It's also by far the most useful mount.

It's about as quick as the raptor over short distances (e.g. hopping between nodes, etc.). It can fly higher, further, and faster than the griffon when taking off from the ground, which allows it to ignore most enemies without even being attacked. It can handle any terrain except long stretches of water, which includes cliffs and other areas where the springer was previously required.

I didn't think it would be this useful. I was wrong. It's totally worth completing the collections to unlock it.

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Couldn't care less about appearance/collection, but it's the OVERALL best mount. If I could only have one mount, it would be Skyscale. I still prefer the raptor for speed, the skimmer for water travel, and the Griffon when I can dive from a really great height. The roller beetle and jackal have their own roles to play, but see very little use. I almost never use the springer anymore, since Skyscale can do the same job only better in most cases. But the springer does come out when I need to start a fight with a strong CC hit. The warclaw is, of course, for WvW only, it just sucks in PVE.

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@Irensaga.6935 said:I still wish they'd remove mounts from core Tyria and HOT maps entirely and limit them to POF.

Not gonna happen though, I know. It's never a good idea to give people something and then take it away later.

Just reducing movement speed would be enough, they really do move too fast. It makes some sense for the Beetle and Griffon to cover entire maps in seconds since their use is highly situational, but the rest should be toned down for smaller maps..

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@Hannelore.8153 said:

@Irensaga.6935 said:I still wish they'd remove mounts from core Tyria and HOT maps entirely and limit them to POF.

Not gonna happen though, I know. It's never a good idea to give people something and then take it away later.

Just reducing movement speed would be enough, they really do move too fast. It makes some sense for the Beetle and Griffon to cover entire maps in seconds since their use is highly situational, but the rest should be toned down for smaller maps..

No. I like them the way they are. They should remain as is.

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