Skyscale mount mechanics (not about timegate)

[Blur.3465]

The mount could definitely do with some buffs.Adding 3x dodges (dashes, dodges, ... evades? flight spins?! you get the idea!) instead of two would make it a TON better and rewarding!Giving us the ability to regenerate green bar while being clung to the wall would also be good, so that we don't get punished if we get really high up and then suddenly have to drop all the way down because we ran out of green bar >> I don't know if mastery will solve it, because it still doesn't regenerate passively.It also definitely needs a proper dive, 'C' could easily be tweaked a bit to allow a more precise maneuvering and diving.

Considering the amount of time, dedication and gold it takes, it is safe to say that it is a more prestigeous and harder to get mount than Griffon, and in that case it should also be better than griffon, not worse...as right now it is a lot worse.Skyscale is slow and doesn't stay in the air for too long. I was riding my Skyscale along with a few griffons from our team yesterday, griffons kept the altitude without problems (no speed buff) while Skyscale kept dropping and dropping, which is rather degrading and humiliating for a dragon. Why should some 'half-bird' thing be more superior than a mighty dragon, right?

So aye, I agree. It definitely needs some more love when it comes to mechanics. I really hope ANet considers this!

Oh and to add up...I feel that green bar should NOT waste if you use magic thingies to gain altitude. Say if we consume a lot of volatile magic and gain a lot of altitude, the green bar should stay untouched and not waste while hovering. That way we can safely soar and enjoy in flight while slowly losing green bar while moving.

[Excursion.9752]

Are we talking about the great SnailScale Legendary Hover Chair?Everything that would make this mount better would also break the mount or have it bleed to far over into other mounts specialties.On one hand I don't want it to be a combo mount but on the other hand I do not care. You have to work to get this mount so why not have some benefits.

If the mount does not get upgraded in some way shape or form I will not be using it. I truly believe that you will not see many people using them outside of using them as a chair or just messing around. I have a hard time believing this will be the majorities go to mount for flying. Griffon will reign supreme.

[Adry.7512]

1000000000000% agree.....it has no use above any regular mount, and it’s wayyy below the griffon

[Adry.7512]

Guys stop saying it will break the game. Unlimited upscale is a horrible idea, but the fact that the mount descends anyways just kills it’s entire purpose....the griffon descends but it’s ok cause it’s super fast and you get to your location no problem, but that’s not the case for the skyscale. The purpose of skyscale is to scale...not its speed. Therefore is the mount descends it kills the purpose. I won’t get the mount unless They fix it. The point is to have a scale bar, they FLY straight without descending to a cliff, recharge the bar, then upscale more, and so on. It won’t break anything, that’s why there are invisible walls everywhere.

[Olterin Fire.5960]

Hm, so I did some more accurate testing - the skyscale's canopy descent angle beats the glider (with lean gliding) by a large margin, and the basic griffon glide. So far so good, right? However, if the griffon just flaps its wings off cooldown, it suddenly has twice the horizontal reach of the skyscale. Griffon, the mount with the smaller wings that relies on masteries to gain truly infinite range. It feels ... wrong, that a mount with a clearly superior wingspan (seen in the model and stated by devs) and uplift (griffon cannot use wings to gain much altitude on the spot) cannot at least "wingflap" as far as a griffon that flaps wings. I feel like if that would at least not be the case, and perhaps the horizontal movement speed were dependent on the pitch angle, it'd feel like a useful, unique mount. Wall issues notwithstanding.

It's not like if the skyscale and the griffon had the same baseline horizontal reach the griffon would suddenly become obsolete.

As things stand, I can only see myself using it as a matter of convenience in semi-rough terrain that mixes bunny-grade altitude changes as well as raptor-grade canyons. Just out of sheer laziness, really. When a mount that needs this much investment is relegated to that role, something is horribly wrong. (And yes, this is accounting for the masteries, but it's also accounting for the wall clinging/landing issue)

[makagoto.1204]

I guess them devs had it difficult to find another useful role for a flying mount. They should have went with an asura copter instead and everybody would have been crying :"Why that stupid copter if you could have given us a dragon instead?".With the skyscale you can easily traverse any vertical space. There is no jumping into a deep pit, like we had it with the springer all the time, anymore. I love it simply for the fact that i can completely ignore the springer in the future. On the other hand i don't need a better griffon. The griffon is one of my favorite gw2 toys and i will combine them a lot.

[Merendel.7128]

About the only thing I would change about it is make the wall jump mastery allow for flight ceiling increases. That would give it the niche of allowing near infinite climb but slower than the springer if there are convenient ledges a springer could use to launch off of. Either that or a 4th mastery that allowed it to slowly crawl up the wall while clinging. If the climb was at normal character walk speed you'd be better off doing springer for most things but would alow for just scaling over obstacles that would be a pain with the springer

[Kal Spiro.9745]

@Kidel.2057 said:Let's see.1) Skyscale is worse than Griffon in horizontal movement.It is slower than the griffon at horizontal movement, but it is precise while the griffon can be unwieldy. This is not the same as being worse.2) Skyscale is slower than Springer in vertical movement.3) Skyscale is less tolerant with small ledges, diagonal surfaces and cliff edges compared to Springer. It often grabs diagonal surfaces.How do you define this? I find that the springer often slides down things I feel it shouldn't, and takes multiple tries and can be ungainly due to imprecision. Like with the Griffon the Skyscale is precise, which is why it's slower. You go where you want within it's field, and even beyond that once you have all the masteries.4) Skyscale is by design a lower bound compared to Springer in terms of vertical movement. It still requires ledges to gain altitude, even with the masteries, and it's less tolerant to them.The springer also requires ledges to gain altitude. With the Skyscale you have time to find them decide precisely how to achieve them, with the Springer, you shoot and do your best.5) Skyscale is by design (see Springer buff) slower compared to Springer and Griffon, and it's also conceived as an easy option to climb, while Springer is faster but harder. Implying Skyscale is, by design, less fun to use compared to its 2 counterparts.That depends on if you find shooting for the same ledge multiple times, or slamming your head into an outcropping because you weren't quite far enough back, fun, compared to just going precisely where you intend to go because you have complete 3 dimensional control of your movement.6) If you don't need much vertical movement you're going to prefer Griffon or Jackal/Skimmer/RB. If you need vertical movement you're going to prefer the Springer every day.

This whole argument reminds me very much of the Beetle, honestly. People didn't understand it's niche, it was an effort to get it, then once they had it had difficulty with it. This time, though, we have plenty of time to get the hang of it before committing to it. So why go through the effort to get it if you don't think it's worth it. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoy the Griffon, but not so much the Springer. I will definitely make excessive use of the Skyscale. But then I don't equate faster with funner.

[AgentMoore.9453]

I think the strangest thing about the Skyscale (and there are a lot of strange things about it) is the notion that "they want it to compliment other mounts and not have advantages over them" while simultaneously ramping up the difficulty of obtaining it by an unprecedented amount compared to the others.

This concept that it has to function at the same "level" as existing mounts while having a much higher price tag in terms of time/effort is part of why people are so divided. They figure a greater effort means a greater reward and, so far, people have not seen that kind of reward in the Skyscale's functionality.

Either the obtaining process should be adjusted or the ability of the mount should be increased, especially with as much as the mount is tied into the living story, thereby making it seem like something everyone needs to get. I am completely unbothered by the idea of a mount being better than others so long as the process to obtain it justifies those advantages or, conversely, the mount is "balanced" but so too is the method of getting it.

EDIT: Evidently, an adjustment to the obtaining process is going to be implemented on the 28th, though the process will remain much more time-consuming in comparison to previous mounts even after this change.

[Ototo.3214]

Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents.I very much agree the wall grab needs to be a hot key instead of just automatic when you go forward into a wall. I'd also personally like it to not be something I have to hold, like I can hit a hot key to grab, then hit the hotkey again to let go, but that's probably just a personal preference and not necessary. As for the flying itself...I honestly don't think it's horrible, if you start from a high height and just want to go straight over a ravine or whatever, you can usually go pretty far in a straight line assuming you didn't fly to max height in the "canopy" first. I wouldn't mind it maybe getting more leeway in how far it can fly out before descended, or how high it can fly before it runs out of the flight meter (if you just go straight up), but I honestly feel like that should be another mastery? Idk. I'm also not opposed to the 3 dodge idea, would make the wall grab mastery a little better if it had 3 bars as well.And while you can descend with the Mount 2 skill...can it please descend a little faster? I'm not asking for griffin level speed but like... a little faster would be nice.Also, maybe for the future as another mastery...let it be able to wall grab and crawl around a little? That could be neat.

[makagoto.1204]

@Ototo.3214 said:

And while you can descend with the Mount 2 skill...can it please descend a little faster? I'm not asking for griffin level speed but like... a little faster would be nice.If you let yourself fall with it from a ledge without pressing the jumpkey it descends rather fast, you have to be in nonlevitation mode to do so though .

[Ototo.3214]

@makagoto.1204 said:

@Ototo.3214 said:

And while you can descend with the Mount 2 skill...can it please descend a little faster? I'm not asking for griffin level speed but like... a little faster would be nice.If you let yourself fall with it from a ledge without pressing the jumpkey it descends rather fast, you have to be in nonlevitation mode to do so though .

That is true, but I feel like the point of it shouldn't be to just...jump off a cliff with it like that. You can already do that with the Jackal lol

[Tekoneiric.6817]

@Krew.3081 said:I agree, the flight cap needs to GO!!!!! or make it fly longer... It's pretty simple..It's a DRAGON and can barely fly.

I keep saying they have the skyscale and griffon backwards. The skyscale's flight mechanics match more with the non-mount griffons in the game and the griffon is more like that of dragons or wyverns. Frankly I'd like to see a swap in their flight mechanics for players who have unlocked both except give the swapped griffon the ability to evasive mount during combat with a cool down like non-mount griffons. Keep the cliff clinging with the skyscale though.

What you'd end up with is a skyscale which has the flight characteristics of other dragons and a hovering griffon focused on evasion w/short attacks. I know this is wishful thinking but still it would make more sense.

[Jora.5471]

The two advantages that Skyscale has over all mounts is:

• Long distance climbing- With the mastery that lets you recharge flight bar and the ability to grab onto walls, you can fly upward farther than a Springer can jump. Springers are very limited on how far they can jump, but a skilled player with Skyscale could reach far enough that it can find a flat floor to recharge flight bar completely.
• Precision flying- Griffon is very bad at this as it is always gliding. If you use a springer, you may not land on a ledge which will cause you to fall towards your death. Skyscale can move up, down, left, right, forward, backwards while Springers and Griffon cannot.

[makagoto.1204]

@Ototo.3214 said:

@makagoto.1204 said:

@Ototo.3214 said:

And while you can descend with the Mount 2 skill...can it please descend a little faster? I'm not asking for griffin level speed but like... a little faster would be nice.If you let yourself fall with it from a ledge without pressing the jumpkey it descends rather fast, you have to be in nonlevitation mode to do so though .

That is true, but I feel like the point of it shouldn't be to just...jump off a cliff with it like that. You can already do that with the Jackal lol

I actually like to simply drop down with it. Height doesn't matter, it takes zero damage.

[Tails.9372]

The two advantages that Skyscale has over all mounts is:

• Long distance climbing- With the mastery that lets you recharge flight bar and the ability to grab onto walls, you can fly upward farther than a Springer can jump. Springers are very limited on how far they can jump, but a skilled player with Skyscale could reach far enough that it can find a flat floor to recharge flight bar completely.
• Precision flying- Griffon is very bad at this as it is always gliding. If you use a springer, you may not land on a ledge which will cause you to fall towards your death. Skyscale can move up, down, left, right, forward, backwards while Springers and Griffon cannot.

Which are pretty much useless if you think about it. Every place that would require "Long distance climbing" can either A: easily be accessed through other means, B: is part of a JP (meaning no mounts allowed) and C: is a place of no significance (e.g. reaching the top of the Dostoev Sky Peak). "Precision flying" on the other hand is only really useful for sightseeing but unrestricted flight would be much better in this regard.

At least the the griffon and the roller beetle actually offer some generally useful utility without anything holding back their potential (the only problem with the roller beetle was the slow start but bound of vigor took care of that problem) but that's what you get when the devs (by their own admission) put "making something cool looking" over functionality.

[Ototo.3214]

@"Tails.9372" said:

The two advantages that Skyscale has over all mounts is:

• Long distance climbing- With the mastery that lets you recharge flight bar and the ability to grab onto walls, you can fly upward farther than a Springer can jump. Springers are very limited on how far they can jump, but a skilled player with Skyscale could reach far enough that it can find a flat floor to recharge flight bar completely.
• Precision flying- Griffon is very bad at this as it is always gliding. If you use a springer, you may not land on a ledge which will cause you to fall towards your death. Skyscale can move up, down, left, right, forward, backwards while Springers and Griffon cannot.

Which are pretty much useless if you think about it. Every place that would require "Long distance climbing" can either A: easily be accessed through other means, B: is part of a JP (meaning no mounts allowed) and C: is a place of no significance (e.g. reaching the top of the Dostoev Sky Peak). "Precision flying" on the other hand is only really useful for sightseeing but unrestricted flight would be much better in this regard.

At least the the griffon and the roller beetle actually offer some generally useful utility without anything holding back their potential (the only problem with the roller beetle was the slow start but bound of vigor took care of that problem) but that's what you get when the devs (by their own admission) put "making something cool looking" over functionality.

I kind of disagree with some of this. Sure it may still be niche for the most part but there have been many times where I was trying to use the bunny to get on a ledge, but either kept clunking my head against it and having to retry, or I miss and fall all the way back down again, having to start the climb all over again. Skyscale will fix that, cause if you miss...you at least don't fall all the way down. Also, that one stupid tiny floating island thing in Bloodstone Fen that a Blood Ruby node can spawn on. I miss it almost every time, with both the griffin and gliding. Skyscale will land on it precisely. Maybe I'm just bad but I like the mount and can definitely see myself using it over the others for some things even if it is a bit slower just because I think it looks awesome, I put in a lot of effort to get it, and I'll take slow and steady, knowing I'll actually get there the first try.

[Kidel.2057]

You can still fall with Skyscale. If you gain altitude using any skill ot mastety (even dash) you fill a red gauge that works as a penalty. If you miss the ledge (pretty easy considering the crappy auto-grab) you will fall and be forced to start over.

[Ototo.3214]

@Kidel.2057 said:You can still fall with Skyscale. If you gain altitude using any skill ot mastety (even dash) you fill a red gauge that works as a penalty. If you miss the ledge (pretty easy considering the crappy auto-grab) you will fall and be forced to start over.

But you can immediately start hovering if you fall.

[Kidel.2057]

@Ototo.3214 said:

@"Kidel.2057" said:You can still fall with Skyscale. If you gain altitude using any skill ot mastety (even dash) you fill a red gauge that works as a penalty. If you miss the ledge (pretty easy considering the crappy auto-grab) you will fall and be forced to start over.

But you can immediately start hovering if you fall.

Please, note I said "red gauge".If you don't know what that means, check the wiki (skyscale > movement section)

[Ototo.3214]

@Kidel.2057 said:

@Ototo.3214 said:

@Kidel.2057 said:You can still fall with Skyscale. If you gain altitude using any skill ot mastety (even dash) you fill a red gauge that works as a penalty. If you miss the ledge (pretty easy considering the crappy auto-grab) you will fall and be forced to start over.

But you can immediately start hovering if you fall.

Please, note I said "red gauge".If you don't know what that means, check the wiki (skyscale > movement section)

If you've fallen off of something, it implies you were standing on something and wouldn't have a red gauge yet. And even if somehow you end up with the red gauge, you only fall back to the minimum height of the canopy. If you're wasting endurance and wall grabs without landing you're probably doing it wrong, and whatever situation you're in a springer probably still wouldn't help. I agree it needs buffs but it's not completely usesless

[Ygdrasill.9135]

@Adrianna.3092 said:

@Ygdrasill.9135 said:I'm looking forward to being able to use the Skyscale in HoT since I'm not very far into that yet. The main issue I see is the second mastery skill seems pretty much useless Since they didn't add a general mastery chain in addition to the one for the mount, when would I ever come back to use that? It's very definitely a mount for specialized uses, but I'll likely be using it a lot more than the Jackal or Roller Beetle.

if your referring to the opening flight paths ability... they added these flight paths to many of the core maps as well... and the final collection will be using these flight paths im going to guess so it wont be useless outside of the new map... that of course doesn't mean the mount is good... you were just incorrect on that one detail.

I wasn't talking about flight paths. I was talking about the vertical up/down aspect. Mounting in midair would mean being able to jump and go into a hover to assess options without worrying about steering to an end point. Good to know about the flight paths though.

It's a bit moot at this point in any case. Between the collections needed for things like the saddle, the gold farming I'll be doing to afford the purchased items, food, grow lamp, and maybe treats, it's going to be months for me to get this. I'm also finding out that not having done a lot of the achievments previously is going to come back to bite me so there is that too. The included time gating is pretty much trivial compared to the rest of this. The griffon, which is a far more capable mount, was far easier and ultimately less expensive to get since I refuse to level crafting just to make the crap for this mount. The time involved makes it even worse since a good part of it appears to be having to do things I didn't do previously because I didn't really want to do them. Doing them now will be motivated by eventually getting the mount, not because they are fun for me to do.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Ototo.3214 said:

I kind of disagree with some of this. Sure it may still be niche for the most part but there have been many times where I was trying to use the bunny to get on a ledge, but either kept clunking my head against it and having to retry, or I miss and fall all the way back down again, having to start the climb all over again. Skyscale will fix that, cause if you miss...you at least don't fall all the way down.

And that's fair, but only if getting the Skyscale was on par / close to that of getting the bunny, or heck, even the Griffon. What's holding me back is that with this enormous task in front of me, I'm questioning whether it's worth it given the final product. Right now I can only evaluate the loaner mount, and read other people accounts, but from what I can see, it certainly isn't. Now someone who already has the mount might feel different, but then there is nothing they can do, they have already expended the time, effort and resources. Those of us who haven't committed to this though, are looking at the finished product and questioning whether it's at all worth it.

For me personally, I never use the Beetle, except to zoom my key toon around Kryta each week, and that's just for funsies. I have the stock beetle skin, and never plan on getting a new one, as I never use. I'm fine with that though, as the mount took me a weekend to earn and didn't really cost me anything. Skyscale is a bit different.

I'm trying to keep an open mind, but you better believe I did a lot of research before I committed to crafting any of the legendaries I currently have, and right now my research is telling me this mount 'aint worth the trouble. Maybe I'll start seeing some footage / vids that will convince me otherwise.

[crazyhusky.2985]

I got skyscale and leveled it up to max.Its rather weird, I still think the griffin and springer are better in terms of height and flight.

The skyscale is slow and kinda clunky, when you do get it to lv3 to scale walls it still slow compared to the springer, you'd only use it if the springer absoultely can't reach that high, but then they is normally a way to cheese it with the springerSkyscale has trouble keeping height, and you can really use it for going far distances unlike the griffin, and the griffin feels way faster. The skyscale has an aerial roll but you don't use it for long travel due to it uses endurance and you need that to scale up walls.

The skyscale dismount is cool BUT aiming it is hard, I wouldnt mind it being an aerial techinque too and or have better targeting.You should be able to press dismount a little away from the ground to jump off it. since it flies up anyway, having ground only is doesn't feel right because the griffin can swoop from the sky and bam dismount straight in the foes and you're in combat, just like all the other mounts, but the skyscale you NEED to be on the ground and then you can dismount, then takes time for it to attack.

Things I would change about the skyscale

1. Make vertical Flight straight upward a lot faster. Right now, it's too slow getting up places, You are better off using the springer to get up places then switch to griffin to fly.
2. Give it the ability to actually scale/climb walls a bit. It grabs the walls but you can only jump off them after. Which is disappointing, i thought it'll be able to climb a little bit, given that "scale" is in its name. Skyscale doesn't gain much height while actually flying about, This can leave you stuck if you are out of endurance.
3. Add a mastery that allows to you recharge some endurance and flight meter when the skyscale grabs onto the wall.
4. Make the dismount skill useable from a certain disance away from the ground. As this would allow players to to instantly engage with foes.
5. Add the aerial roll to the skyscale's skill hotbar next to the dismount skill. make it skill 2, but also keep the normal mount function it has, so it can be used either by pressing 2 or V.
6. Add 3rd skill to the skyscale's skill hotbar called "Plummet" which cause your skyscale to fall a lot faster to ground while it is held down. Since it can stay in place while in the air having a quick way to drop it to the floor would be nice, again the skyscale is rather slow at it

[crayven.8203]

I'm in agreement for the unlimited free flying side of the argument, all anet would have to do is tag another quest onto the end of the final collection where you have to go speak to the forgotten beastmaster guy (name escapes me sorry).He then sends you on a couple more quests to "prove" you're worthy to handle such a majestic animal (cos immersion), this unlocks another mastery for free flight.A caveat could be that the character needs to have completed the pof story in its entirety.Disable it in wvw/pvp/jp etc like most are.I can sort of see where the 'breaking the game' argument comes into it, but imo..and it's only my opinion, I think it could encourage more people to explore on alts, create new characters due to ease of exploration etc...it may even open the game up to a whole new side of the player base.Just my 2 cents