Olterin Fire.5960

Best use for a Skyscale? Gaining altitude to launch with a Griffon :P Alternatively, cliff climbing for when you just know it'll be annoying with a springer to land on that small inbetween ledge. Obviously, these two go hand-in-hand. A rare edge case: a mixed horizontal-vertical map where there's a rapid change in obstacles being cliffs and ravines. Remember to not just use space when flying up, but also angle your (movement) camera upward so the mount also flies up.

Fully unrestricted would make it a no-skill lazy mount that doesn't have any effort attached to it. So that gets a big fat "no" from me. However, if it had a non-descending canopy, and slightly more (like, 10% tops) flight meter (or alternatively, started at full instead of somewhat emptied - I know why it starts emptied, but it feels wrong). A mastery could give it one more dodge bar and slightly better endurance regen, but that's as far as I would go. That wouldn't make it immediately superior for reaching places to a griffon. And no, I'm not even going to begin arguing that it'd break the maps - it already breaks the maps in somewhat hilarious fashions. Much like the bunny/griffon combo does. Making it less of a hassle to use is all it needs, it would have plenty of utility if the harsh canopy wasn't a thing. Also, this is unlikely to happen - the devs working on it stated as much. The idea behind the mount was that this one loves obstacles (to regenerate), while all other mounts are made to either dodge obstacles or get over them. Such a core departure from the original design as "completely uncapped flight" will never happen, and I'm afraid even my own silly wishlist of changes won't. :(

In my experience, the dodge/dash ability will always move you directly where your sight is aimed as long as it's within the flight aim "cone" of the Skyscale. A double dash can let you exceed the regular canopy to basically almost a full red bar (with the following quick descent back down to it)

Try using mount skill two, the same one you use on the Griffon to go back up. (I'm not actually 100% sure if it's that or the underwater "swim down" keybind, since I have them on the same key)

So you see, when we say "free flight" as in "permanent flight" won't break the game even more, we have a pretty solid basis to stand on. Put active limitations on the Skyscale so it too requires skill and masteries to achieve that, sure, but the feat alone won't break the game more. The difference in mastery track 3 is that now when you cling to walls you can press the "jump" key to charge a hop up and also gain some temporary green flight bar (which'll let you go above your canopy ceiling for a brief time). It requires one full endurance bar per jump attempt. This does let you scale cliffs that are too high for a Springer (it gets you about 1.5x total altitude gain from the starting position, warning, very rough number as I haven't actually done measurements yet) (This is also showcased in the developer stream that first showcased the skyscale, but you do have to skip a lot of video to get to where they're showing how the masteries work)

To all those arguing that completely unlimited flight would be bad, how about this then: the Griffon already breaks most maps if you can get high enough that you can use the dive-acceleration, since it then never loses altitude in any practical sense. So what harm to the game would there be if the Skyscale had a limited flight ceiling based on the point it started (much like the Griffon - and no, don't tell me, I know you can climb higher with a fair amount of skillful use of the dive/climb cycle, that too is limited by faster descent kicking in), but one that didn't limit it to a glorified "Hoverbunny" with an upgraded glider enhancement that cannot use updrafts (tell me again how this makes sense, other than from a game-balance point of view so as to not completely invalidate gliding which the Skyscale basically does anywhere there are no leylines/updrafts?) - i.e. flight meter only limits your altitude, not the horizontal travel distance (as a more extreme case), or alternatively, limits your horizontal travel distance by approximately the same amount the Griffon's horizontal range is limited when no dive-speed is used (currently, the Skyscale has about half that range). I would be perfectly fine with what we have as a mount in terms of mechanics ... if it didn't involve such a lengthy and tedious acquisition process. Basically, it's roughly on par with the "cheap" mounts in terms of niche capability, whereas the effort is "Griffon-grade". That's the issue here for me. (That, and the wall cling being super-automatic - it needs a hotkey already, or a toggle so you can switch between not clinging and clinging. Something, anything)

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)

I'd be happy, honestly. It's not like this mount warrants the amount of timegating that it has given it's known capabilities. Besides, I'd always get to play Old Gramps "back in my day, we went through two weeks of timegates for the skyscale, stop whining!" :P I wouldn't want anyone else to be faced with this wall when thinking of maybe getting a mediocre but situationally fun mount.

I'd change the "looking pitch" angle to be more than what it is, maybe more like 45 degrees instead of the currently 30 (at best). This would also buff the dash.Furthermore, since it is a flight mount and not just a springer replacement (considering the amount of effort involved, it's much more comparable to the griffon), it needs help with more flight. I'm fine with an altitude cap, however the rate of the canopy descent could use some work (smaller angle) - as well as returning to the starting point refreshing the flight ceiling back to what it was. Basically, make it able to fly farther, and make it always able to return to the starting point (this has been my single largest issue with the rental mount so far). A fully mastered griffon can do it, why can the skyscale not (at least not without great effort)? As far as the wall clinging goes: Here's a possibly novel and probably not doable idea - make a mastery that enables small movement along the cliff wall, maybe a dash, at the end of which the mount is "forced" into a non-flight posture for half a second. That way you should be able to hit those small ledges.

I did him with sword/dagger celestial weaver. Dodge/block/evade/invuln through his attacks until breakbar, break the bar, repeat until he loses both his "severely reduced damage taken" and "deals massive damage" unique buffs (two breakbars), then proceed to kill. Took about 6 attempts.

I'd have probably bought a skin or two if they were not released in this format. Unfortunately for Anet, I absolutely refuse to support predatory RNG lootboxes, I have yet to buy a single black lion chest key for that very reason. A very small amount of RNG might be palatable, but everything present to date was not. Neither is this. I'm very disappointed.