The Skyscale Quest Line Is WAY Too Grindy, And Insulting [Merged]

[Valisha.8650]

I fully agree, the collection really had those "Kill 30 wolves" vibes to it. Not to mention the arbitrary timegates.

Sure, some may say you don't need it, but need is relative and subjective.

Some say it's a legendary mount, but... that's just a blatant lie. Neither the game, nor the wiki, lists it as some sort of  "special" mount - it is just a yet another addition to the mounts list.

I highly recommend grabbing a mesmer friend to assist you in the process, and saving up some gold for the skips.

And hey, at least Skyscale isn't locked behind POS game mode known as WvW, like gen 1 legendaries do, so cheer up ;*

I did it in 2? Maybe 3 days, I believe in you~

[Farohna.6247]

7 hours ago, Dante.1508 said:

Actually with EoD you do.. a lot of stuff in EoD would be almost impossible with out a Skyscale.. The meta in DE and many of the masteries and HPs.

Yeah but the turtle is even more useless and optional.. At least the skyscale can be useful when its not sticking to every vertical surface in the game..

The turtle is useful for what exactly?

Don't come for my turtle 😂 lol point being that it has parts of the journey to obtain it that many people have complained about...much like the whine over the skyscale.  Useful...depends on what you're doing, besides meta events, cc assistance, gates in Drizzlewood, stomping on mobs in Silverwastes, and it's cute it one likes turtles...but that's another topic in the forums.  I'm sure when OP gets to the turtle they'll freak at the strike mission part.  

I have both.  Play two to three hours a night.  Got the skyscale when it first came out.  I didn't find it grindy, actually really enjoyed working on it.  It's not an instant gratification mount, don't know why anyone is surprised at this by now.  MMOs have a grind factor ...that's part of the game play.

[mythical.6315]

7 hours ago, Dante.1508 said:

Actually with EoD you do.. a lot of stuff in EoD would be almost impossible with out a Skyscale.. The meta in DE and many of the masteries and HPs.

You don’t need the mount and nothing is close to being almost impossible without it. Neither the DE meta nor any of the HPs require it. 
 

It’s odd though that you say that with EoD players need the mount but then say EoD would be almost impossible without it. The keyword being “almost”. If the content can be completed without it then it’s not needed. 

[kharmin.7683]

12 minutes ago, Valisha.8650 said:

Some say it's a legendary mount, but... that's just a blatant lie. Neither the game, nor the wiki, lists it as some sort of  "special" mount - it is just a yet another addition to the mounts list.

Ok, that seems to be true.  I suppose a lot of us around here called it legendary due to the quest to obtain it.  However, it was not released with PoF like all of the other "core" mounts.  It was released as part of a Living World update, so to me that means that the game really isn't designed with the need for a skyscale to complete content because not every player would have that LW chapter.

[Ashantara.8731]

1 hour ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

Been able to get to anything I need to reach, with the regular mounts. I really do not need it, and do not care about looking cool.

You obviously don't get the Skyscale or you wouldn't claim it was about "looking cool." Good luck getting to all the loot bosses in Drizzlewood Coast in time without a Skyscale or Griffon, or getting to any of the events there on time without the Skyscale, and good luck with getting anywhere in time without a Skyscale in Dragonfall (unless you know all the routes, jackal portals and thermal tubes by heart).
 

Edited May 3, 2022 by Ashantara.8731

[Linken.6345]

1 hour ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

Rofl, they even changed it and you can get it in a couple of days? Is that true? WTF dude why are you complaining, this is ridiculous.

Well it is in game days and each of those are 2 hours it used to be real life days.

[Gibson.4036]

9 hours ago, Dante.1508 said:

Actually with EoD you do.. a lot of stuff in EoD would be almost impossible with out a Skyscale.. The meta in DE and many of the masteries and HPs.

At what point is a skyscale required for the DE meta?

[mythical.6315]

1 hour ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

You obviously don't get the Skyscale or you wouldn't claim it was about "looking cool." Good luck getting to all the loot bosses in Drizzlewood Coast in time without a Skyscale or Griffon, or getting to any of the events there on time without the Skyscale, and good luck with getting anywhere in time without a Skyscale in Dragonfall (unless you know all the routes, jackal portals and thermal tubes by heart).
 

Skyscale isn’t required in Dragonfall in order to get to the bonus champions in time. That’s taking into account excluding the jackal portals and thermal tubes which I never used. It’s actually quicker to use the mounts according to their strengths rather than just stick on one mount the entire time. I see so many that just solely use skyscale when I can get from point to point much quicker using a combination of mounts. 
 

I agree that either of the “flying” mounts would probably be required to get to the vault keepers in time as I don’t believe gliding would be quick enough. They’re not required for the events though as you have plenty of time. 

[Gibson.4036]

20 minutes ago, mythical.6315 said:

Skyscale isn’t required in Dragonfall in order to get to the bonus champions in time. That’s taking into account excluding the jackal portals and thermal tubes which I never used. It’s actually quicker to use the mounts according to their strengths rather than just stick on one mount the entire time. I see so many that just solely use skyscale when I can get from point to point much quicker using a combination of mounts. 
 

I agree that either of the “flying” mounts would probably be required to get to the vault keepers in time as I don’t believe gliding would be quick enough. They’re not required for the events though as you have plenty of time. 

I have no idea how people can keep up with a focused squad on the dragonfall Champs without either a skyscale or griphon. You’d have to know the island really well.

It’s really the only area of the game I’ve encountered where a flying mount feels necessary.

I’ve seen people keep up with cache keepers by glider.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[DragonMoon.6098]

23 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I have no idea how people can keep up with a focused squad on the dragonfall Champs without either a skyscale or griphon. You’d have to know the island really well.

It’s really the only area of the game I’ve encountered where a flying mount feels necessary.

I can barely keep up even with a Skyscale. 

[squeegee.4320]

20 hours ago, Farohna.6247 said:

Can't wait till you get to the turtle 😁

That's what... 40 golds, a few hearts, and a few meta events?

[mythical.6315]

43 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I have no idea how people can keep up with a focused squad on the dragonfall Champs without either a skyscale or griphon. You’d have to know the island really well.

It’s really the only area of the game I’ve encountered where a flying mount feels necessary.

I’ve seen people keep up with cache keepers by glider.

Players tend to do them in roughly the same order as the spawns are staggered.

 

If you’re using the skyscale to go across land then there’s a better mount such as raptor, beetle, or jackal. If you’re just climbing up vertically, and there are clear ledges, springer is better. 
 

Skyscale only becomes the better choice when you need to climb something vertically that has no ledges or if you need to move both vertically and horizontally at the same time. 

[Farohna.6247]

42 minutes ago, narwhalsbend.7059 said:

That's what... 40 golds, a few hearts, and a few meta events?

Pretty much.  But the scream about the strike mission has been interesting.  

[Gibson.4036]

18 minutes ago, mythical.6315 said:

Players tend to do them in roughly the same order as the spawns are staggered.

 

If you’re using the skyscale to go across land then there’s a better mount such as raptor, beetle, or jackal. If you’re just climbing up vertically, and there are clear ledges, springer is better. 
 

Skyscale only becomes the better choice when you need to climb something vertically that has no ledges or if you need to move both vertically and horizontally at the same time. 

I definitely see the advantages of each mount, and tend to swap between them as the terrain suits. Skyscale is definitely not the ideal mount in every situation.

Dragonfall is challenging terrain to navigate, though, and there's no way I'd keep up on jackal/springer to the mad bonus champ rush that happens after the meta. Finding the right ledges to get up with springer would take too much time.

I followed a commander and squad just last week and it was challenging to get to each even with access to both flying mounts, and facility rapidly swapping between appropriate mounts with hotkeys.

[Cuks.8241]

There is only one part of the champion train route in Dragonfall where Skyscale is superior to Griffon. And that is where you port from Air elemental to Mist Warden shrine and go for the branded hydra. The hydra is on a cliff which you can traverse directly with Skyscale with all the masteries, otherwise you need to go around the cliff.

Everywhere else Grifon is far superior. But it does require knowing how to use it and some map knowledge. Without any of these 2 (or 3 because beetle is also useful). Yeah you're slow. I'm sure there are ways but you probably need to port more and use other means wisely and you would still miss a champ or 2.

I always see that champ train as a bit of a Griffon race. Who gets to the next boss first. I know there are people that do the same. 

[Sinmir.6504]

On 5/2/2022 at 2:20 AM, Akisohida.8963 said:

Let me try to explain my frustration another way:

Imagine a game let you customize a hero. It's not you, it's your mentor. You get to equip him and your character. You decide his training, his skills, his gear. You spend 3 days levelling him and you up. You get to the battle with his arch-nemesis. The game is building towards you and him, fighting together, to redeem him!

And then the game kills him in a cinematic for comedic effect. No epic fight. No last words. Just knocks him off a cliff with a silly *Smack* sound and a Goofy 'Wah-ha-ha-hoooy!' yell. None of your gear, or levelling, or skill allocation or ANY of your 3 days of hard work mattered; He was going to die for a joke, and nothing would change that. You wasted 3 days for a joke.

And worse, the villain breaks the fourth wall to look at the player and say 'Boy! Hope someone did not spend 3+ days working hard to fight me! Because this was always going to happen! Hahaha!'

And, as far as I am aware; I still have to spend 3 days and 8 hours working towards this mount. Not counting however long it takes me to collect the 21 eggs.

 

The three day thing is you need to feed it 12 treats, but it only eats four a day. During the three days you are not customising the mount, you don't spend 72 hours of gameplay. That part of the questline can be done in 3 minutes of gameplay.  I will say, once you have collected the eggs you get quest makers, so the rest of it isn't as hard.

It's not like, for example I'm working on Legendary Triumphant Hero Armour.  To get claim tickets, I'm rank 1040 so silver in WvW, 12-15 hours of playing in WvW within a week.  I currently have 3 medium pieces. I'll probably have the other three before I get to gold rank, which will lower the time needed to spend from 11-13.5hr in a week. Though maybe I'll have a gold rank by the time I'm doing heavy or light. Other than rising my rank, I can't really speed it up on my own, it just depends how the server is doing, I'll make my contribution of course. Anyway, Feeding the skyscale isn't like that. It's lterally; feed it 4 times, leave it for a day, feed it 4 times, leave it for a day, feed it 4 times, leave it for a day, done, you are on to the next step.

 

Quote

The mount is not super powerful. I can't fly anywhere. I can't break the game. I don't get some godly attack. It does not raise my stats. I can't even fly that high compared to the gryphon.

I've seen this line in other threads about the difficulty  of getting a Skyscale. I disagree, I think it is the best mount in the game, it can get you to hard to get places. Leveling it up it can grab walls and recharge some of it's blue bar to fly higher. Get the perk to share endurance with mounts,it can get even higher.

But the thing is, argueing that it isn't great kind of contradicts wanting it easier. "It's not that great anyway"  while looking up with envy at the players hovering on their Skycales. Like, "That Xiuquatl set to Zerker has no advantage over my Zojja's wand... except the dragon effect, the fact it can change prefix, multiple characters can equip it at once, you can change the sigil and infusion without destroying the upgrades... Yup, I'm perfectly happy with my Zojja's Wand... By the way, any chance Xiuquatl can be made easier to get? Not that I need it, it just takes longer than I think it should."

Edited May 4, 2022 by Sinmir.6504
typo

[Infinity.2876]

The skyscraper achievements where annoying I'll grant you but it did give me something to do while practicing using a roller beetle.

[Khisanth.2948]

1 hour ago, narwhalsbend.7059 said:

That's what... 40 golds, a few hearts, and a few meta events?

More like 50 but also depends on what you are counting. Using a similar count Skyscale is only 35g so relatively speaking it is much cheaper and easier 🙂

 

[Ashantara.8731]

3 hours ago, mythical.6315 said:

Skyscale isn’t required in Dragonfall in order to get to the bonus champions in time. That’s taking into account excluding the jackal portals and thermal tubes which I never used.

That's exactly what I wrote in the post you quoted. 😉

[Sobx.1758]

On 5/2/2022 at 3:42 AM, Akisohida.8963 said:

But grind is NEVER good

That grind is fully optional, if you don't want to do it, then you don't need to. I don't see how some of the rewards having longer acquisition methods are somehow "insulting".

Edited May 3, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[mythical.6315]

29 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

That's exactly what I wrote in the post you quoted. 😉

Actually you stated the opposite. 
 

5 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

good luck with getting anywhere in time without a Skyscale in Dragonfall (unless you know all the routes, jackal portals and thermal tubes by heart).

 

[Tiilimon.6094]

I think they should make obtaining it harder just for lolz.

[Ashantara.8731]

1 hour ago, mythical.6315 said:

Actually you stated the opposite.

Sorry, it's late -- I misread your response. My bad.

So, you are saying that you get to all events in time, can keep up with every squad, without the use of the Skyscale, jackal portals or thermal tubes?

[Ashen.2907]

12 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Sorry, it's late -- I misread your response. My bad.

So, you are saying that you get to all events in time, can keep up with every squad, without the use of the Skyscale, jackal portals or thermal tubes?

That is an unfair standard because even using all of those methods one might not be able to keep up with every squad all of the time.

[Syvaris Laskaris.5247]

17 hours ago, Freya.9075 said:

Do they also laugh when you explain to them legendary weapons and armors are not needed since it has the same stats as ascended? And how easy it is to get them? And when you got that it will never be out of date? 

Considering GW2 gets new endgame content every 2-3 years at best, "never out of date" is a funny line.

 

In FFXIV I would be getting the gear I need while doing the NEW content I actually want to play within a week. In GW2 you spend 22 weeks doing old abandoned time-gated content so you can do old abandoned time-gated content more conveniently.