Skyscale rendered the Turtle Useless

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

Mount balance is fine.

The only thing Skyscale does that no other mount can, is climbing walls and hovering. The combination of horizontal and vertical movement, when used with gliding boosts and endurance regeneration can allow you to reach places that other mounts can't, even when combining them.

Every other thing the Skyscale does, other mounts to better.

• Horizontal flight: If you have a high point to start, Griffon is orders of magnitude faster. Even when you can't start with a dive, it's about even. Now with updrafts Griffon is literal non-stop aerial zoomies in some maps.
• Land-based movement: Almost every other mount is faster. Griffon hopping and flapping is better over rough terrain and small vertical cliffs, Raptor and Jackal are better generalists over medium distances and gaps, Roller Beetle better long distance over flat terrain.
• Underwater: Skyscale just doesn't, Skimmer can, and is also faster over water in general.
• Siege damage: Turtle does more siege damage and is more tanky in combat.

The biggest pro for Skyscale is that if you hate constantly swapping mounts it can do almost everything, like a lot of end-game rewards, it's more quality of life than anything else.

I'm lazy, I use Skyscale about 80-90% of the time, but when I am in a hurry, I often switch to Roller beetle, Griffon, or Raptor/Jackal. The only mount that is almost entirely obsolete for me is the Bunny.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Remus Darkblight.1673
Added hovering

[Zok.4956]

2 hours ago, Jumpin Lumpix.6108 said:

Everyone is saying its fine, or that they will continue to use the turtle or they like the change and it affects nothing in game.

I read something completely different in the majority of the answers. Namely: The fact that players can now do a little pew-pew fireball siege damage with the Skyscale has not made the Turtle any worse. Turtle still works the same and does the same damage as before.

The turtle has been inferior in many ways to the other mounts since its creation, and the skyscale has a strong convenience component that makes it very popular. Is the Skyscale more popular than Turtle in SotO? Naturally. The SotO maps were built around the Skyscale and have a lot of verticality.

I think that's fine.

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Zok.4956

[TheNurgle.4825]

When I heard about skyscale getting fireball skill I was against it due to experience with turtle. I need to write it skyscale's fireball is great skill. Also reason why skyscale is used by almost everyone almost all time is simple convenience. With skyscale I do not need to care about terrain so I do not need to think what is ahead of me. Like roller bettle is great on core maps, but do you really wanna use it at Echovald Wilds?

14 hours ago, Netrizhul.3429 said:

What Turtle needs that rider should able to use cannon or at least be able to switch to cannon.

This would make trutle more fun and I would still not use it.

[Trejgon.9367]

1 hour ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

Horizontal flight: If you have a high point to start, Griffon is orders of magnitude faster. Even when you can't start with a dive, it's about even. Now with updrafts Griffon is literal non-stop aerial zoomies in some maps.

Having both you can create your own high point, since AN updated air rescue traits to allow to not only mount in air but also dismount from their relevant mounts in air.

So you can hop onto skyscale, go up to the roof of the flight bar, double-dash upwards, activate bond of vigor, double dash again, dismount, mount griffon, and here you go for zoomies 🙂

If you happen to have access to EoD and have trained jade bot mastery, you can add even more of distance you can build up this way, by deploying glider, and using jade bot glider boost skill before mounting the griffon, this works even better if you slot the module that buffs the distance the bot updrafts you.

[Manpag.6421]

1 hour ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

The only thing Skyscale does that no other mount can, is climbing walls. The combination of horizontal and vertical movement, when used with gliding boosts and endurance regeneration can allow you to reach places that other mounts can't even when combining them.

That’s certainly the intention, though in practice the turtle can scale the vast majority of walls in the game unless they are truly completely sheer. Hell, I’ve gained height and climbed right up the Wizard’s Tower by using the gilding on the walls to reset height, simply to see if it could be done.

I only point this out because no-one in their right mind would try and claim that turtle can climb walls a bit too, so that renders the skyscale useless. It just so happens that you can slowly abuse its large hitbox to reset your jet height whenever you even land on a single pixel of outcrop on a wall, but it’s slow and inefficient. It compares well to skyscale’s siege mastery, in that you’re only likely to do that if it’s your only option, or you’re too lazy to switch mount.

I’m personally all for people having the option of using the mount(s) they prefer for things, else people who feel forced to use a mount they don’t like project that resentment onto the content itself, and avoid it.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

16 hours ago, genjonah.1253 said:

One- it was literally first presented as a prestige mount

Two- it also hasn’t- with the exception of the bunny (which does still have the break bar utility), the skyscale still doesn’t do anything as well as the other mounts. Sure, it can do pretty much a part of every other mount, but with the exception of the rabbit, everything else is better at what they do than the skyscale is. Raptor, beetle, griffon, are all faster. Skimmer can go underwater and doesn’t suffer from long distances. Jackal is more maneuverable. Siege turtle hits harder, tanks more, and has the passenger seat. As someone mentioned, it’s a jack-of-all-trades, the second line of that rhyme being ‘master of none’, ending with ‘but better than a master of one’

I'm glad you wrote this, because I think this is the crux of the matter. I've loooooong argued that the skyscale is the worst thing to happen to GW2 since....well, ever, because while mounts are cool they also took away from the game in a big way (since you can now just skip entire swaths of the map) and the skyscale was the final nail in that coffin relegating the mounts we already had to antiquity. But I wanted to touch upon what you said: Bunnys can break, Jackals can portal, Skimmers can swim, etc etc. All of that is true. And as far as I'm concerned, all of that is relevant. What we essentially have is a tool belt filled with hammers, pry bars, drills, and all the tools to do pretty much any job we need. And then we have the skyscale that is the literal swiss army tool. It's not as fast but it can go over any and all terrain, land or sea. It goes up, down, back, forth, side, other side. Even places locked off by sand portals (that we haven't seen since PoF rendering jackals all but useless) can generally be reached by flight, and now that skyscales can not only fight in combat but do SIEGE damage to structures....well, you'd have to be stupid not to do it.

See I'm actually on your side. I've long maintained that the more functions you ask something to do, the worse it is at it. As someone that does IT I get LOADS of people that ask me what kind of All-in-One printer is best, and I routinely say Just get a printer. Just a printer. Only a printer. If you NEED a scanner, get one of those separate, because invariably the All-in-Ones are tempermental, finnicky, and break. Same goes for the latest craze of Instapots, the pressure cooker that's also a slow cooker or stew pot. It sucks as a slow cooker or stew pot. But people keep buying both because most normal people see the value in carrying just ONE tool for many jobs instead of many tools for one job each. You yourself quoted Shakespere, “a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”, which I am going to take as your tacit agreement that the skyscale HAS made the other mounts obsolete. That isn't to say they can't be used. That isn't to say they don't still do -their- particular job well. My primary go-to is my gryphon, especially in Amnytas, and otherwise my raptor (Because the Lightbearer is Oh-so-FLUFFY!), but I will be the first to admit that I do so at my own detriment. I have to change mounts to cross water or open air, or to climb vertical surfaces, I have to dismount for combat AND I can't even mount IN combat because Combat Launch for reasons that are so alien to me it actually gives me a headache ONLY applies to skyscales. There are a million reasons to use a skyscale and a million subsidiary reasons to absolutely NEVER use any other mount, and I personally find this arguement that the skyscales haven't hurt the other mounts in the game AND the game as a whole maliciously disingenuous.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

The turtle has been always pointless, because other than the funny taxi role siege damage wasn't worth it.

[jason.1083]

46 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

The turtle has been always pointless, because other than the funny taxi role siege damage wasn't worth it.

It's very worth it, otherwise you'd need to spend war supplies to buy EMP and Blasting Charges.

And the Siege damage it does compared to either of those or the Skyscale Fireball is so much grater if you include the damage from the gunner that it makes it worth using.

I don't particularly like the Turtle either, but that's mostly because of how large and clunky it is.

[Westenev.5289]

Siege turtle's value is that it's a 2 person mount, so it can be used to transport people through thin walls without a mesmer portal. Also makes running people through maps so much faster since you can transport people to waypoints on the same map (like wanting to show a friend tequatl, but you only have 5 mins to get there and your friend hasn't been to sparkfly fen yet).

Edited November 16, 2023 by Westenev.5289

[Trejgon.9367]

1 hour ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

It's not as fast but it can go over any and all terrain, land or sea.

just going to drop a note in here, that it can only go so far over the sea as it's flight meter allows, which is not *that far*

[ShadowKatt.6740]

13 minutes ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

just going to drop a note in here, that it can only go so far over the sea as it's flight meter allows, which is not *that far*

But in your bumbling you've activated my trap card!....I don't play Yu-Gi-Oh, so just....put the appropriate trap card here.

As with the Gryphon, Skyscales of course benefit from extra height, and if you're crossing water you should know to get some before you try. However, with End of Dragons we were also blessed with a new toy to play with: The Mobile Aquatic Skyscale Transport and Launchpad System, or Skiff because acronyms are hard. Now, even if you were crossing water and found yourself in the drink, you could pop your skiff, anchor it, remount your skyscale and take off again because, unlike the gryphon, the skyscale can actually climb into the air. So, yes, the skyscale is fully capable of crossing water, even if it might need an assist on some of the larger bodies.

[idpersona.3810]

 Long-ish post maybe since I'm responding to a bunch of different things.

10 hours ago, Jumpin Lumpix.6108 said:

how is making the turtle not unique and obsolete compared to the skyscale (which can now do everything) = fun?

As stated (multiple times by multiple people), the turtle is not obsolete now. It just isn't.

6 hours ago, Jumpin Lumpix.6108 said:

This is what im talking about how its employee's as I've stated in other threads.. Everyone is saying its fine, or that they will continue to use the turtle or they like the change and it affects nothing in game.   Meanwhile, the reality in game is that whenever there is something to siege I see 95% skyscales spamming fireballs and almost no turtles lol.  So i love how there is this massive disconnect of "100%" of the forum saying its turtles all the way and in game its 95% skyscales being used, which is the point of me bringing up the topic as a thread lol.  I also like how people are saying the turtle is still useful cuz its so tanky..... LOL the skyscale FLIES IN THE AIR, and AVOIDS ALL DAMAGE.

Its like you guys just post on the forums but don't actually play the game, imagine that.

It never would have occurred to me that everyone who disagrees with an opinion of mine must be an Anet employee.

On this though, I think the forums are generally more informed on the behind the scenes numbers than the players in game. Players in game (like OP) may not actually realize just how much lower the siege damage is with the Skyscale than with the turtle. Combined with the fact that the turtle needs to be gotten through EoD, and only if you do a few extra collections. I think there are decent chances are that there are just more Skyscales in game now, especially in SotO.  

6 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Considering all the complaints about the process of unlocking the turtle, combined with the skyscale being made easier to get in SotO it may not be a choice, they might only have the skyscale. Although there are also people who don't seem to like swapping mounts and will stick to one (often the skyscale) even if it's not the best choice.

But I still encounter people who think you have to win the Dragon's End meta to get the turtle egg, and think that's still very rarely successful (which hasn't been true since the first week), then hear you have to do a strike as well and give up completely.

I think it's a bit like equipment, although more visible. I bet there's also a lot of people doing the Nayos meta in exotics with mis-matched or missing upgrades, not because they think it's better than a full set of matching ascended armour but because it's 'good enough' and it's what they've already got so they don't think it's worth the hassle of upgrading.

All of this.

3 hours ago, TheNurgle.4825 said:

 Like roller bettle is great on core maps, but do you really wanna use it at Echovald Wilds?

Roller Beetele (in my experience) the the go to mount for the meta events in Echovald.

2 minutes ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

However, with End of Dragons we were also blessed with a new toy to play with: The Mobile Aquatic Skyscale Transport and Launchpad System, or Skiff because acronyms are hard. Now, even if you were crossing water and found yourself in the drink, you could pop your skiff, anchor it, remount your skyscale and take off again because, unlike the gryphon, the skyscale can actually climb into the air. So, yes, the skyscale is fully capable of crossing water, even if it might need an assist on some of the larger bodies.

Honestly...this never even occurred to me. I just switch to Skimmer if I land in the water on a Skyscale.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

17 hours ago, idpersona.3810 said:

Fireball dmg (with raptor maserty): 3,270
turtle slam dmg (with raptor maserty): 11,898

All that needs to be said in this thread. 

Turtle hits door harder.

[Randulf.7614]

A slightly off topic, but gentle reminder that the turtle no longer requires the strike mission. This is for those poor people sitting 1/10 in LFG trying to find a group needlessly

On topic, I like my turtle. It wouldn't surprise me if they do something more with later like they did with the skyscale in SoTo

[TheQuickFox.3826]

I somewhat disagree.

1. Turtle is tanky. No other mount has this.
2. Turtles has more DPS (when you have a gunner)
3. Turtle can take two players
4. Turtle can quickly destroy CC bars

While the SkyScale and Griffon clearly win as best mounts overall, I often use the turtle for these reasons. Other mounts I hardly ever use, except for the niche use tailored for a specific mount such as the sand portals.

[Assolador.3598]

3 hours ago, TheNurgle.4825 said:

When I heard about skyscale getting fireball skill I was against it due to experience with turtle. I need to write it skyscale's fireball is great skill. Also reason why skyscale is used by almost everyone almost all time is simple convenience. With skyscale I do not need to care about terrain so I do not need to think what is ahead of me. Like roller bettle is great on core maps, but do you really wanna use it at Echovald Wilds?

This would make trutle more fun and I would still not use it.

echovald is one of the best roller maps that isnt actually a desert

[Lucy.3728]

21 hours ago, Jumpin Lumpix.6108 said:

SO in addition to the skyscale making long range tagging completely trivial so you don't have to play, and the fact that it has mostly replaced the griffon and raptor and completely replaced the rabbit, it has now also completely replaced the siege turtle as well.

1) I never used the Siege Turtle.
I got it myself very, very late just for the sake to have it. Before I rather sold the mats but to waste them in a mount I probably won't use.
Thanks to the turtle, stuff like carrots raised a lot in value.
Thank you turtle.

2) I love the raptor. 🥰 I often use it.

3) I dislike the rabbit. I was glad when I didn't need it as many times as before anymore. 👍

4) The Griffon, like the beetle are my hate-love mounts. I can't handle them well and thus don't use them often. So the skyscale was a good replacement for the Griffon.
However, with time I started the race adventures for the Griffon and actually had to learn how to control it properly.
With SotO I use the Griffon more than ever before. The diving and acceleration and raising and the nice color trails of the skin I use are just cool, cool and cool.
My skyscale is a mere working mount. I don't think it's cool. It's nice. It's useful. Very useful.

But raptor is pure fun.
Griffon too on the right maps.

[Manpag.6421]

1 hour ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

Now, even if you were crossing water and found yourself in the drink, you could pop your skiff, anchor it, remount your skyscale and take off again because, unlike the gryphon, the skyscale can actually climb into the air. So, yes, the skyscale is fully capable of crossing water, even if it might need an assist on some of the larger bodies.

I think you make a valid point, but not the one you think you’re making. That process is massively slower and more complex that simply using your skimmer or skiff to cover the same stretch of water. The fact that that’s your solution to skyscale having comparatively limited horizontal flight range shows that you really enjoy riding your skyscale. And when you enjoy a mount, you’ll go to sometimes extreme lengths to make it work in ways it isn’t optimal for, like my turtle-climbing-walls example.

Discussions around the skyscale often boil down to “people just like it because it’s useful”, but I think that only accounts for so much. There’s probably a good chunk of people who like it because it’s a dragon, and they would rather do content flying a dragon than use a more appropriate mount. Skyscale doing siege damage isn’t just ANet making the most useful mount more useful, it’s them giving the huge amount of players who enjoy it the opportunity to use it even more, and that’s actually a really nice thing.

1 hour ago, Randulf.7614 said:

On topic, I like my turtle. It wouldn't surprise me if they do something more with later like they did with the skyscale in SoTo

I’m hoping this will be the case; we got very few EoD maps compared to PoF, and an alternative unlocking route and enhanced mastery like they did for skyscale could serve to address some of the pain points for people and give it wider/more obvious utility.

[Trejgon.9367]

2 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

But in your bumbling you've activated my trap card!....I don't play Yu-Gi-Oh, so just....put the appropriate trap card here.

As with the Gryphon, Skyscales of course benefit from extra height, and if you're crossing water you should know to get some before you try. However, with End of Dragons we were also blessed with a new toy to play with: The Mobile Aquatic Skyscale Transport and Launchpad System, or Skiff because acronyms are hard. Now, even if you were crossing water and found yourself in the drink, you could pop your skiff, anchor it, remount your skyscale and take off again because, unlike the gryphon, the skyscale can actually climb into the air. So, yes, the skyscale is fully capable of crossing water, even if it might need an assist on some of the larger bodies.

You do realize that all of these takes way more effort than just dropping into the water and remounting into skimmer right xD Also, irrelevant, it needs additional tools to properly cross large enough body of water, so most of the seas you will need more than the dragon to cross 😉

If swapping mounts and other tools are taken into consideration, then going to the cailing, quad dash upwards+ glider boost with jade bot into gryphon, now that will allow you to cross all the bodies of water in the game without having to use skimmer.... still won't get you anywhere underwater.....

 

EDIT:

24 minutes ago, Manpag.6421 said:

Skyscale doing siege damage isn’t just ANet making the most useful mount more useful, it’s them giving the huge amount of players who enjoy it the opportunity to use it even more, and that’s actually a really nice thing.

let's be real here, the only reason skyscale got that mastery with Nayos is because meta in nayos requires siege damage against the gate, and there WILL be people attempting it without the turtle, so the mastery is there primarily for them - it would be highly unfair if main map meta in a SotO map required a mount from EoD to complete.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Lord Trejgon.2809

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

The only problem with turtle are the plebs who refuse to Open/Ride the 2nd seat.
The Nayos meta didn't NEED to have Siege Damage requirements, but whatever the reasons the devs decided to give skyscale Siege Dmg, it now makes things easier in places like Drizzlewood/Gyala, where in the unlikelihood of Turtle HP running out, u can simply Skyscale and keep blasting some lesser Siege Dmg.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

1 hour ago, Manpag.6421 said:

I think you make a valid point, but not the one you think you’re making. That process is massively slower and more complex that simply using your skimmer or skiff to cover the same stretch of water. The fact that that’s your solution to skyscale having comparatively limited horizontal flight range shows that you really enjoy riding your skyscale. And when you enjoy a mount, you’ll go to sometimes extreme lengths to make it work in ways it isn’t optimal for, like my turtle-climbing-walls example.

1 hour ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

You do realize that all of these takes way more effort than just dropping into the water and remounting into skimmer right xD Also, irrelevant, it needs additional tools to properly cross large enough body of water, so most of the seas you will need more than the dragon to cross 😉

You both made the same point and so I'll simply answer you both at once. I did something VERY simple. The default key for mounts is X, and so I bound my skiff to Shift + X. So when I'm on my skyscale and I hit the water it's very quick. Shift + X (Skiff), 0 (Anchor), X (Mount). It takes only as long as the animations take to play out. Barely enough to get wet. So, there you go. Your arguements are invalid *tips fedora* G'day!

[Manpag.6421]

21 minutes ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

So when I'm on my skyscale and I hit the water it's very quick. Shift + X (Skiff), 0 (Anchor), X (Mount). It takes only as long as the animations take to play out. Barely enough to get wet. So, there you go. Your arguements are invalid *tips fedora* G'day!

You can absolutely convince yourself of that, and you do you, whatever works. But even aside from that being three button presses and two animations vs one animation to mount straight to skimmer, you’re going to be moving around 250 u/s slower on your skyscale than you would be on the skimmer to cross the same body of water.

It’s okay to use suboptimal mounts because you like them (I barely touch my skyscale, even where it would be better than turtle), but you can’t change that it’s objectively slower.

[Trejgon.9367]

1 hour ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

You both made the same point and so I'll simply answer you both at once. I did something VERY simple. The default key for mounts is X, and so I bound my skiff to Shift + X. So when I'm on my skyscale and I hit the water it's very quick. Shift + X (Skiff), 0 (Anchor), X (Mount). It takes only as long as the animations take to play out. Barely enough to get wet. So, there you go. Your arguements are invalid *tips fedora* G'day!

My argument is very valid. if you already landed in water, and summon skiff, it is faster to just keep going with the skiff than to anchor and mount skyscale (as Manpag has laready mentioned)

At this same moment mounting skimmer instead of skiff would also be faster than your whole procedure, I guess which of those two would be faster would depend on which masteries/jade bot modules you have, and/or what kind of terrain we are dealing with.

So while you can continue believing that skyscale is capable of crossing seas on it's own I will just continue following water-landing with shift+3 for skimmer, have a nice day too! 🙂

[blp.3489]

8 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

On 11/15/2023 at 6:29 PM, idpersona.3810 said:

Fireball dmg (with raptor maserty): 3,270
turtle slam dmg (with raptor maserty): 11,898

All that needs to be said in this thread. 

Turtle hits door harder.

But the turtle slam has a 4.5s cooldown while my impression is that you can spit a fireball every second or so, maybe faster.  You can use the invigorating something or other skill to avoid the cooldown after using your stack of shots so you can fire quite a few shots in a row.  So the damage/second isn't as different as the single skill damage numbers would indicate.

[PseudoNewb.5468]

People sleep on the fact that

Both turtle slam and cannons do defiance damage.

Turtle cannons can be spammed (there is NO cast time) + refilled with bond of endurance. You can drop 5 shells in like 1/4 a second and if you use bond of endurance the next 5 shells come out in around 3 more seconds. 10 shells in 4 seconds can be a huge opener against anything assuming you fill the turtle cannons before the attack window opens.

The gunner can leave and empty turtle, and do regular damage rotation, or find another fully loaded turtle, then go back when the turtle is refilled. There is no combat restrictions for hopping onto the gunner seat.

 

Anet, can you make it so that the interact to board turtle have different and increasing priorities relative to how many available shells are on each turtle? When there is a stack of turtles I have to wiggle around so much to try to find a fresh turtle and avoid reentering a turtle I just emptied.