Is the skyscale worth it?

[SouthPaw.9705]

Yes it is.

[asket.5674]

Yeah its absolutely worth it, and the collection is not that grindy, it took me, a working dad, a week of playing daily ~1-2hours. Wait until you discover legendary trinket collections..

 

edit: to be fair I bought every part of the collections that are able to be purchased. 

Edited January 2 by asket.5674

[Passerbye.6291]

On 12/31/2023 at 10:48 AM, Godfather.9058 said:

I checked the required grind to get it. And it's absolutely insane. The end reward doesn't seem like much.

In terms of horizontal mobility, it's laughable. I overtake skyscales with my beetle or gryphon all the time during metas. I can even overtake them with the jackal if I use the vigor buff.

Vertical mobility is better. Obviously superior to the springer. Might be useful if you are going for map completion and can't be bothered to find the bouncing mushroom or the place where to jump with the springer. Currently I got no plans on doing map completion. I did it with 1 character and that was enough for me.

It is pretty close to must have imo. Assuming you get all the masteries pertaining to it, as well as glide booster (ideally level 3) there are some sick things you can do with it. Keep in mind that starting a dodge and chaining more back to back with some flight bar remaining allows you to go past your soft cap of altitude.

- Jump up and mount skyscale, fly upward till about half flight bar, then do 2x upward barrel rolls, you'll get your endurance refilled by the end of the 2nd roll due to having mounted up on air, do 2x more rolls, bond of vigor during the cast of the last roll and do 2x more rolls for a final roll count of 6, this gives you an insane amount of altitude past the normal soft cap of altitude on skyscale, you can then dismount and glide boost to get even higher if you so choose, you can then mount griffon and full dive and you'll still be way above the ground after it, allowing you to not only do a full dive from 0 starting altitude, also giving you ample altitude to work with afterwards.

- One that not everyone knows, if you mount up skyscale, fly upwards till the limit, dismount, glide boost, mount back up, you only lose about 10-15% of your flight bar, which essentially means, if you are patient enough, you can repeat this every 30 seconds to fly up infinitely on skyscale. This obviously works a lot better with a tier 3 glide booster. I've personally reached the ceiling of multiple maps doing this.

- Fly up, wall jump, fly up, wall jump, fly up, bond of vigor, fly up, wall jump, fly up, fall jump. This simple combination allows you to get to an altitude a multitude of times higher than you could ever reach with the bunny.

- In combat mounting and all around mounting skyscale and flying up to prevent mobs from engaging you helps immensely when you quickly need to deal with IRL stuff in the middle of combat.

- Mount skimmer on top of a body of water, dismount and mount skyscale to go up without needing to leverage a ledge with a springer.

Edited January 1 by Passerbye.6291

[knives.6345]

It is.

I don't usually care if a few people got to where I want to be a few seconds early.

It's the most versatile. I don't like switching things. 

Plus it's good for AFK since most mobs can't reach you. lol

[Sarge shot Grif.6450]

It's been made easier to get TWICE with a second acquisition method added in soto and you'll use it more than any other mount. It's 1000% worth it. 

[Lucy.3728]

23 hours ago, asket.5674 said:

Yeah its absolutely worth it, and the collection is not that grindy, it took me, a working dad, a week of playing daily ~1-2hours. Wait until you discover legendary trinket collections..

And it took me, a working not-parent, 6 weeks of playing daily and almost quitting the game.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

The unfortunate answer is yes. I've long stated my hatred for the skyscale as it renders all the other mounts useless as the Do-Everything mount, but it IS the Do-Everything mount. It goes everywhere a land based mount goes, flies over water, hovers in place, and NOW it even seiges just like a turtle because why would you use any other mount?

Yes, you can still use any mount you want, yes there are some mounts that do ONE thing better than the skyscale, but the skyscale unfortunately does everything and Anet has shown where they want you to invest your time.

[asket.5674]

56 minutes ago, Lucy.3728 said:

And it took me, a working not-parent, 6 weeks of playing daily and almost quitting the game.

Ah well i forgot to mention that i bought the timegated stuff. But that stuff is cheap, cost ~60g or so. 

[Gwynnion.7364]

It's worth it via the new acquisition method in SOTO, which isn't that hard or expensive.  I got it done just doing the storyline and the occasional map meta, although the process of finding the egg to start with is annoying.  I can't speak to the original method as I could never be bothered.
The funny thing is, even in the SOTO maps, the griffon is just way better for getting where you need to go as long as you have starting altitude.  The skyscale is slow and for some reason there's an insurmountable wall every 50 feet for you to climb over.  The upgrades make it less painful but it never feels great.  In older maps, though, you can pretty much go where you please, and having done them the hard way for years -- I'll take it. 
It's not like the other SOTO masteries are all that worthwhile in comparison unless you're going for the legendaries, eventually.

[Fleabite.7528]

Back when LWS4 happened, I got my Skyscale early (when the grind was even longer) and have never regretted it. 

Just before Christmas, I finally tackled Skyscale on my Steam account - again using the LWS4 method rather than the easier SOTO route. The whole thing took me just 12 days of intermittent play. Certainly not an "insane grind" imo - particularly compared with legendaries. It took me several years to grind out my leggy PvP armour sets, eg. 

[frazazel.7501]

I did the LWS4 unlock last year, just before SotO landed. It took me about a month of dedicating about an hour a day. It's an investment, to be sure. But with the new SotO method, it costs less time, and there are more masteries than there used to be. So it's even more worth it than it used to be.

Skyscale is great for vertical climbs, and for going over terrain that griffon can't jump over. It also has a mid-air dash that is something like a raptor leap or a jackal blink, which makes it faster for short distances than griffon, and is easier to control precisely than raptor or jackal. So, I use skyscale to mount-dash-dismount between harvesting nodes, or to get to a merchant in town.

I use skyscale the most out of all of my mounts. When I intend to use my griffon, I always start with skyscale to get as high as I can before switching to griffon. It's also great at precision landing (which is difficult and unforgiving with a griffon). With the LWS4 Champion mastery line, you can get WAY more vertical height than springer, and then you can almost double that if you're at a wall with both LWS4 skyscale and SotO flight mastery trait lines. And it saves time versus springer, too, because you're climbing as you get to the wall (instead of running up to the wall, charging, and then jumping up). Slower if you're already right at the base, sure. But how often is that the way you get around?

[blackthunder.7415]

I'd say it's worth it. I just unlocked it over the weekend and it took me about a week to complete all of the requirements. It kinda negates the use of the other mounts, where as prior to unlocking the Skyscale, I'd have to use different mounts to accomplish different things. 

[Donari.5237]

5 hours ago, Gwynnion.7364 said:

The funny thing is, even in the SOTO maps, the griffon is just way better for getting where you need to go as long as you have starting altitude.  The skyscale is slow and for some reason there's an insurmountable wall every 50 feet for you to climb over. 

Those marble walls all have teensy tiny little ledges a bit below their top, the decorative trim, which a skyscale can land on sideways.  Along with the mastery for a higher wall jump, it's entirely possible to get over them.  A little bit tedious, especially as the wall jump roots you in a way -- that is, it bounces you up but you can't move forward until the animation is finished, so it feels extra clunky and awkward.

As to the worth, absolutely it's worth it.  I got my skyscale when it first released, before they nerfed the time gates.  I did follow guides to find all the scavenger hunt items in Dragonfall, and I did still find those bits tedious, though not nearly bad enough to make me give up.  Still it has not replaced all my other mounts, far from it.  I use all of them in their appropriate niches, and raptor remains my default mount when I hit X.  When I'm helping a friend get hero points I only use the mounts they have unlocked so I don't leave them behind.  But I do use the skyscale an awful lot on my own.  Being able to hover out of aggro when opening my map to find my next objective is fantastic.  Having shortcut ways past obstacles is marvelous.  Remember, you only need to do the unlock once and then your whole account has it forever for all alts.

[Yttris.2945]

On 12/31/2023 at 1:48 AM, Godfather.9058 said:

I checked the required grind to get it. And it's absolutely insane. The end reward doesn't seem like much.

In terms of horizontal mobility, it's laughable. I overtake skyscales with my beetle or gryphon all the time during metas. I can even overtake them with the jackal if I use the vigor buff.

Vertical mobility is better. Obviously superior to the springer. Might be useful if you are going for map completion and can't be bothered to find the bouncing mushroom or the place where to jump with the springer. Currently I got no plans on doing map completion. I did it with 1 character and that was enough for me.

*walks mountless character across maps while people whiz along complain about being bored*

*shares a chuckle with a passing neutral mob*

[Freya.9075]

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: Yes, it is!

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Yes.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

On 1/2/2024 at 4:06 PM, Lucy.3728 said:

And it took me, a working not-parent, 6 weeks of playing daily and almost quitting the game.

It also took me about 3 months to get the Skyscale if I count from the time I created my account.

[Assolador.3598]

On 12/31/2023 at 4:48 AM, Godfather.9058 said:

I checked the required grind to get it. And it's absolutely insane. The end reward doesn't seem like much.

In terms of horizontal mobility, it's laughable. I overtake skyscales with my beetle or gryphon all the time during metas. I can even overtake them with the jackal if I use the vigor buff.

Vertical mobility is better. Obviously superior to the springer. Might be useful if you are going for map completion and can't be bothered to find the bouncing mushroom or the place where to jump with the springer. Currently I got no plans on doing map completion. I did it with 1 character and that was enough for me.

it will will break all map exploration as u know, so yes

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 1/2/2024 at 8:16 AM, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

The unfortunate answer is yes. I've long stated my hatred for the skyscale as it renders all the other mounts useless as the Do-Everything mount, but it IS the Do-Everything mount. It goes everywhere a land based mount goes, flies over water, hovers in place, and NOW it even seiges just like a turtle because why would you use any other mount?

Yes, you can still use any mount you want, yes there are some mounts that do ONE thing better than the skyscale, but the skyscale unfortunately does everything and Anet has shown where they want you to invest your time.

Only for people who don't keybind so that frequently swapping between different mounts is a hassle.  I'm sure it makes sense to just flap around everywhere in that context.  But for everyone else griffon, beetle, and raptor/jackal see plenty of use.  The only mount that is almost entirely overlapped by the skyscale is the springer, which is mostly just used for the CC on engage.

[Gwynnion.7364]

On 1/2/2024 at 4:43 PM, Donari.5237 said:

Those marble walls all have teensy tiny little ledges a bit below their top, the decorative trim, which a skyscale can land on sideways.  Along with the mastery for a higher wall jump, it's entirely possible to get over them.  A little bit tedious, especially as the wall jump roots you in a way -- that is, it bounces you up but you can't move forward until the animation is finished, so it feels extra clunky and awkward

Oh, yeah, it's doable.  It's just annoying that every wall and ledge seems to be like that just to slow you down.  I want to ask whoever built the place what they were thinking!  I always imagine there's some wizard who's been trapped in a courtyard for centuries because he doesn't have a maxed out skyscale.

[Jianyu.7065]

We go through this debate several times a year on this forum....

[Tiviana.2650]

On 1/2/2024 at 5:12 PM, Yttris.2945 said:

*walks mountless character across maps while people whiz along complain about being bored*

*shares a chuckle with a passing neutral mob*

And you know what im okay with this, I dont belittle anyone that wants to actually explore the game that way. You do miss a lot of wild crazy weird stuff in the game just whizzing along. The best hidden spots and Easter eggs i found were by running around the maps on foot, some of the best funny dialog too. I still run on foot sometimes when I want to explore