At long last I have a Skyscale Mount in GW2. It has been a long and punishing journey. The longest effort by far has been to get the various parts of the “Saddle”.
After the first few steps, there is the long grind for 250 of each of 6 different materials. This is a punishing grind for a couple of reasons:
(1) There is a throttle on each one of these materials so that only so many of them can be gathered each day. They are account bound when acquired so it’s not possible to purchase them on the market board. If they are gathered, then after so many are gathered, then then the nodes where they are gathered just dry up.
(2) Also, the areas where most of the materials are gathered are very dangerous for solo players. Thunderhead Peaks, and Kourna are so dangerous that solo farming is essentially impossible. I was able to farm Eternal Ice in Bjora Marches and with that material, you can purchase each of the other materials. But Eternal Ice gathering, or collecting from Events or Chests is throttled as well. I was only able to purchase 10 or 20 of the other materials per day since each 10 materials required 75 Eternal Ice. I was able to do chains of Meta Events in both zones of the BJora Marches map once or twice a day to get quite a few Eternal Ice to purchase other materials. It is reasonable to farm Diflourite in the Sandswept Isles as a Solo player and this is quite an interesting zone. I was able to get about 100 Mistborn Motes in a day with gathering and doing events in Dragonfall. I had another 150 or so of those from previous events and gathering from working Dragonfall during the Skyscale Achievements.
After the Saddle It Is Easy
After you grind for the Saddle materials, completing the achievement to get the Skyscale is relatively easy. You meet up with Gorrik, then fly a Skyscale from a “Rental Point” in each map to capture a Rift – or just sit in it actually. This is quite easy since the Rift is always below the launch point and the Skyscale can backup and hover. But there are a lot of these to capture – 28. One of almost, or exactly, every map in the game. This Skyscale Flight page shows a map to each Rental and Rift point and I was able to complete this achievement in a couple of hours. I have characters scattered around the world, and you can complete these items with any character on the account.
Ok. I get it. The Skyscale is quite nice. More than just a cosmetic upgrade. So they are making you work for it, not just work to grind the materials for the saddle, but also to make you visit all the maps in the game to make sure that you have seen the entire world. Ok. Makes sense.
But the grinding of these materials – 250 each of 6 materials – is the real punishment. Especially since acquiring them is throttled. Now I have the Skyscale and some day soon, I’ll be able to use it in Cantha when that expansion comes out. Can’t wait, as I’ve said.
Still Working on Amaro in FFXIV
As I mentioned in my earlier post about the Four Mounts, I still need to acquire the Amaro mount in FFXIV. I’m a long way from done there. But that grind is not a meaningless, throttled fetch quest, but it requires leveling all the War and Magic jobs to level 80. And you have the satisfaction of learning all the jobs along the way. It takes much longer than the Skyscale has, but it does not feel like a grind, but an adventure.
May you walk in the light of the Crystal.
:ww
Windy Weather 