Once you’ve gotten to know your raptor, springer, skimmer, and jackal mounts, it’s time to expand your collection—and your horizons. If you’re just getting started, make sure to check out the first part of this series to get up to speed!
In this spoiler-light overview, we’ll cover the griffon, a flying mount included in GuildWars2:PathofFire™. You’ll also learn about Living World Season 4’s roller beetle and skyscale, and the World vs. World-exclusive warclaw mount.
Griffon
- Required Content: Complete the GuildWars2:PathofFire expansion story (unlock and Mastery track)
- Cost: 250 gold in total
- Path of Fire Mastery Points to Fully Unlock: 10
While the GuildWars2:PathofFire story will guide you toward earning your first four mounts, the griffon is rare and elusive. Acquiring one is a worthy challenge for experienced players.
After you complete the GuildWars2:PathofFire expansion story, you’ll begin to find unusual items after defeating enemies in the Crystal Desert: Strange Pellet of Bones and Fur, Strange Droppings, and Strange Feather. Follow these clues to begin your first griffon collection.
To complete the griffon collections, you’ll need to search for hidden items throughout the GuildWars2:PathofFire explorable zones. You can take a griffon out on loan to help you reach some tough spots, but it’s a good idea to fully unlock your other mounts’ Mastery tracks and familiarize yourself with the Crystal Desert before you begin.
The griffon can’t take off from the ground, but once you get the hang of its movement skills it’s excellent at covering long distances quickly. It will gradually lose altitude as it soars, so managing its speed and momentum are key to keeping it in the air as long as possible. Use its Dive skill to zoom toward the ground, picking up a massive speed burst. Then use the Climb skill at maximum speed to lift yourself high in the air again and fly on. Just be careful not to Dive too close to the ground!
If you do feel like making a dramatic landing, use the griffon’s engagement skill, Swoop, to torpedo into enemies. Hit them at top speed to do more damage.
Roller Beetle
- Required Content: GuildWars2:PathofFire (required for Living World Season 4) and “Long Live the Lich” (unlock and Mastery track)
- Unlock: “Long Live the Lich” story
- Path of Fire Mastery Points to Fully Unlock: 12
Roller beetles go fast. Really fast—it’s a good thing they’re so friendly. Beetle enthusiasts have set up racing courses throughout Tyria, and once you have your own round, brightly-colored friend you can join them in their quest to break the known limits of speed!
To unlock the roller beetle, you’ll need to own the third episode of Living World Season 4, “Long Live the Lich.” You’ll also need to own GuildWars2:PathofFire to play the season and access Crystal Desert explorable zones.
At the beginning of the story chapter Tactical Triage you’ll be prompted to check in with Gorrik, a character you’ll meet earlier in the season. Gorrik loves bugs, and he’ll guide you through the roller beetle collections as you assist him with his research. Raising a roller beetle isn’t as challenging as obtaining a griffon, but you’ll need to visit several explorable zones across Central Tyria.
It’s easy to use the roller beetle’s Boost movement skill to rush across flat land with few obstacles, but if you take a sharp turn too hastily you might skid off your intended path. With practice, you can use the Drift skill to make a smooth swing around corners and change direction without tumbling over a cliff or puttering to a stop. This is especially critical in roller beetle races, which wind through obstacles and tough turns.
Warclaw
- Required Content: GuildWars2:PathofFire and 1 World Ability Point in World vs. World’s Warclaw Mastery
- Cost: 8 gold, 50 WvW Skirmish Claim Tickets, and 250 Badges of Honor
- World Ability Points to Fully Unlock: 166
The warclaw is the only mount that can be used in World vs. World. You’ll need to own GuildWars2:PathofFire to begin unlocking it, but it’s obtained entirely through WvW gameplay.
In WvW, you can customize your role in battle by spending World Ability Points on upgrades. Put one point in the Warclaw Mastery track to begin earning the Warclaw Companion achievement, which tasks you with completing WvW activities to collect a full set of warclaw armor.
If you’ve never played World vs. World before and you’d like a warclaw of your own, the collection doesn’t require any legendary feats of battle—you can jump in and start gathering currency and completing collection activities while you learn the game mode. Keep an eye out for commanders leading large groups and join their squads! It’s easiest to catch up to them when they announce that they’re regrouping to your world’s Citadel waypoint.
Skyscale
- Required Content: GuildWars2:PathofFire and Living World Season 4
- Unlock: “War Eternal” story
- Cost: 41 gold, 5,390 karma, 1,700 volatile magic, 520 Trade Contracts, 250 Kralkatite Ore, 250 Difluorite Crystals, 250 Inscribed Shards, 250 Lumps of Mistonium, 250 Branded Masses, and 260 Mistborn Motes
- Path of Fire Mastery Points to Fully Unlock: 12
The skyscale’s mysterious origins are revealed in the final episode of Living World Season 4, “War Eternal.”
While you only need to have fully completed the Living World episodes “A Star to Guide Us” and “War Eternal” to obtain your skyscale, you’ll need access to all Living World Season 4 episodes to visit their explorable zones. The best way to make sure you can get everything you need and know where to find it is to play through the full Season 4 story before you begin.
A large part of the skyscale’s cost is in unique resources obtained from events and resource nodes in specific Living World Season 4 explorable zones. You’ll have lots of opportunities to obtain these as you play through the episodes, so you can begin gathering 250 of each to prepare for your skyscale. These are also used for other rewards and are well worth hoarding when you get them!
- Kralkatite Ore: Domain of Istan, “Daybreak”
- Difluorite Crystal: Sandswept Isles, “A Bug in the System”
- Inscribed Shards: Domain of Kourna, “Long Live the Lich”
- Lump of Mistonium: Jahai Bluffs, “A Star to Guide Us”
- Branded Mass: Thunderhead Peaks, “All or Nothing”
- Mistborn Mote: Dragonfall, “War Eternal”
Unlike the griffon, the skyscale can lift off from the ground, hover in place, and ascend and descend at will. It also uses its powerful claws to cling to vertical surfaces. This makes it the perfect companion for exploring areas with room to fly but little space to maneuver quickly.
Most of your skyscale’s movement skills will consume energy from its flight meter, which lowers your maximum altitude until it’s fully depleted. The meter will refill as soon as you land, but there are a few tricks you can use to restore it mid-flight, like using the Descend skill or touching Volatile Magic nodes. When you unlock Wall Launch, the final tier of the skyscale’s Mastery track, you can take flight again by leaping off walls and converting your endurance to flight meter energy.
You don’t need every mount to enjoy riding around Tyria, but the more you unlock the more options you have for travel—and that means it’s easier to pick the ones you like best. In the next blog, we’ll take a look at the unmounted travel options available through the Mastery system and meet the GuildWars2:EndofDragons™ siege turtle mount. Happy riding!
