Skyscale: two routes, and one costs a third as much

The Skyscale is the only mount that hovers in place and climbs sheer walls. Once you have it, Tyrian terrain stops arguing with you. Where you used to spend half an hour hunting for a way round, you now just go up.

The catch is that there are two ways to unlock it, they differ by a wide margin, and the wiki describes both without telling you which one is yours. So I will.

Short answer

If you own Secrets of the Obscure, take that route. 15 gold, one evening, no waiting.

The long Living World Season 4 route has exactly one reason to exist, and it only matters if you are building a particular legendary. More on that below.

The two routes, side by side

The short route and the long route are not the same purchase, and the difference matters more than the time saved.

Secrets of the Obscure route. Finish the story chapter “Hell Breaks Loose”, unlock the “Who Rescues Whom?” mastery, then complete the “A New Friend” collection. That collection asks for 15 gold, 12 Pieces of Skyscale Food, 30 Provisioner Tokens, 375 Pinches of Stardust, 375 Static Charges and 500 Fine Rift Essence. No daily gates.

Living World Season 4 route. Path of Fire plus every Season 4 episode, the “Legacy” and “Descent” chapters, and then: 41 gold, 5,390 karma, 1,700 Volatile Magic, 520 Trade Contracts, 250 each of Kralkatite Ore, Difluorite Crystal, Inscribed Shard, Lump of Mistonium and Branded Mass, plus 260 Mistborn Motes, 12 Pieces of Skyscale Food and a Grow Lamp.

Minimum time on the long route is 3 days and 8 hours: eight hours of two-hour gates between collections, and the Skyscale Care step needs two daily resets to pass.

🔴 The catch nobody puts in a headline. The Secrets of the Obscure route does not unlock the Living World Season 4 mastery track, and that track holds Rift Repair. Rift Repair is required for the Vision legendary trinket. So if a legendary trinket is anywhere in your plans, the short route leaves you with a skyscale and a locked door, and you will end up doing the long collections anyway.

The Secrets of the Obscure route

Finish the story chapter Hell Breaks Loose. That opens the collection A New Friend.

What it takes off you:

• 15 gold
• 12 × Piece of Skyscale Food
• 30 × Provisioner Token
• 375 × Pinch of Stardust
• 375 × Static Charge
• 500 × Fine Rift Essence

Rift Essence and Stardust accumulate on their own from rifts in the SotO maps while you play, so there is usually nothing to farm separately. There is effectively no time gate: with the story already done, this is a single evening.

The Living World Season 4 route

Needs Path of Fire and every episode of Season 4. The collection is called Newborn Skyscales.

The bill:

Item	Amount
Gold	41
Karma	5,390
Volatile Magic	1,700
Trade Contracts	520
Kralkatite Ore	250
Difluorite Crystal	250
Inscribed Shard	250
Lump of Mistonium	250
Branded Mass	250
Mistborn Motes	260
Piece of Skyscale Food	12
Grow Lamp	1

The gold figure is lower than the short route once you price its materials. Gold is not the trap.

Trap one: six currencies you cannot buy. Kralkatite Ore, Difluorite Crystal, Inscribed Shard, Lump of Mistonium, Branded Mass and Mistborn Motes are all account bound and earned on specific Season 4 maps. None of them exist on the Trading Post, so “I’ll just buy the rest” does not apply. You go to Sandswept Isles, Domain of Kourna, Jahai Bluffs, Thunderhead Peaks and Dragonfall, and you collect them by hand.

Trap two: the clock. The Skyscale Care stage runs on daily resets, at least two of them. No amount of gold makes it faster than three days, and in practice it is three days and eight hours.

What it can do, and the mastery track

Combat Launch is the engage, on a 180-second recharge: leap at a target and breathe fire on it. Fireball is an aimed attack you can use while flying. Wall Jump charges a leap off a vertical surface, Dash pushes you forward in the air, and Descend drops altitude on demand.

The three shared bonds are there as always: Bond of Life at 180 seconds, Bond of Vigor at 60, Bond of Faith at 30.

The Season 4 mastery track is three tiers costing 12 Path of Fire mastery points:

• Air Rescue, 571,500 XP, 3 points. Mount in midair while falling.
• Rift Repair, 609,600 XP, 4 points. Close rifts and reveal flight paths.
• Wall Launch, 698,500 XP, 5 points. Launch off walls for real height.

Wall Launch is the one that changes the mount from useful to absurd. With it, a skyscale climbs any vertical surface in the game in stages, which means most jumping puzzles, most cliffs and a good number of things ArenaNet clearly did not expect you to reach are open to you.

There is a particular moment every skyscale owner remembers: the first time you look at a mountain that used to require a route, and go straight up the side of it instead.

When the long route is still the right one

One reason, and it is a real one: the short route does not unlock the Living World Season 4 mastery track. That track is required for the legendary trinket Vision.

So:

• building Vision → take the long route, and start it now rather than twice;
• not building Vision → short route, no second thoughts.

There is a softer argument too. If you were going to work through Season 4 anyway for the story and the achievements, most of those currencies arrive as a side effect, and the collection stops being a separate job.

What not to do

Do not buy SotO for the Skyscale alone. The expansion costs more than any amount of farming, and the long route gets you the same mount, only slower.

Do not start the long collection “and figure it out later”. Six currencies at 250 apiece is not something that accumulates in the background over a week of ordinary play. If you commit, look at which of those maps you want for other reasons and plan the route around them.

Do not chase the Skyscale as your first mount. The Raptor, the Springer and the Griffon buy you more freedom of movement for less, and the Skyscale after them feels like a fine addition rather than the only way to travel.