#tagging in saint and mal since they're my gw2 mutuals

[huntunderironskies]

Rating the GW2 Mounts in the most Unhelpful Way Possible

I can now say I have thought about the most useless worldbuilding exercise for GW2: how mounts would theoretically feel to ride. This is, as I'm sure you can tell, the most important thing to consider in a video game. What's a mechanic? Never heard of her.

So a quick prelude: if you've never rode horses before: you cannot actually sit still in the saddle or you will, probably literally, break your crotch and/or fall off if the horse is doing anything faster than a trot. Because the horse is, well, moving and its muscles and legs are going to shift you around on its back. In order to not die or be seriously injured, you have to use the stirrups (unless you're going bareback in which case…yeah, I'm not sure what you'd do because I've never tried, I assume you would have to grip pretty tightly with your legs around the horse's side so you can still keep with the horse's body motions) to lift yourself up and then back down with the horse's gait. There's a rhythm to it and you kind of get used to it over time. Now, as we all know, horses don't exist, but the techniques should be roughly comparable, so now I have given unnecessarily in-depth consideration to what the different mounts would be like to ride.

Raptor

I'd imagine this would be pretty rough-- having its center of gravity towards its back end and therefore jerking forward a lot would make it a bumpy ride even if your balance and technique is really good because you'd have the additional complication of needing to lean forward while keeping your rhythm. Also the raptor bobs forward a lot when they're moving, which again makes it hard to keep your balance. 5/10, but that long jump looks like it'd be really fun until you get the mastery where it gets to be an absurdly long jump.

Springer

God, this looks like they'd be a nightmare to ride. All of the bouncing around means it'd be hitting the ground hard which is probably fine for the springer since they're built like kangaroos but not for you. This would be particularly bad in its high jump since you'd need to stay high in the saddle for the duration of it before the springer hits the ground. Even with the backpiece on the saddle giving you more of a seat to settle in, it seems like there's a serious risk of sliding off. 3/10.

Jackal

Among the most comfortable looking other than the turtle which doesn't have a saddle so much as a mobile command center. That said, briefly heading through the Realm of Torment while porting would probably be a little scary. 8/10. Probably no different than riding a horse, honestly, if the horse went to hell whenever it needed to travel somewhere it couldn't otherwise reach.

Skimmer

So the skimmer seems to be more or less frictionless other than air resistance, which would probably make it very comfortable to ride. It's just hovering all the time meaning there's little adjustment to deal with. The saddle being set that far back looks like it'd be a little odd to get used to but at least skimmers don't really do sudden stops so much as sliding to a stop so overbalancing wouldn't be too much of a problem. I'm not sure how going that fast underwater would feel because they have not invented underwater jetpacks yet, but I imagine that much water pressure whooshing past you would mean you'd have to work a lot harder to not fall backwards off the saddle especially since they are fast underwater. The aileron roll that it does during its engage animation seems like your primary trick riding stunt and would take a lot of practice to do right but that wouldn't be something a beginning rider would deal with so I'm not counting that. 9/10 on land, 3/10 underwater….probably? Who knows.

Griffon

General speculation I've read is that winged creatures would be particularly difficult to ride because you're right behind their wings most of the time which would mean more motion right in front of you, making balancing harder. Also, if you fall you die. Griffons do flap their wings but spend most of their time gliding which would make this a little less bad. Diving, on the other hand, would be absolutely terrifying especially having to pull up from one because the shift in direction would make you lurch around no matter how good your technique is. However, I love their weird chimerical non-traditional griffon-ness, and they make cute trilling and cooing noises. 7/10, solely docking points for the fact that I would probably die riding one. Worth it. I want to pet one. That's not what I'm supposed to be grading on but I'm making an exception here.

Warclaw

Same thing as the jackal but bulkier and slower. The difference between riding a hotblood and a coldblood. Probably not fun for short people, I know I never was very fond of riding draft horses given that back when I was riding I was able to ride fairly large ponies with how underweight I was. Condolences to all the Asura who do WvW. 8/10 if you are of reasonable height, 5/10 if not.

Roller Beetle

A mixed bag. On one hand this would clearly be quite smooth since the saddle is levitating and therefore it'd be another frictionless ride. On the other hand the current estimation for top beetle speed is around 137 mph. That is a lot. I'm also not sure how you'd give guidance to the beetle without reins, my current guess is you'd lean into the saddle like you do a motorbike and somehow the little parts that make the saddle float cause the roller beetle to feel a shift in sensation on its carapace so it knows to turn in a direction. That's sort of what it looks like in the animations. I really hope there is some kind of gravitational field on that saddle or if you hit any kind of obstacle you are going to launch yourself out of the saddle and die, so given that doesn't happen I assume there has to be. 6/10, about as dangerous as the griffon but not as much fun to pet (that said, they are still extremely cute.)

Skyscale

Man, I need to log on to check again but from what I remember that hover animation looks like it'd be uncomfortable for the rider with the way the skyscale's back is curved. I don’t have a skyscale, don’t look at me, the quest is a pain in the ass. Anyways, same issue as the griffon with more flapping. The speed boost being another aileron roll would realistically be a bad idea in the air but you make it work between g-forces and probably at that point having an insane amount of riding practice by the point you get one.

In summary: 2/10. All of you who let your commander sit on their Skyscale in midair while camping events are monsters. I have sympathy pains in my calves whenever I see that.

Siege Turtle

I don't have much to say. The luxury touring bike of mounts. Comfortable seats and you can shoot things (note: you cannot shoot things on a motorcycle without a great deal of effort and probably breaking the law depending on where you live), though the jump jets and stomps might cause some jarring. I feel like being that close to cannons might necessitate earplugs but otherwise 10/10. Somewhat confused about the fact that when it sinks to the water you don't start floating out, so I guess there's invisible seatbelts, but that still makes it more comfortable than a skimmer underwater.

tl;dr

The commander probably has calves of steel from riding around all the time though I guess some saddles could have like, magical stabilizers that help, I know a few saddles use stabilizers as an ingredient when you're doing the collections to get them, also this is what I think about at two in the morning.