You won’t see any of this in my review but the griffon is by far my favorite thing from Path of Fire. Since getting mine last weekend, I’ve spent my time climbing up to the highest points on maps and throwing myself off them just because. I’ve been swearing at invisible walls and cursing places that look like you can go there when you can’t. And yeah, I’ve had fun breaking them too. This week I want to focus on 4 fun griffon bugs in Guild Wars 2 that I’ve been having fun with.
Flying Underwater
While flying around in Orr I managed to get myself flying underwater completely by accident. At the time I was trying to work out how to make the super superspeed work and I dipped below the water. Much to my surprise, I remained mounted, sort of. My griffon stayed out and started swimming just a few inches above it. It also allowed me to swim at an incredible speed.
Sadly, others couldn’t see it but they could see that I was swimming much faster than is normal. I am a little bit concerned about my griffon though…they can’t breathe underwater…can they?
Swimming in Air
After having a nice leisurely swim in eel-infested undead infested waters my griffon and I decided it was time to get out of the water. Have you ever seen a Sylvari when she prunes? It isn’t pretty. So off to the shore we went. When we got to shallow water my griffon could easily stand but for some reason, I hadn’t quite worked out we weren’t swimming anymore. So long as we stayed in water shallow enough for the griffon to stand I remained swimming just slightly above my griffon. The result was, of course, swimming in mid-air.
Sadly at the time, I didn’t have anyone around so I don’t know how it looked to other players. If I had to guess though I imagine I was still just swimming like normal, though really fast. I wonder if that circus is hiring, I think we may be on to something here.
Standing
Maybe if the circus is hiring they’d be interesting in my standing act. In it, I climb on my griffon’s back. This happens when you’re dismounted but you shouldn’t have been. This glitch has you standing rather rigidly atop your mount but it makes you look like a circus star. You move quite slowly compared to other griffon related glitches and flight isn’t an option because you’re supposed to be on the ground.
Something interesting does happen when you jump though...
High Kick
I had no idea Sylvari did yoga. That’s the kind of move that breaks bones and pops limbs from their joints. Your griffon gets in on the jumping action too though they don’t do anything nearly as amusing. Their wings just flex a little bit.
Of course, that isn’t the only fun to be had with your griffon. Eventually, you can expect everything above to be fixed. So what can you do?
Super Superspeed
Oh, that beautiful swoop. It takes a little bit of work to get the timing down but you can learn to get yourself up to some insane speeds. According to speed tests run by Reddit user TheBandicoot with your tier 2 swoop, you can get up to 389.6% faster than your normal speed. It’s a little bit hard to get screenshots while you’re doing this, so enjoy some video instead.
Unfortunately, the swoop and get air movement isn’t an easy one to pull off. To make it even more challenging, at the moment, there are times when you will randomly get dismounted while attempting it. When you do get lucky aren’t dismounted though you can cross entire zones in just a few seconds. But, knowing your route is important. If you run into anything your momentum is gone and you’re stuck back at the normal mount speed. A mere 50.6% of normal speed which after going nearly 400% faster than usual makes it feel like you’re crawling.
Exploring New Heights and a Visit to the Queen
If you’re ready for a slow exploration, swapping mounts, and a few tears you can make your way up to all new heights around the world. In my adventures, I’ve climbed the statue of Balthazar in Orr and tried to make my way to see the Queen in her home in the heart of Divinity's Reach. She wasn’t home when I stopped by. You’ll run into a lot of invisible walls along your journey and it may not be for everyone. But those who are willing to take a little leap of faith will get the opportunity to see the game from all new angles. The only question you really have to ask yourself is where do you want to start?
Other than being completely cool and allowing you to avoid aggro as you soar above all the enemies I haven’t quite found when griffon belongs with the other mounts. You can get higher with a Springer, You’re faster with a raptor. Skimmer keeps you out of quicksand and you can mount it while swimming on the surface. And Jackal’s teleport makes it great when you’re going up hills.
Yes, griffon is fast. The fastest in fact, if you can get enough height and if you don’t run into anything. These two limiting factors make it more of a fun gimmick than anything else, to me at least. You can bet I’ll be climbing as high as I can on every map and jumping off them though. Who knows, next week’s Tyrian Chronicle might just be a tour of the highest peaks in the world. Wouldn’t that be fun?