Let's Submerge: GW2

I almost didn't bother doing "Finding Sabaha", Guild Wars 2's recently-introduced Skimmer Mastery Achievement. It's a mount quest and I've made no secret of how I feel about mounts in GW2. I wish they'd never been invented. What's more, it doesn't even get you a new mount, like the Roller Beetle or the Warclaw or the Skyscale, just a new ability for one of the old ones.

The original five mounts were always horribly unbalanced. Only one, the saurian Raptor, had any general utility. It was apparently intended as the basic go-faster model, with a useful horizontal leap to cross chasms, many of which had been helpfully provided by the art department throughout the Path of Fire expansion for that very purpose.

The Raptor's reign as mount of choice was short-lived, usually about as long as it took someone to finish the lengthy Griffon quest. The catbird was one of the slower mounts but it made up for lack of speed with its ability to hedge-hop like a wounded chicken, an inelegant lurch which still made it more practical for crossing terrain with an active z-axis than any of the others.

Only when faced with a sheer cliff face or a jumping puzzle the devs forgot to ring-fence would anyone employ the squirrel-rabbit known as the Springer. Operating as a jet-propelled pogo stick, the Springer was meant to be dragged out of the bag only when a swift vertical ascent was required and as swiftly replaced. Spring-heeled boots would have been a far prefereable option.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a Portuguese Man o' War.

As for the Jackal, it seems to have no purpose whatsoever, other than to complete certain small pieces of content written especially to demonstrate its capabilities. You rarely see anyone use it, although if people have a flashy-enough skin they might occasionally get it out and sit on it somewhere public, in the hope passers-by might be impressed. And they may well be - until they realize the creature under the glamor is just a stupid jackal.

That leaves the Skimmer. As the only mount that can operate on water, it does have some utility. It saves you having to swim, at least. Unfortunately, swimming in GW2 is exceptionally easy, so since the Skimmer corners like a drunk hippopotamus and has a top speed that makes you feel you're heading into a force ten gale, that's not as much of an attraction as it could have been.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about the Skimmer is that despite clearly being an amphibian it appears to be alergic to water. The clue is in the name. It skitters across the surface like a skipped stone. You can use it to get to where you think the underwater content might be but if you want participate you have to dismount and dive.

"Less scary largos" is like "less poisonous cyanide", isn't it?

Well not any more. As a little treat for the eighth anniversary, ANet added a quest (Yes, a quest. Do we really have to keep up the pretence?). It opens a new mount mastery, one which allows your skimmer to break surface tension and dive.

That did sound like it could conceivably be useful but I was wary of what the so-called "achievement" might entail. I read the ludicrous farrago of pre-requisites for the Skyscale again the other day and that was a hard "nope".  If it was going to be something like that then forget it.

Then again, I actually enjoyed both the Griffin and Roller Beetle quests. If it was something along those lines it might even be an entertaining way to pass a session or two.

The first problem was where to start. I'd have expected some kind of in-game prompt but I hadn't seen one, so I googled it. The wiki wasn't telling me anything but I found what looked to be a decent alternative to the much-missed Dulfy.

It's a website called Guildjen , run by "Jen... a female gamer from Argentina". It looks very new - the oldest posts come from the beginning of June - but it already has a lot of solid, useful content and most importantly it's bang up to date. Let's hope Jen sticks around. We could certainly use another Dulfy.

Trust me. It's a thigh-slapper.

Using Jen's walkthrough probably cut the time it took me to complete the quest in half. Maybe more. I finished it in under an hour. It isn't anything like the crazy collections ANet like to create for big ticket items like Legendaries or the aforementioned Skyscale, thankfully, but it does involve a lot of map-hopping and plenty of visits to obscure NPCs who aren't marked on the map.

Jen's guide not only has all all the steps listed, with precise and accurate details of exactly where you need to go and what you need to do when you get there, it also has all the waypoints, named and with their short codes ready to cut and past into the chat line. You don't even need to open your map.

Should you want to do the quest without spoilers, here's a short summary in bullet-points:

• Be on a character who's completed the Path of Fire storyline.
• Go to any major city.
• Read the note that appears in your mail.
• Follow the clues and go from map to map talking to various NPCs.
• Complete a couple of map events.
• Kill a couple of mobs.
• Get silver in a timed Adventure.
• And that's it.

Short, easy, fun. The best part was the writing, which is very decent. I genuinely laughed out loud at one point. Also I got to talk to a Largos who didn't try to kill me, which was a first.

At the end of all that, you still don't have a skimmer that can submerge, of course. You have a new Mastery track that adds that ability. It costs eight PoF mastery points so if you have those you're all set. I had two so I have some more work to do.

I'd all but forgotten Masteries were a thing.

Not sure if I can be bothered. Unless the new mastery also doubles or preferably trebles the Skimmer's speed, I can't see the point. If the time trial's any indication, the thing's as excruciatingly slow beneath the surface as above. I'd rather swim.

My only slight concern is that ArenaNet could be softening us all up for some major underwater content to come. They did that whole underwater combat revamp a while back and now this. And lest we forget in all the Cantha hype, one of the remaining Elder Dragons is Bubbles, the as-yet officially nameless Sea Dragon. 

Maybe End of Dragons is going to take place underwater. Some of it, at least. In which case, maybe we'll need submersible skimmers. Suppose I better go get some more PoF masteries, then.

Bleh.