I am a tourist player returning after a greater than a decade absence. I’ve leveled my Shadow Priest up to level 71 and started the War Within content. I seem to be stuck with being required to know how to sky ride. I don’t have a WoW compatible mouse and it seems impossible to sky ride without one. (Or, at least, it is impossible for the level of commitment I am willing to make.) I’ve hearthstoned out of opening scenario where I was required to sky ride and bomb some city. It was just depressing to be able to fly but unable to control. It disallowed me to switch back to normal flight. Hence, I could not even return to the quest giver, where I’ve been told in other fora, that there was an autopilot gryphon ready to do the work. The big problem is, of course, is that the system kept disallowing me from switching back to normal flight. Does all of the War Within require sky riding? Also, I’m now back in Orgrimmar. Have I made a mistake returning to a now unplayable for me game? My M4 Pro MacBook Pro has plenty of crank to play the game. I don’t have the time to learn how to operate this flying mechanic. Is there another option than sky riding?
Anon,
Andrew
P.S. I’ve now paused subscription payments for 6 months. I have until early March to figure this out. What an unpleasant discovery.
You don’t need Skyriding to actually get through the story, proof here. It helps sure but not needed. Blizzard did a really good job honestly of making sure you could walk to places and, if not, provided an automatically controlled mount nearby.
You can also ask friend or anyone in the area to help you out for a few minutes by summoning a two person mount for you to ride along in.
I agree it’s silly that standard flight is the thing locked behind Pathfinder but that’s a discussion for a General forum topic or made in game. At least this go around, Pathfinder is very easy to get.
While I love Skyriding and agree it’s way more engaging, I spend 90% of my time in steady flight actually. There’s several benefits to Steady Flight that Sky just can’t match.
Druid utility is way lower in sky riding. Can’t hover and interact with objects.
So much easier to farm for resources or treasures.
Quest areas are often small and harder to navigate with fast flight.
And most importantly, can’t pet the cat in my lap while having to ues two hands to Skyride!
First, thank you to everyone for your thoughtful replies.
Second, well, my Apple Magic Mouse is totally unsuited to Sky Riding. I proved this to myself after an hour in the Dragon Isles. Not 10 minutes. Others in other fora have confirmed the unsuitability of this mouse to WoW. Yes, I found the sky riding trainer in the Dragon Isles and proved to be unequal to the task of flying through 5 rings. Also, AFAICT, this is the only feature that requires more than a keyboard to use in WoW. Did I mention that I’m a tourist? OK, I am lame and should resign the honorific of Gamer. OK. My money is just as green to Blizzard. I feel I wasted it and my time leveling a long retired toon. Sigh.
I’ll try to find my way back to the quest. Perhaps, I can find a way to see some sights while my subscription exists. There is always Chromie and time travel to experience zones I never saw the first time around. At least my flying Lion works there … I have an auto level to 70 and 80 from my purchase. Seems pointless to use them …
The Apple Magic Mouse is unsuitable for a LOT of things, which is why I chucked it for a Logitech trackball. It’s almost as if they designed the worst possible mouse on purpose.
I’d like to see one of you “you don’t need to fly” people try leveling through TWW without flying, ever. It’s a pain and takes longer than necessary.
Doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t exist. DR is available from the beginning of the xpac, normal flying should be available from the beginning. Either both or neither, Blizzard has zero excuses to keep gatekeeping normal flying now.
You don’t need one. I set up the important buttons to take off, spin forward and slow down to stop so I can control them with the 3, 4 and 5 buttons on my keyboard. I just use the mouse to steer and to look around.
It takes practice. Best way for a returning player is probably to go to an earlier expansion where you have both flying types, go to the top of a mountain with regular flight, switch to Dragon Flight and practice.
So you don’t actually need a mouse to do Skyriding. In the options settings there are keybinds and settings you can tweak to your preference for turn speed and pitch while skyriding, its under the “Mounts” setting.
Messing with those and changing Turn Left/Right and Pitch Up/Down, let me control my skyriding mount with my arrow keys. Wasn’t perfect but I was able to beat a dragonriding race WQ using that method.
Might be worth playing with that and fine tuning it to your preference.
One form required engagement.
The other, does not.
Therefore, we have to finish the campaign first on the one that doesn’t. However, here’s to hoping they put both behind PF in MN, from the start. Problem solved.
