How to grind and fly with your Skimmer in Destiny 2

Guardian Hawk's Pro Skimmer.

A hunter drifting on a Skimmer.
Image via Bungie

Destiny 2 got a new (and stylish) vehicle type: the Skimmer, a hoverboard that lets you grind in mid-air and fly even if there’s nothing to hold on to.

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The Skimmer quickly caught guardians’ attention due to its style as well as its ability to traverse long sections of the map very quickly. Two glaring examples are the section between the second and third encounters in Prophecy and the sparrow section in the HyperNet Current Strike, though the skybox is the limit there.

Here’s how you can use your Skimmer to fly across the map and grind the air in style in Destiny 2.

How to grind with your Skimmer in Destiny 2

The Skimmer works like a souped-up sparrow. Its ability to fly is its main draw, but another huge advantage is that it doesn’t consume any fuel when boosting. Instead, the Skimmer’s fuel is used exclusively to jump or grind, letting it excel at map traversal.

The first step in flying with your Skimmer (after, of course, obtaining your Skimmer) is making sure you have the correct bindings. Hover over your Skimmer in your inventory to see which buttons it’s using. In our case, it was mapped to the Crouch binding, though it will use different inputs if you have primary and secondary buttons. In our case, X got us off the ground and Control would grind before we changed it.

The Allstar Vector menu shows which bindings you should use.
Make sure you’re using the right binding. Screenshot by Dot Esports

Before you can fly, you must have a keybinding for Toggle Crouch instead of Hold Crouch. The option to hold doesn’t work properly, though Bungie is looking into a solution. If you can’t fly or grind with your Skimmer, make sure you have an assigned button for Toggle Crouch and check your bindings for the right keys.

Once you’re set, you can double-tap the assigned button to start flying. The timing to start grinding is somewhat tight, but a double press hasn’t failed us so far. Don’t hold the button, though, or your guardian will quickly start and stop the motion.

If your guardian moves the tail of the Skimmer to the left, it will start an animation that stopped us from grinding on our tries when it happened, so make sure to get the timing right.

A Warlock uses the Skimmer to fly across Rheasilvia.
The Skimmer makes for a scenic and entertaining way to traverse the patrol zones. Screenshot by Dot Esports

Jumping consumes fuel, and grinding/flying also costs a bit of your gas. Sustaining a grind will slowly eat up the bar, which gives you a good deal of time to traverse around the map. You can use your camera and movement keys to change your direction mid-air.

Keep in mind that, at least on mouse and keyboard, the jump key will not cancel your flying. If you’re grinding, Space will do nothing, and if you’re on top of your new Destiny 2 Skimmer, Space will actually dismount instead of jumping. This can be a bit tricky to get used to since it’s been the default jump key on most games we’ve played, though you have to use the Skimmer’s jump button again (Control in our case) to get off the air.

Author
Image of Pedro Peres
Pedro Peres
Pedro is Dot Esports' Lead Destiny Writer. He's been a freelance writer since 2019, and legend has it you can summon him by pinging an R-301, uttering the word "Persona," or inviting him to run a raid in Destiny 2 (though he probably has worse RNG luck than the D2 team combined). Find his ramblings on his Twitter @ggpedroperes (whenever that becomes available again).