Mount

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	Riding (Profession)
	Trainers • Mounts

Mounts are a much sought after form of transportation in which players ride atop the backs of various Bind on Pickup creatures (or machines for Alliance Players, engineers, very lucky people, and extremely lucky people). Warlocks and Paladins can summon their mounts with special spells. Mounted travel is faster than walking, and the Burning Crusade expansion introduced both new ground and flying mounts.

Mounts were generally expensive in the past, but their prices have been reduced while the training to ride them increased to compensate. However, some mounts do not cost any gold or Marks of Honor and will drop at very low rates from bosses in instances such as Stratholme, Zul'Gurub, Zul'Aman, Tempest Keep, Magisters' Terrace, Sethekk Halls, and Karazhan.

Contents 1 Riding skills and abilities 1.1 Apprentice: Level 30 1.2 Journeyman: Level 60 1.3 Expert: Level 70 1.4 Artisan: Level 70 1.5 Cold Weather Flying: Level 77 2 Base mounts 2.1 Racial mounts 2.2 Class-granted mounts 2.3 Purchasing other mounts 3 Increasing the speed of your mount 3.1 Through class abilities and talents 3.2 Through items and enchants 3.3 Statistics 4 Available mounts 4.1 Regular ground mounts 4.2 Epic ground mounts 4.3 Trading Card Game Mounts 4.4 BlizzCon Mounts 4.5 Legendary ground mounts 4.6 Flying mounts 4.7 Holiday mounts 4.8 Recruit a friend 4.9 Achievement System 5 Flying mounts in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms 6 Wrath of the Lich King 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 External links

Riding skills and abilities

Several types of mounts exist, all which correspond to one of the four different riding skills: (Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, and Artisan).

Apprentice: Level 30

Apprentice riding skill (75) costs 35  for training and an additional 10  for the mount, both reduced by the appropriate reputation discount. Rare ground mounts increase movement speed by 60%. It was reduced from level 40 and 90  for training in Patch 2.4.3. At level 30 (since Patch 2.4.3) warlocks can learn the spell Summon Felsteed at the cost of 1 , which grants them a Felsteed mount and Apprentice Riding skill. Additionally, at level 30, Paladins can learn the spell Summon Warhorse from the Paladin Class trainer at the cost of 1 , which grants them a Warhorse mount and the Apprentice Riding skill.

Also, note under the old PvP system (pre-Patch 2.0), that it was possible at riding skill 75 and level 55 to buy and ride the PvP versions of some Epic ground mounts at Rank 11 (A Commander or H Lieutenant General). These mounts are no longer available for purchase for players.^[1]

Journeyman: Level 60

Journeyman riding skill (150) costs 600  for training and an additional 100  for the mount, both reduced by the appropriate reputation discount. Epic ground mounts increase movement speed by 100%.

Expert: Level 70

Expert riding skill (225) costs 800  for training and an additional 100  for the mount. There are no reputation discounts available; this skill is learned from Ilsa Blusterbrew in Wildhammer Stronghold, Shadowmoon Valley to Alliance players and from Olrokk, located in Shadowmoon Village in the same zone, to Horde players. Flying mounts are also only usable while within Outland though within the expansion, most areas of Northrend will allow the use of flying mounts, but only at level 77 and above. Rare Flying mounts increase movement speed by 60% on the ground and in the air.

Artisan: Level 70

Artisan riding skill (300) costs 5000  for training and an additional 200  for the mount. The skill is learned from the same trainers who teach the Expert skill, and thus has no discount whatsoever. Epic Flying mounts increase movement speed by 100% on the ground and 280% in the air.

Cold Weather Flying: Level 77

The skill Cold Weather Flying costs 1000 . This non-discountable training grants players the ability to also use their flying mounts in Northrend. Requires at least level 77. Learned from: Hira Snowdawn at Dalaran, Pilot Vic in Sholazar or Roxi Ramrocket in the Storm Peaks.

Base mounts

Racial mounts

Each race has their own mount, but other races can ride these mounts if they have the appropriate faction status.

Before the introduction of the Taurens' mount in patch 1.1, the kodo beast, Tauren players used an ability called plainsrunning.

Mounts by race
A Alliance
Night elf	Saber cat	ADarnassus
Human	Horse	AStormwind
Dwarf	Ram	AIronforge
Gnome	Mechanostrider	AGnomeregan Exiles
Draenei	Elekk	AExodar
H Horde
Tauren	Kodo	HThunderbluff
Orc	Wolf	HOrgrimmar
Troll	Raptor	HDarkspear Trolls
Undead	Skeletal Horse	HUndercity
Blood elf	Hawkstrider	HSilvermoon
Flying Mounts
A Alliance	Gryphon
H Horde	Wyvern

Class-granted mounts

There are some classes in the game that can acquire special mounts linked to their own class through lore. These classes are the Paladin, the Death Knight and the Warlock, all actually given a type of horse. Prior to the expansion, in order to gain the epic version of the Paladin's or the Warlock's mount, one was ushered to pursue a very long quest chain sending one to every corner of Azeroth in search of rare ingredients; beside that, it also required a lot of gold. As a means to speed up leveling, as of the introduction of Wrath of the Lich King, these quests are now optional; the skill can be learned from the classes' respective trainer at level 61. The normal version of the mount has always been free, rewarded through a very minor quest.

Available class mounts
Death knight	Deathcharger at level 55 after completing  [55] Into The Realm of Shadows.
Death Knight	Winged Steed of the Ebon Blade, a skeletal gryphon used as flying mount.
Paladin A	Warhorse (blue and silver) at level 30.
Paladin A	Charger (blue and golden) level 60.
Paladin H	Thalassian Warhorse (red and bronze) at level 30.
Paladin H	Thalassian Charger (red and bronze) at level 60.
Warlock	Felsteed at level 30.
Warlock	Dreadsteed at level 60.

Purchasing other mounts

You can purchase your own race's mount regardless of your reputation provided you have enough gold stockpiled. However, to purchase another race's mount, your reputation with that race's faction must be exalted. Before Patch 1.12.1, it was required to get additional training to ride that race's mounts. After Patch 1.12.1, a universal riding skill was introduced that superseded all the mount-specific riding skills. Do keep in mind that mount vendors of cities owned by races other than your own will not show you what they have to offer unless you are exalted with them.

Two exceptions follow:

• Tauren can only ride kodo beasts, wolves, talbuks, and the rare epic mounts since they are just too large to ride anything else.
  • A few exceptions exist: [Black War Raptor] and [Swift Razzashi Raptor] are the only Raptors ridable by tauren, and [Deathcharger's Reins], [Swift Zulian Tiger], [Fiery Warhorse's Reins], [Swift White Hawkstrider], and [Reins of the Raven Lord] are also ridable by tauren.
• Mechanostriders can only be ridden by gnomes and dwarves, as they are the only races small enough.

These restrictions are set to be removed in Patch 3.0.8.

Mount Type
Elekk
Rams
Mechanostriders	N/A			N/A	N/A
Horses
Sabre Cats

Mount Type
Hawkstriders			Rare Drops
Wolves
Kodos
Raptors			PvP & Rare Drops
Skeletal Horses			Rare Drops

Increasing the speed of your mount

Through class abilities and talents

Druids and Shamans acquire shapeshift forms that increase their movement speed (not as much as a mount, but it is trainable at an earlier level), while Hunters get aspects to boost their own movement speed and that of their party. Rogues have an ability to temporarily increase movement speed. Here are the skills and abilities that provide some classes with a bit of a faster movement speed, either passively or by the activation of an ability.

• Druid
  • Flight Form at level 68. Usable in Outland or Northrend only. Movement speed (flying) increased by 60%. Instant cast, cannot shapeshift in combat. Learning the ability also teaches Druids the Riding Skill 225 as the same time. Requires Riding skill 150 to learn.
  • Swift Flight Form at level 70. Usable in Outland or Northrend only. Movement speed (flying) increased by 280%, 100% increase at ground level. Instant cast, cannot shapeshift in combat. It requires the druid to have 300 riding and can be learned from the trainer once you reach level 71 . It is also obtainable at the end of a long quest chain, requiring 300 riding skill to start, which culminates with the killing of Anzu, the Raven God in Heroic Sethekk Halls.
• Hunter
  • Pathfinding in the Beast Mastery talent tree (tier 3). Increases your speed while mounted by 5%/10%. The mounted movement speed increase does not stack with other effects.
• Paladin
  • Pursuit of Justice in the Retribution talent tree (tier 3). Increases your movement speed (and mounted movement speed) by 10%/15%. This does not stack with other speed increasing effects.
  • Crusader Aura at level 62. Movement speed while mounted is increased by 20%. The mounted movement speed increase does not stack with other effects.
• Death Knight
  • On a Pale Horse in the Unholy tree (tier 4). Increases your speed while mounted by 10/20%. The mounted movement speed increase does not stack with other effects.

Through items and enchants

There are five other methods for increasing your mounted speed:

• [Enchant Gloves - Riding Skill]: +2% (stacking), world drop Enchanting recipe
• [Carrot on a Stick]: +3% (stacking), reward from the Gahz'rilla quest in Zul'Farrak
• [Mithril Spurs]: +4% (stacking), world drop Blacksmithing plans
• [Riding Crop]: +10% (non-stacking), Leatherworking pattern sold in Old Hillsbrad Foothills
• [Skybreaker Whip]: +10% (non-stacking), quest reward from  [70] Dragonmaw Race: Captain Skyshatter, must be Honored with Netherwing.

These last two items effectively increase a mount's speed by 10%. However, they do not stack with the previously mentioned methods, so they are approximately (see below) a 1% improvement over using the above 3 items combined.

All speed improvement items work on both normal, as well as flying mounts (with the exception of npc controlled point-point flight).

Characters higher than level 70 will not benefit from mount speed improvement trinkets. Blizzard's design goal is to eliminate the trinkets, but they've had technical issues with an implementation of an alternate system. ^[2]

Statistics

The first three effects act as percent multipliers of your total mounted speed, stacking with previous multipliers. Thus, if you have spurs but nothing else, your normal mount speed will be increased to about 166.4% ((100% + 60%) * 1.04 = 166.4%). These numbers were obtained experimentally using a position-tracking addon written specifically for this purpose.

Mount	Base Speed	[Crop] / [Whip]	Crusader Aura
[Rickety Magic Broom] or [Riding Turtle]	100%	110%	120%
Normal land and flying mounts	160%	176%	192%
Swift land mounts	200%	220%	240%
Epic flying mounts	380%	418%	456%
[Swift Nether Drake] or [Ashes of Al'ar]	410%	451%	492%

Available mounts

Regular ground mounts

Except for the Qiraji battle tank mounts, these are the regular ground mounts purchasable from racial vendors.

Mount type		Speed increase	Availability	Required riding skill
	Humans : Horse mounts Dwarves : Ram mounts Gnomes : Mechanostrider mounts Night elves : Saber mounts Draenei : Elekk mounts	60%	10	Apprentice (75)
	Orcs : Wolf mounts Tauren : Kodo mounts Trolls : Raptor mounts not available to Tauren Forsaken : Skeletal horse mounts not available to Tauren Blood elves : Hawkstrider mounts not available to Tauren	60%	10	Apprentice (75)
Ahn'Qiraj	Qiraji battle tank mounts	100%	AQ40 Drop	Apprentice (75)

Epic ground mounts

Swift mounts have been available since Patch 1.4, making pre-1.4 mounts no longer purchasable. Pre-1.4 mounts have rare epic mount styles but different colors. Players with old epic mounts can exchange their mount for the newer mounts but since old epic mounts can no longer be purchased, people keep their old epic mount as a novelty.

Mount type		Speed increase	Availability	Required riding skill
	Humans : Swift Horse Mounts Dwarves : Swift Ram Mounts Gnomes : Swift Mechanostrider Mounts Night elves : Swift Saber Mounts Draenei : Swift Elekk Mounts	100%	100	Journeyman (150)
	Orcs : Swift Wolf Mounts Tauren : Swift Kodo Mounts Trolls : Swift Raptor Mounts not available to Tauren Undead : Skeletal Warhorse Mounts not available to Tauren Blood elves : Swift Hawkstrider Mounts not available to Tauren	100%	100	Journeyman (150)
A PvP Mounts	[Black Battlestrider] from the gnomes [†] [Black War Ram] from the dwarves [†] [Black War Steed] from the humans [†] [Black War Tiger] from the night elves [†] [Black War Elekk] from the draenei [†] Old PvP mounts (required rank 11) in pre-2.0/ honor system.	100%	30 30 30	Journeyman (150)
H PvP Mounts	[Black War Wolf] from the orcs [†] [Red Skeletal Warhorse] from the undead [†]not available to Tauren [Black War Kodo] from the tauren [†] [Black War Raptor] from the trolls [†] [Swift Warstrider] from the blood elves, not available to Tauren [†] Old PvP mounts (required rank 11) in pre-2.0/ honor system.	100%	30 30 30	Journeyman (150)
PvP Mounts	[Dark War Talbuk] from Halaa blade merchant [Dark Riding Talbuk] from Halaa blade merchant	100%	100 20  70 15	Journeyman (150)
Rare faction	A: [Winterspring Frostsaber] : Riding Talbuk Mounts : War Talbuk Mounts	100%	100  70  100	Apprentice (75) Journeyman (150) Journeyman (150)
Alterac Valley Mounts	A: [Stormpike Battle Charger] H: [Frostwolf Howler]	100%	50	Journeyman (150)
Rare drop mounts	: [Deathcharger's Reins] : [Swift Zulian Tiger] : [Swift Razzashi Raptor] : [Fiery Warhorse's Reins] : [Reins of the Raven Lord]