The OverAchiever: Mountain O' Mounts in raids, part 2

Reins of the Azure Drake
Where you'll find it The Azure Drake is dropped by Malygos on the 25-man version of the encounter, but this wasn't a mount I saw all that frequently even during Wrath. Even if you allow for the low drop rate, this didn't make much sense -- the Azure Drake is a really pretty mount -- and I suspect that, at least on my realm, the 25-man Malygos was never a really popular encounter. The vehicle mechanic made it annoying to pug reliably, even past the point that Blizzard allowed for vehicles to scale with gear.
I'm afraid Malygos might be doomed to be one of the least-revisited raid encounters as a result, which is kind of a shame. It was a pretty unique fight, and then there was the minor matter of being able to faceroll phase three with a one-button macro for the drake vehicles ...
Drop rate 1%
Reins of the Onyxian Drake
Onyxia was one of the more popular soloing targets until Blizzard revamped her as a cool little "birthday present" for WoW's fifth anniversary.
Where you'll find it Dropped by -- who else? -- Onyxia, though only in her Dustwallow Marsh locale; you won't find it off the version you'll see in tier 11's Blackwing Descent. The mount looks kind of like an adolescent version of her and was another popular ninja target.
Drop rate 0.7-1%
Mimiron's Head
Where you'll find it Above Mimiron's neck. Ha ha! I kid. If only it were that easy. Mimiron's Head was once a 100% drop off the 25-man version of the Yogg-0 encounter, which made #10 on our list of the 25 most evil achievements in the game and took the best guilds in the world the better part of four months to manage.
Drop rate 1%. At 85, you should have the DPS necessary to trivialize just about everything on the encounter apart from the Insanity mechanic, although you'll probably be blowing through adds, tentacles, and Yogg himself quickly enough that even that won't be much of a problem. Good luck!
Also the subject of And I'll Form the Head!, a feat of strength.
Crimson Deathcharger
Where you'll find it The Crimson Deathcharger is technically not a drop but a reward from a quest that happens if you kill the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel under special circumstances. If there's a player in the raid wielding Shadowmourne, Arthas will drop an Unsealed Chest containing five items that start quests. One of the items in question is Alexandros' Soul Shard, which starts the quest Mograine's Reunion. The reward from this is the Reins of the Crimson Deathcharger, which is a death knight's 100% ground mount with red trappings.
Drop rate N/A. The drama came from the inevitable fight over who got the various rewards, and this was another issue that showed up in our inbox from time to time. Putting a Shadowmourne together required a lot of assistance from your fellow raiders, and not everyone was on board with giving the whole megillah to an already-privileged player rocking what was acknowledged as a hugely overpowered legendary.
Invincible
Lorewise, Invincible is one of the more interesting mounts in the game: You're riding the resurrected horse of one of the world's biggest baddies, and you don't get much cooler transportation than that.
Where you'll find it Dropped by Arthas in the 25-man version of heroic Icecrown Citadel.
Drop rate Invincible was once a guaranteed drop off each heroic Arthas kill (and that was the goddamn least that Blizzard could do for you after the nightmare that that fight was ... do I sound bitter?), but now it's probably in the region of a 1% drop.
Also the subject of Invincible's Reins, a feat of strength.
Drake of the South Wind
Where you'll find it The Drake of the South Wind is dropped by Al'Akir in the Throne of the Four Winds. It shares a model with the other "Wind" drakes available from early Cataclysm content, including the raiders' Drake of the East Wind, the Altairus drop we saw last week, and the West Wind drake you can get at exalted with Baradin's Wardens/Hellscream's Reach.
Drop rate Wowhead lists it as slightly more than a 1% drop rate.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
h3internet May 5th 2011 8:43PM
"I once had two of the damn things drop in back-to-back trash packs in AQ40 while working on Brood of Nozdormu rep, and I gave them to two guildies who were nuts about collecting mounts, because I am a nice person. They left the guild not long after. Apparently, I am also a dumbass."
This had me in tears laughing. Thank you.
Tsuki May 5th 2011 8:45PM
Umm, didn't you forget the Blue Drake? I could have sworn I read somewhere that Malygos-10 and 25 also have a chance to drop it since it was removed from the bag in Occulus. Or is it still in there? Or in both the raid and the dungeon? Someone mind telling. Pretty please with a vampire pony on top :D.
Iirdan May 5th 2011 8:48PM
The Blue Drake now comes as a reward from the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries, the Call to Arms! reward.
Revynn May 5th 2011 9:06PM
You can still get the mount from Oculus, but just like pre-cata, you can only get it by queueing for a Wrath random, getting Oculus and finishing it. So 85's are kinda screwed that way.
Allison Robert May 5th 2011 9:08PM
Nah, the blue drake is in the last installment of OA's Mountain O' Mounts series -- most of the players who wound up getting it only did so when it showed up as a drop in the Oculus "goody bag" meant to tempt players away from dropping the dungeon. You're right that the drake's back to a raid drop, but I figured we'd already covered it. I'll add a note to the raid article, though.
Lirdan's right, however -- you can also get it in the Call to Arms satchel these days!
Tsuki May 5th 2011 9:35PM
Oh yeah, it was in last weeks, oops. My bad :3, forgot about that, and ohh, i like satchel even more now :D, and thx for clearing that up for me.
paraka321 May 6th 2011 5:20PM
It might be worth mentioning again anyway. We had the blue drake drop in EoE for us on 10 man last week. Not everyone has a max level healer or tank to gather satchels. It's another farmable avenue.
On a side note, we 3-man Maly's 10 man version.
Revynn May 5th 2011 9:00PM
- "Onyxia was one of the more popular soloing targets for the Onyxian Drake until Blizzard revamped her as a cool little "birthday present" for WoW's fifth anniversary."
Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure level 60 Onyxia never dropped a flying mount.
Also, it should be noted that the chest from LK only drops once per Shadowmourne, so you can't make the axe once then get a group together to kill him repeatedly and farm the mount.
As for the Grand Black War Mammoth . . . I've seen it drop once and I offered the guy 5K gold for it. He thought he made a ton of money, I thought I got a smoking deal on a rare mount (I'd have paid twice that). I suppose that's a win/win situation.
Allison Robert May 5th 2011 9:09PM
Ffffffuuuuuu .... phrasing fail. I'm not sure why that was even in there. Thanks for pointing it out!
Ad134 May 6th 2011 4:51AM
I won the Grand Black War Mammoth in a 25-man VoA PUG on the night before my birthday. What a birthday present :D
Eirik May 6th 2011 2:53PM
I have seen the grand black mammoth once as well. I've tried on occasion to interest my guild in more VoA runs to farm the mount, but have seldom been able to. And even before cata, you could seldom get a pug to do more than the most recent two bosses (whose badge drops people could still sometimes use).
(cutaia) May 5th 2011 9:20PM
About the battletanks:
For the majority of the instance only some of the trash has mounts on their loot table. If you really want to get all four, get past the Twin Emperors (I know they can be 3-manned...probably 2-manned) because practically every mob past them can drop mounts. Doing that section with a couple people is much more efficient than soloing the earlier part of the instance over and over again...even if you do have to share.
Eirik May 6th 2011 2:55PM
I would be VERY interested to hear your strategy for 3-manning twin emperors. I've seen a 10-man group fail to down them. If nothing else, I could use the rep. Mind, if a warrior isn't one of the three, then it'd be 4-manning... :)
(cutaia) May 6th 2011 6:00PM
We did it with a pally (me), a hunter and a shadowpriest.
At this point, the only mechanic to be worried about is the teleport/heal thing. If you can't keep them apart, then their heal will certainly be too much to overcome. The bugs that enrage will barely tickle a level 85, so just let them do their thing and they'll fall to random AoE.
Basically, the 2-man strat is the same as with 10 people. You need a physical damage dealer on the right and a magic user on the left. Those two will tank their bosses on those raised platforms. Every time the bosses switch places, these two just need to quickly react, run towards the middle of the room, grab aggro and bring their boss back to the stairs. The melee one is easy to move, obviously, while the ranged boss can sometimes be slow about following your ranged tank back up the stairs.
The third person (and 4th, 5th, etc.) are just there for extra DPS. The DPS of just two people should be enough, though, as long as you get them separated correctly after every teleport.
Scunosi May 5th 2011 9:31PM
I'm proud to say I won my Black War Mammoth early on in Wrath before it was such a popular ninja target. The ML gave it to me instead of the usual "Oops my bad /leave" Since it was so early I'd always get people asking me where I got it from, and it was a blast driving my guildies around in BGs. They always complain about my driving though! Damn sexists.
Donhorn May 5th 2011 11:55PM
I too was one of the lucky ones, my first trip into the raid it dropped and I won the roll! I actually had that happen a couple times with drop mounts, to the point that a couple guildies joked that I was no longer eligible for mount rolls at all lol!
Squelchy May 5th 2011 9:43PM
Just to clarify, the Crimson Deathcharger only happens once per Shadowmourne. One could read the text and get the impression that the chest drops every time someone with Shadowmourne kills the Lich King.
Our guild's Shadowmourne wielder was kind enough to gift this to me. It's still pretty much the only ground mount I use.
Karcharos May 5th 2011 10:11PM
I thought the Qiraji battle tanks didn't count?
Anne Stickney May 6th 2011 1:10AM
Nope, they totally count! Even though you can only ride them in AQ...I really wish they'd change that.
Darky May 6th 2011 6:32AM
I agree, they should make them all drop 1% like the red one, OR make the red one the only one that works outside of AQ, just to make them special.