Posts with tag ashes-of-alar

As you've probably already read, players will be able to purchase 310 percent flying speed from trainers in Cataclysm. While this is good news for people who hate raiding, think arena was shat into existence by the most sociopathic among the development team, or spent School of Hard Knocks trying to drown themselves in the nearest body of water, the bad news is that buying your way to super-fast flying will run you a cool 5,000 gold.

Outrageous, says this dyed-in-the-wool cheapskate. For anyone else who'd rather die than part with a centavo of hard-earned gold, the good news is that having even a single 310 percent flyer in your stable is enough to get you the skill free. Fortunately, there's plenty of time to snag yourself one of these coveted mounts before Cataclysm hits, and just as fortunately, each mount is the reward (or subject) of an achievement.

Strategy guides for obtaining each of the remaining 310 percent mounts is definitely beyond the scope of this article (although I'll probably devote an edition of OverAchiever to nabbing the Rusted Proto-Drake, above) but we can take a visual tour of the fast flyers that any hard-working player can still get in Wrath of the Lich King.

This week we continue our series on World of Warcraft's most entertaining achievements. This is the full series to date, if you're just catching up with us:

• OverAchiever: Pure Win
• The 25 most entertaining achievements, #25-21
• The 25 most entertaining achievements, #20-16
• The 25 most entertaining achievements, #15-11 (today's post)

One of the easier ways to distinguish an older character from a reroll or alt is the presence (or absence) of a Feat of Strength. Feats of Strength, remnants of "the past glories of Azeroth," are among the most difficult achievements to get, and that's when they're even possible at all. Most, like the presence of an old-school PvP title, one of the original 100% mounts, or the Vengeful Nether Drake, are impossible to get these days, and are a sign that the person who has them is an experienced player. But with a little luck and a lot of elbow grease, even a new player can accrue some of these supposedly "past" glories.

I started playing WoW shortly after Burning Crusade launched and didn't expect to have a shot at most Feats, but a surprising number of them are still available. After getting The Fifth Element recently and being surprised to discover that: a). It's a Feat, and b). The original quest isn't even in the game anymore (man, I'm glad I'm such a quest packrat), I started nosing around the list of Feats to see what else a player could do even if they're new to the game. Moreover, there are two achievements you can get right now that will become Feats in 3.3, so let's get cracking.

Mounts are one of the best parts of World of Warcraft, especially the flying ones. Over the course of levels 30-80 we collect a bunch of them (so many that there's even an Achievement for it -- don't forget to check out our guide) and everyone has one or two tied to their action bars that they use every day. I've got two: the Big Battle Bear) and a Zhevra. But in an ideal world, we all have a list: the Ashes of Al'ar, the now removed Amani War Bear, the Spectral Tiger, the Deadly Gladiator's Frost Wrym ...

Top of my list? While I love dragons (and have my eye on a Twilight Drake), the mount I really want is a unicorn. Yes gentle readers, an actual unicorn. Not a striped zebra crossbreed found wandering in the Barrens but a pure white beast of myth. Last week, while exploring the Argent Tournament in Icecrown, I finally found one. Granted it's technically a 'Quel'dorei Steed' but it's a unicorn - with an Azerothian twist. I only hope Blizzard decide to turn this vehicle into an actual mount -- and soon because I will grind anything to get it.

Anyway, it got me thinking about mounts (and don't forget we have an awesome guide on the subject). I have a friend who collect everyone going (he's got ninety nine at the moment) and strives for the Ashes to complete his collection, others are still using their race-specific epic mount or gryphon/wind rider. So I ask you, readers, what mount do you want the most? It doesn't matter if it's an old mount now removed, a ridable version of your favourite Azerothian animal or just something straight out of myth, speak up.

One of the blogs I frequest most beyond our own WoW Insider is DeathKnight.info. They have a fun little community on their forums, and their front page highlights most of the really cool stuff that happens to come out of it. The bulk of it is, of course, Death Knight news, but it also shows off a lot of the really random things WoW players do.

Magtheridon, once one of the hardest raid encounters in the game (depending on who you talk to), has been 4-manned by an Unholy Death Knight (who you may have read about previously), a Retribution Paladin, a Restoration Druid and a Holy Priest. If you've done the fight before, you might be thinking to yourself, "That's not possible. You need more people than that just to click the cubes!" Apparently that is not the case. They didn't bother with the cubes, they just healed through the damage.

As Elizabeth observed a few days ago, there are certain pleasures to being 80. Even if you haven't gotten a shiny drop from a raid or a heroic yet, or finished grinding your way to exalted with a Wrath faction, you have one thing that absolutely no one can take away from you: an ever-increasing chance to leave classic and Burning Crusade-level mobs swinging fruitlessly at the air, completely unable to hit you.

Just writing that gives me a disturbingly evil smile, because one of the things I've enjoyed most since hitting 80 is soloing heroic Sethekk in pursuit of the Raven Lord mount. Hi there, Syth. Remember the days when you used to mop the floor with my furry ass? I do, and this dish of revenge is being served to you at the proper temperature, courtesy of the frigid Northrend climate. How does it feel to be killed just because you're on the way to something bigger?

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.

UPDATE: Progress gallops forward and mount requirements have changed ... Visit our updated WoW Rookie mounts post for the latest mount information.

Hitting level 30 is a major milestone in today's World of Warcraft: the level at which you get your mount. Up to this point, you've spent plenty of time hoofing it, getting to know the lay of the land. On the back of your trusty steed, you'll be able to zip across increasingly larger zones and quest areas in style. You'll start off on a standard ground mount, such as a Horse, Wolf or Kodo. Later, you can upgrade to faster versions of those creatures and eventually to mounts that can fly (in Burning Crusade and Wrath content).

Mounts used to become available at level 40. Now that the game extends to level 80 and early character progression has been sped up, you get to speed up at an earlier level, too.

After posting two articles concerning mount-related issues yesterday (Engineering mounts in Wrath and the changes to the Brewfest ram/kodo), I went back to Blackrock Depths with a group to have another crack at everyone's newest best friend, Coren Direbrew. This time I was in the company of a half-crazed warlock determined to get both Brewfest mounts. He'd missed his chance at the ram last year and sworn up and down that it would never happen again, only to be aghast at Blizzard's decision to make both mounts a boss drop. To him, I imagine, it was time to knuckle down and show that ugly, yellow-bellied, boot-licking, random-number-generator just who was boss. However, as the day wore on, he realized that -- insulting the random number generator? Not a good idea.

Exodeus of Celestial Blade on Icecrown was there when his guild downed Kael'thas for the second time. And what should drop, but the Ashes of Al'ar which summons the coveted Phoenix mount, a server first for Icecrown. Appropriately, (at least in RP terms) a Holy Pally won the roll.

Exodeus considered the arrival of the fiery creature to be a good omen of things to come as his guild said goodbye to T5 content. Later that night, they not only walked into Hyjal for the first time and downed the first boss, but they also got attuned for the Black Temple. On to new beginnings, indeed.

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MMO Site is reporting that the very (server-- see update) first drop of Ashes of Al'ar (aka Peep the Pheonix mount) has appeared in China, and that it was subsequently bought for 190k gold.

You'll have to take this with a grain of salt until we get further confirmation: the epic flying mount is obviously bind-on-pickup, and so it's not like such a thing can just be thrown on the AH for the highest bidder. But it could be that the guild the mount dropped for somehow sold a raid spot, or it could even be that one guildie paid another just so they could have it (someone in my guild did the same thing with Attumen's mount when it dropped, although it was far less than 190k gold).

But that is definitely a mind-blowing amount of gold. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether it's legit (by my calculations, it's not-- to collect that much gold, a player would probably have to be running their 10 daily quests for years), and also to decide whether or not it was worth it. Guess he just really, really wanted a mount without feet.

Update: Commenter Wisely lives up to his name and wisely contributes some insight: This is not the China-first drop of the mount-- it is the server first on China's Molten Core server. Also, Wisely says that it was an "auction" among guild members-- instead of DKP, they pay gold to the guild. He also claims that for 190k gold, she would have had to have spent about $960 USD, but I'll remind everyone that spending even $1 on gold is against Blizzard's Terms of Use. Rampant or not, that doesn't mean goldselling isn't against the ToU, in China or elsewhere.

[Via WoR]