One of World of Warcraft’s best new features is dragonriding (opens in new tab), but the sad fact is you can’t use these flashy new Dragonflight mounts back in Stormwind, Orgrimmar, or most older zones. That may be coming eventually, but for now, you might find yourself looking for an eye-catching new way to cruise around.
Maybe you’re looking for an opportunity to work on those tricky Mount Parade achievements or you just want the excuse to give your new winged companion a chance to rest. Whatever the reason, here are some unique WoW: Dragonflight mounts that aren’t too tough to obtain.
Vorquins and Armored Vorquins
These stately lizard-horses are the racial mounts for the Dracthyr (opens in new tab), and you’ll get your first one while leveling your Evoker through the Forbidden Reach starter zone. The rest can be bought from Tethalash in Valdrakken once you reach the capital of the Dragon Isles. He’s basically at the very far northwest corner of the city, near the Obsidian Enclave, surrounded by a small herd of Vorquin.
There are eight different designs in total, and you can obtain them all for less than 500 gold with no Renown requirements. Note that Tethy (he said I can call him Tethy; we go way back) will only sell these mounts to Dracthyr, but they will be usable on all of your characters once obtained. So they do count toward the achievements that require you to have a certain number of mounts on a single character.
Ottuks and Skitterflies
I don’t even know what to say to you if you don’t want to ride around Azeroth on the back of a giant otter. These things are freaking adorable and I would kill for them. Skitterflies, which are like giant water bugs, are pretty neat too, I guess. Don’t give me that look. They’re cool, it’s just very difficult to compete with giant, rideable otters! There are several variations of each of these mounts, and some of them are quite difficult to obtain. But for the basic versions, all it really requires is time.
Both the Brown and the Yellow Scouting Ottuk are purchasable from the tuskarr Tatto after reaching 25 Renown with the Iskaara Tuskarr faction. You can find him at the very southeastern edge of the peninsula, right by the pen with the big mammoth. He offers two more, the Brown War Ottuk and the Yellow War Ottuk, at Renown 30. It will be a while before you hit these milestones, even if you’re doing all your daily quests every week, but patience is the only barrier. There are no difficult dungeons to delve into and no significant grinding is required.
The Tamed and Azure Skitterflies can be obtained from Cataloguer Jakes in the big tent at the Dragonscale Basecamp in the Waking Shores once you reach 25 Renown with the Dragonscale Expedition. Again, patience is the only requirement. Altogether, these two Renown tracks alone will net you six new mounts.
Stormhide Salamanther
If you were around for the Dragonflight pre-patch event, when elemental storms would break out across the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, and we could farm currency for Dragonflight catch-up gear, you already have the basics down on how to farm this wicked-looking mount. Like the ones above, it’s a little time-consuming but not particularly difficult.
When you open your map of the Dragon Isles, you will occasionally see icons showing elemental storms happening in certain areas. Get in there, and you’ll notice many world mobs have been afflicted by an elemental aura of fire, wind, water, or earth. Killing them while they have this aura gives them a chance to drop an item called Elemental Overflow. These can be handed in to an NPC named Mythressa in Valdrakken. She can be found in a building almost due North of the blacksmithing trainers, about halfway between the Sapphire and Obsidian enclaves. If you’re coming from the main Auction House plaza area, make a hard right when you see the sleeping dragon statue.
The Salamanther costs 2000 Elemental Overflow but farming goes very fast, especially if you’re in a group. The same vendor will also sell Heroic dungeon-quality gear that can eventually be upgraded to Mythic+7, so it’s worth doing anyway.
Temperamental Skyclaw
This is basically a giant fox with bat wings, meaning it’s extremely cute and also metal as hell. Maybe one of the best mount designs in WoW’s history, I dare say, and if you’re lucky, it might be one of the quickest to obtain on this entire list. All you have to do is bring 20 Gnolan’s House Special, 20 Tuskarr Jerky (don’t think about that one for too long), and 20 Flash Frozen Meat to Zon’Wogi, the troll stablemaster at the Three Falls Lookout in the Azure Span.
The reason it could be really easy is that all of these cooking-related items might be available on the auction house, in which case you would be able to finish this hidden quest in about 10 minutes. But I say “might” because I’ve never actually seen all of the required materials on there at any one time, myself. If luck isn’t on your side trying to buy your way in, you’ll have to visit a variety of gnoll encampments around the Azure Span to farm the grisly dishes the hard way.
Gnolan’s House Special drops from gnolls East of Brackenhide Hollow, near the westernmost bridge on the road to Camp Antonidas. The ones you’re looking for all have “Stormfang” in their name. Tuskarr Jerky drops from gnolls you’ll find around a small lake just northwest of the Azure Archives and southwest of Camp Antonidas—these all have “Darktooth” in their name. Flash Frozen Meat drops from the Snowhide gnolls around the area at the top of the waterfall, just northwest of Camp Nowhere.
A good a-mount
With these 16 new steeds, you’ll be able to ride in style in the skies or on the ground. Sure, they can’t swoop through the air at amazing speeds like your dragonriding drake can, but riding around on a war otter is honestly almost as cool. There are plenty of other hidden mounts to find in the Dragon Isles, some of which require extremely difficult or convoluted unlock requirements to be met. But this should at least get you started. Happy trails!