The OverAchiever: Mountain O' Mounts from PVP
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, you have to die before I get a new chocobo. Regrettable, but ...
We're back with the Mountain O' Mounts series, and today we're going to examine the 10 mounts available to each faction as a result of slaughtering everything and everyone in your path. If you're the type of player who likes to put the "war" back in Warcraft, you'll enjoy the array of options available to a dedicated mercenary.
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The basic PVP mounts -- the (usually) black versions of the racial mounts, barring the goblin trikes -- are pretty straightforward acquisitions. All of them will require time spent fighting on behalf of your faction in the various battlegrounds and (fortunately for you) no longer require battleground tokens! For players new to the game, these "marks of honor" were once a currency rewarded for each win/loss in the battlegrounds: a win would net you three, say, Eye of the Storm Marks of Honor, and a loss would give you one.
Alliance battleground mounts
All of the following (except the Stormpike Battle Charger) can be purchased from Lieutenant Karter outside the officers' quarters at 76,65, in the Old Town section of Stormwind. Each costs 2,000 honor points.
Black War Tiger Once upon a time, it seemed like every Alliance player had this thing.
Stormpike Battle Charger Like the Frostwolf Howler below, this is actually a reward after a long campaign in Alterac Valley. These particular mounts were once awarded by the Stormpikes and Frostwolves at exalted with their factions, but it's been a while since that was the case. These days, you can pick them up for 2,000 honor points, and the Charger can be purchased from either Gaeldan Hammersmith in Alterac Valley or Thanthaldis Snowgleam in the Hillsbrad Foothills. There's no word yet on what the small encampment of Stormpike dwarves in the Foothills plans to do about that territory's having gone to the Horde in Cataclysm. This is also the subject of the Stormpike Battle Charger achievement, which is a requirement for the Alliance's version of Master of Alterac Valley.
Horde battleground mounts
All of the following (except the Frostwolf Howler) can be purchased from Raider Bork outside the officers' quarters in Orgrimmar. Unfortunately, my map mod is broken at the moment, and Wowhead's locational marker hasn't yet been updated, so I'm unsure of his exact coordinates. Like their Alliance counterparts, each of the following mounts costs 2,000 honor points.
Longtime tauren players will recognize the War Raptor as being the only raptor (apart from the Razzashi dropped in old Zul'Gurub) that they could once ride. Suffice it to say that it, too, was an enormously popular mount for that reason.
Black War Raptor Like the War Tiger above, this seemed like the most popular "war" mount of the Horde, though it had significant competition from the War Kodo.
Frostwolf Howler This is rewarded after a long campaign on behalf of the Frostwolves in Alterac Valley, a little more interesting lore-wise than the Charger. A Frostwolf Howler is Thrall's own war mount, due in no small part to the Frostwolf clan's dependence on the valley's pure white wolves. They're considered both the icons and familiars of the tribe and even appear on the Frostwolf banner. In terms of lore, to be given one as a personal mount is a great honor, and once upon a time, it kinda felt that way due to the sometime difficulty of grinding Alterac Valley reputation. This is also the subject of the Frostwolf Howler achievement, which is a requirement for the Horde's version of Master of Alterac Valley.
Halaa
We've touched on the Halaa talbuks before in our article on Outland mounts, so we won't go into it too much here. While their cost has since decreased (hallelujah!), they'll still run you 70 Halaa battle tokens and 15 Halaa research tokens. You can grind the latter after an extended session with the various hostile inhabitants in the zone, but the battle tokens are a considerable hurdle, given how empty Nagrand tends to be these days.
Your best bet is to advertise a battle token kill-a-thon on your realm forums and/or to partner with an opposite-faction buddy to kill each other as much as you need to acquire tokens. If it's just you and another person, count on being at this for a damn long time. Surely it's a PVP meta-joke that you can only really get battle tokens these days by basically agreeing to be killed for a certain period by the opposite faction?
Wintergrasp
This is the one-person version of the Grand Black War Mammoth we talked about in The OverAchiever: Mountain O' Mounts in Raids and was/is the most easily available mammoth mount. Stone Keeper's Shards were once a drop from 5-man bosses in Wrath of the Lich King dungeons, but the catch was that they'd only drop if your faction held Wintergrasp. Assuming yours did, the mammoth could be purchased for a cool 300 shards. Thus began the plague of mammoths later glimpsed all over NPCs, mailboxes, and summoning stones in Azeroth. It is for this reason that Baby Spice was carried by enterprising players everywhere.
Like the other mounts (barring the Halaa talbuks) already covered here, the war mammoths have been converted to an honor-only purchase. Plan on spending another 2,000 honor points on these big babies at either Knight Dameron (the Alliance quartermaster if Alliance has Wintergrasp) or Stone Guard Mukar (the Horde quartermaster if Horde has Wintergrasp).
Black War Mammoth (Alliance)/Black War Mammoth (Horde)
Tol Barad
Oh, Tol Barad. The less said about your balance issues, the better. It was once almost impossible to win this as an attacker unless your entire server just gave up and started win-trading, which was pretty common behavior in the early days of Cataclysm. Things have improved somewhat since then.
The spectral ground mounts will run you 165 Tol Barad commendations each, which are a currency awarded for the daily quests you run on both Tol Barad peninsula and the island. The Drake will run you 200. It'll take you a while to accrue the commendations necessary for each, particularly because the quartermasters also offer some pretty compelling gear (the Mirror of Broken Images is all but required for clearing heroic tier 11 raids), but you'll get there eventually if you're diligent.
Spectral Steed (Alliance)/Spectral Wolf (Horde) The Wolf, barring the sometimes not-so-obvious transparency from a distance, is actually a dead ringer for the Frostwolf Howler, so this isn't quite as compelling a mount for the Horde. The Steed can be purchased from Quartermaster Brazie at 72,62 on Tol Barad peninsul; the Wolf can be purchased from Pogg at 54,81.
Drake of the West Wind (Alliance)/Drake of the West Wind (Horde) The most easily available "Wind" drake in Cataclysm and enormously popular as a result. It also happens to be really pretty.
Gladiator drakes
Each arena season, a special drake -- so far, modified versions of the nether drake and frostwyrm mounts -- is awarded to the 0.5% of each 3v3 and 5v5 bracket that achieves the gladiator rank. The catch? They're awarded to these folks and these folks only, and they are unavailable after that.
Working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! Count on us for advice on Azeroth's holidays and special events, including new achievements, how to get 310% flight speed with achievement mounts, and Cataclysm reputation factions and achievements.
