The OverAchiever: Mountain O' Mounts from achievements, part 2
Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher, Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher
As above. I still find it hilarious that we spent an entire expansion ridding the world of the undead threat, only to top off the experience by keeping some of their more convenient creations around.
How to get them The Bloodbathed is a reward from Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10-player); The Icebound is a reward from Glory of the Ulduar Raider (25-player). As with their Ulduar counterparts, the majority of Icecrown raiding achievements pose much less of a threat at 85. Offhand, the ones most likely to be an annoyance these days are Once Bitten, Twice Shy (every person in the raid will have to do the Blood Queen Lana'thel fight at least twice to manage it) and All You Can Eat. As far as I'm concerned, Sindragosa was the single worst raid encounter of Wrath, and this achievement didn't do much to improve anyone's opinion of it.
Violet Proto-Drake
The Violet was once the only way for a non-raiding and non-PvPing character to get a 310% speed mount. Today, it's arguably the most unique mount in the game because it'll still give you access to 310% speed without your having to shell out for Master Riding at a flight trainer. If you're addicted to both alts and speed, that's a pretty good deal if you're willing to go multiple rounds with School of Hard Knocks and King of the Fire Festival.
On second thought ... it's not like 5,000 gold is really all that much anymore, is it?
How to get it The Violet does not come easy. If you want 310% flying for free, you'll need to buckle down to all the achievements necessary for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, the year-long PvE meta-achievement covering most WoW holidays. And yes, you'll have to do it for each character who wants the Drake.
Volcanic Stone Drake
Two new drake models debuted when Cataclysm went live. One was the stone drake, quickly a familiar model to any player who leveled through Deepholm, and the other was the (for lack of a better term) "Wind" drake. Unsurprisingly, the Volcanic shares a model with the former, and I think it's one of the more attractively colored. Certainly no one questions that the Sandstone Drake is pretty cool, but you do tend to see it coming from a rather impressive distance.
How to get it As the reward from Glory of the Cataclysm Hero, this is the current expansion's equivalent of the Red Proto-Drake. Overall, the 5-man achievements in Cataclysm feel a lot easier than their Wrath counterparts were, or at least they are generally less dependent on multiple trips to dungeons and frustrating coordination issues.
That said, there are still some doozies in the meta, and probably none more so than Headed South, which is still challenging even in raid gear. As a quick note for anyone who's read our earlier looks at the Cataclysm Hero meta, Faster Than the Speed of Light has gotten the hell of a lot easier as of a pre-4.1 hotfix. You are no longer going to lose this to Anraphet's little roleplay event, which was absolutely maddening; you'll get the achievement as soon as you kill the last of the four elemental bosses in the Vault of Lights.
Drake of the East Wind
In contrast to the Volcanic, the East Wind drake is (you'll never guess!) a "Wind" drake. I have to confess that I can never remember which of these drakes is which ("Is it the Tol Barad one? The Altairus drop?") and have had to pull Wowhead up every time I see one referenced.
How to get it Hoo boy. You'll only get your hands on this if your guild can stomp Glory of the Cataclysm Raider, and right now, that's a pretty select group. From everything I've seen, this is still an exceptionally rare mount, and the world first by Immersion of Auchindoun (EU) didn't happen until early March. For comparison, from what I recall of Wrath, the world-first tier 7 drakes occurred a month or less (I think?) into that expansion. Then again, tier 7 didn't have Stay Chill.
Dark Phoenix
Must ... resist ... urge to make ... X-Men related jokes. Blizzard's tinkered with the look of the Dark Phoenix since it went live, and right now it's quite a bit more well-defined than it was. Previously, it was somewhat hard to tell exactly what players were riding. (VarstJasol on Wowhead summarized it thusly: "Reins of the Not-So-Dark Phoenix.") A big blob of purplish light was rather less compelling than its cousin, the Ashes of Al'ar. I'm not sure whether this was a bug or intended.
How to get it This one's off limits unless you're in a guild that's capable of clearing tier 11 raid content in order to earn Guild Glory of the Cataclysm Raider and exalted with the guild. However, it doesn't matter whether you do it on 10- or 25-man as long as a majority of the raid (eight of 10 people on 10-man and 20 of 25 people on 25-man) is rocking the same guild tag.
Blue and Red Dragonhawk
We started this guide with the halfway mark; it seems only fair to end it with ... well, the end. While we're not actually finished with our series on Mountain O' Mounts, this is the reward you can expect for getting to 100 mounts on a character. Alliance players receive a Blue Dragonhawk; Horde receive a Red Dragonhawk. One of my guildies was riding this very early in Wrath due to a bug related to Blizzard's achievement reset (I think), which wound up giving players double credit for pets and mounts they'd had to learn twice.
How to get it 100 mounts! It's one hell of an expensive and time-consuming grind, but at least you'll get a nice bonus for your trouble.
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.
