Wrath of the Lich King Classic will bring with it a number of changes for training and obtaining mounts. Level requirements and costs mostly go down, normal flying mounts get buffed, and there’s even a free flying mount waiting for some alts in Northrend. Read more about upcoming WotLK Classic mount changes below.
All of these changes take place with the WotLK Classic pre-patch.
Ground Mount
Everyone’s first ground mount becomes available sooner for new characters, speeding up the 1-40 leveling process.
- Speed: 60%
- Level Requirement: 20
- Total Cost: 5 gold
Epic Ground Mount
Epic ground mounts also become available sooner and have a further cost reduction. Anyone who worked hard to buy their first epic mount in WoW Classic shouldn’t look at these numbers.
- Speed: 100%
- Level Requirement: 40
- Total Cost: 60 gold
Flying Mount Changes In WotLK Classic
Flying mounts will be available as soon as you come through the Dark Portal as a level 60 character, and affordable at that level. There will be new trainers and vendors available in Hellfire Peninsula. More importantly, their flying speed has more than doubled!
- Flying Speed: 150% (was 60%)
- Ground Speed: 60%
- Level Requirement: 60
- Total Cost: 300 gold
Epic Flying Mount
Epic flying stays exactly the same, as it is considered a quality-of-life upgrade and not a necessity for the game (especially with regular flying mounts getting a big speed bump).
- Flying Speed: 280%
- Ground Speed: 100%
- Level Requirement: 70
- Total Cost: 5100 gold
Special flying mounts which had a 310% speed (such as Ashes of Al’ar) will continue to be 310% speed.
Flying Mount Faction Discounts
In addition to the price reduction in normal flying, there will be faction discounts available when training and buying both regular and epic flying skills and mounts.
Trainer Discount – Stormwind/Orgrimmar
New flying mount trainers and vendors will be added to Honor Hold and Thrallmar. The new trainers are associated with Stormwind and Orgrimmar, taking advantage of those discounts.
Grunda Bronzewing, Honor Hold affiliated flying mount vendor
Mount Vendor Discount – Honor Hold/Thrallmar
The new vendors are associated with Honor Hold and Thrallmar, again taking advantage of their discounts. The previous flying mount NPCs in Shadowmoon Valley will not have these discounts available.
Hargen Bronzewing, Stormwind affiliated flying trainer
Faction Discounts in TBC and WotLK Classic
- Friendly = 5% off
- Honored = 10% off
- Revered = 15% off
- Exalted = 20% off
The prices listed above have no faction discount applied.
Mounts Tab
Mount Tab as seen in WotLK Classic
WotLK Classic will introduce the Mount Tab aka Mount Journal. All of your current and future permanent mounts will stop being items in your bags and will instead be abilities found in the new tab. You can drag and drop mounts you wish to summon from the tab to your action bar. Or create a macro using the mount’s name.
The transition is free, but not automatic. You’ll need to right-click on each of your mounts once to add it to the tab. After that, you can use any of your mounts at any time, provided the current zone supports that type of mount.
The new mount tab allows for the collection of various mounts, which in turn support several new mount collecting achievements which can reward, you guessed it, more mounts.
Mounts will continue to be bound to a specific character. Account sharing of mounts wasn’t introduced until Mists of Pandaria.
Riding Crop Goes Away with WotLK Classic Mount Changes
The Riding Crop, Skybreaker Whip, Carrot on a Stick, and any other mount speed increasing item or enchant will stop working at level 71. Given the Riding Crop can’t be equipped until level 69 that means it’ll only work for two levels for newer characters, not worth the investment.
No new items will be available which can increase your mount speed. The guild perk Mount Up (10% riding speed) won’t be introduced until Cataclysm. Death knights and paladins will have mount speed-increasing talents available to them. Everyone else will ride a bit slower in WotLK Classic.
Cold Weather Flying
Cold Weather Flying is how Blizzard gated off flying in Northrend until you got through much of the leveling content. They didn’t want players to zoom past all the new content in the early and middle zones. But flying becomes critical to questing in Storm Peaks and Icecrown, so it will be available before you hit level 80.
- Requires Expert Riding or higher and work with any speed flying mount
- Level Requirement: 77
- Total Cost: 1000 gold
Don’t worry about the 1000 gold cost, you will make that and more while questing. Just hold off on other expenses until you’ve secured Northrend flying.
Tome of Cold Weather Flight
Tome of Cold Weather Flight will be available to level 80 characters for the same 1000 gold. It allows your alts to train Northrend flying at level 68, giving them the benefit of flying throughout their Northrend leveling experience.
As of early WotLK Classic beta testings, the Tome of Cold Weather Flight is not available in the game. In the original WotLK, the tome was added in Patch 3.2 when Crusaders’ Coliseum was released. Currently, it appears the tome won’t be available until a much later phase of WotLK Classic, but that may change.
Free Flying Mount Available in WotLK Classic
*some restrictions apply
“Honest” Max is a goblin located near K3 in Storm Peaks.
There is a way to get a completely free flying mount in Northrend. But there are restrictions, making it a viable option for a herb or mining alt, but not for your main character.
In Storm Peaks is an NPC named “Honest” Max. If you’re level 77 and have not trained Cold Weather Flying then he will offer you Loaned Gryphon Reins (Alliance) or Loaned Wind Rider Reins (Horde).
- Equivalent to a normal flying mount, going 150% speed in the air.
- Requires NO riding training.
- Is an item that takes up a bag slot. Does not go into the new mount tab. Does not count toward any mount achievements.
- Only works in Sholazar Basin, Storm Peaks, and Icecrown.
So yes, there is a free mount that is as good as a normal flying mount and requires zero gold or training. But the three-zone limit is what kills it for any character you plan to play full time. Buy your regular training and mount and keep this tip for any herb or mining alts you want later.