Hello and welcome to a very special episode of For Azeroth.
I am one of your hosts, The True Van Manny, and today I am joined
by one of the Fazzers. And we're going with Fazzers
because that's what won the vote.
One of the community, an amazing Raider, an amazing friend and an
amazing part of the community. We have soup AKA Multial AKA
Takuzi. I forget what the other one was.
How are you and how's the World Warcraft been cheating you?
Hi Manny. Hi Fazzers.
I'm great. Wow has been fantastic.
Midnight has been great. My Rave team is doing a great
job. We are currently battling the
roster boss, but we're we're doing fantastic other than that.
Nice, nice. What are what are your thoughts
generally of rating? Cause like, obviously I've been
having my love hate relationship and the the current situation
that I'm dealing with. But like, have you been enjoying
rating? I've been enjoying it.
We there's some really interesting fights going on,
we've got some new mechanics that we haven't seen before and
I feel like missing Mythic rating in general has been
really good to me so far. So yeah, I've been having a
really good time with it. That's great to hear.
And so I know Sean would consider you a real player
because you raid and everything, but you're also are a player
after my own heart that loves to chase after the mounts.
That is an advent. Sorry, an avid mount collector
and I guess I will ask some likely questions first.
So first of all, when did you get into mount collect?
Let's start there. So I got into mount collecting
in Burning Crusade right when you had to farm for Rep.
I think my real first farm was nether wing farming the eggs
'cause I got so tired of doing the dailies I just farmed the
eggs. It took me 36 hours to go from
honored to Exalted on one character.
So I got all of my eggs, and that's really where it started.
I just, I wanted all of the mounts.
I wanted all the different appearances.
I didn't care if they took up too many bag slots.
I needed them. Man, going all the way back to
Burning Crusade. So you've been at this for a
while. When did you first start playing
again? I first started playing
seriously in Burning Crusade and my character that I play now is
actually the hunter that I played in Burning Crusade.
So she has been around a very long time.
But I my first character was a druid in vanilla and I got to
level 40. A friend gave me enough gold to
purchase my first mount and then I quit.
I was like, I'm not, I'm not doing this anymore.
That is awesome. So what drew you back to the
game then? The expansion came out and some
friends were playing it, so I decided just to get back into it
and I've been playing it ever since.
That is, that is amazing. And so you jumped on, you left
the druid behind, you jumped on a hunter.
You've done a number of different classes over the
years. I remember you like kicking butt
on Warlock and Hunter and that what what have been the classes
that you've stuck to most? I have the most played time on
my druid, but hunter is really where I'm at home here lately.
OK, and so of course you started farming the eggs to get those
nether wings. Here's a here's a question I'm
going to ask you to choose your darling.
What are your? What's your favorite mount that
comes to mind? So I actually, I have an answer
for this and it's it's about the mount, but it's about the
memory. My favorite mount of all time is
going to be the Swiss Zolian Tiger.
And I remember the first time I saw it, I was sitting in
Stormwind, which is crazy because I have not played
Alliance in a very, very long time.
But I was sitting in the trade district in Stormwind.
And I saw somebody on this mount and I messaged them and I was
like, Oh my God, where did you get that?
That's amazing. And the answer I got back was
really rude. And I can't remember the exact
wording, but he basically told me that I needed to go do the
research myself. And I was like, OK, so I went
and I researched it and realized that that mount was a little far
out of my grasp at the moment, being as Zokerub was a 20 man
raid at the time. But as time went on and it
turned to Wrath that you had the ability to go in there with a
couple people and farm it. I was on playing a druid at the
time, a balance druid, and I got enough feral gear to tank those
bosses that dropped mounts in that group with my husband at
the time that was ironically a hunter, and we got both of them
to drop and I won both of them and it was a rocky spot in our
marriage for a while that I got both of the mounts.
Oh no, I wish that was less common the story but I have
heard similar. Well, he does not play Wow
anymore and I still do, so I'm winning.
There you go, there you go. And so was it the, was it that
journey of like finally getting back to that mount that you'd
saw so many years ago and earning that mount that makes
that your favorite mount? It it really does that and it's
it's, I worked so hard for it. It was one of the first mounts
that I needed other people to help me get, and I felt like I
persevered and found a way to farm.
There were even sometimes where I could solo it by myself,
timing my interrupts and stuff like that.
As a player who didn't raid a whole lot at that point in time,
it was quite a feat for me to be able to solo that.
That is amazing. So then what makes for a good
mount hunt for you? Is it those ones that you like
work together as a team or like is there some other thing that
you're like, this is the my favorite way to get earn amount?
So for me, a good mount grind is one that feels obtainable
whether it's through grinding or dedication or luck.
One, that you don't have to rely too much on others because it's
not always easy to find people who align with your perspective
and your schedule to really get things done when you need to get
them done. It's one of the big reasons why
I think the 1% Mythic Plus mount is going to be one of the
hardest mounts to get because you have to rely on so many
other people and things just have to click consistently
'cause it's not like you can come back to the game two weeks
before the Mythic plus season ends and get that mount.
The bar is constantly moving, it's constantly getting harder.
So I just feel like a grind for me is 1 where I don't have to
feel like I have to rely on other people too much to get to
get that mount. The Vile Essences is is a really
good example. I just finished that mount and I
felt like that grind, while it was a grind and it felt like a
lot, you could do it solo and it was completely attainable or you
could do it in a group. So for the people at home who
might not know about the vile essence and the how many of
those you have to gather, give us a little bit of details about
this. How exactly do you do this grind
and what you get at the end of it?
So the vile essence grind it takes place in Zolomon.
There is a shrine esque place by Marcera caverns where there are
some elites and you have to kill those elites for a chance to get
them to drop vile essence. And you need 1000 vile essence
to open a chest that has a mount in it.
That mount is the Hexed Vile Feather Eagle.
And these are dropping like two or three at a time, 10 or 20 at
a time. What's What's this drop rate
look like? Oh, you're lucky if you get one
out of a pack of three. So it it takes a little bit, but
you know, it can be done solo and it can definitely be done in
a group of five. I would definitely do it now
that there are people doing it rather than doing it solo later.
It's going to it's going to feel like Deering gonna have to edit
this pause out. I'm sorry.
No, it's OK. I can't even remember the name
of the expansion. I think, well what what was the
grind like? Maybe I'll remember it based off
of like that. The black claws, do you remember
the black claws where you had to get 1000 black claws for amount
it was in. I want to say it was in.
No, I don't remember that one. Draynor.
Yeah, it was in Fangrella in Tannon Jungle.
OK, you get to get 1000 of those man.
Yeah, and you had to get 1000 black claws for a bore mount.
I'm pretty sure I've done that because I think Warlords of
Draynor is one of the expansions where I've got every mount out
of that except for except for the meta achievement one from
BlackRock Foundry where you have to like throw the oar from one
end to the other without the boss rolling over you that.
Was a good one, that was. A good one, yeah, that's the one
I wish I'd done in a group and not trying to solo.
Yeah. OK, so then what's a horrible
mount farm? Can you think of an example of
that? There's not a lot of mount farms
that I would say are horrible and wow, other than maybe
Soundless. Soundless is terrible and I
still do not have him after years and years and years and
many many kill attempts. But I feel like that is one of
few that I would that I would say is just I I don't find to be
particularly fun. Yeah, I, I have to say that I
think Soundless is one of those mounts that caused me to rethink
the way that I hunt mounts down. For those at home that may not
know what Soundless is, Soundless was a mount in Battle
for Azeroth particularly. You would find Soundless as a
rare spawn in. Oh, what was the name of the
zone? Not Mechagon, but.
Oh. Man, I was about to say Baltra,
but it's not it. It's.
Nashtar. Nashtar, thank you.
So there was a chance that it would spawn and it wasn't
frequent. It was very infrequent.
And then even if it did spawn, the chance of it dropping the
mount was also a very infinitesimal chance of getting
it. And so the way that I ended up
farming it because I have been blessed to get that mount is
that I put my effort into finding those groups.
That's that was like soundless up and so forth or searching for
soundless while it was current content and managed to get it
that way. Because now if you are to go
back there, you need to have characters in the zone.
Hope that you find soundless when it spawns, which is not a
high chance. Hope that if it does spawn in
the Shard or version of the world that is up for you that
somebody else doesn't kill it. And what was the what was the
respawn like? I think it was once every 20
hours or something on the Shard. It was pretty bad.
I don't think we ever got actual data for respawn because it
could spawn in one to five different places, so it's pretty
easy to not catch the spawn even if he does respawn.
But it was pretty long. It was like 2024 hours, yeah.
And so now that people can easily one shot it, so you don't
even have the chance of like running around and catching
somebody in the middle of engaging it.
If there's anybody there, if you're on the right Shard, it
just, it feels like it's a lot harder to do today than it was
back in the correct patch of BFA, which is why I always we're
kind of backwards on mounts now. I try and do things in the
current patch expansion and then I'll go back to older ones.
Do you have a method to your madness for mount hunting?
I don't really have a method. I make sure I take breaks so I
don't get burnt out on one hunt. My current hunt is all of the
rares in the different zones. I have three out of eight, so
almost halfway there there. But then my other mount chase
that I'm doing is the the forge from Shadow Lands.
I'm still going back and making all of the mounts in Shadow
Lands and grinding out all of the different materials and
things like that, that you need all of the Genesis motes for
those different mounts. So I go back and forth.
OK. That's twice now that we've
looked at like 2 different types of mounts.
There has been the random chance, as we talked about with
Soundless, as we were talking about with the current rare drop
mounts in each of the zones. And then there's the ones that
are more deterministic, where you're grinding to get whatever
currency or item that you would exchange for the mount.
Of the two, which one do you prefer?
Or do you find that like variety is the spice of life, like you
would want both to exist? Definitely, variety is the spice
of life because when it comes to a 1% or lower drop chance, you
can go a very, very long time without saying amount.
However, if I'm working on amount that I have to grind
items and things out for, I know I'm going to eventually get that
amount and I can see something at the end.
So I'm definitely getting a payoff somewhere.
It's just keeping the numbers moving and keeping your
collection going as best as you can without getting burnt out
and saying, man, I hate mount collecting, this is not doing
anything for me, I'm going to stop.
OK, so then talking about the numbers, how many mounts you you
got under your belt there? I I currently as of recording
have 1217 mounts and I am currently realm 47th on thrall.
There you go. There you go.
Which is fantastic. I I must admit that since having
ended the competition against shoe boots, I have not been
tracking how many mounts I have. But there are a number of
different sites that people can use.
So what sites do you use to like find info about the mounts or
track how many mounts that you have?
So I keep track of how many mounts that I have on Data for
azeroth.com. You can put in your realm and
character name and search. It will give you a breakdown of
everything you have as far as achievements, pets, mounts, all
of the completionist items, what you're lacking, what you already
have, and where you measure up against other people that have
also checked the site on Data for Azeroth.
As far as choosing which mounts to farm, I also use Simple
Armory which will give you a guide or a load out on which
which paths you should take to farm your raid mounts.
Nice. OK.
So then do you have any white whales that you're that you're
currently hunting or that you've set aside so that you're you
maintain your sanity? I have one white whale and that
is the plagued proto Drake. Of course you can only get the
plagued proto Drake on the black market auction house.
Most of the time on higher pop realms it does go for gold cap.
Sometimes on lower pop realms you can find it for 4 to 5
million. However, I have a love hate
relationship with gold as I tend to spend it very frivolously.
So the plagued protodrake is definitely a white whale.
That will be mine one day, just not today.
I I consider that unobtainable, so you will go on the black
market auction house to pick up some of those mounts that are
otherwise unattainable. Well, I actually Manny, I
actually have all of the mounts off the black market auction
house already except for the plagued Protodrake, so it is
only the one I'm looking for. There you go.
So OK, so you will repeatedly and have repeatedly hit up that
black market auction house to get those mounts.
There has been the temporary sale that they had back in
Dragon Flight where they had some mounts that were
immediately purchasable or I think it was just one scare
about that was immediately purchable for a short period of
time and then it went on to the auction house.
I assume you have that one. Yes.
OK. And so then with the Plague
Drake being the last one on the black market auction house, what
have you been doing in terms of the traders post?
Have you been picking up every mount that's come off of that?
Have you forsaken like trans Mog and other things to make sure
that you have the gold for that? Like what's the sorry, not the
gold, but the traders tenders. What's your relationship with
the Traders post? I pick up every mount there is
off the traders post. I don't find myself for going
anything that I really want off the traders post.
I tend to hit my attendees cap every month and I find that it
sustains what I want. Granted, I'm kind of A1 trick
pony when it comes to playing Wow.
I don't level a lot of alts so I don't find myself wanting a lot
of different types of gear that are male or hunter related, so
I'm safe from a lot of transmog wanting.
OK. Also, if you have not checked
out this month's new mount, The Dusk Painted Sunrock, The Dusk
Painted Sunrock is really, really cool and it has a mount
animation and dismount this time so the mount actually flies
away. It's beautiful.
Yeah, this is the first one that's that I'm aware of and I
think the first one ever, correct me if I'm wrong, to
actually have a dismount animation.
I believe so, yes. I it caught my eye as soon as I
was like, oh look, it has a mount animation that's great.
And then I got off of it and I was like, Oh my God, it's got a
dismount animation. It made me really excited.
So as a mount collector, are you somebody who loves numbers goes
up? Are you like me?
Where when they had focused on instead of just doing more and
more different mounts, they I mean, there's a lot of mounts of
dragon flights. I'm not saying that there
weren't a lot of mounts of dragon fights, but there was
also all these customizations for the Dragons and that has
continued on with the with delves and the discovery mount
that they'll be Trent. There'll be adjustments for
that. At least there were in the war
within as a rather in in. Yeah, in the war within.
I'm I don't know why I was thinking midnight in the war
within. Anyways, within the war within
we also got every season amount that you could take to the
roster room that would also have different parts.
Are you into those parts as much as mounts, or do you find that
those don't really count? I it depends.
So the raid customizations that completely changed how your
Drake looks. I loved those.
The one that dropped off of Razgath.
Huge fan of the one that dropped off of the the IT looked like a
it looked like a pink Drake. I can't remember who it dropped
off of. Had plates on it like Deathwing.
Oh. Right from a from the burning
Crucible. Yes, really big fan of that.
Really big fan of that one. So those I absolutely love and
actually still use in my favorites rotation today.
Whereas the regular ones that just had the pieces that you
could piece together, they were really fun, but I don't get as
excited for those as I would a new mount.
Now, is that stopping me from farming the Delve appearances
that I don't have still? No, I'm still doing that.
However, that's because those have a lot of flash and frill to
them. Like I didn't defeat Zekvir, you
know, on question mark, question mark, but you can still go back
and get that appearance. If you did not know in question
mark question mark Delve, it's just a drop chance and not 100%
drop chance. OK, Speaking of Dell drop
chances, there is a mount from this season's stealth boss
because it is not just a transformation, it's actually a
completely separate mount. Have you been hunting that or
did you try and get it as one of the first?
I think it was 4000 people. I wasn't one of the 1st 4000
people to get it, but I got it relatively quickly.
I was very impressed playing a hunter.
The delve bosses have kind of steamrolled your pets so it's
not super easy to go against those delve bosses when they're
crushing your pets health and you just have to re summon them
constantly. But I found that using Valera as
a healer, you really could heal your pets and they could stay up
and actually tank for you. So I was able to achieve that
pretty quickly this season. Hopefully they stay with those
changes for next season. Yeah, I mean Devil bots is have
been somewhat all over the place.
So previous positives may not hold, but previous negatives
also may not hold either. We will have to see if you could
ask for anything for for mounts just in general going in the
future, what would you want for mounts?
For mounts in general, as far as like models or for.
I mean like you're like, I want this to be a mount.
Like you could create your own mount or create a like general
idea for a mount and have that made.
What would you want for a mount? I want something outlandish.
I want like a flying chair or something like that, like the
Decor duel they gave us AB right?
B is beautiful. It should have been a flying
chair. But there's there's a lot I want
to see with the mount system in general.
I don't feel like we should have to use mount journal enhance to
get a lot of the information that we get for mounts.
Mount Journal enhance, if you do not use that auto add on will
tell you the percentage of active accounts that have
amount, the amount of times you used, amount of the amount of
travel distance you've used that mount.
It will give you better the a better ability to farm mounts,
telling you where they're from and give you more information on
them. I would like to see more done
with the actual mount system. New mounts is great, but I I'd
like more done with the actual system.
OK. Well, I mean, that leads into my
next question about like what you would want systems for, for
the mounts. They've talked about having like
from the earliest days of Decor and player housing, they've
talked about having stables and such.
Is that something that like interests you or you just not
engaged in player housing? I'm not super engaged with
player housing but I would use a mount stable.
I loved the stables in Was It. Battle for Astra Draynor.
Yes, in Draynor where you could go in your mounts would randomly
be roaming in your Garrison. I loved that part so I I would
love to see it in house in player housing.
OK. And so then what would you like
to, I guess additional systems for mounts?
I'd like to see them bring about Bring Back Mount broadcasts.
So during a portion of Wow, and I cannot tell you which portion
it's the years blend together, but it used to be when you
looted amount, it actually announced it in Guild for you.
So and so looted such and such amount.
It doesn't do that anymore. And I'd like to see that brought
back, 'cause it, it always feels a little braggy when I'm like,
look, and I just link it and I'm like, look what I just got.
Like, don't, don't make me do it for myself, Blizzard, do it for
me. Yeah, give, give a, give the
toast and then let the Guild celebrate it, I guess.
Yeah, OK. Yes, definitely.
I'd also love to see another collector's bounty come back.
As much as I love mount exclusivity, which I it's fun.
I am one of the first people to be like, I want to be one of the
first people with that mount, but that doesn't mean that I
want to be the only person with that mount.
I want to see everybody else get all of the mounts that they
want. So please bring back Collector's
Bounty and let's get everybody back into mount collecting
because it is so much more fun when you get to do it with other
people. So then are you completely
against temporary mounts or mounts that like kind of prey on
FOMO? Do you want like all mounts to
always be available, or is there some sort of cut off that you're
fine with? I'm fine with having mounts
seasonally available. I think you should give people a
very nice, reasonable time frame to work towards them out and get
them out, and then that be it for a little while.
Whether that be five years, seven years, and maybe bring it
back later. I'm a very big advocate for
letting people have what they want.
A good example of this is the TCG mounts and Blizzard giving
Twitch drops as TCG mounts. I'm OK with that.
Now a lot of people are going to say Oh well that means you
probably don't have any. I have both spectral tiger
mounts and I am OK with them giving the spectral tiger mounts
to other people. I've had it for years.
Let other people enjoy pixels. OK.
And what about the half measures that they sometimes do where
they'll do, let's say a spectral tiger, but it'll be a different
tint and that'll be the new release.
Do you find that that's enough to satisfy people or like no no,
release them both if you if you're going to do a different
tint. That I kind of see that as a
whole different mount. Like they kind of gave us a
spectral tiger when they did the year of the Tiger water tiger
from the shop. So we kind of got a spectral
tiger ish type mount that way, but it wasn't the spectral
tiger. Now they did give the spectral
tiger to China servers for I think it was refer a friend or
some kind of loot box drop that they did, I can't remember
which. And I know that made a lot of
people in the US mad and upset. So maybe not having regional
mounts, that kind of feels bad, but because the assets are
there. So there's almost no reason that
I can think of to keep regional assets unless it's illegal in
some country. Like I know China has really big
laws and really stiff laws when it comes to what you can put in
a video game, but why not give it to the US base that that
would be OK in my opinion. OK, well then I guess the last
thing I really do want to ask you about is with mounts.
Do you find that there is any kind of like gameplay that you
would want? Like at one point long long ago
they had mounted combat on, I believe that was Wrath of the
Lich King where they said, oh, mounted combat will be a thing.
Yes, the jousting. I think this was aerial combat,
but yes, we got jousting and such.
Do you want more gameplay related to mounting, sorry to
mount or do you think that that like that's kind of come and
gone? Do do you think that like dragon
riding was a step too far or sorry?
What do they call it now? I forget what they call it now
the I don't know the flight system I feel.
Like we just still call it dragon riding.
Yeah, OK, Dragon riding because I can't recall what they renamed
it to, but do you feel like dragon riding was enough, a step
too far, not enough? Do you want more stuff that
involves like mounts or where do you where do you say?
I feel like dragon riding was fine and the quests that we got
to dragon ride and we still actually have a couple world
quests where we have to go out in the void and run into things
and knock them down or ride through rings and stuff like
that. I find that it's OK.
Like the amount that they gave us was fine.
I don't feel like it relates to mounts at all.
To me, it's more of a combat system at that point.
And at that point I worry about the accessibility to other
players because I know that other players have issues with
dragon riding and the way it may make them feel or the controls.
So I feel like the amount of that that we got was good, but I
don't feel like we need to revisit it.
OK, so for now mount says aesthetic.
Mount is a nice little collectibles and a little bit of
prestige as well. No.
OK, OK, let me retract. Let me retract that.
OK. If I'm in Warzone, I will knock
you off your mount with my mount.
I will do that. But that is, that does not
happen that often. OK, all right then.
Well then, any last thoughts before we call it an episode?
I really just appreciate you having me on the show, Manny, to
talk about one of my favorite things in World Warcraft, which
is mount collecting. You know, this game has really
been a huge part of my life for decades at this point and I I
enjoy talking about it. So thank you so much.
No, it's been wonderful to have you on and I'm really glad you
were here to Guinea pig for me as I do want to do more for all
of our listeners and the patrons as well.
If you have a topic that you would like to talk about, send
me a line. You can reach me either through
discord or messaging on the patron and maybe we can have a
sit down talk about a topic of your choice as well.
Until next time, though, may all your hits be goods.