When the planet of Draenor was ripped apart, it caused many areas to become isolated and unreachable by any means other than from the air. Therefore, flying mounts are available in the Outlands for level 70 characters in order to reach these unreachable places.

Need for Flying Mounts

Flying mounts enable the rider to reach areas of the Outlands that are impossible to reach by normal land means. Certain instances require a flying mount to reach them.

Every zone in the Outlands has an area unreachable except by flying mount. Some instances are not reachable except by flying mount, and others have wings that can only be accessed by using a flying mount to get there.

How to Get One

The friendly faction vendors that sell flying mounts are located in Shadowmoon Valley. The Horde can find their vendor in the settlement of Shadowmoon Village. It's in the Northwestern part of Shadowmoon Valley. Likewise, the Alliance vendor is in the Wildhammer Stronghold that lies in the Southwestern portion of Shadowmoon Valley. According to the World of Warcraft website, a special flying mount, the Swift Nether Drake, is available through the arena.

The normal flying mount increases your land and flight speed by 60%; the epic increases your land speed by 100% and your flight speed by 280%.

The Swift Nether Drake is the fastest of the flying mounts, as it increases flight speed by 310% (land speed of 100%). It is available to both Alliance and Horde.

The normal Horde Windriders come in three colors: tawny, blue and green. The normal Alliance gryphons come in the colors ebon, golden and snowy.

The swift mounts come in four different colors. For the Alliance, there are swift blue, green, purple and red gryphons. For the Horde, there are swift red, green, yellow and purple windriders.

Cost

A normal flying mount costs 100 gold. It requires level 70 and and an expert riding skill of 225 to ride. The expert riding skill costs 800 gold and requires that you already have a riding skill of 150 to learn.

An epic flying mounts costs 200 gold. It requires level 70 and an artisan riding skill of 300 to ride. The artisan riding skill costs 5000 gold and requires that you already have a riding skill of 225 to learn.

Snowy Gryphon

Swift Purple Windrider

Swift Red Gryphon

Movement

According to the WoW Netherdrake Information Page, the movement on a flying mount is similar to swimming. You have complete freedom to go in any direction. In order to lift off, you simply begin running and then jump. This will cause your mount to fly low. Another way to get started is to run off a cliff. This causes your mount to reflexively open its wings and begin to fly.

So, as you are grinding your way through levels, make sure you save back a few hundred gold, because a flying mount is going to be important to fully experience all that level 70 has to offer.

For more information, check out these sites:

• World of Warcraft Flying Mount Page
• World of Warcraft Netherdrake Page
• Ten Ton Hammer's Flying Mount Screenshot Gallery

Questions? Comments? Email me (Aurael@tentonhammer.com) or post on our forums.