Vial of the Sands Guide

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Every
World of Warcraft player
loves a good looking mount. Mount fans on all servers make it their
personal mission to seek out the best looking and most unique mounts
available. Sometimes going to great lengths and spending huge amounts
of time and gold to add even just one new mount to their often vast
collections. All for the chance for the feeling one gets when riding or
flying about on a mount that you are sure inspires nerd envy in those
around you. The Vial of the Sands is one of those mounts.

Introduced in Patch 4.0.1 the
Vial of the Sands mount allows the player to morph themselves into a
Sandstone Drake that is capable of carrying along a passenger. While
the Sandstone Drake is no longer Bind on Pickup it has become no less
difficult to obtain. This fact holds especially true for those among us
who have to go about things the old fashioned way, by actually farming
for the mount, rather than dishing out a ton of money for it from
another player.

Bordering on insane, collecting
this mount will be no easy task. To keep you from total insanity, we
here at Ten Ton Hammer have compiled this handy guide from information
sources all over the web, as well as personal experiences, with all the
who’s, how’s and whys on what you need to do to nab
this mount for your very own. So get ready to empty your purse and read
onward steeling yourself for the journey ahead.

Vial of the Sands
Source

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Vial of the Sands which teaches
the Sandstone Drake transformation ability, is learned from Recipe:
Vial of the Sands. While a player wishing to make the Vial of the Sands
will need to have at least 525 Alchemy to use this mount, you do not
have to be an Alchemist to ultimately make use of the Sandstone Drake.
Despite its link with Alchemy, the Vial of the Sands drop itself is
truly linked with the Archaeology profession. Contained inside the
Tol’Vir common artifact known as the Canopic Jar, players
will need 450 Archeology to be able to collect this item.

For those of you not familiar
with Archaeology or those who need a bit of freshening up on the
subject you will want to keep in mind the following facts while
attempting to collect the recipe for the Vial of the Sands:

Once Archaeology has been
trained you will be able to see digsites on both Kalimdor and Eastern
Kingdoms. Four digsites will always be
available at any given time. Once you excavate a digsite
it will randomly respawn in another location on that continent. Canopic Jars only come from
Tol’vir digsites which can only be found on Kalimdor inside
Uldum. The Canopic
Jar is one of 7 common Tol’vir artifacts and requires 45
fragments to complete. A skill level of 450
Archaeology is required to spawn Tol’vir digsites. There are currently 16 (up
from 9) Tol’vir digsites in Uldum, which contain 9 to 18
fragments each. You cannot choose which
Tol’vir artifact you want. An artifact will be randomly
assigned to you and you will need to complete it before being randomly
given another.

Once the jar has been collected
simply open it to see what is contained inside. Keep in mind this
recipe is a random drop, meaning that it is not guaranteed to be found
inside every jar and only a bout of excellent luck will grant you the
recipe on the first try. Once you have the recipe in your hands the
journey is far from over. Instead a new phase of work begins as you
attempt to collect the staggering and expensive list of materials
needed to create the Sandstone Drake.

Sandstone Drake Creation
Materials

No one said creating this mount
would be easy. In order for any Alchemist to create the Vial of the
Sands which will unleash the Sandstone Drake they will need to come up
with the following items:

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alt="" src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/228418"> -
Pyrium Laced
Crystalline Vial x 1 alt="" src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/228419"> -
Sands of Time x 8 alt="" src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/228420"> -
Flasks of Titanic
Strength x 8 style="width: 32px; height: 32px;" alt=""
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/228416"> -
Flasks of the Winds x 8 alt="" src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/228421">
- Truegold x 12 alt="" src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/228415"> -
Deepstone Oil x 8

The Pyrium-Laced Crystal Vial
and the Sands of time are both rather expensive vendor items that can
be purchased from Yasmin a vendor found in Uldum, while the rest of the
materials will either need to be purchased from the Auction House or
collected and created by the player. Below you will find a list of the
materials and gold needed for a player with no benefits (such as the
Goblin racial or elixir mastery) to create and purchase the items
above:

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width="300"> 29,000 Gold 72 Pryrite Ore 120 Volatile Air 120 Volatile Fire 120 Volatile Water 96 Volatile Life 96 Azshara’s Veil 96 Cinderbloom 192 Whiptail 16 Crystal Vials 8 Albino Cavefish

Vial of the Sands Tips and
Tricks

Feeling like you may need a
little bit of extra help finding and creating the Vial of the Sands
recipe? Use the tips and tricks we have collected below to make this
tasks a bit easier:

Have multiple teleport
options set up (Hearthstone, Kirin Tor ring, Potions of Deepholm, etc)
to expedite travel around the world. Never let digsites pile up.
Go to Uldum as soon as they appear there. Goblin players will find
that their racial ability works and they will receive a discount when
purchasing the Pyrium-Laced Crystalline Vial and Sands of Time. Taking up Mining as a
profession will not only help offset the costs of creating Truegold,
but will also give you access to many of the Violates as well as
Pyrite, both of which are needed for this recipe. Herbalism is also an
excellent profession to have while creating this recipe as it will
allow you to collect your own herbs versus purchasing them. The Vial of the Sands recipe
will only drop for players who have the Alchemy profession. If you farm your own herbs
do so in Tol Barad. This zone has every type of herb in a relatively
small area that enables you to cut down gathering times.

As you can see, collecting this
mount which is essentially encased in a tripe RNG is nothing short of a
huge headache, however, most players will agree that having the Vial of
the Sands and in turn the Sandstone Drake all for yourself is well
worth it in the end. We here at Ten Ton Hammer wish you much luck and
hope that you will have a Sandstone Drake of your very own sometime
soon.

Do you have any handy tips for
making this WoW mount your very own? Share them with us in the comments
section below!