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Saturday, February 19, 2011

Badass


Let me start by stating that I am not a mount collector. I've never been and it's likely that I will never become one. It's simply too much work to collect all those mounts and frankly I couldn't care less what I'm riding, as long as it's quick.

Thanks to the nice changes made by Blizzard, you can now just buy the maximum riding speed you can afford and it will apply equally to all your mounts, even the ones that were traditionally slow (like the 60% ground mount or 150% flying mount). That is a very nice touch because it allows everyone to use the mount they like best, without any penalty to speed. In my case, all my level 80+ toons have 310% speed mounts.

Since my mount collection is pitiful and can't even be called a "collection", the mount that I like best is the Headless Horseman's Mount that I have on my priest only. It has never dropped for my other characters but it seems fitting that my priest owns it.

You see, a shadow-specced priest makes this mount look even more badass than it is. There are cooler mounts out there and, after all, individual preferences are very subjective but for me, this is the ultimate mount. That, in no small measure, is also because I actually own it, as opposed to gawking at other people's 1337 mounts.

I find this mount baddass for several reasons. First, there's the fact that it is both a ground and a flying mount. Nowadays this isn't such a big deal anymore but in the olden days such a mount was very cool to own because you could use the same mount in both flying and non-flying areas without resorting to macros or multiple hotkeys. Then, there's the concept of riding a fricking flying horse. It looks like Death's horse, like one of the steeds of the Four Horsemen or perhaps like one of the mounts ridden by the Nazgûl in Lord of the Rings.

Combining this mount with a shadow priest really brings out the badassery, no question about it. I also love the way it seems to effortlessly glide through the air without flapping wings or whipping tails to distract me. As a bonus, when it turns, it seems to bank a little in the direction of the turn. Oh and if you look at the screenshot, the mount and the (shadow priest) rider are almost invisible against dark backgrounds.

Forgive me if I seem smitten with the Headless Horseman's Mount but it is the best possible mount I could have on any of my characters but especially on my shadow priest who, with his dark aura, gives the mount an even more foreboding presence.

I will end this by saying that there isn't another mount in World of Warcraft quite like the Headless Horseman's Mount. Which is your badass mount or what do you consider to be the ultimate pony?

20 comments:

Shannara said...

Thats the main mount for my shadow priest as well

Darth Solo said...

Tee hee I just realized that we should form a club: Shadow Priests on Headless Horseman's Mounts Club (SPHHMC). Hmm... sounds awful.

Anonymous said...

Thing is, everything looks cool in shadowform!

I use a Cenarion war hippogryph:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=33999

It look amazing, is superbly animated, and you can even make it rear up on demand using /mountspecial.

Better still, you can guarantee getting it with a very easy rep grind. At least easy if you can solo BC heroics, which shouldn't be an issue at 85.

Also, it's quite compact, and doesn't take up 3/4 of your screen like the ubiquitous dragons/proto-drakes that everyone seems to have.

For a ground mount, the bone raptor from archaeology is what I'm trying for:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=60954

Though I can understand not wanting to deal with the kind of RNG-hatred getting it to come up seems to require...

Darth Solo said...

The Cenarion hippogryph is pretty colorful, and I kinda like the white one but I don't quite dig those funky horns or antlers or whatever they are. I don't have this mount on any of my toons.

The archaeology raptor is indeed very badass, arguably one of the coolest ground mounts in the game but for me it would be useless since it's only useful in PvP and I don't PvP.

Redbeard said...

You know, I don't really have a favorite mount. When I play BGs on my Paladin I use the Venomhide Raptor mainly to conceal who is riding. Nothing screams "Pally!" quite like the Charger.

When I'm zipping around, I just like the old traditional windrider or gryphon; neither takes up a lot of space on my monitor, and I can easily see around them. Maybe I ought to use one of my drakes more often, but I just don't get around to it.

Cold said...

Engineering Dark Self Shadow Buff is cooler

Bloodshrike said...

My favorite mount is one that I can only get for about 3 weeks out of the year. The Flying Broom http://www.wowhead.com/item=33176 is a insta-mount flying or ground mount, scaled to your level of riding. Accidentally hop off your mount 10,000 feet in the air? No problem, instantly remount your broom.

But other than that, I do enjoy riding on the Horseman's mount when it comes up from my random selection macro.

Darth Solo said...

@Redbeard haha good one. I agree that for PvP it is often indicated to be as inconspicuous as possible.

@Cold I have to admit I don't know what you are talking about.

@Bloodshrike good point. I haven't been a lot into those brooms for whatever reason.

If I think about it, the very best mount (if it can be called a mount at all) is a druid's flight form. The ability to instantly "summon" your mount is priceless. I like, for example, to cancel flight form in mid-air, drop almost to the ground and then go to flight form again at the last instant.

Bloodshrike said...

Unfortunately, I have yet to get a druid to 60 to try that out.

That's why I liked the broom so much, because it gave any class the ability to do what druids do so well.

Darth Solo said...

Trust me, once you get flight form on your first druid, you won't want to go back to another class. The broom is nice but too bad it's not permanent.

Mogul said...

What a timely post - I'm currently scoping for a mount for my gnome lock. I'm keen for something small so I can see around it on the monitor but also want something interesting. If only I could have an engineering mount ala jet-pack style. Little flames shooting out the back. I'd even wear the occasional "hot foot" debuff that one would expect from such a ground-breaking piece of gnominsh engineering.

Darth Solo said...

Mogul you'll have to wait for Hallow's End if you want the Horseman's Mount. Still a long way to go until then and even then the drop is a matter of chance and not guaranteed.

Alex said...

I think Cold is talking about the transporter malfunction you sometimes get from the "Ultrasafe Transporter: Toshley's Station" or "Dimensional Ripper - Area 52". they have some pretty cool side effects.

Soul Split: Evil!
Only the dark half of your soul made it through the transport.
1 hour remaining

Unknown said...

I just wanted to add that another mount that looks badass on a shadow priest are the drake of the ____ wind. North wind is the "easiest" to get out of the four winds. Why?

http://www.wowhead.com/item=63040#screenshots:id=203790

http://www.wowhead.com/item=63040#screenshots:id=201718

When you see the mount with the glowing blue lines on the shadow form of the mount, that just screams badass to me.

I've thought about leveling a shadow priest just for that.

Darth Solo said...

@Alex oh I see. I haven't used that one too many times to get that effect, though I have engineering maxed out on 2 characters.

@Ivan that drake is pretty sweet but it still has a lot of flappy parts :D

Solitudeone said...

On my druid, it's flight-form 90% of the time. Small, quick, get in and out of anywhere. The Albino Drake for long flights, the fossilized raptor for ground. My mage loves her flying carpet.

Darth Solo said...

On my druid I'm out of flight form only indoors, in dungeons and in combat. It's the best form ever in the entire game and what's even more awesome is that you can pick up items from the ground or pick herbs without leaving flight form.

Nate H. said...

Some games are harder than others to go solo in.

More info at: www.gamedesignersunite.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

I like the Horseman's mount for a more practical reason. You can jump from the surface of water while mounted and when you get in the air your mount starts working as a flying mount. for classes that dont have waterwalking this is really usefull. : )

Darth Solo said...

Oh yeah that's definitely cool. But it still doesn't beat the druid flight form. I like to jump from the ground and switch to flight form mid-air. That's always so cool.