The Flameward Hippogryph was (and is) a guaranteed reward for doing the Molten Front quest chain. There’s nothing random about it, and in terms of time it’s, what, a month or so? Content everyone was doing anyway when it was current, and which can these days be one-shot in minutes.
In fact, it’s a shining example of a good meta reward achievable by playing the game, not the “gee hope you get lucky but prepare to grind your behind off for months” meta achieves we’re seeing now.