Mounts in Classic - a friendly, gentle reminder

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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This thread is for those who never experienced the way Mounts used to work or for those who would like a Refresher from back when you would walk around Azeroth for 40 levels before you got your quicker form of travel.

Keep in mind that Gold was much more difficult to come by, especially considering the amount spent on levelling skills, professions, repairs etc.

Mount Reins also took up a spot in your bag. You read that correctly.

If you reach level 40 on your first toon and have the required gold to purchase the Riding Skill and your Mount right there and then - I congratulate you in advance. Even more so if you accomplish that feat for Level 60!

Without further ado…

When you reach level 40:

  • Mount training (Riding 75) is 100 Gold before discounts, depending on your reputation. You get 10% discount for Honored and 10% for PVP Rank 3 which is 20% total if you fulfill both criteria. (Not sure how the secondary discount will work before the PVP system is implemented though.)

  • A full 20% discount will cost you 80 Gold to train this skill.

  • A base level Mount from your city will cost you 10 Gold before discounts.

When you reach level 60:

  • You must have Riding 75 prior to be able to purchase Epic Riding training which is 1000 Gold before discounts and same rules as Level 40 apply for said discounts.

  • A full 20% discount will cost you 800 Gold to train this skill to Riding 150.

  • A base level Epic Mount from your city will cost you 100 Gold before discounts.

Sidenotes:

‘Epic Mounts’ and ‘Mounts’ were seperate items and they cost accordingly.
Your Mount(s) that you bought at Level 40 will not scale even if you are fortunate enough to afford Epic Riding.

  • Your Mount will not travel at 100% speed if your Riding Skill is 150.

  • Your Epic Mount will not travel at 100% speed if your Riding Skill is 75.

  • TLDR: If you want 100% speed, you need 100% Riding Speed and a 100% Speed Mount.

  • Class based mounts for the Warlock and the Paladin are unlocked via Class Quests - the level 40 quests and level 60 quests scaled your mount type and speed accordingly. Some of those quests involve Gold and material investments.
    IIRC - the Paladin Level 60 Mount Quest required 150 Gold and rare materials such as the Black Diamond.

Final note:

Rolled a Human but want to ride the Night Elf Sabers? Get cracking on your Darnassus reputation - you can only purchase those Mounts if you are Exalted.

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What do you mean by this?

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  • Your purchase a 60% Speed Mount at Level 40 - let’s say the Palomino.
  • You get to Level 60 and get Epic Riding skill trained - but that Palomino is still running at 60% speed.
  • You go to the Mount Vendor and ask for the Swift Palomino - the vendor will want the 100 Gold and the Reins for the Level 40 Palomino which are in your bag.
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I’m quite certain you’re incorrect about this. Considering I would often ride my level 40 skeletal horse as a joke on my vanilla mage.

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Could be a private server thing, I admit. I was only active in Vanilla WoW for a couple months when it was current and that was 13 years ago.

EDIT:
Having said that: I just found this for 1.4;

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The mounts themselves were independent items from each other, requiring no pre-req. You could even buy the epic mount at level 1, without the skill necessary, and save it in your bag. Before a certain point in the game, that mount was also BoU (Bind on use) and tradeable. The mount skill did require the first skill be learned as you correctly stated.

It’s possible you’re thinking of the unarmored mounts having updated models, along with Blizzard’s subsequent quests that allowed you to trade your old mounts for the new designs. This was strictly for the epic mounts.

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Likely - I’ll have to edit the original post to prevent misinformation. Cheers for pointing it out.

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np

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If I skip Darkshore as a NE and head to Westfall, will this keep me from becoming honored in Darnassus by 40? I’d hate to not have that discount.

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Umm, by 60 - no. By 40, not sure. Just do a few starting zone quests and you’ll be fine, if you don’t want to take chances. Besides, if you see that you are not close by the mid-upper 20s, just do some quests in Ashenvale, if the Horde lets you, that is.

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I think you would have to do roughly half the quests in darkshore to get honored with Darnassus, but it’s been a very long time and I could be wrong.

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Paladin and Warlock mounts were also from the spellbook, so that was a definite plus, Paladins also needed Arcanite Bars and what not to make the barding, warlocks got boned needing a bunch of Inventory items for their ritual, both equated to similar gold costs. The lv 40 mount training covered the riding training.

Bit of history…
When PvP epic mounts were released, that was the way to avoid paying 1k for a mount, then when they swapped the costs around and made the training expensive and the mounts not. Those with Epic PvP mounts were grandfathered in, similarly those that purchased epic training but did not own a mount yet had the same benefit.

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Thanks for the info!

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Very welcome!

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Do we know if it’s going to be cheap riding (tiger riding, horse riding etc. abilities) or expensive riding (apprentice and journeyman professions)? They said 1.12 but I can only assume that includes 1.12.1 where the mount-specific riding was removed and replaced with Apprentice/Journeyman and made more expensive to make way for TBC’s flying mounts (Expert/Artisan Riding) but made the mounts cheaper so you can collect different colors.

I don’t think there’s been an official word on that, yet. Nor an official word on if the old unarmored epic mounts are going to be in the game in any capacity.

Edit: Another pro-top. If we use the OLD riding, that is pre-1.12.1, you’ll need Tiger Riding to ride the Winterspring Frostsaber. So if you’re a non-Night Elf, you’ll need exalted with Darnassus AND Wintersaber Trainers. However, if it’s 1.12.1, then you will only need Apprentice Riding, so you can not only skip out on Darnassus rep, but you can avoid paying for Journeyman Riding.

At least, I think…

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They have data mind the original unarmored mounts for classic wow. Corect me if I am wrong but aren’t they 1,000 gold? Would like to see this added to the list.

Aside from this I really like your list and it would be nice if it got pinned.

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I don’t believe any Mount costs 1000 Gold in Vanilla. What cost that much was training the Riding Skill to 150.

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No, the Riding skill was cheap and the Mounts were expensive prior to 1.12.1, the last patch of note before The Burning Crusade.

Before 1.12.1, at level 40 you’d pay I think 20 gold to learn a Riding Skill, which was treated as an “Ability” rather than a “Profession” with Apprentice/Journeyman.

Each mount-type had its own Riding Skill. Tiger Riding, Horse Riding, Ram Riding, and Mechanostrider Piloting for the Alliance. Then Wolf Riding, Raptor Riding, Kodo Riding, and Skeletal Horse Riding for the Horde.

There was only 1 “rank” of this skill but you’d need to get Exalted with other races to learn the appropriate riding skill for that mount species.

Also, before 1.12.1, mounts were BoE or “Bind on Equip” and could be sold on the auction house or traded between players. Not that this meant cross-faction mounts because the mounts were race restricted. In 1.12.1, mounts were changed to “BoP” or “Bind on Pickup” and thus could never be traded.

During this time, the Riding skill was cheap but the Mounts were expensive. Without the 10% discount from Honored and 10% discount from Rank 3 in PvP (meaning a 20% discount), a level 40 mount cost 100g for a 60% movement speed increase, and Epic Mounts at level 60 cost 1000g for 100% movement speed increase. That single cheap skill covered both types of mounts, but ONLY for that species.

Edit: Further, the reason that 1.12.1 changed the way mount skills worked was because they needed to make way for Expert and Artisan riding, for Normal and Epic Flying Mounts. Also, with mounts being cheaper and the riding skill being the prohibitive gold sink, people weren’t punished for wanting to change mount color.

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Took me a while but I finally found a price one one of the unarmored mounts.

https ://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?item=13317
…,…, ^remove this space for link.

It was indeed a thousand gold which is probably why they were so rare. With this we could assume that we will possibly have to pay 1000 gold at launch for epic mounts as well? Assuming that they don’t put the armored version in at launch?

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Wow - good find!

All this talk just makes me get more eager for Classic to launch. :slight_smile:

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