My main is about to get the Hivemind group mount with some of my guildies. For the sake of this example, we shall assign these as Characters 1-5.
This mount is account-wide.
a) Do my alts get lumped into the group? Does my main, Character 1, apply to all of my toons, such that each of my toons becomes an alternate Character 1 and may only ride with Characters 2-5?
OR
b) Do my alts have to complete the ritual with Characters 2-5 to earn their place on the mount as Character 1?
AND
c) If my alts run the Hivemind ritual with a different group, could I potentially have my account-bound mount set to multiple groups? ie. my main is Character 1, in group 1-5; my alt is Character 6 in group 6-10; another of my alts becomes Character 11 in group 11-15; all of this with the original grouping(s) still intact?
Sorry it’s a bit of a convoluted question, just trying to understand the rules of the mount before I play around with other groupings. I DO understand that if my main, Character 1, wants to group with different people, I must redo the Hivemind ritual with the new group, thus severing my initial attachment.
Excellent breakdown of questions! I’ll try to answer the individual questions, but I’ll summarize at the end and paint a picture in the hopes it’ll help explain:
A. No, alts don’t get lumped into the same group as the character that did the original Hivemind ritual. Only characters that do the Hivemind ritual together can mount together.
B. Alts will have access to the Hivemind mount (like you said, it’s account-bound), but alts won’t be able to mount with anyone else. Each alt needs to do the Hivemind ritual individually and even then will only be able to ride with the others they do the ritual with (there’s no carry-over)
C. Yes, the Hivemind can be bound to multiple groups since it’s specific to each Alt. However, there’s no carry-over between groups. Main-1 will only be able to group with characters Main-1 did the ritual with, Alt-1 will only be able to group with the characters Alt-1 did the ritual with, etc.
So with that said, to paint the general picture:
The Devs wanted the Hivemind mount to be powerful for the groups that do the ritual together
While the mount is account-bound like all mounts, the special benefits of the mount are only applicable to the actual characters / groups that do the ritual (this includes mounting together and the speed boost)
Which altogether means that the mount is cool, but not super-cool, lol. I hope all of that makes sense!
Has WOW decided yet to make this an account bound full use mount? I am wishing that I could say… complete this on my main and then my group start new alt and be able to ride together as we did on the mains. We are always creating new toons and then wanting to start over after that set gets to the last expansion. We have matching pandas and matching hunters and matching mages…but the Sand Drake and other Recruit a friend mounts only allow one friend. I have more than one friend. BLIZZARD… let me have more than one friend in WOW!!! Please?