Well, I've done it. Finally pushed my first character through to 70, after dilly-dallying around with lowbie toons and deciding that yes, it was actually my Hunter I wanted to hit 70 with first, and it was actually my Hunter I still have the most joy soloing with.
And, less than three days later, after going through every one of my toons' banks and donating things for a "garage sale" in the auction house to gather the last 1500g, I drained all but 21g between all of my toons and bought a Swift Green Windrider
Binds when picked up
Unique
Misc
Requires Level 70
Requires Riding (300)
Use: Summons and dismisses a rideable wyvern mount. This is a very fast mount. This mount can only be summoned in Outland.
Item display is courtesy world of warcraft.allakhazam.com. ',VAUTO,HAUTO,FULLHTML);" onmouseout="return nd();">Swift Green Windrider - the first in our guild, and the first amongst many of my friends.
All I can say about it is ... world of warcraftee!!
The Joy Of Just Popping By
The flying mount concept itself is awesome - slow or fast, it just plain rocks to be able to mount up and fly away after you're done in some of the Outlands zones that have nothing in the air to aggro you. So, helping your friends in Nagrand, Terrokar, Hellfire, Blade's Edge, etc... is a cinch - for you! You can just come in and land on where you're needed, help out, and then give a wave and fly off.
And farming? Well, of course that's a lot easier with a flying mount... the hardest part is keeping one's mount level in the air and not crashing into the ground while looking at it! WTB an Engineer pattern for a gyro-stablizer for my mount!!
At any rate, I've done a bit of fly-farming, but mostly I've just found that while I'm flying somewhere, I'll find a new dot and it's fun to zoom in and check it out to see whether I can quickly and easily get the herb or not.
Add in there that I'm a Hunter with a pet, and I don't even have to worry about fighting before picking my herb - pet engages, I toss on a heal so while I'm picking my pet is okay, and when I'm done picking, we mow down the guy who was protecting the node! I'm thinking Warlock would have the same luck, it's a good idea to have those classes have at least one gatherer profession of either herbalism or mining, for those reasons, methinks.
Flying Mount Speed Tests
Yes, our quiet little guild of 20 or so regulars and their 100 or so alts, is VERY behind the curve. I think we've got 6 or 8 people who have 70s now (one guy has 5 70s and a 68, but he only counts as one person), and everyone has a flying mount who is 70. But, I was the first to buy an epic flyer, and there's been a lot of conversation about it since then, with new interest in "level 70 things" that I'm happy to finally be able to share in.
I had a guildmate help me to compare the speed of the regular flyer to an Epic Land Mount, right after I levelled to 70 and got the riding training 225 and bought the Blue Windrider
Binds when picked up
Unique
Misc
Requires Level 70
Requires Riding (225)
Use: Summons and dismisses a rideable windrider mount. This mount can only be summoned in Outland.
Item display is courtesy world of warcraft.allakhazam.com. ',VAUTO,HAUTO,FULLHTML);" onmouseout="return nd();">Blue Windrider - I had read online that the regular flyers were "60% speed on land and 100% speed in air" but I wasn't sure what that translated to compared to what I was used to. The result was:
- Land speed of regular flying mount is that of a lvl 40 mount.
- Air speed of a regular flying mount is that of a lvl 60 (epic land) mount.
As for the Epic flyer, the speeds were like this (noted as 100% and 260% land/air):
- Land speed of epic flying mount is that of a lvl 60 epic land mount
- Air speed of an epic flying mount matches the wyvern flyer
In other words, if you've ever sighed and wish you could just fly STRAIGHT from point A to point B, the epic flying mount lets you do that just like the regular one does, but the epic flyer goes 2.6x faster than the regular one. Insane!
What's Next For 70Hunter?
For a day after getting the epic flyer, I felt strange. Didn't have a goal in the game, exactly, since I had put so much thought and time into achieving level 70 and 5200g in the limited play time I have in a day/week/month, and I had achieved that goal.
Then, a Netherdrake flew past me and my attention perked up.
But I'll write about that soon!