Summary
- Rare mounts in WoW can be obtained through challenging quests, raids, and events, with some having low drop rates.
- Unique mounts like the Time-Lost Proto-Drake and X-45 Heartbreaker are sought after by completionist players.
- Prestigious mounts such as the Amani War Bear or Black Qiraji Battle Tank require skill, effort, or unique circumstances to obtain.
There's an impressive variety of mounts available in World of Warcraft. Owning a rare or unique mount is a major flex, and players who have earned their fancy rides like to show off. They are obtainable through questing, reputation grinding, dungeons, raids, and certain promotions. Plenty of completionist collect them just so they can say they have the rarest mounts in the game. While some mounts may no longer be obtainable, this does not diminish their rarity. Percentages provided below are from Data For Azeroth.
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Updated on February 18, 2025 by Paul Woodward: Patch 11.1 looks like it will be adding a variety of interesting mechanical mounts to the game. In addition to a bunch of rocket mounts similar to the X-45 Heartbreaker, players who raid can also get a mechanical T-Rex mount in the Liberation of Undermine raid. While not everyone will like all the goblin-themed cosmetics, more variety in World of Warcraft is never a bad thing. Hopefully, player housing will give players the ability to show off their favorite mounts to their neighbors in World of Warcraft: Midnight.
20 Time-Lost Proto-Drake
Obtained by 9% of Players
- Guaranteed drop from Time-Lost Proto-Drake, a rare spawn in the Storm Peaks
Rare enemies have been in World of Warcraft since the very beginning. However, it wasn't until Wrath of the Lich King that rare enemies included a mount on their loot table. The Time-Lost Pro-Drake is a rare enemy that can be found flying around in the Storm Peaks. If players manage to find and kill it, they are guaranteed to get this rare as a mount.
Of course, there is a catch. It is estimated that the Time-Lost Proto-Drake respawns every two to eight hours. Not only that but there are several different areas in the zone where the Time-Lost Proto-Drake can spawn, making it difficult to get to before someone else does. To complicate matters further, Time-Lost Proto-Drake shares these spawn points with another rare known as Vyragosa. So when a rare enemy does spawn, it may not even be the Time-Lost Proto-Drake.
19 Beledar's Spawn
Obtained by 7% of Players
- Drops from Beledar's Spawn in Hallowfall
Rare enemies have been a common part of World of Warcraft since the beginning. Per the occasional tooltip on the loading screen, rare enemies will often have better loot than what players would get from normal enemies. Sometimes, these rare enemies can drop a mount, and this is the case for Beledar's Spawn which drops a mount with the same name.
The tricky part about getting Beledar's Spawn is that players can only obtain it when Beledar's Shadow (essentially nighttime) is active in Hallowfall. At the start of Beledar's Shadow, Beledar's Spawn will appear at one of 20 different locations in Hallowfall. Getting a group and reaching Beledar's Spawn before it dies can be tricky, but to complicate matters further, the mount has a low drop rate. Between that and only having one chance per day for the mount, this is one that will take some time for players to get unless they get really lucky.
18 X-45 Heartbreaker
Obtained by 7% of Players
- Obtained from the Heart-Shaped Box during the "Love is in the Air" event
This mount has some interesting history, to say the least. It was originally known as the Big Love Rocket and had a suggestive icon. After the Blizzard sexual harassment controversy in 2021, the name of the mount was changed along with the icon in Patch 9.1.5.
History aside, this mount had an extraordinarily low drop rate when it was first added to the game back during Wrath of the Lich King. The X-45 Heartbreaker could only be acquired during the Valentine's Day event in WoW known as Love is in the Air. It is estimated that the drop rate at the time was one in 3333, which meant it has less than a one percent chance of dropping. On top of that, the event only ran for two weeks. If players didn't get the mount during the event, they would have to wait until the next year.
The drop rate was dramatically improved with Patch 10.0.5. That said, this mount was very difficult to get for over 13 years which is why so few players have gotten it.
17 Emerald Drake
Obtained by 6% of Players
- Reward from the Awake the Drakes achievement
Even before Dragonflight, many dragon mounts have been added to World of Warcraft over numerous expansions and patches. By the end of Wrath of the Lich King, it was possible to have a dragon mount from every Dragonflight in the game except for the Green Dragonflight. That changed in Patch 6.0.2 when the achievement 'Awake the Drakes' was added to the game. This meta-achievement rewarded the Emerald Drake mount for players who managed to obtain all nine mounts listed on it.
Some mounts were trivially easy to get at the time this was added like the Black Drake and Twilight Drake in Obsidian Sanctum 10 and 25-Player respectively. Others are more time intensive, especially the Red Drake and Purple Netherwing Drake as they require being exalted with two different factions in Wrath of the Lich King and The Burning Crusade. Then there were some like the Blazing Drake, Azure Drake, Blue Drake, and Onyxian Drake which were just rare drops off of raid bosses. With the amount of mounts required along with time and luck, it isn't surprising to see that only 6% of players have gotten this mount so far.
16 Ultramarine Qiraji Battle Tank
Obtained by 6% of Players
- Obtained through Archaeology
When Archaeology was added to the game back during Cataclysm, it added a variety of rewards for players to chase after. In addition to BoA epics, players could obtain toys, pets, and even mounts. The Ultramarine Qiraji Battle Tank was one of those mounts, and it was a rare artifact that could be obtained in Uldum. The problem with this is that there is several layers of RNG working against players that make getting this mount a long and tedious process.
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Not only do players need to have a fairly high skill level in Archaeology to get dig sites in Uldum, but these aforementioned dig sites rarely show up. On top of that, the Scepter of Azj'aqir artifact that unlocks this mount is a rare project and players are entirely at the mercy of RNG. Layers of RNG aside, this mount is also rare due to the fact that it is the second Qiraji Battle Tank that can be used outside the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj.
15 Ivory Goliathus
Obtained By 5% of Players
- Reward from the Glory of the Delver Achievement
With one rare exception, every single "Glory of" achievement in World of Warcraft awards players with a mount. Before The War Within, there was only "Glory of" meta achievements for dungeons and raids. Since Delves were intended to be a new pillar of endgame content, Blizzard added a meta-achievement for them as well. If players manage to complete all the achievements listed under "Glory of the Delver", they will earn the Ivory Goliathus mount.
This means that players will need to complete every version of all Khaz Algar Delves, find all the Sturdy Chests, and complete all the special achievements like "Just Keep Swimming" and "Spider Senses". Not only that, but players will also need to beat Zek'vir on at least 'Tier?' Difficulty. With all of these steps required to get this mount, it is no wonder that so few players have managed to get this mount.
14 Gorestrider Gronnling
Obtained by 5% of Players
- Complete the Glory of the Draenor Raider Achievement
Since achievements were first added to WoW during Wrath of the Lich King, there has always been a meta-achievement for each raid tier. By completing the achievements listed under that meta-achievement, players would earn a special mount to show off that they had gone above and beyond.
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In order to unlock Glory of the Draenor Raider, players have to complete all 17 achievements for Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry. These achievements are not unlocked by simply defeating the bosses, and players often have to do the boss fights incorrectly or in a non-conventional way to complete them. As such, players hoping to get this mount will need a well-organized team. Even though Warlords of Draenor is no longer relevant content, this can't be soloed since one of the achievements requires 10 players. This kind of coordination against bosses that can be one shot by one player makes it difficult to obtain the Gorestrider Gronnling, let alone any other meta achievement mount.
13 Tarecgosa's Visage
Obtained by 4% of Players
- Obtained by completing the Rhapsody in Blue quest.
Players who managed to obtain Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest, a legendary staff from Cataclysm, can transform into Tarecgosa's Visage and fly. Of course, the limitation for this was that you had to have the staff equipped. While Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest was originally a BiS for many caster classes, that was over 12 years ago. As is the nature of an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, all gear eventually gets replaced, even legendary weapons. So, if players really wanted to use this unique looking mount, they had to either swap weapons back and forth or use a macro.
That changed in 10.1 when Blizzard added a questline for players who obtained Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest. After reaching Level 70 and completing the Blue Dragonflight campaign, Kalecgos will offer a small series of quests for eligible players. Upon completing it, players get the Lingering Echo of Tarecgosa which allows them to transform into Tarecgosa's Visage without needing to equip the old legendary staff. This is the second legendary mount in the game, making it a unique and rare mount.
12 Mighty Caravan Brutosaur
Obtained by 4% of Players
- Obtained from the Black Market Auction House
Mounts are often available to players as a gold sink, as there are players who have a ludicrous amount of gold to burn, especially with the WoW Token allowing players to legally buy gold. Some early examples of this include the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth (16,000 to 20,000 gold depending on reputation) and the Grand Expedition Yak (120,000 gold).
The Mighty Caravan Brutosaur takes the cake by being the most expensive item that could be purchased from an NPC. Back when this mount was released during Battle For Azeroth, it cost 5,000,000 gold to purchase. Even with the ability to purchase WoW Tokens, not many players have that kind of gold just lying around. Nowadays, the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur occasionally appears at the Black Market Auction House.
Naturally, anything valuable like this will start a bidding war. Players who want to get this mount should make sure they are gold-capped (9,999,999 gold, 99, silver, 99 copper at the time of writing) as it is very likely the mount will hit the aforementioned gold cap once the bidding starts. The number of players who have this much gold is astronomically low, which is why a mount that can simply be purchased is so rare.
11 Valiance
Obtained by 4% of Players
- Obtained through unlocking the secrets of Naxxramas and killing Instructor Razuvious.
Blizzard has been gradually finding ways to bring back old content that was removed when Cataclysm revamped Azeroth. Between old gear from Zul'Gurub, Naxxramas, and Scarlet Monastery, players can get their hands on old items that have been unobtainable for many years.
In some cases, there are even new things for players to find. A good example of this is Valiance, the same mount used by Thane Korth'azz, one of the Four Horseman bosses in Naxxramas. Once players have completed the lengthy series of steps to unlock the secrets of Naxxramas, they will be able to obtain Valiance by purchasing a Rotten Delicious, feeding it to Valiance in the Military Quarter, and then Instructor Razuvious after using a Death Knight Understudy to bring the mount to the arena.
As is intended, secrets in World of Warcraft are not something that Blizzard promotes as they want the community to discover them. So many players who do not actively engage with community Discord servers or browse places like Wowhead would not necessarily even know that secrets like Valiance are even in the game. As such, not many players have Valiance since the steps to acquire it are not obvious. There are no breadcrumb quests that lead to these secrets either.