Heart of the Aspects

[Acherontia]

Doesn't surprise me that it has a swimming animation--it is, after all, the wind serpent skeleton lol. Lazyblizz.

I do like it in shadowform, and I love the overall appearance but I'm really disappointed with swapped animation for hover--it really does not fit IMO. (Moving fast it's great, though.)

Fair warning--doing some BGs, and they're in there :/ Giant flappy goldspam all over the battlefield, as if those Tarecgosas weren't enough last patch, lol

[Vephriel]

Oh, it is the wind serpent animation. ^^ How neat, it works so well with the model I honestly didn't notice until I saw the swimming photo.

I don't mind if it's a reused animation, it works perfectly, and it's nice to have a new style of dragon.

If they do end up adding a ground animation in the future, I think a monitor lizard-esque walk would look really good.

[meepitco]

Probably one of the best Blizz store mounts yet. Am going to buy it later in the week with the remaining gift card money I have from Christmas c:

[SpiritBinder]

Ah...kinda weird it just...floats lol..."Although you don't have a flight license, you are allowed a hover license! You are considered flying if you're more than 10 feet off the ground!"

Doesn't surprise me that it has a swimming animation--it is, after all, the wind serpent skeleton lol. Lazyblizz.

Yeah spotted this back a while ago, and the skeleton and hover animation has been in since the new celestial dragon was added. The little guy floats next to you if you stop while mid air, just hovering. It was the 1st time that animation was added as there are no wind serpent mini pets (apart from the spirit of competition, and he does not hover) and wind serpent hunter pets don't fly. I thought it was quite unusual for them to add an entirely new and different animation for a mini pet, then put 2 and 2 together regarding the heart and soul of the aspects.... when they got released.

My personal option about it being on the store, kinda peeved about it. They could have added it to the game in any other way, make it a little lore savvy regarding DW... I mean anything. The sparkle pony (even though it was meant to drop off alagon when he was destined for WG) and flaming lion are designs that don't really fit in the rest of wow so much, lore wise and what not, so for them to come off the blizz store was fine imo.... but the heart of the aspects? Right now most of us know or are poking DW atm and know how relevant this mount could have been. Weather it only took a RF kill of DW, or normal, or a long nice chain quest... anything really. I don't care about the $$ so much, just the way they didn't implement such a beautiful mount. No doubt the soul of the aspects will show it's self on the store now also, and it does make me think that greed is starting to show on blizzards side.. oh well, that's just my opinion atm.

[MaximumOverdrive]

Finally got mine...and fallin' in love. No ground animation is kinda annoying, but I think I'll live. It really is a lovely mount, with a nice idle animation, swim animation and neat mount special. It'll just look weird on my lowbies lol.

[Vephriel]

Well, boyfriend's putting it on his credit card for me. He's in queue now, he says about a 2 hour wait, lol. xD At least I'll have something to look forward to when I get home from work.

[ummeiko]

I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned this, but...

It's flying backward? O.o

I came to post this same thing. Seeing it hovering, it just drives me nuts. The normal drakes have a slight backwards flying motion (at least to me - bugs me a little when they're moving forward but not too bad idling in the air), but it's really pronounced with Heart.

Plus it's too big. About twice as long as a normal drake and no wings-down-grounding means it's npc/mailbox blocking wide.

Ack. I didn't mean to come here and just rant. I like the idea of it. And I LOVE wind serpents. It's just that I don't like the end result. Plus I haven't found a pet-store mount I REALLY, REALLY, Have-to-have-it Like. The Winged Guardian is probably the one I like most, but still not for $25.

[Lisaara]

I'm so GLAD it's not a raid mount. My biggest pet peeve is that every good looking mount was always some super low drop raid mount that almost no one was gonna get unless you're a hardcore raider.

*hugs the mount tightly* Thank you so much Blizz! I literally squealed when I saw it!

[Shade]

I'm so GLAD it's not a raid mount. My biggest pet peeve is that every good looking mount was always some super low drop raid mount that almost no one was gonna get unless you're a hardcore raider.

*hugs the mount tightly* Thank you so much Blizz! I literally squealed when I saw it!

So agree! I'm really glad its not a raid mount-seeing as I am in a guild of two people, we'd never get it via raid on my server, nobody would let us team up that long with them. I wouldn't have minded it perhaps being a rep mount but oh well.

Am so buying one for myself and another for my best friend, it'll be her happy v-day gift. And buwaha shes not expecting it, seeing as she is pouting (because I'm not playing and this is our normal playtime) and running instances by herself while I wait for my spot in the que to go through. XD It'll be fun to have her freak out when she realizes what is going on.

18k to go in line ahead of me.... man this dragon is going to be everywhere!!

[Lisaara]

I'm so GLAD it's not a raid mount. My biggest pet peeve is that every good looking mount was always some super low drop raid mount that almost no one was gonna get unless you're a hardcore raider.

*hugs the mount tightly* Thank you so much Blizz! I literally squealed when I saw it!

So agree! I'm really glad its not a raid mount-seeing as I am in a guild of two people, we'd never get it via raid on my server, nobody would let us team up that long with them. I wouldn't have minded it perhaps being a rep mount but oh well.

Am so buying one for myself and another for my best friend, it'll be her happy v-day gift. And buwaha shes not expecting it, seeing as she is pouting (because I'm not playing and this is our normal playtime) and running instances by herself while I wait for my spot in the que to go through. XD It'll be fun to have her freak out when she realizes what is going on.

18k to go in line ahead of me.... man this dragon is going to be everywhere!!

My guild is full of raiders and we've NEVER seen the Alysrazor drop and we do firelands almost every week. :/ So even us raiders dont see it, case in point here. Rep mount, yes I could see that....

Hee! She's gonna be so thrilled!

[Makoes]

I logged in today to see someone on one of these right in from of me, first thing I did was google it to see if it was some sort of reward, but the page I looked at didnt say were it was obtained. Trade chat pointed me to the store, and...yeah, couldnt find the store from the site, I think I was to excited. Finally got to the store and less then 2min later I had it purchased, it took another 5min or so for it to arrive in the mail (after a log-out or two) I didnt even think twice at spending the money...For once there was a really really cool mount that I COULD get, and wouldnt have to spend hours rep farming, or playing roulett in a raid...Definitly my favourite mount!!!

[GormanGhaste]

It's too big. About twice as long as a normal drake and no wings-down-grounding means it's npc/mailbox blocking wide.

I was hoping someone would post pics of them by a mailbox, just to show how annoying they will be

[SpiritBinder]

My guild is full of raiders and we've NEVER seen the Alysrazor drop and we do firelands almost every week. :/ So even us raiders dont see it, case in point here. Rep mount, yes I could see that....

Hee! She's gonna be so thrilled!

I definitely agree that rare raid drops are/and can be awfully RNG based and for such an amazing mount it would have been a real shame if they when down that path. But, would you agree that if they implemented this mount via a another way, eg. guaranteed to obtain if you complete LFR DS? or a chain Quest? or some kind of meta attached to the new DS 5mans that came out? etc, it could have been cooler?

I just see a few of people just say, omg so glad it's not raid related, but if one does get to see the ending of cata/dw encounter, you could see how relevant this mount could have been... a gift from the aspects? etc.... the possibilities were endless.

To just throw it on the Blizz store was a shame imo , it would have been great if it where really attached to it's origins in some way, tis all

[MaximumOverdrive]

My guild is full of raiders and we've NEVER seen the Alysrazor drop and we do firelands almost every week. :/ So even us raiders dont see it, case in point here. Rep mount, yes I could see that....

Hee! She's gonna be so thrilled!

I definitely agree that rare raid drops are/and can be awfully RNG based and for such an amazing mount it would have been a real shame if they when down that path. But, would you agree that if they implemented this mount via a another way, eg. guaranteed to obtain if you complete LFR DS? or a chain Quest? or some kind of meta attached to the new DS 5mans that came out? etc, it could have been cooler?

I just see a few of people just say, omg so glad it's not raid related, but if one does get to see the ending of cata/dw encounter, you could see how relevant this mount could have been... a gift from the aspects? etc.... the possibilities were endless.

To just throw it on the Blizz store was a shame imo , it would have been great if it where really attached to it's origins in some way, tis all

Like you I would've preferred this as well. But I will take the blizzstore over RNG anyday, heh. Unless they did something like with OS where you can make it 100% droprate when meeting certain criteria.

[Lisaara]

My guild is full of raiders and we've NEVER seen the Alysrazor drop and we do firelands almost every week. :/ So even us raiders dont see it, case in point here. Rep mount, yes I could see that....

Hee! She's gonna be so thrilled!

I definitely agree that rare raid drops are/and can be awfully RNG based and for such an amazing mount it would have been a real shame if they when down that path. But, would you agree that if they implemented this mount via a another way, eg. guaranteed to obtain if you complete LFR DS? or a chain Quest? or some kind of meta attached to the new DS 5mans that came out? etc, it could have been cooler?

I just see a few of people just say, omg so glad it's not raid related, but if one does get to see the ending of cata/dw encounter, you could see how relevant this mount could have been... a gift from the aspects? etc.... the possibilities were endless.

To just throw it on the Blizz store was a shame imo , it would have been great if it where really attached to it's origins in some way, tis all

Like you I would've preferred this as well. But I will take the blizzstore over RNG anyday, heh. Unless they did something like with OS where you can make it 100% droprate when meeting certain criteria.

^ That, pretty much. Would've been neat for a LFR thing but I'll accept Blizzstore over RNG too.

[Makoes]

Here's a pic of the dragon under the effects of Nogginfogger. Its actually pretty nice. maybe shrink it down a bit more and it could make an awsome hunter pet!!

[Mychelle]

In my opinion, I really do not understand what the whole big hoo-doo-fit some people are having about this mount as far as what I have read on other forums...So yeah, it costs money and isnt some oober special mount that you have to either grind the hell out of, or have a 0.00001% chance to get. (Im looking at you Raven Lord...Im looking at you.)

Every single one of us pays the exact same sub-fee every month for the exact same game. I think it would be totally unfair to never ever give the casual players anything that looked even remotely cool compared to the items that are super hard to get that look epickly bad-ass. Just because I want to devote millions of hours of game time to collecting rare mounts and rare pets doesnt mean that only I should be allowed to have *ANYTHING* that actually looks epic in-game. I have plenty of friends that dont even play end game content. Yet they are still paying the same fee I am. So why not give them a chance to get themselves something really damn cool even if it does cost money?

And having this mount over *all* of my characters, is more then worth 25$s to me. Im not a super special snowflake for having it, but Im still happy with it regardless. =)

[Vephriel]

Alright, so I'm finally home from work, and had the code waiting for me in my email.

I'm loving this mount. I'm surprised by how much I love it in fact. I knew I liked it, but the colour wouldn't have been a first choice for me. Once I saw it in game though, it was stunning. The animations are just gorgeous, they really look amazing. The backwards wing sweep while idling doesn't bother me at all. It's not moving forwards, so having the wings rotate the other way wouldn't make any more or less sense. The way the body undulates along with the wings just seems to balance it out, as though it's just trying to remain in place.

I'm so pleased by my purchase. This was the first store mount that called to me, and I'm really glad I went for it.

[Makoes]

I think thats something that many people dont seem to realise. Blizzard isn't like a LOT of MMO's out there where you feel you HAVE to fork over extra cash to get stuff, there is SOOO much available in-game at varied dagrees of difficulty. Cool stuff and duller stuff, but a HUGE selection of stuff. So, when they toss in a few "Shiny" things into the store for those who want to buy em, I really can't fault them at all. On top of that, pretty much anything "shiny" from the store is available for ALL that players characters current and future, which is an even bigger bonus.

Seeing people complain about the new mount in trade, I can't help but wonder if they are just doing it for S&G, or if they really are that small minded.

(and from a business point of view...just think how much they JUST made on the first day...bloody brilliant!)

[Wain]

I'd have preferred it to be obtainable in the game too. Both because the store tends to lend a cheapish feel to a beautiful design and also because to a lot of people, kids and teens especially but also folks with kids and mortgages, that extra $25 means a lot and is hard to justify for one mount.

Having said that I wouldn't want it as rare rng or as elite raid. I always ALWAYS value personal hard work achievements more. Like the pink protodrake for example. In this case I would have preferred something that could be achieved in the LFR version of Dragon Soul through personal persistence and work. LFR is no scarier than 5 man pugs so there's not many it would exclude.

I don't get the need to pick the model to pieces though. I think it's stunning. Reusing skeletons is good sense. Creating new ones that fit every aspect of the game would add an insane amount of extra time to it. And I assumed the flying backwards effect of the hover was a logical hover for its flying style but maybe I'm wrong.