Now that the pre-patch has arrived for WoW Classic’s Burning Crusade, leveling characters are enjoying being able to snag a mount at level 30 instead of 40. After all these years, it’s still a thrill to get that huge jump in quality-of-life play when you’re able to take off over the landscape at a vastly greater speed than before.
But with Burning Crusade’s arrival, we’re also going to be greatly expanding the pool of available mount types. So before that fully happens, I thought I’d do another quick ranking list of all of the Classic era mounts from worst to best. It’s opinion time, boys and girls!
Worst: Kodo (Tauren)
First of all, I want to say that out of this entire list, this mount is the only one I actually hate; the rest I like to varying degrees. But man, poor Tauren. Those cows really got the worst of it with these massive, lumpy, ugly beasts. It takes up way too much screen real estate and stretches polygons so far that they almost break.
Charger (Paladin)
As I said, I don’t hate all of the rest of this list, but it doesn’t mean I’d want to ride some of these, either. I never really got on board with the overly armored Paladin’s charger, but that’s mostly because I don’t like most of the Paladin aesthetic to begin with. It’s just a wee bit too ostentatious for my tastes.
Frostsaber (Night Elf)
Good idea, but middling execution. I’ll admit that riding around on a sabertooth tiger equivalent is pretty cool, but this mount always looked too chunky to my eyes. It needed another 50% polygons to smooth out some of those obscenely sharp corners that you can’t help but notice because of the exaggerated animations.
Mechanostrider (Gnome)
Just so you don’t think I’m picking on the Elves here, I’m putting the Gnome mount in the middle of the pack — and I love me some Gnomes. But this mount always slightly bothered me because if you’re going to create a mechanical mount… why an ostrich? It’s a really dorky bird. Gnomes, you could’ve done better.
Horses (Human)
Horses are… horses. They’re not exciting, nor offensive. They’re perfectly adequate for the player who enjoys toast plain, ice cream vanilla, and races non-threatening.
Wolf (Orc)
I’m going to give a slight edge to the Human counterpart here, because wolves are cooler than horses. It doesn’t always look the best to have bulky Orcs riding them, but… yeah, they are pretty neat even still.
Ram (Dwarf)
I think the ram might be the most underrated mount in Classic. It doesn’t get talked about a lot, but when you take time to consider it, it’s actually pretty amazing looking. It’s got that stocky bullheaded power thing that you’d associate with Dwarves, and any race looks good riding it.
Felsteed (Warlock)
Forget your plain Jane horses; here’s a horse… from hell! Or from a fiery demonic dimension where equestrian sports involve leaping over lava fields and racing against razor harpies. Hey, any mount that’s actively on fire is a cool mount in my book.
Raptor (Troll)
My runner-up in this ranking is going to the vicious raptors that the Trolls get to ride. Other than mechanostriders, they’re the only two-legged mount, and they just exude a sense of speed and lethality. I’ve always liked these, even though I’ve rarely played a Troll.
Best: Skeletal Horse (Undead)
Dude, it’s a horse with no skin or muscles. It’s a skeleton horse. That just trumps everything. It’s so eerie looking, especially the epic version with tattered armaments. The Undead knock it out of the park with visual aesthetics, and that extends to their beasts of burden.
So now that you’ve read my list, I’d love to read yours! What’s your ranking of these 10 mounts and your reasoning for it? Sound off in the comments!
Stepping back into the MMO time machine of WoW Classic, Justin Olivetti offers up observations and ground-level analysis as a Gnome with a view. Casually Classic is a more laid-back look at this legacy ruleset for those of us who’ve never stepped into a raid or seen more than 200 gold to our names.
