Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland reveals some of the hard to find pets, weapons and mounts in the latest World of Warcraft expansion.

Collecting rare items has always been a favorite hobby of mine in World of Warcraft. I farmed the Deathcharger's Reins back when the drop was 1/10,000. I ran Magister's Terrace solo until I had won the Orb of the Sin'Dorei, the White Hawkstrider and the Phoenix Hatchling. To date I've farmed Sethekk Halls 43 times without finding the Reins of the Raven Lord. But when the Cataclysm broke, it unearthed a whole slew of new, exciting and exceedingly rare items for players. Many are cosmetic, some are fun and almost all of them are one in a thousand.

Think you have the patience to find these rare treasures? Read on!

Mounts

First up we have the Reins of the Grey Riding Camel. I found out about this item by flying over the new zone called “The Steam Pools” on the border between Feralas and Silithus, and going “Huh, I wonder what this place is? It doesn't appear on any map!” Turns out it's the “Secret Camel Level” accessed through a phasing buff in Uldum. Scattered among the ancient architecture of the desert zone are tiny Mysterious Camel Figurines, which, when clicked, have a chance to give a buff and teleport the player to The Steam Pools. The buff makes the area phased to show a ton of camels and Dormus the Camel Hoarder, a level 85 elite with 285k. He isn't especially hard (but watch your AoE, because the camels get angry if you hit them), and has a 100% chance to drop the mount! The figurine itself is the toughest part – it is very rare, very small and often, instead of the teleport, only gives some dust (which vendors for 25 gold, at least). Your best bet? Quest in Uldum, and make a target macro to spam while wandering around.

Another rare mount is captured using the Reins of the Phosphorescent Stone Drake. This mount has earned the not-so-affectionate title of “Timeless Proto Drake v2.0,” in honor of its obtaining method. It is dropped 100% of the time by Aeonaxx, an elite stone drake found rarely in Deepholm. Unlike the Time Lost Proto Drake, however, finding and defeating Aeonaxx is a bit of a mini-game. The drake starts out friendly — by interacting with it, you jump on the drake and can attack as if you were in melee range while flying around. This makes the drake a bit tough for hunters to down. You will take some damage while fighting, but all accounts say the damage is minimal – the toughest part is finding the rare enemy itself.

One of the most sought after (and expensive) mounts of the new expansion is the Vial of the Sands, a “mount” that turns the user into a dragon capable of carrying a passenger! This item was released to be used only by alchemists and archaeologists at first. Not only does the recipe Bind on Pickup, it is only found by archaeologists above level 450 using Tol'Vir artifacts to make the Canopic Jar, which has about a 5% chance to have the recipe inside. The way that archaeology currently works, you need to make one of EVERY common artifact in a set before they will repeat; that means an archaeologist would need at least 360 more Tol'Vir artifacts before receiving another Jar. The archeologist then needs to be an alchemist of sufficient level to create the vial, which was also Bind on Pickup originally. However, Blizzard changed its mind about the BoP nature of the vial and changed it to Bind on Equip. Don't expect this item to be cheap, however – the items needed to make it from vendors alone cost 29,000 gold!

Archeology is full of many other goodies, but the rarest (even rarer than the recipe for the Vial of the Sands) is the Scepter of Azj'Aqir. The rarest item of the Tol'Vir artifacts, the Scepter allows for the summoning of the Ultramarine Qiraji Battle Tank, the first Qiraji battle tank (aka, bug mount) usable outside Ahn'Qiraj since the legendary Black Qiraji Resonating Stone from the original game. There's not much else to say about this mount in the way of tips besides... good luck! Harrison Jones would sell his son for this item. Twice.

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