How to unlock traditional flying in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight 10.2?

One feature missing from World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is traditional flying, but that ends in patch 10.2. When the next major season of content comes to Blizzard’s MMO, players will be able to immediately unlock flight, provided they meet certain requirements.

The process is not as difficult as it has been in some previous expansions, though it will take work. If you’re like me and have been slacking on building reputation on the Dragon Isles, you’ll have some work to do.

To be clear, you can still use Dragonriding, even when traditional flying becomes a regular part of the Dragon Isles content in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight.

While this wasn’t revealed as a part of the 10.2 update, Blizzard disclosed this in a separate blue post on the forums. Here’s what you need to know.

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How to unlock traditional flying when World of Warcraft: Dragonflight 10.2 launches?

There are achievements to unlock to acquire flight (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

The difference between Dragonriding and traditional flying is simple but important: Flying normally means you don’t require any energy on your mount in order to reach your destination. You can simply pick one of your favorite cool mounts and fly through the skies of the Dragon Isles.

That said, in 10.2, players will be able to access traditional flying, provided they’ve met requirements that have already been revealed.

According to the developers, you need to get a few things done that will no doubt feel familiar to players who have unlocked flight in previous expansions.

In order to ride these mounts on the Dragon Isles, you need the Dragon Isles Pathfinder achievement, which requires you to do the following tasks:

• Waking Hope achievement: Complete the Waking Shores storyline
• Ohn’a’Roll achievement: Complete the Ohn’ahran Plains storyline
• Azure Spanner achievement: Complete the Azure Span storyline
• Just Don’t Ask Me to Spell It achievement: Complete the Thaldraszus storyline
• Embers of Neltharion achievement: Complete the Forbidden Reach and Zaralefk Cavern storylines
• Explore Zaralek Cavern achievement: Explore Zaralek Cavern, revealing the covered areas of the world map.
• Explore the Emerald Dream achievement: Explore the Emerald Dream, revealing the covered areas of the world map.

I still have plenty of work to do to gain flight (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Due to the overwhelming backlash, Blizzard Entertainment has changed the requirements for traditional flying in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. Initially, there was a “Freshscales Fifteen” achievement, that required players to have level 15 in all the factions of the expansion. However, many players felt it was a painful, unnecessary grind.

With this feedback in mind, Blizzard walked back this part of the achievement, making it flight much easier to complete. Now you merely have to complete the storylines for the new zones, and completely explore the map of the Zaralek Caverns/Emerald Dream zones. However, you still have access to dragonriding, even after unlocking normal flight.

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Patch 10.2 drops on November 7, 2023, in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. When this kicks off, players who already have the requirements can immediately start flying on their normal mounts once the achievement triggers.