Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Comments

Comment by Beska

I just can't seem to complete this quest. I must have been at it at least three hours and he just keeps shooting me down. I've tried everything, flying far behind, flying far infront, flying above and below - he just seems to get me one way or another.

Can anybody post some tips?

Comment by OptimusS

Try to fly at front of him

Comment by dynamo

i was doing really well at this one, but the silly thing just disappeared when he got to the mines, i might have just been unlucky other then this i found dodging the bolts kinda easy, i assume (by reading the above comments) it gets harder.

wonder what the 6th dude is like

Comment by limitgenesis

dispite fustration ive found the full proof stradegy for this guy

k all u have to do is stay above him really far up but not to far then make sure ur straightend out and use left click to look down stay at that camera angel and steer left and right and go up when u need to just watch out where he is or u might go to high
there is one trouble point near the end where he takes a drop down near that dock looking thing with the 2 elite guards so folow him down with right mouse click camera angle then straighten out and go birds eye view again.
long as u stay directly above him no probs with the bolts.
gl

Comment by Elastik

I attempted this guy at least 10 times or so before completing it. The best advice I can give you is to learn his flying path. As long as you are not chasing him he's not going to dismount you. If you stay by his side and know his turns, you can just short cut him whenever he does. If you for fall behind and have to chase him, you are most likely screwed unless he is going to turn soon.

Comment by Vargh

https://tbc.wowhead.com/?quest=11071 Last race

Comment by contraband

to be on the safe side i also unequipped all my items, payed off cos i died a few times

Comment by Fallerup

all the flying NPC's can be bugged, meaning they will be like shades or not be there at all, as of now, Mulverick is bugged often on Emerald dream, meaning, when he works, finish off the quest fast, I still stuck on this guy, a druid can do this much easier than other classes as it can just transform into flying form and continue when knocked off the mount, unfortunally, I'm not a druid:(

Comment by smcn

Just 1-shotted this on my friend's paladin, crusader aura completely trivializes it IMO. Didn't know his course and was still able to stay ahead of him through most of it.

Comment by Zanrok

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX0yysWOtMc

video of a successful attempt... keep your distance and he is easy.

Comment by Senji

I just wish I knew how he dismounts me when there is no lightning nearby.

Comment by jon4009

This guy is a big pain in the butt.

What worked for me was: stay in front of him as he flies around to the mine at the start. Use the time he wastes there to get above him and then track him from above using the arrow keys, using X and Space to go up and down as required.

As mentioned above the only tricky bit was the dive over the cliff and then up the hill beside it. Get that bit right and you are home free.

Comment by shadowaninja

As of right now, there are many race bugs.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Netherwing has a list of them.

Comment by 53319

What I did was I stayed pretty far above him at all times and didnt even have to worry about dodging lightning until he flies straight down by the wooden dock thing. I got very lucky here though, right as he approached the "airstrip" I got hit by the very last volley, and hit the ground. I immediately mounted back up and was able to complete it. Pretty shady, but it worked for me.

Comment by Byobong7

I had a lot of trouble with this quest until I saw some comments to try and fly above him. Also watching the video in this thread helps too. Knowing his path and flying above him seems almost crucial to doing this quest. Flying behind him and trying to dodge is tempting fate as the missiles he shoots are so random you are almost guaranteed to get hit by them.

The ONLY tricky part about flying above him is at the dock like people said, you have to be quick in following him down. Once I knew his complete path I completed it right away.

Comment by 66446

I have tried everything everyone has listed for this fight, and still cannot seem to complete it. He will either dissapear in mid-flight and auto fail or I will be hit by nothing and just randomly fall off.

My question is this: Do you really have to do this and the following captain in order to obtain a netherwing drake? or can you just continue w/ the dailys and call it even?

Comment by Trogthor

Just a warning about this quest:

After a few tries I'd finally gotten him back to the landing strip, but he takes so long to actually land and give you the quest complete-ness, that I was killed by the numerous Dragonmaw Riders I'd aggroed.

Don't really know a way around this other than maybe kill them beforehand (although they respawn pretty quick) or keep an eye out for them (which is hard when you're focussing on him, but unless you want to almost complete it only to be killed because he takes an age to land then it's probably necessary).

Comment by 65490

The missiles are easy to avoid, almost laughably so. However, in the middle of the flight, without warning, you will suddenly fail for apparently no reason. Blizzard's programming methods of determining the distances between two airborne objects are obviously flawed... at certain angles, I'm very close to him, but it thinks I'm far away.

Comment by Paddyjack

Be careful at the end, he is doing a final loop over the landing strip. My quest failed because I thought he was landing so I stopped.

Comment by 9576

Tip: take off your gear if you're doing this...then if you fail and die you don't have to pay repair bill.

Comment by Andicous

Geez, that was so damn hard! Tried about 25 times, 9/10 failing becuz i was too far away -.-. If u wanna luckily end this q don`t notice the skybreakers as they leave if u fly along with Mulverick and yes, best way to complete this q is to learn his way and be a lil bit in front of him BUT high in the sky (not too high tho). Also, when he goes up to the (flayer`s) ridge be rdy (better alrdy start) to climb down. That`s the spot where i failed several times as he flies fast. And as I said the skybreakers aren`t rly a big problem if u fly away with Mulverick.

Comment by 82518

I listened to Highway to the Danger Zone when I did this helped immensly

Comment by 4361

Fun fact: it takes 1:40 mins for Mulverick to to trot into position, slowly fly over the airfield strip, and actually start the race.

Mindnumbing.

Comment by 86971

Took me one whole week (playing 2h/day) to beat this guy. I tried to find all sources of information on how to win the race, some good ones I've found:

- AddOn ImprovedCamera: Increases limit of the Max Camera Distance slider in Interface Options to the very maximum possible (from 30 to 50).

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/5098/

- Youtube videos: Learning his path makes things much easier, watch it over and over:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX0yysWOtMc

- Turn off your UI: Press alt+Z to turn off your interface, so everything on the screen disappears and you can see Mulverick easier.

- Raid Mark him: Invite some guildmate or random guy to a party, so you can add a mark icon to his head. Personally I used the blue square.

- Buy a Riding Crop: If you're farming for your netherdrake, you surely have 60-100g to spend on a riding crop. It sucks that after you win this chain of quests you get a riding crop as a reward, but to beat mulverick and captain skyshatter you MUST have this, otherwise it gets close to impossible.

With the tips above, you can easily solo this guy. If you have friends, call them to be hit by his bolts instead of you, and a pally to give you crusader aura.

Hope you all can do it faster than I did, good luck!

Comment by 70115

This guy is far the hardest of the 6 racers. If you can beat this guy, you can easily beat Skyshatter. Just fly high and avoid as many missles as possible. Another good tip is that if you get lost for like 1-2 seconds, follow his missle trail. I lost him the first time, but quickly recovered and almost nailed it on the first time. After another 3 attempts, I knew the route by heart. I completed after my 5th attempt. Also, he also dive around the transporting dock on netherwing ledge. Just make sure then that you stick close, but for the rest of the run you can fly high.

Don't give up on any of these races. The best way to do is to study their trails. It's much easier if you already know where you going.

Comment by 18110

This guy was very tricky, took me 11 tries. Personally I found marking him with an icon (While in a party) helped immensely as he will seem to disappear at times. Good luck.

Comment by 47687

I have completed this quest 3 times now, except that I haven't. At the very end he does a 180 before he lands, he picks up speed right before he does the 180 and he's managed to fly out of range there 3 times now.

But nothing is more fun than getting knocked off your mount behind a crystal formation not being able to move or mount up, and end up HS'ing back to Shattrah just to fly back and try again.

Comment by 74643

Beat him the first try. Terribly easy if you stay really high above him.

Comment by Runawaynow

So, don't know if anyone noticed this, but both the Wing Commanders have names similar to the main duo in the movie Top Gun. Iceman (Ichman) and Maverick (Mulverick).

Obviously, Tom Cruise was the hero in that movie so the character based of the role he played must have a harder race, right? Of course maybe that's an incorrect assumption to make...

Comment by axellemaelstrom

A.W.O.L. = absent without official leave

so just another way of saying AFK

Comment by 21795

Winning strategy, after a lot of frustration:

- Fly high. His lightning bombs have a finite range - flying above will avoid 99% of the grief.

- Watch for the sudden turns. It is easy to loose sight of the target.

- The one place you can not fly high is at the transport dock. Fly parallel, just off to one side.

- His first approach to the finish line is not the finish. You will have to circle the airfield, during which time you're probabaly aggroing.

As with other races, taking off your gear saves repair costs. A riding crop is not required to complete the quest.

Comment by 96968

I have to agree - the best course of action is stay as much above him as is physically possible and still be counted as in the running, as well as dodging all his Sidewinder Lightning missiles. My suggestion is to try it a few times even if you don't succeed at first, that way you get a good handle of the route you take, which can also help ease the confusion that comes when he sometimes changes course to distract you. Even if I took a few tries it was always frustrating in a fun way.

This is the fifth of six races. In order:
Earning Your Wings... https://tbc.wowhead.com/?quest=11063
Dragonmaw Race: The Ballad of Oldie McOld https://tbc.wowhead.com/?quest=11064
Dragonmaw Race: Trope the Filth-Belcher https://tbc.wowhead.com/?quest=11067
Dragonmaw Race: Corlok the Vet https://tbc.wowhead.com/?quest=11068
Dragonmaw Race: Wing Commander Ichman https://tbc.wowhead.com/?quest=11069
*Dragonmaw Race: Wing Commander Mulverick https://tbc.wowhead.com/?quest=11070 *
Dragonmaw Race: Captain Skyshatter https://tbc.wowhead.com/?quest=11071

Comment by 105850

This is the worst quest in the game. I hope the developers who came up with this quest get fired.

This quest is just not fun. Sometimes you get knocked down just for the hell of it. I have failed the quest at the very end within pissing distance of the landing strip twice.

That doesn't count the number of attempts over the past few days where I just got knocked off for no good reason.

The thing that worked for me was flying slightly to the left or right of his flight path as it helped me see the bombs and I could cut corners when necessary.

The other tip is to stay on the expected flight path if you lose him because when he doubles-back on you and throws a ton of bombs, he will pick up his original flight path.

There was no quest in the game that made me feel like I want to cancel my WoW account until I discovered "Dragonmaw Race: Wing Commander Mulverick".

Farming Nethercite Ore or Crystals is a better use of time than wasting even a single minute while waiting for this quest to begin.

Comment by H4rb0rSkum

If you don't know how to strafe on a mount by now this quest will teach you. I had to do this one 13 times before I got it. All I did was strafe in the other direction when he started launching his lightning bolts and tried to stay below his left wing. Once you get the gist of his flight path this ones not *as* annoying.

Also turning the UI off was a BIG help! (Thats ALT+Z for those who need to know how to turn the interface off and on)

Good-freaking-luck!

Comment by 109464

Most of the time, the biggest problem for me was keeping in touch with him, not actually dodging the missiles, because he seems slightly faster than you.

What helps most here is learning his path by heart and actually flying in front of him. This way the missiles won't hit you, because they're fired in the other direction. Just be aware of those moments where he makes this lovely little stunts, because then the missiles will be fired to the front. You propably won't be able to be in front of him all the time, but make sure you take every possible shortcut available.

Just try to be between him and the point he's going to fly next, and you should be fine.

Comment by Magiras

To the person who failed once because he looped around the tower you should have seen that one coming, Maverick ALWAYS buzzed the towers in Top Gun. If he didn't I would have been disappointed.

Comment by Fiskodlaren

I took him down on my first try! thanks for the help everyone!

Comment by 104126

This is imho the most difficult of all the racing quests. I believe the following observations should make it easier:

My view is that the lighning bolts do not actually track you as some comments suggest.

Instead, what happens is that the lightning bolts expand in a circular way after they have been launched. It almost works like a circular "net" or "web" that increases in size as it goes on. If you get caught in the "net", you are dismounted.

As a countermeasure what you should do is this: Imagine a cone-shaped area behind Mulverick. This is the "danger zone".

So if you are very close to Mulverick, there is a smaller chance of being caught.
If you are further behind him, the area covered by the bolts are larger and you are in more danger.

He launches the lighning bolts more or less in your direction, but "circle of bolts" then expands the further it goes. This therefore creates the impression that the bolts actually do track you.

The strategy that ultimately worked best for me was this:

I flew right behind Mulverick (as close as I could) all of the time. Perhaps just a little to the side. Whenever I see a bolt, I hit spacebar and try to go "over" it. If you just keep spacebar in you should be safe. The closer you are to Mulverick, the easier to dodge the bolts this way.
What also works like a charm here is to cut his corners. If you are next to (or ahead of) Mulverick, you are safe. So if he turns, turn sharply into his turn and stay next to him.

Finally, you'll have to get to know his flight path in order to stay close. Most likely you'll end up doing the quest about 10 times to get the hang of his path, but if you persevere you'll get it. (Or just memorise it from youtube!) This dude has one loooong flight path.

(The most frustrating thing here is lag... even with a latency of 500-700ms you'll sometimes find that Mulverick suddenly "disappears" in front of you. If you don't know the flight path, this can be quite frustrating. Look for him right behind you if this happens. I think his "stunts" are sometimes because of small lag spikes rather than actual stunts?)

Comment by 35072

Took me three real tries to beat this. There were also two bad tries wherein:

1) I got aggro from one of the Dragonmaw riders while Mulv was taking off. What was I supposed to do, sit there and take a bunch of damage? I ran away.. pretty lame.

2) He despawned on me once. Just disappeared. Quest didn't fail, but obviously I had to restart.

A couple notes I made:

1) The major reason I didn't get this on my first try was because I tended to trail him from above, and at one point he goes to the Dragonmaw transporter platform and dives low... so he got out of my range and I failed. Not much I could have done there without pre-empting the dive, which I did next time.

2) I found the projectiles to be incredibly easy to avoid. Followed with my mouse and just tapped space (jump) whenever he fired them... they'd miss every time. I ended up tapping space a lot anyways to ensure that I didn't overtake him.

3) When Mulv (or any of the riders) suddenly loop back and then forward in one direction, this is something of a bug. It's obvious that Blizzard coded the encounter so that the riders are meant to hit invisible checkpoints, but for whatever reasons this doesn't always happen. When a rider misses one of these points, he quickly loops back and then forward again to go through it. This can cause confusion and lead to you getting hit or falling behind, but it won't happen 100% of the time, and if nothing else you can curse Blizzard. Or as someone else pointed out above, this could be the result of client-side lag. In any case, it's really not part of his intended route.

Comment by 120394

What makes this quest really annoying are the patting skybreakers that pose a problem if you run into them often. When I reached the runway, I found myself tanking 2 skybreakers, periodically dropping 2k aimed shots on me. BTW, when mulv reaches the runway, he flies at the same speed as he did taking off. So ya, I was there for quite a while.

Comment by 13233

Noggenfogger Elixir helps a lot, although it may look a bit weird at first.

Comment by Fivedollars

Stay above him. After reading the comments, after giving up on trying not to "cheat" I tried the stay above/ahead. Finished on third try.

Comment by Samitch

Contrary to the popular strategy, i just stayed Low and to one side, and then it is very easy to see the bolts coming; except the part where he goes along the ground. In the previous races I just stayed high and it was easy, but here i always got hit when i was right above him, but staying low they still seemed to be shot upwards, and i almost never got hit. I only ever lost if i got out of sight, or didnt know his flight path very well, so it was just a matter of learning his turns.

Comment by gaashura

A Parachute cloak is HIGHLY recommended for these quests, the engineering one is perfect since it only has 30 seconds cooldown, and will save your butt, but most likely your gold.

the only thing you need to do, is wear your cloak, and move the icon to a hotkey, take will help you react faster when you are falling, rather than clicking on the icon in your inventory.

-Gaash

Comment by Parry

Just stay as high as possible without losing him. Done in the first attempt :P

Comment by 63454

Don't worry about the skybreakers, you could have one on you the whole time and nt die as long as you have over 8K health... Staying right behind him is a bad plan because they DO track you to an extent.... the best way really is to fly high, but you will be amazed at how close you have to be to stay in "range"... Once I figured out that staying high was the key I lost multiple times just because I would get out of the tiny range

Comment by 133121

I tried strafing and dodging and everything else. I'm even a Druid, so I had Swift Flight Form! It was still hard. Flying above him is by far the best way. You avoid his bolts 99.9% of the time and can see his every move. Good luck to everyone attempting this quest! It's definitely a challenge!

Comment by JonnyBigBoss

Hardest quest I have ever done. Here are some tips:

- Turn your maximum zoom distance up and zoom out all the way
- Turn off your UI (alt+z by default)
- Predict his moves
- Cut him off at corners
- Fly to the side of him and strafe if possible
- Don't give up if you get knocked down, remount

I actually got knocked off my mount after the dock and had 10% health left upon landing. I thought I failed but remounted and was able to follow him. I suffered 3 durahits (no room in bags for my gear) and intense frustration doing this quest. Be patient and you will succeed.

Comment by Cromulon

This quest was really tough, but I completed it on my 5th run, 4th technically, since I thought you could wait at the end of the runway before he got there, apparently not. The last time I got really lucky, I aggroed one of those hostile Dragonmaw flying and they killed me just as we both landed. Thankfully I completed the quest.

Flying above him seems to work the best, use the space bar when he goes up and X when he goes down, move around a LOT.

Captain Skyshatter is really hard :(

Comment by 98133

As a hunter I used track humanoid. Attempted 2 times. First time was fine till there were 3 green dots and didn't know which to follow and lost him. Second time, I got hit by the thing he shoots at you. Using Track Humanoid made it easier. You just follow the green dot that going at that fast speed.

Comment by Moltare

Do not rely on the graphics to help you here. The dismount effects frequently do not coincide with the big crackly balls.

On talking to a Blizzard GM about this, I was told this is a known issue and will be fixed at some point in the nebulous future; in the meantime, the best strategy I have found is simply to stay about ten yards behind, above and right of him at all times.

Comment by 126032

******
100% working method to beat the dismounting electricity: tap space bar as he shoots em and as you fly by them.
******
You can literally just fly through the mass of electric rings with this method without worrying about getting dismounted. Now all you have to do is keep up with him. :)

ALSO,

Two odd things I've noticed with this quest
-Anyone else notice that sometimes his electric attacks hit himself?
-I've had him disappear on my first try without failing the quest... anyone else?

Comment by 150271

I easily spent a little over two hours and a half on this guy. It took me a lot of attempts, many of them failed because I was too far away or he managed to hit me with a homing spark. The method I found that worked for me really well was just staying directly above him, with my camera directly pointing down. Space bar and X worked wonders, but after a little over a dozen times I finally managed it.

Comment by cerender

Thank you for all the help! Thanks to everything I read and watched from here I finished the quest. I've posted my run to help others. As you will see luck plays a lot in this too. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hN3I37hjAQ

Comment by 57152

All advice I can give about him is to stay above him, except at the ramp where are two ascendants he will swoop down fast so you have to be at same distance as him or you will lose.

And noggenfogger also help alot.

Comment by LilithuZ

It took me about 1 hour to beat him...

Normal
At first I tried staying behind him, that is the worst thing to do when facing Mulverick
cause of the lightning are many and they track you, but not for long before they exlode.

Bird's Eye View
Then I tried staying on top and beside of him that worked rather well,
although when Mulv made a turn it all went to hell :S

One Step Ahead
Then after like 10 attempts I tried flying in front of him, with that tactic it only took me 2 attempts
to beat him but it requires you to know his flight route if you're gonna try that one, and another thing
sometimes he just stops in the air, goes back a few yards and then continues on the normal route so
keep an eye out for when he does that. I had to turn my camera back and forth like a 100 times to
fly in front of him.

Good Luck and I hope this helpes!

Comment by Allakhazam

attempted it alot....

Yes pain in the ass.... BUT

Fly above the guy. Alt Z to go full screen. keep him right at the bottom of the screen and fly as close as you can.

2 attempts later i'd finished it.

Comment by Allakhazam

about 20 tries.. everytime NOTHING hit me but i just fell of the mount

Comment by Allakhazam

the biggest crock of S**t on the game. its a nightmare. my monitor is goin out the window in a minute because of this quest. blizzard need to do something abolut it because its far too hard imo

Comment by Allakhazam

20 trys today, no luck... maybe later... wasted half an hr for nothing

Comment by Allakhazam

This race is exceedingly difficult, there is no simple approach to it either.... but for the sake of being helpful i will say that alt + z to hide ui helps a bit.... the APPROX course he takes is

straight off the landing strip, hard left along the cliffs, continuing straight until passing the first mine, wide left turn to connect to the second mine area. you cut across the eastern corner of the town and take the path to the right (east) the path again splits here, stay to the right, which is an uphill, at the split turn west (towards the elite flayer boss). after the elite flayer boss he turns a VERY wide left and heads over to the 'dock' used in the 'not so friendly skies' quest. once he arrives here he nosedives just past the edge of the dock, turning a sharp right and coming back up over the top of a hill, his pathing is a little screwy here, but he starts heading east again. the rest is fairly simple.... its all a matter of keeping up. Once you get back to the runway its NOT over! he flys right by the runway and goes around the top of the right 'tower' at the end of the runway, then flys back to the end of the runway.... then its over.

you'll understand that a bit better when you see it. this race is a SUPER pain in the ass since most of it takes place over the void.

Comment by Allakhazam

If this is Blizzards attempt at making WoW a challenge they succeeded and failed miserably at the same time.
1st: The quest is poorly designed and incredibly stupid (getting hit randomly and more than once I was following him and he disapeared, didn't fail the quest, he just disapeared and respawned back at base).
2nd: Why do the dragonmaw have a runway? Spread your wings and @#%^ing fly away, WTF they need a runway for.
3rd: With a quest this hard that you have try 2000 times why does the stupid @#%^er fly at walking speed to the end of the runway before take-off? Hurry up @#%^er! C'mon Blizzard! You mother @#$%ing cocksuckers.

/quit WoW

Edited, Sep 16th 2007 5:06am by patrickwolf

Comment by Allakhazam

Somehow managed to do it on my first go, after reading all the posts here. I didn't spend hours playing Battlefront 2 for nothing it seems (whoo dodging lasers).

I used a riding crop, and was able to keep up quite well with him. At one stage I blindsighted accidently behind a crystal and avoided the sparklies, which was good. The worst part though is when he does his twirl thing, it is very difficult to dodge the sparkles and try and keep track of him at the same time. Otherwise, I tended to use a mix of staying below, then going above him, depending on how high he was above the ground.

Otherwise I consider myself very lucky to have one-shotted this quest, and I do agree that, in light of the almost certain death that awaits if you fail, Bliz did make it too hard.

Comment by Allakhazam

ok i have done this 2x now were at the end he flys towards the void and vanishes,once with a friend and once solo

my quest log doesnt say failed or anything and i am able to fly back to the base and watch the mf fly off with someone else

as if this quest wasnt a royal pain in the ass as it is without it look like being @#%^ing bugged at time of posting

Edited, Dec 12th 2007 5:00am by tarloch

Comment by Allakhazam

Just finished it. Second try, no riding crop. Just flew behind him about 25-30yds or so and dodged all the blue things he shot.

Comment by Allakhazam

Knocked off my mount when nothing hit me whatsoever.

Comment by Allakhazam

The best strategy is to fly 20 feet above Mulverick and stay a yard or two in front of him, or at the bare minimum 1 yard behind, all the while keeping the height at least 10 yards higher. You will never be hit by his dismount. This works best with a riding crop or if your a paladin; you would use Crusader Aura. It could take a few attempts to master, because you may need to learn most of his flight path in order to keep ahead of him so try not to pound your monitor if you fail.

Edited, Jun 12th 2007 10:11pm by epicdemic

Comment by Allakhazam

The best way to do this quest is to not do it at all. Unless you enjoy repair bills 2-3x what the quests give then just stop here and buy a damn riding crop.

Comment by Allakhazam

FFS! THIS QUEST ISNT BUGGED! ITS A F***ing BUG ITSELF! BLIZZARD IS A BUNCH OF RETARDS. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THOSE IDIOTS HOW THEY PLAY THIS Q WITHOUT GETTING REALLY MAD ON THE WHOLE WORLD!

Comment by Allakhazam

Finally finished this one, took quite a few tries to get the flight route down. Open Interface Settings and slide the max camera distance all the way back. Makes it a lot easier to see where he is when he zips off camera. I spent most of my time above him. Once you get to the tower as he's coming back to the runway, don't panic if you're dismounted--you can still mount back up, as he's not flying off at that point, he's just crawling in real slow.

Considered that I had a #$%^&*bag horde intentionally flying in my way the whole time, this quest is doable, but hard.

Comment by Allakhazam

oh jesus christ blizzard what a crap quest, ive been doing it ALL day today, takes like 10 minutes for the old guy to get to the end of the run way, and whats the problem with him just ''disapering'' jesus...

Comment by Allakhazam

The posts about flying above him is the correct method. What I did was got airborn, and made sure I was parallel with the ground. Then, I just used space and X to stay a reasonable distance above him, and just looked down on myself from above. Be careful though. Towards the end, he dives waaaaaaay down, and if you let him get too far below you, you fail. Though this took me a few times to complete, I never got dismounted a single time.

Comment by Allakhazam

I tried doing this quest in first-person view (with a riding crop), and succeeded on my second try. Try it.

Comment by Allakhazam

i hate this guy, all the rest took me a few tries to do them but they didnt bug, just needs patience to do them and some flying skill, this guy doesn't need patience, needs a new face over, he keeps bugging all the time, im going good, not being hit be invisible lightnings or anything and he poof, just disappear and im found flying alone...

Comment by Allakhazam

it's a good strategy to fly higher then him...just take care of where he goes. Alt+Z to remove interface and fly better, toggle autorun and fly higher... i think that if you have crusader aura or something similar, it's even easier

Comment by Allakhazam

Clearly THE most stupidly hard quest of the game. As properly pointed out, the LAG makes the guest nearly impossible to complete (you get hit when you should not based on what your screen shows).

Took me 20+ tries (and 10+ deaths!) to successfully complete. You must do this quest NAKED or you'll go broke with the repair bills.

Only tips I can really give:
- fly above Mulv and the missiles he throws at you shoudln't be a real problem anymore,
- there are spots where Mulv does stupid 180° turns that are impossible to follow if you're not ready for them: practice and get used to them so that you can predict them
- there is one dive you have to be ready for: that's where Mulv dives next to the dock (if you don't anticipate this, he'll dive so deep that you'll loose him),
- at the end, Mulv approaches the village but does not land immediately so don't get tricked into landing there.

Good luck, this quest is FU.KING annoying but not entirely impossible. Stupid WOW though on that one...

nostra

Comment by Allakhazam

blizzard made this race too hard imo! it's close to impossible!

Comment by Allakhazam

Or at least I don't think.

I think it is more that it's bugged. As many people have mentioned - you will die a lot when NOTHING hits you. Won't even be remotely close and you'll still get hit - like we're talking 40+yds lightning goes in the OTHER direction yet you are mysteriously struck by it.

This quest is most certainly a failure of QC.

Also be warned, the quests are dependent on draw distance. As we all know, some areas seem to have different draw distances than others - such as Tanaris where it's really bad. Another spot it's bad is past the docks - and when he goes down by the docks you can be pretty close and it will still fail the quest. I was about 50yds and he faded the second he went past the docks - had been the same range the entire flight up to that point.

Edited, Jul 18th 2007 2:22pm by Xgom

Comment by Allakhazam

still havent made it 50 attemps or so worst quest ever!

Comment by Allakhazam

I used cruzader Aura and ALT-Z to remove interface.
Second try. Success!

Comment by Allakhazam

Alright, here's my anger plus some advice...

1) Take off all durable armor. Falling damage is a percentage of your health, so it won't matter that your hp is very low.

2) Video options: turn DOWN Terrain Distance, but turn UP Spell Detail and Environment Detail. This will give you a much better view of Mulv's sparkles.

3) Do NOT do this quest when someone else is doing a different race. After many tries I finally had this almost complete... except at the very end as Mulv was landing... an alliance player just started his and Ichman's fire knocked me off and quest failed because Mulv had landed too far ahead of me. I am EXTREMELY angry for that... so don't make that mistake. Just wait until nobody else is doing it.

4) F*** You Blizzard!

Comment by Allakhazam

im laughing about it now, but i was tearing my hair out trying to do it, i found the best strategy was just to strafe fly alongside him every now and again switching sides, once u do it a few times and work out where hes going etc it bcomes much easier, expect a few deaths tho, thank god for slow fall ^^

Comment by Allakhazam

…but I'm trying. It's tough, yes. Did you really expect the 5th in a line of 6 races to be a cakewalk?

Frankly, as much as I'd love the rep, because it'll get me that much closer to my , I may never finish this chain. I'd love the , too. I know it's the same as having a Riding Crop, but there will be far fewer in possession of the whip than the crop.

You could call yourself a real Netherwing Drake Rider after that… It separates the Flying from the dying.

Strafe left, strafe right, up-down-up…

*sigh*

Konami had a hand in coming up with this, didn't they?

Edited, Sep 3rd 2007 8:02pm by Lorielae

Comment by Allakhazam

This quest is fundamentally broken. The way the race went, it reminded me of racing games I played on the Atari 2600. That's to say it sucked. Failing the player is entirely based on dirty tricks and split second timing a human player could never do quite right within the time frame and required numerous tries until the human can predict it rather than react to it.

On the issue of being hit by nothing. This is an issue with the way Blizzard designed the game. Presumably to "ensure no cheating", they have made the server "king". This means that the correct position is not what's on your screen but what was sent to the server a bit ago (refer to your latency). Not so big a deal when fighting mobs when a difference of up to 500ms is tolerable, but when the difference between winnning and losing is less than you latency, it's crock. They reason this one is full of turds is because the sparklies home in on your position. So if it passes through where you were in the last second or so, you're dead. Clearly a mini-game like this MUST be run locally, not on the server. I mean, there's no option for group play. At most, it's just the mobs and occasional onlookers, all of which is LESS important than you seeing that lightning and where it's going. THEY can get the lagged position info. Essentially, it's possible to do it within the limits of the game by making it an instance (ZF is an "open air instance"), but it'd be less of a change at the user level if the backend somewhere got a bit put in to shunt some of the solo items onto the local computers. It does present the problem of hacked WoWs cheating, but it would also reduce loads on servers to an extent and reduce latency.

Regarding strategies, the fly high one worked the best for me. Flying sideways was ok, but I had the issue of flying into things. I had tried it to check where the heck Mulv was to reasonable success but it barely worked. I was left to spotting wingtips and some sparks. Would have loved a rear view addon or something, or at least a targetting one that tracked your target. A few things of note:
- The first ring to the left around the hill which brings you to the entrance to the mines can be done the same way the earlier ones could have been done, which is to fly ahead. Just hang at the crystal formation about runway height on the side of the hill until Mulv finishes his flop down the runway and begins his run. He just about goes full pelt so you can go full steam around the hill and not really have to worry about losing him. Go a little wide to let him catch up if need be. A little practice here and you should be able to do it in your sleep.
- I started doing the high up trick mentioned over the camp. Basically flew from the mine entrance to the camp, then climb and forward towards the side of the hill where Mulv makes his next major turn. Fly roughly at the height of the Dragonmaw Skybreaker patrols or a bit above. I found that the size of Mulv at the bottom of my screen should be roughly be his wing tip to wing tip be about the width from the thumb at the front of the netherwing wing to thumb. Any less would be helpful if you can manage it.
- After the flayer hairpin on the hill, I found it easier to fly over the crystal on the right (relative to the way Mulv is flying along this stretch), being already high up. Burn nether essence down to the end where the den mother is and veer a bit off to the right. Mulv comes past the den mother and through the gap in the crystals. He then goes on a wide left so don't hang too far behind.
- Generally, staying on the Netherwing Ledge side of Mulv's flight path should keep you on his "inside" of his turns and gain you ms. This changes when he heads out to the floating rocks, but you'll learn when that is and you won't forget it.

Catchup points (to the best of my recollection)
1) The mine entrances. He goes wide and almost always did a twirl near the eastern mine entrance. Stay to the right (south) of the crystals and you should be just close enough. You can even stop for half a second at crystal formation. Any longer and the sparklies would find you.
2) The ramp up to the flayers has a hairpin bend. For me I was high up already and easily short cutted the bend. Besure to not turn to early or the combined height and distance will fail you when Mulv takes the bend. From here, Mulv goes a little slower right after the turn, but picks up roughly where you could have shortcutted. I've lost him a couple of times at this point as I pelted down the track toward the den mother. Don't be too hasty.
3) Mulv heads out to floating platforms. One of them has some guy with "the Insane" suffix. lvl 72 elite. He makes a turn along the "left" edge of that rock and tosses A LOT of sparkles. I got knocked off twice at roughly the same position here so really watch it. You'll feel like cutting corners (felt a little far behind each time I was over that rock) but do too much and you will be shot down. Landing on that elite is about as much fun as the bloody Ascendants.
4) I think it's on the Eastern end, south side... either before or after #3 (sorry!) He sticks to the main range to his left but eventually banks out After seeing this the first time, you'll know that on rounding the range, you can head straight for where he comes out. This gets you that little bit closer.
5) The much-talked-about dive. This is a suck. As soon as you see the dock where the 2 Ascendants are standing guard, dive for it. You'll need to reduce you altitude so Mulv doesn't dive out of range and fail you. Fly out over the dock, turn around and watch him come back up. The climb is almost verticle so you could justfly close to the hill (more like a spire) he climbs and hit the space bar. He crests it and follows it down and then goes past the Ascendants towards the runway.
6) After the runway, he swings back and buzzes the tower. Stupid Top Gun :p Fly at the top of the tower when you're on this leg and he should swing back towards you. Just watch for the sparkles and follow him to the end of the runway to finish.

That's all I got... and could remember... 4-5 hours to get to this point. These races suck and the 90-odd seconds it takes from accepting the quest to the race starting in earnest ate up stupidly high amounts of my time. That and getting back there from the graveyard. Extremely time consuming and not much in rewards. Rep, you could do in less time and gold... well, run instances. 100G or so for the riding crop and you will be in the same position as someone who spent the time to do it, equipment-wise.

Comment by Allakhazam

just did it on my 2nd try when flying above him and keeping distance of off those arcane missiles. Believe me, fly above him and you'll make it. Watch out for when you think it's over as he flies towards the base, he doesnt land but flys to end of "runway" and then goes to land and there were quite many arcane missiles :) definitely use far camera vies + alt+z

Comment by Allakhazam

This quest is annoying.

I failed a few times because I went to the far end of the run way and the path he takes to get there I guess goes too far...

As for the race itself... I failed about 10 times total but once you know the track you can cut his turns to make up ground. Also if you manage to stay slightly ahead of him (because you know the route better than he does) he doesn't hit you with those things at all.

Wik

Comment by Allakhazam

This quest is really really really hard.
His bolts always go to your direction, making impossible win him if you try follow him, as we should do. The only way to beat him is flying AHEAD, and to do this you need know his entire flight path. So, you'll try over 20, 30 times to get there and will die over 10 times, that's for sure.
The first half of the flight path is the worst, you may lose him from sight several times and you'll aggro several mobs, making it harder then it should be. After he flies over the 2 mobs on the wooden deck, most of his fly is in circle, near the base, and you don't need follow him, just stay in the range and it'll be fine. Memorize his first half path, the second half path is ALOT easier then first half.

Comment by Allakhazam

blizzard made this race too hard imo! nearly impossible!

Comment by Allakhazam

I just finished this one and I had the best luck by strafing sideways out beside him. You can remain almost parallel with him while strafing and his shots can't hit you. It takes 3 or 4 tries to get his tricky parts down but a lot of it is pretty standard. If you do end up behind him just go up up up to avoid the shots and use his turns to catch up with him. When he gets near the dock be careful because he takes a quick dive down the side of the rock face over the edge of the dock and then turns around and comes right back up.

Comment by Allakhazam

I won't downplay the difficulty... I spent a good long time trying and failing this race. I did the 4 before it without any real effort so when this one gave me soo much trouble I was pissed, especially since racing games are my first true love.

My advice...
- get naked... at least take off anything with durability.
- always move... whenever Mulv sends things your way do 3 direction changes(while continuing forward). I go right-up, then down and then left-up.
- i see a lot of people suggesting you stay above Mulv. I found this to make it more difficult I choose to fly off to his side.
- You need a speed boost... riding crop or crusaders aura
- 360s... these can be devasting in your mind but i never once was knocked off during this move. go up fly in circles and keep your eye on the prize.
- be patient... this is above all the most important thing. Getting frustrated and pissed off is your biggest enemy on this and the next race. The moves are simple and methodical since there's no way of knowing if a phantom bolt is going to hit you, you just need to follow your best pattern and keep trying.

The fact is until bliz improves this quest it's not about skill it's about luck. Since you can't control luck there's no point in getting frustrated and pissed off.

Once last bit... when I finally beat this I was being attacked by those damn skyguard guys... since I was flying naked I was really getting my butt kicked too. Mulv landed and I fell from the sky dead right in front of him... DO NOT RELEASE if this happens. Death does not fail you it's all about range wait for him to reach the end of the landing strip and it will complete. I was on the edge when this happened but it made the win that much cooler...

Comment by Allakhazam

Attempted this quest last night on my lock approx 20-30 times with no success.

Had the @#$%s so I had to rage quit.

My suggestion take all your clothes off so you don't get any durability loss if you get knocked off the mount and into the gully. This happened to me about 5 times.

Expect to get the %^&*s with the quest, it's absolutely hell trying to complete.

Found the best way to avoid the lightning stay reasonably close to him and then zig zag up and down during the flight.

Comment by Allakhazam

First go...loads of luck i lost hima few times but seemed to end up behind him. Nice tip on the interface btw :) just change height constantly...gl all

Comment by Allakhazam

I beat him last night and I thought I would post here to pass on some of my lessons learned the long way
He caused me huge problems. I probably failed 50 to 60 times.

Best recommendation is to get someone to do with you. After joining with someone he succeeded on the 3rd try. I failed a couple of times as I was too far back. I found another person to do it with and I beat him after 5 tries.

Next best recommendation is get a riding crop

I read everyone’s posts here and on other sites, watch clips of You Tube and this is my advice.

Pick a strategy and work on that only. I tried going in front of him, left of him, behind and above. Nothing worked better than any other. Just pick one that you feel comfortable with and get better with it. I found if I hung back a bit I had more time to react and change direction.

Mulverick seems to have two attacks. One is a circle of balls that sort of spread out like a net. The other is a sort of spiralling ball that seems to home in on you. Mulverick must try and judge where you will be flying a second or so ahead when he makes his attack and direct his attack at this future point. If you keep flying without changing direction you fail. I found just hitting spacebar or strafing a bit wasn’t enough. I got better results when I changed direction and flew in a different direction for a bit

I also found out that when I flew holding down the right mouse button for steering and moving the mouse from side to side so Mulverick went from 1 side of the screen to the other, say every ½ second, he wouldn’t fire anything at me. I could just fly behind him safely. Downside to this was that when he got to the western end the island he would disappear every time. If I stopped doing this say half way along the run to the western end of the island, he wouldn’t

Links

Dragonmaw Race: Wing Commander Mulverick

Follow Wing Commander Mulverick while attempting to stay on your flying mount. Should you defeat Wing Commander Mulverick, report your victory to Ja'y Nosliw at the Dragonmaw Base Camp in Shadowmoon Valley.

	Wing Commander Mulverick Defeated (1)

Description

Three years of blood, sweat and tears. Mostly tears... The amount of crying that a hardened soldier does when it comes down to all-out war is amazing!

"They're jumping into our tower with their horses!" "Why is their base so well defended?" "They're taking our relief hut, I'm going A.W.O.L.!"

Wimps...

I took the first train out of "cry-town" the minute the Dark Portal opened. Now I'm a top gun for the Dragonmaw. If you want to be top orc, you'll have to defeat me.

We go when you are ready.

Rewards

You will receive:

Gains

Upon completion of this quest you will gain:

500 reputation with Netherwing

See if you've already completed this by typing:

/run print(C_QuestLog.IsQuestFlaggedCompleted(11070))

Dragonmaw Race: Wing Commander Mulverick

Description

Rewards

Gains

Related

Contribute