How to unlock flying in World of Warcraft's 8.2 update, Rise of Azshara

World of Warcraft's latest update, Patch 8.2: Rise of Azshara, is out today and with it comes the ability to use flying mounts in Kul Tiras, Zandalar, and the two new zones of Nazjatar and Mechagon. The only roadblock between you and your pilot's license, however, is two in-game achievements: "Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One" and "Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part Two."

If you're an active player, you should already have Battle for Azeroth Part One completed. Part Two is available once 8.2 is live and it'll take a week or two to wrap it up (if you're a more casual player). So don't expect to take flight straight away.

If you're a newer player, though, expect flying to take a few weeks of grinding. The good news is that these achievements are account-wide, though, so all of your characters will be able to fly once you complete both Part One and Part Two.

If you're confused about what steps you have left in these achievements, Wowhead has a great tool that shows you exactly what you have to do.

Here's what you'll need to do to complete both achievements and unlock flying.

Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One

This will be the most time-intensive part of unlocking flying because players are expected to have been chipping away at Part One since Battle for Azeroth first launched. The biggest grind will undoubtedly be Azerothian Diplomat, which required 'revered' reputation with the six main factions in Battle for Azeroth. That alone could take a more casual player months to complete.

It's a little confusing, but Part One is actually a series of individual achievements (which are often themselves a series of different achievements) you have to first complete in order to earn the Part One achievement itself. Here's a breakdown of what achievements you'll need and what they require:

  • Battle for Azeroth Explorer: Explore all of Kul Tiras and Zandalar (each continent has three zones, each with their own achievement that lists the individual areas you have to discover.
  • Azerothian Diplomat: Earn revered reputation with the six main factions in Battle for Azeroth.
  • Wide World of Quests: Complete 100 World Quests in Kul Tiras or Zandalar.
  • Loremaster of Kul Tiras (Alliance) / Zandalar Forever! (Horde): Complete each of the zone-specific story quests for your faction's starting zone.
  • Ready for War: Complete the War Campaign for your respective faction.

Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part Two

This achievement is, thankfully, much easier to earn. In addition to needing to complete Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One to unlock this achievement, the rest of its requirements can be met in a week or so of heavy grinding.

  • Explore Nazjatar: Simply visit each of the locations in this list to fully explore all of Nazjatar.
  • Explore Mechagon: Same idea, here's the list of each location you need.
  • Reach revered with two factions: If you're Horde, you'll need to reach revered with The Unshackled, while Alliance players have to get revered with the Waveblade Ankoan. You'll also need to be revered with the Rustbold Resistance, which is a neutral faction available to both Horde and Alliance players.

And that's it! Hopefully you've been chipping away at Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One for months now and already have it completed, otherwise this will be a long and arduous grind. Wowhead has a great guide that further breaks down the requirements for each achievement and even lists the exact coordinates of areas you need to discover, so you don't waste time running all over the map.

Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.