Mar 27
Travel Speed: Travel Form vs. Mount
Posted on March 27, 2008 under Game Mechanics | 2 CommentsWorld of Warcraft is an ever-changing game. While reading this post, keep the date it was written in mind—changes may have occurred since then!
My druid is currently level 39. That means soon I’ll be forking out about 80 gold to get me a shiny new ride. Definitely faster than travel form, but has a three second “cast” time. This got me to thinking: how far do you need to go before your travel form is not as good as your mount? For going from the Auction House to the Bank, surely travel form is better, as by the time I can mount up, cheetah-girl* is already there. So I did some math.
Running at normal speed, we all know, is 100% run speed. Woah, mind-bender there, huh? We’ll say that running at normal speed gains you X units per second. Travel form, at 140% run speed, would net you 1.4*X units per second. A mount, after three seconds, gives you 160% speed and 1.6*X units per second, and an epic (ground) mount 200% speed and 2*X units per second. To make the math nice and even, we’ll make X = 10. That gives us:
Running = 10 units/second
Travel Form = 14 units/second
Mount = 16 units/second
Epic = 20 units/second
The key here is, of course, that travel for gets a 3 second head start. After one second, travel form is 14 units off, while the mounted druid is still rubbing her hands together. After two seconds, 28 units to 0. After three seconds, travel form is 42 units away and the mounted druid is just getting on their cat/kodo. One second later the mounted druid finally makes it 16 units, but the travel form druid is already 56 units away. So how long until the mounted druid catches up with her cheetah sister?
Since I grind in cat form a lot, I figured I’d do the math for both cat and travel forms against both normal and epic land mounts. Here are the results:
16 seconds for a land mount to catch a cat.
9 seconds for an epic land mount to pass a cat.
24 seconds for a land mount to catch a travel form druid.
10 seconds for an epic land mount to catch a travel form druid.
This means that, at level 40, I can get at least from the mailbox to the flight master in Stormwind (probably farther–I’ll have to do some time tests later) as a travel form druid than on my shiny new mount!
*I apologize sincerely for this link.
Related posts:
- The Death of the Epic Mount Quests
- Welcome to Outland! Again.
- …And Two More Make 70
- New Mount and Vanity Pet Storage
- Nurturing Instinct and Improved Leader of the Pack
by Asara, on April 2 2008 @ 6:38 am
Now that is some interesting mathings
It puts me in mind of something that has always bothered me a little about the game.. perhaps you have some insight for me?
Say I am in Shattrath, I port to IF and fly to Menethil because this is pre-2.4 and I’m going to run me some CoT. I get on the boat and travel to Theramore. The boat docks at Theramore, and I make my way to the flight point. Passing on my way the other people who were on the boat with me, who are pausing to mount up. About the time I get off the dock, I’m passed by the people on epic mounts, and about halfway between there and the flight point, I’m passed by those on regular mounts. All of these people reach the flight point seconds before I do, and flap off towards the horizon.
I ask you.. why? Why bother casting the mount just for those few seconds of extra time? The gryphons aren’t going anywhere, unlike the boat.. I understand grabbing your mount in hopes of catching a boat that may be leaving any second.. but really!!
by Walker, on April 21 2008 @ 4:09 pm
Just wanted to say thanks for putting this up! I was just trying to figure out if I should buy a regular mount for my druid but now after seeing this I have decided to save my money for now.