Aeonaxx - Reins of the Phosphorescent Stone Drake

Originally I wasn't going to write up a post on Aeonaxx, mainly because my first attempt at a blog (Find Aeonaxx) was entirely devoted to him and I already have a link to it on my sidebar. However, recently I've noticed a lot of traffic on that blog coming from this blog through the search term Deepholm, and figured it was about time I consolidate some information. 

 

For anyone unaware, Aeonaxx is a level 85 rare elite dragon that spawns in Deepholm and drops the coveted mount: Reins of the Phosphorescent Stone Drake.  Aeonaxx is very similar to the Time-Lost Proto-Drake, as far as having a ridiculous spawn timer and sharing that spawn timer with another npc. The way to kill this rare though is quite different.

The Fight:
 

When Aeonaxx first spawns in he will appear friendly to players and the portrait around his head will show that of the typical silver dragon. Upon flying closer to him when you are in range a green "vehicle" arrow will appear. (See picture below.)

 

Click Image to Enlarge

Once you have mounted Aeonaxx, he will turn hostile and his portrait will turn into a golden "elite" dragon and the text on your screen will read "Kill Aeonaxx before his whelps overwhelm you." 

At this point you need to start working on Aeonaxx's health (approx. 774k) while paying attention to the whelps that will be periodically spawning around him. The whelps are very easy to kill, but make sure you take them down immediately because too many can be overwhelming. Aeonaxx does no actual damage himself, all damage comes from the whelps.

Once Aeonaxx is dead you will be given a parachute and then float to the ground where you will be able to loot his corpse. I would recommend slowing down dps toward the end of the fight in order to pick a safe spot to land. I imagine if he were to land halfway down a cliff looting him would be nearly impossible. Also landing on top of a bunch of hostile mobs could also serve to be dangerous.

"Weeeeee...success!"

To get a better idea of the actual fight you can watch this video below of my hunter finally finding Aeonaxx a couple of months ago. Her item level was roughly 380 and the fight took about one minute.


                                           

Aeonaxx's Evil Buddy...Blood Seeker:

Earlier I mentioned that Aeonaxx shared a spawn timer with another npc, that npc is the dreaded Blood Seeker, a level 15 bat. He is not labeled as a rare spawn and has no silver dragon portrait, but he is technically a rare because of the way he spawns. In the same way that Vyragosa is more likely to spawn than the Time-Lost Proto-Drake, Blood Seeker is far more likely to spawn than Aeonaxx. Blood Seeker used to spawn in and hang out tormenting us Aeonaxx campers for a good 5 minutes or so toward the beginning of the Cataclysm expension, now when he spawns in he only stays for about 10 seconds and then just disappears again. When Bloodseeker has been spotted you can take a break from camping for a few hours because of their shared spawn timer. For more information about Blood Seeker and adding him to npcscan check out this NPCScan post on my other blog.

Hate this little bat...

Spawn Points & Flight Pattern:

Aeonaxx has a total of six spawn locations.  I have seen unmounted Aeonaxx several times just after he spawned in five of the six spawn points and I observed very similar flight patterns each time. Aeonaxx was flying upward in small tight circles, never moving very far at all from the original spawn point. The spawn points have varying heights. For example, the SW1 spawn point is fairly low, but the SW2 spawn point is a little further up than the entrance to the Stonecore.

Spawn Timer:

The spawn timer on Aeonaxx seems to be between 6-22+ hours just like the Time-Lost Proto Drake / Vyragosa, and like I mentioned before Blood Seeker is far more likely to spawn than Aeonaxx.

Phasing:

Phasing does not affect UNMOUNTED Aeonaxx. Before Aeonaxx is mounted all players in ALL phases will be able to see Aeonaxx. However, once mounted Aeonaxx will enter the particular phase that that character is in.

My Own Experience:

I have killed Aeonaxx a total of three times now, and I've seen him mounted/unmounted many more times than that. My first experience killing Aeonaxx was actually on my husband's prot paladin at the beginning of Cataclysm and the fight took significantly longer than in the video above. I was grouped with my own shaman at the time hoping I'd be able to roll on the reins when they dropped if I were close enough. When I finally downed him on the pally my shaman was too far away to roll. After putting in a ticket a nice gm actually transferred the mount from the pally to my shaman and I was a happy girl. You can read the whole story on this post if your interested.

A few months ago after months of camping and a few misses I finally downed Aeonaxx on my hunter (see above video) and then only a few days after that I was lucky enough to get Aeonaxx again for my husband's druid.

The Phosphorescent Stone Drake Mount:

This, ladies and gentleman, is what the original Phosphoresct Stone Drake looked like (the image on top). Notice how the original mount showed the drake carrying it's passenger in it's front claws. In February of 2011 the bug was fixed, putting the passenger back in the saddle (this "fix" also got rid of the loud stomping the mount made when walking around that I loved so much.../cry). In patch 4.1 it was changed again (bottom image) to look a bit darker in color. My personal favorite will always be the original buggy ass Phosphorescent Stone Drake.

Phosphorescent Stone Drake Model Changes

This has been a relatively brief overview of Aeonaxx, if you'd like some more detailed information please check out my other blog Find Aeonaxx. I have a lot more info on npcscan, phasing issues, some of my own experiences and there are some great comments and discussions on there that you may want to check out as well.