A step-by-step guide to earning flying in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands
Are you ready to take to the skies of Shadowlands with your stable of beautiful flying mounts? If so, you are in the right place. In this guide, I will walk you through every step required to unlock flying in Shadowlands. We’ll dive into the details in a moment, but first I wanted to give you a short overview of the steps.
You can unlock Shadowlands flying by following these steps.
- Play through the Shadowlands storyline and join a covenant.
- Complete your covenant campaign (9 chapters); requires renown 22.
- Finish the first 4 chapters of the Korthia (Chains of Domination) storyline to receive Memories of Sunless Skies, which teaches account-wide flying; requires renown 44.
These steps will unlock flying in Bastion, Revendreth, Maldraxxus, and Ardenweld. If you are looking to unlock flying in Zereth Mortis check out my guide to that here.
In the rest of the guide, I’ll walk you through each of the steps and answer some frequently asked questions about Shadowlands flying.
Step 1: Play through the Shadowlands storyline and join a Covenant
The first step in unlocking flying is to play through the main storyline of Shadowlands. This requires a character who is at least level 48.
To begin the storyline, you will need to do the quest called Shadowlands: A Chilling Summons that pops up automatically at level 48. This will lead you back to your capital city, through a death-gate to Ice Crown Citadel, and into the Shadowlands.
The storyline will wind its way through four main zones in the following order: Bastion, Maldraxxus, Ardenweld, and Revendreth. You can identify quests that are part of the main story by the gilded brown shield that appears around the outside of the exclamation point.
If you get lost in the process, you can always see the next step in the storyline in the sidebar of your quest log (keyboard shortcut ‘L’).
Step 2: Complete your Covenant campaign
After joining a covenant, it is time to work on completing their campaign. You can see your current progress in the covenant storyline from the quest log also.
As an example, I have completed the first 3 chapters of the campaign for my Kyrian demon hunter. This is also helpful because it will tell you where you need to go, or what you need to do, to continue with the storyline.
The last chapter in the covenant campaign is locked behind a level 22 renown requirement. If you are behind on renown, you can catch up by doing your daily covenant callings, killing weekly world bosses, winning PvP matches, completing dungeons (including m+), or defeating raid bosses.
You will also earn renown as you complete portions of the covenant campaign and through the 2 weekly renown quests in 9.1 — Replenish the Reservoir and Shaping Fate.
Step 3: Finish the first 4 chapters of the Korthia storyline
The third requirement to unlock flying is completing the first 4 chapters of the Korthia — or Chains of Domination — storyline. If you want, you can actually get started on this after completing the first 2 parts of your covenant campaign (through the Torghast chapter) and the basic introduction to your covenant sanctum.
However, once you reach chapter 4, The Last Sigil, you will need to finish your covenant campaign and reach renown 44 to continue.
The advantage of starting early is the ability to begin doing Korthia daily quests and content to earn catch-up gear. If you are a new or returning player, I would definitely recommend starting on the Korthia storyline as early as possible for this reason.
You can begin the Korthia storyline by accepting and following The First Move quest chain that pops up in Oribos after completing the covenant intro quests and part 2 of the campaign through The Search for Baine quest.
Like the previous two requirements, you can see your current progress by looking at the sidebar in the quest log. At the end of the 4th chapter, you will receive Memories of Sunless Skies as a quest reward. All that is left to do is open your bags and click it to unlock Shadowlands flying!
Frequently Asked Questions
Once unlocked, Shadowlands flying enables you to fly in the four main Shadowlands zones — Bastion, Revendreth, Ardenweld, and Maldraxxus. You cannot fly in any of the other zones, including The Maw, Korthia, or Oribos.
Yes, Shadowlands flying will be unlocked for all characters on your account after using the Memories of Sunless Skies item.
The time it takes to unlock flying is going to depend on where you are in the process. If you are brand new and starting at level 1, it will take much longer than someone who is working on the covenant campaign. Here are the flying requirements and my estimates of how long each one will take.
Level 1 to 50: 15-20 hours
Shadowlands storyline: 10-15 hours
Covenant campaign + earning renown: 4-6 hours
Korthia storyline: 2-3 hours
If you are new, it may take you well over 40 hours to unlock flying in Shadowlands. For players with a level 50 character, but are new to the expansion, it will take a little over 20 hours.
No, you cannot fly between Shadowlands zones. This means that you will still need to take flight paths to get to each of the areas before taking to the skies.
If you have earned flying, you can begin flying on your alts once you enter the Shadowlands around level 48. You will still be limited to flying only in the four main areas though; so no flying during the Maw intro storyline.
If you have already paid for the basic Expert Riding (flying) training, you don’t need anything else. That is the riding skill that gives you 150% flying speed at level 30 in exchange for 250 gold. To go faster, you will need to drop the 5,000 gold for the 310% speed Master Riding.
Using Memories of Sunless Skies will only unlock flying in Shadowlands zones. Purchasing Expert Riding will unlock flying in all expansions up to Legion.
The only previous expansion that requires an unlock process is Battle for Azeroth. That process is a little lengthy so I would recommend reading my full detailed guide on BFA flying for more.
Yes! Once you use Memories of Sunless Skies you will be able to fly in spirit form. This was added in patch 9.1.5 and is great for getting over and around tricky terrain to find your corpse.
No, Memories of Sunless Skies will not unlock flying in Zereth Mortis. You will need to follow the steps in my Zereth Mortis Flying Guide to gain access to the skies in ZM.
Leave a Reply