Camping Poundfist for the Sunhide Gronnling mount

When Jeremy Feasel (Muffinus) first mentioned on Twitter that there would be a bunch of new rare spawns with 100% drop mounts with varying degrees of rarity, I just knew that the Sunhide Gronnling was going to be the rarest of them all. Subjectively, I think the coolness factor of the other mounts also lines up with their relative rarity. The talbuk, elekk, and boar mounts seem to be the most common. Next up is the riverbeast and clefthoof mounts, which both seem to have respawns of roughly 24 hours.

Then we have the gronn mount. The funny thing is, people were beginning to wonder if Poundfist was just bugged and not spawning at all. Why? The first time it dropped on live servers was on November 23 — 10 days after launch! Why did it take so long? Because apparently its respawn timer is reset back to zero every time the server is restarted. There were too many rolling restarts, realm crashes, and other problems associated with launch that prevented Poundfist from spawning.

Poundfist Tips

• Spawns in Gorgrond at one of 5 spawn locations (spawn map)
• Poundfist is level 95, has 1.3 million health, but scales up to over 4 million once enough players have tapped him.
• The respawn time is 48-96 hours, or 2-4 days. Note that this respawn time is apparently reset back to 0 whenever the server is restarted or has maintenance. So theoretically, the earliest Poundfist could spawn is 48 hours after your server comes back from maintenance or a restart. This is subject to change as we get more data, and I’ll update this point if I see anything different.
• Mount is a 100% drop chance for anyone who taps him.
• Druids can cyclone Poundfist to allow more people time to get to him for the tag. You could also, you know, not attack immediately. 🙂
• If your realm has multiple instances of Gorgond active, it’s possible you won’t be able to see him even if it’s being reported as spawned in general chat. This is the realm phasing tech Blizzard introduced to help with server load at WoD launch. It also explains why some realms saw multiple Poundfist spawns close together.
• Here is a spreadsheet which will show recorded Poundfist kills on US realms (last updated December 8)

November 23 — The Poundfist sightings begin

When I first received word that Poundfist was now a thing, I immediately set off for Gorgond, and what you see above is the first thing I saw. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who heard. The population camping him only rose from there, as you’ll see in the following screenshots.

At the time the best sources of info for Poundfist were the threads on the official forums being updated by @DreadRavenAnzu. This is where people posted their kills. If they provided sufficient evidence, it would be cataloged on the forums and on twitter. The kills were coming in at a feverish pace. It seemed like every few minutes another realm would report a Poundfist sighting.

As I sat there, camping in Gorgrond for hours and hours, each time another kill was reported my resolve was strengthened. This lasted until the wee hours of 5:30am when I finally decided to get some sleep. I was camping it with my buddy Solar (another host of the Hunting Party Podcast), and when I left I remained in his 2-seater mount to allow myself to AFK time out. Just in case Poundfist would spawn right after I left, and the act of Solar tagging it while grouped with me would somehow award me the mount (via postmaster). I didn’t get to find out if such a scheme would work, because he never ended up spawning until much later.

I received a report that he spawned on my realm the next morning, only it was missed by a lot of people because of the phasing issue. I was pretty demoralized at this point and had almost given up.  I went off and did my Stables quests and told myself I’d get a gronn mount eventually when I completed the raid meta achievement.

November 24 — Let’s try this again

Oh, what the hell.

I knew it wasn’t going to happen on my realm, so I decided to check the group finder. I searched for Poundfist and saw a group. Poundfist camping on Aerie Peak. It was kind of funny because I was trying to get on this realm earlier with Solar but was unsuccessful. Even when I was not the group leader, it was porting us back to my realm with no hope of Poundfist. This new group did in fact take me to Aerie Peak though, and it was PACKED. Even more than my own realm the previous night. Aerie Peak still hadn’t gotten a spawn, and it was long overdue.

The first thing I did was start using my Eagle Eye to scout other spawn points. Nope, nothing. I’ll give it an hour or so I told myself.

Suddenly, my NPC Scan goes off. My heart almost launches straight out of my rib cage from the sound of it. You see, having camped here for 12+ hours earlier, I know nothing else spawns nearby to trigger NPC Scan. My eyes move up to the mini-map, and I see the skull icon before he actually spawns. It’s Poundfist.

Everyone freaks out. There’s just too many people here. There’s gotta be at least 200 people within 40 yards of me. Everyone attacks Poundfist immediately. I delivered a single blow and then pulled my pet back. Druids began cycloning to give more people time to get there. But I knew that the people camping the northern spawn point would never make it. Poundfist lived for 25 seconds. I don’t even remember who started the group, but I wish I could thank them.

Next Up: Nakk the Thunderer

Next on my list for rare mounts will be the Bloodhoof Bull from Nakk the Thunderer, but I plan on being a lot smarter about this camp. It seems his respawn is also reset with the server, and is around 24 hours. That gives me some good info to go on.

I wish you luck with Poundfist or any other mount you plan on camping for.

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