FFXIV Mounts Guide: Easiest Mounts to Get and How to Farm Them

Mounts in FFXIV are everywhere. The game has well over 400 of them at this point, and a big chunk you can pick up without ever touching the cash shop. Some get handed to you just for playing through the story. Others take a weekend of farming old trials, or a few weeks of saving up Gold Saucer points. Below is the rundown on the easiest ones to actually get your hands on, grouped by how much work they take.

Story and Quest Mounts You Get for Free

Your First Chocobo (Personal Chocobo)

This is the one everybody starts with. You grab it around level 20 from the side quest "My Little Chocobo" at your Grand Company, once you've joined one through the main scenario. The only cost is the Chocobo Issuance, which runs 200 Grand Company seals from the quartermaster. Hand that slip to the stablemaster and you get the Chocobo Whistle, which is what actually unlocks the ride.

One thing people trip over here. Gysahl Greens, which cost about 36 gil from most vendors, are not for riding. You feed a Green to your chocobo to summon it as a battle buddy for 30 minutes. Riding the bird is free once the whistle is yours.

Magitek Armor

Free at level 50, and a solid pick. You earn the Armor Identification Key from "The Ultimate Weapon," the main scenario quest that wraps up the base A Realm Reborn story (the one right after the Praetorium duty). Raubahn hands it over. While you ride, it plays Terra's Theme from Final Fantasy VI, which is a nice nod. There's a follow-up side quest called "Magiteknical Difficulties" that adds two cosmetic cannon actions, but they deal no damage, pure show.

Black Chocobo (Your First Flying Mount)

This comes from the Heavensward main quest "Divine Intervention" at level 50, given by the House Fortemps Steward in Ishgard. The bigger deal is that the same quest hands you an Aether Compass and flips on flying in Heavensward zones for the first time. So this is the ride that actually gets you off the ground.

Unicorn (Conjurer Only)

The unicorn is the odd one out, because it's locked to a single class. You get it from "Unicorn Power," a level 30 Conjurer quest from Braya at the Conjurer's Guild in Old Gridania. The catch is you have to do it as a Conjurer, not a White Mage. If you've already slapped on your job stone, you need to take it off to register as a base class. The task is casting Cure on an injured mare over in the North Shroud. Worth grabbing whenever you touch a healer.

The Expansion Starters

Most expansions past ARR hand you a freebie along the way. Stormblood gives you the Yol, that big woolly bird, from the level 65 quest "In the Footsteps of Bardam the Brave." Heavensward also tosses you the Manacutter somewhere in the level 55 "Into the Aery" stretch. Endwalker caps off with Argos from the final level 90 story quest. The one expansion that skips the free mount is Shadowbringers, its Amaro comes from an achievement instead.

Gold Saucer and Currency Mounts

Gold Saucer (MGP) Mounts

The Gold Saucer is your main currency sink for mounts, and the floor here is 200,000 MGP. Nothing in the prize counter runs cheaper than that. Every single one of these is a one-seater, sold at the Prize Exchange counter near the entrance.

| Mount | MGP Cost | What it does | |---|---|---| | Adamantoise | 200,000 | The cheapest real option. Flies, and tucks head and legs in to spin like a disc midair | | Pod 602 | 300,000 | The NieR crossover bot from the YoRHa raid | | Archon Throne | 750,000 | Literally a floating enchanted chair | | Korpokkur Kolossus | 750,000 | Big leafy plant creature | | Typhon | 750,000 | Fat green void-summon from FFVI, does a sneeze blare when summoned | | Fenrir | 1,000,000 | The big wolf, glides through the air instead of flying. The classic flex | | Sabotender Emperador | 2,000,000 | Giant cactuar that lights up at night | | Blackjack | 4,000,000 | The FFVI airship, single most expensive item in the game |

The cheap end is where most folks begin. Knock out the weekly cactpot and a few mini-games, and the Adamantoise is realistic inside a month of casual play. The fancy tier up top, Fenrir, Sabotender, and the Blackjack, is mostly for showing off.

Beast Tribe (Tribal) Mounts

Beast tribes are a steady, guaranteed path to mounts, and you can chip at them with three daily quests a day. The older tribes want gil, and the newer ones take a tribal currency.

ARR tribes all cost 120,000 gil. The Sahagin Cavalry Elbst, Amalj'aa Cavalry Drake, Sylph Laurel Goobbue, and Kobold Bomb Palanquin unlock at Trusted rank. The Ixal Direwolf needs Sworn rank instead, so it takes a little longer.

Heavensward tribes all cost 200,000 gil and all need Sworn rank. That covers the Vanu Sanuwa, the Vath Kongamato, and the Moogle Cloud Mallow.

Stormblood is where the currency model kicks in. The Kojin Striped Ray costs 12 Kojin Sango. The Namazu Mikoshi runs 20 Namazu Koban, and it is worth the grind for the waddling palanquin and its "Wasshoi" music alone. The Ananta are a nice two-for-one, the vendor Madhura sells both the Marid (18 Ananta Dreamstaffs) and the True Griffin (18 Dreamstaffs), so capping that tribe nets you a pair of rides.

Shadowbringers and Endwalker tribes all want 18 of their currency at Sworn rank, which makes them about as uniform as farming gets. The standout in Endwalker is the Omicron Miw Miisv, which actually shrinks your character when you ride it.

Grand Company and Hunt Seals

Grand Company seals only buy one mount, the Company Chocobo, for 200 seals. That's the whole list. The bardings people talk about are chocobo armor, not mounts, an easy thing to mix up.

Hunt seals (the old Centurio Seals) buy the Wyvern from Bertana in Idyllshire for 6 Clan Mark Logs, which works out to 3,000 seals total. Funny detail, the Wyvern does not fly. It just runs. Current-era hunts use Sacks of Nuts instead, and those buy rides like the Forgiven Reticence, Vinegaroon, Automatoise, and Brachiosaur for 3,200 Nuts apiece. Those are the better modern farm if you want something fresh.

And no, there are no tomestone mounts. Every tomestone vendor only sells gear and upgrade materials.

Trial Farming for Mount Drops

How the Whistle Drop Works

Every Extreme trial has a rare mount that drops straight out of the treasure chest, something like a one in twenty chance per chest, going by community estimates. Square Enix has never published the real number. Since you roll Need against the rest of the party, your personal odds per clear land closer to one in 160. That sounds rough, and it is, but there's a safety net.

The 99-Totem Safety Net (Heavensward and Later)

From Heavensward onward, every Extreme clear also hands you one guaranteed totem for that trial. Stack up 99 of them and you trade them to a specific NPC for a guaranteed copy of the same mount. So even if the dice never fall your way, 99 clears and you're walking out with the ride no matter what.

That finish line is the whole appeal of this category. It's farming with a known end.

There is one exception to know about. A Realm Reborn Extreme trials have no totem exchange at all. The six ARR ponies are pure RNG, so you can only get them by winning the chest roll, over and over, with no backup.

Farming Tips

Run these unsynced, with an Unrestricted Party. A group of level-capped players can melt an old trial in a minute or two, and the drop rate doesn't care whether you're synced. The totem exchange also isn't around when a trial first launches, it gets patched in a few updates later. And skip the Unreal trials for mounts, they don't drop them. Only the Extreme versions do.

The Mount Sets

Each expansion has its own themed set, and finishing the whole set unlocks a bonus mount through a short quest.

| Expansion | Set name | Count | Finisher mount | |---|---|---|---| | A Realm Reborn | Ponies (Nightmares) | 6 | Kirin | | Heavensward | Lanners | 7 | Firebird | | Stormblood | Kamuy | 7 | Kamuy of the Nine Tails | | Shadowbringers | Gwiber | 7 | Landerwaffe | | Endwalker | Lynx | 7 | Apocryphal Bahamut | | Dawntrail | Wings | 7 | Wings of Legacy |

The totem vendors live in each expansion's hub, Bertana in Idyllshire for the lanners, Eschina in Rhalgr's Reach for the kamuy, Fathard in Eulmore or C'intana in Mor Dhona for the gwiber, Nesvaaz in Radz-at-Han for the lynx, and Uah'shepya in Solution Nine for the wings.

A couple of lookalikes do not count toward the set bonus. Nightmare, which can drop from the first three ARR Extremes, is separate from the pony collection. And Rathalos, the Monster Hunter crossover mount from The Great Hunt (Extreme), is a kamuy model but doesn't count toward the Stormblood finisher.

Achievement and Grind Mounts

Tank (and Role) Queue Mounts

If you tank, the game basically pays you in mounts to keep queueing. There are two tiers. The older "War" series, Warbear for Warrior, Warlion for Paladin, War Panther for Dark Knight, unlocks at 200 high-level full-party duties played as that job. The newer "Battle" series (Battle Bear, Battle Lion, Battle Panther, and Battle Tiger for Gunbreaker) wants 300 duties at level 61 or higher. Tank queues are fast, so this is one of the few grinds that mostly plays itself over a few months of daily roulettes.

The Long Grinders

A few rides are pure time. Astrope, a two-seater, takes 2,000 mentor roulettes. The hunt achievement mounts, Centurio Tiger, Triceratops, Victor, and Ullr across the expansions, want thousands of A-rank and S-rank mark kills. The Pteranodon needs a 500,000 skyward score on every crafter and gatherer through the Ishgard Restoration. The Magicked Card wants all 312 Triple Triad cards. These are end-of-account goals, not weekend projects, so file them away and let them tick up.

Player Commendation Mounts

Play nice and people hand you commendations. The Gilded Magitek Armor lands at 500 of them, and the Parade Chocobo at 3,000. The fastest way to stack these is to heal or tank your duties and just finish the run, since most people comm whoever kept them alive.

What Used to Be Veteran Rewards

The old subscription-day mounts (Behemoth, Ahriman, and friends) got pulled out of the veteran system back in patch 4.1. Now you buy them from Jonathas in Old Gridania for 6 Achievement Certificates each. Coeurl is the exception, it went Collector's Edition and cash shop only. The current veteran rewards only hand out outfits, no mounts anymore.

Rare FATE Drops

These are the grinds people either love or hate, because every one runs on a spawn timer.

Ixion is the famous one. It spawns in The Lochs roughly every 36 to 72 hours through the "A Horse Outside" FATE. You bring Stygian Ash to break its shield, snag a Gold rating for 6 Ixion Horns, then trade 12 horns to Eschina in Rhalgr's Reach for the mount. That's two Gold clears minimum, assuming you actually catch the thing while it's up.

Each expansion has its own version of the same loop. Shadowbringers has Formidable in Kholusia, dropping Formidable Cogs you trade to Fathard for the Ironfrog Mover. Endwalker has Chi in Ultima Thule, with Chi Bolts going to Nesvaaz for the Level Checker. Dawntrail has Ttokrrone, with scales for the Mehwapyarra. All of them follow the 12-tokens-from-two-Golds pattern.

Deep Dungeon and Field Operation Mounts

Palace of the Dead can drop the Black Pegasus from Gold-trimmed Sacks on floors 151 to 200, or you can just buy the Disembodied Head for 10 Gelmorran Potsherds. Heaven-on-High has the Dodo as a drop, and the Juedi if you collect all four Empyreal Accessories. Eureka Orthos follows the same shape, with the Aeturna waiting behind all four enaretos accessories.

Eureka itself is home to Demi-Ozma, which you get for clearing the Baldesion Arsenal, plus a few random Gold Coffer drops like the Eldthurs fire horse. Over in Bozja, the easy pickup is Construct 14 for 180 Bozjan Clusters, and the bragging-rights one is the Al-iklil, a two-seater for collecting all 50 Field Record entries scattered across the zone.

Mounts Worth Chasing First

So with all that on the table, what should you actually go for first? The order matters more than people realize, because some of these feed into the next.

Start with the freebies. Your personal chocobo at 20 is a given, obviously. Then ride the Magitek Armor out of the level 50 story, and grab the Black Chocobo when you hit Heavensward, since that one also flips on flying. That's three rides, zero farming, just for playing along.

After that, the Gold Saucer is the smoothest next step. Set 200,000 MGP as your target and pick up the Adamantoise. It flies, it spins, and it gives you something real to work toward while you knock out cactpot tickets each week. Once that's done, you've got a flying mount you actually chose, not one the game handed you.

Beast tribes are the steady background grind. Pick one tribe, run its three daily quests while you're online, and a ride shows up in a couple weeks of that pace. The Namazu Mikoshi is probably the most fun payoff for the least pain. If you've got a tank leveled, start chipping at the War and Battle achievement mounts too, since those just happen as a side effect of normal queueing.

Trial farming is the best long game here. Pick a set, any Heavensward or later set, and run it unsynced a few times a week. The 99-totem guarantee means you will get the mount eventually, no luck required. A lot of players run full farm parties where everyone passes on the whistle so each person gets a turn, which speeds the whole thing up a ton.

The ones to skip for now, unless you specifically love them, are the giant grinders. The 2,000-roulette Astrope, the 3,000-commendation Parade Chocobo, the 500,000-skyward Pteranodon. Those are great targets to have sitting in your log for years, but they will not make your character more mobile this month.

If you want one concrete goal to aim at first, make it the Adamantoise for your first bought ride, then whichever beast tribe matches your leveling. Knock those two out and you'll never be stuck walking again.