Shadowbarb Drone

About 4 weeks of waiting or dailiesGuaranteed

Battle for Azeroth · Quest

The game's mount journal

Quest: My Own Drone

Zone: Uldum

Find a character at the top of the page to see whether your account has this mount, and where that character stands on what it asks for.

Look it up on Wowhead

How to get it

Reward of the quest My Own Drone, the end of a chain of about 30 days in present-day Uldum. Pick up the Voidtouched Egg at Ankhaten Harbor in western Uldum (20.8, 62.0) and bring it to H'partho Ardoros in Ramkahen (The Incredible Egg). He then gives one quest a day while the creature grows through three stages, egg, larva and hatchling, each a bar of 5,000 points; the stages give a toy and a battle pet on the way. When the hatchling's bar is full, Blacksmith Abasi in Ramkahen makes a saddle from 12 Black Empire Armaments, and the day after that the saddle is carried to H'partho for the mount.

Time there about 15 min a visit

Guides Wowhead: Raising the Shadowbarb Drone - Mount, Pet and Toy Information · Wowhead: Visions of N'zoth Introduction Questline (how the Uldum assaults are opened) · wow.gg: Shadowbarb Drone

Before you go

Uldum assaults opened on this character: the Visions of N'Zoth introduction from An Unwelcome Advisor (Alliance) or Return of the Black Prince (Horde) as far as Surfacing Threats, which has one Uldum assault completed · about 1 h
The chain itself: one quest a day from H'partho Ardoros for about 30 days (The Incredible Egg and Match the Hatch, then the egg, larva and hatchling stages, then A Custom Order, Otherworldly Armaments and, a day later, My Own Drone). The days need not be consecutive · about 7.5 h over 4 weeks

In all: about 8.5 h of play, spread over 4 weeks, starting from nothing.

Getting there

H'partho Ardoros, Ramkahen

Uldum · 55.6, 35.3

/way Uldum 55.6 35.3

From Stormwind (Alliance) about 2.1 min of travel

Take the portal from Wizard's Sanctum to Caverns of Time*
Fly the rest of the way

From Orgrimmar (Horde) about 2.1 min of travel

Take the portal from Pathfinder's Den to Caverns of Time*
Fly the rest of the way

/way is for the TomTom addon. Travel times are estimates: flying at 55 yards a second in a straight line and 30 seconds for a portal. A star marks a portal that needs a quest or other unlock done first.

Notes and sources

Everything happens in present-day Uldum, the one with the assaults: Zidormi in Ramkahen (56.0, 35.2 by the wiki) shows Uldum as it was during the Cataclysm and returns a character to the present. The place given above is H'partho Ardoros, who gives every quest of the chain and the mount itself (55.6, 35.3 by the wiki; wow.gg has 55.6, 35.2); Blacksmith Abasi is a few steps away at 54.0, 33.4 (wow.gg). The time on the spot is one day's quest, an estimate.

An assault does not have to be running to pick up the egg (wiki; a 2020 Wowhead comment; wow.gg). The Black Empire Armaments for the saddle come from N'Zoth's minions in a Black Empire assault (Wowhead's guide; the wiki says Black Empire cultists in Uldum and the Vale of Eternal Blossoms). Progress is the character's own: a 2020 comment warns against changing faction half-way, and a 2024 reply says the progress came back after changing back.

How the stages work (Wowhead's guide): each stage is a bar of 5,000 points. A day's quest is either the stage's repeatable one, worth 300, or one of its one-time quests, worth 900; which is offered depends on which assault is running in Uldum or the Vale of Eternal Blossoms that day (Aqir or Amathet in Uldum, mantid or mogu in the Vale, the Black Empire in either). The bar stops at 4,999 and the stage ends the next day.

The stages (quest names are the wiki's; wow.gg's guide gives several of them in other words):

Egg: Void Incubation, Encased in Amber, Warmth of the Sun, Wrapping Up and the repeatable Continued Incubation, then A Shocking Technique and Coming Out of His Shell, which gives the toy Aqir Egg Cluster and a choice of name.
Larva: A Balanced Diet, then Meat Alternatives, Fetid Filets, Action Figures, A Bloody Treat, Bug Buddies, Super Jelly and the repeatable More Fetid Filets, then They Grow So Fast, which gives the battle pet Shadowbarb Hatchling.
Hatchling: Aqir Instincts and the repeatable Honing Instincts, and four pet battles worth 900 each against a legendary pet with the hatchling in the team (Big Bad Beetle, Someone His Own Size, The Mantids' Mettle, The Littlest Defender).

In Honing Instincts the hatchling fights beside the player for 10 minutes in an assault area and every kill adds points: 5 for weak enemies, 20 for normal ones, 30 to 50 for elites and rares. If the player or the hatchling dies it cannot be called again that day.

Whether the pet battles can be left out was not established, but the opponent scales to the team, and players report winning with two level 1 pets beside the hatchling, which only has to be in the team (a 2020 comment; wow.gg).

On the total time players differ:

a 2023 comment says the hatchling stage can be filled in one day of Honing Instincts by killing fast, saving about a week, though a 2024 reply got only 800 points and found the hatchling gone after about three minutes
a 2024 comment followed the daily quest for the whole chain and reports the same total number of days as the 2020 guides, with the quests in a different order
a 2020 comment tells of two players doing the same quests together and finishing a week apart

The confidence is medium because the step-by-step sources are from 2020 (Wowhead's guide was last updated in 2020) and nothing from Midnight was found that walks the chain. The newest Wowhead comments on the item that speak of doing it are from 2023 and 2024; the wiki's page for the mount was edited in 2026 without marking it removed, and wow.gg's guide (updated 2026) describes it as current. Wowhead's quest pages were not read.

Confidence in this entry: medium. Looked up in 2026.

Sources