Valiance

A secret of Naxxramas from patch 10.1.5: Instructor Razuvious drops the reins, every time, for a player who has first won over Valiance, the steed stabled in his quarter. In the 10-player raid, with Razuvious still alive: use a Rotten Delicious (30 Death's Bargaining Chips from Zackett Skullsmash in the raid's central ring) on Valiance at its stall at the north end of the Military Quarter's lower level; it eats the apple and still refuses a rider. Go to Razuvious's arena, click an Obedience Crystal to take control of a Death Knight Understudy and walk it to Valiance, which lets it mount. Lead the mounted understudy back to Razuvious, dismiss the control from its portrait, kill it and Razuvious, and loot the reins. Everything before that visit is the unlock chain in the requirements.

Inside Naxxramas, a raid (10-player)

Time there about 15 min a visit

Guides Wowhead: How to Unlock Old Naxxramas - Craft Tier 3 Armor and Classic Naxxramas Drops · Method: How to Obtain Reins of Valiance Mount in Naxxramas · Method: How to Unlock Naxxramas

• Memory of Scholomance, an account-wide secret achievement that opens the old Scholomance: in Heroic Scholomance get Krastinov's Bag of Horrors from Doctor Theolen Krastinov, who only sometimes appears when Rattlegore dies; use it in the room behind Darkmaster Gandling to find Eva's Femur; make the Spectral Essence from her Inert Spectral Essence, 3 Dark Runes and 5 Essences of Undeath; take Eva's Journal from the Viewing Room; trade five things found in the Plaguelands to the ghosts of Caer Darrow for five candles; then hold the ritual in the small room to the right inside Scholomance · about 2.5 h
• Honored with the Argent Dawn, the least standing at which Archmage Angela Dosantos offers The Dread Citadel - Naxxramas; below it, Fiona's Caravan's story in the Eastern Plaguelands through Argent Call: The Trial of the Crypt brings the standing · about 2 h
• Wards of the Dread Citadel, the account-wide achievement that opens the secrets of Naxxramas: repair the Cracked Argent Dawn Commission from the bone pile in Rattlegore's room of old Scholomance with a Righteous Orb and 4 Truesilver Bars; wear it and kill Darkmaster Gandling there for the Darkmaster's Scourgestone, handed in to Duke Nicholas Zverenhoff at Light's Hope Chapel; in Stratholme loot a Ward of Naxxramas from an Eye of Naxxramas and a Stratholme Holy Water from a supply crate, use the ward by the gate at Crusaders' Square and throw the water at the Dread Ward it reveals; within the five minutes that follow clear the undead side through Lord Aurius Rivendare and burn the Hand of Naxxramas with the To Dust button; then take Archmage Angela Dosantos's quest The Dread Citadel - Naxxramas at Light's Hope Chapel or Tyr's Hand, which at Honored costs 6 Large Brilliant Shards, 5 Arcane Crystals, a Righteous Orb and 60 gold (less at Revered, nothing at Exalted) · about 2 h
• Zackett Skullsmash woken and paid, inside Naxxramas with the Argent Dawn Commission worn: build the Makeshift Grappling Hook from Faerlina's Sewing Kit (Grand Widow Faerlina), the Construct's Hook (second room of the Construct Quarter) and an Abomination's Chain (a chance catch from fishing in any slime in the raid); kill Thaddius, after which the grapple points in his room show; swing up to the goblin in the rafters and wake him with a Stratholme Holy Water; then bring him his Inconvenience Fee: 20 Invader's Scourgestones (bosses of Stratholme and old Scholomance), 5 Corruptor's Scourgestones (bosses of Naxxramas), 3 Dark Runes and a Black Coffee, and wake him with a second holy water. He then moves to the central ring and trades · about 2 h
• 30 Death's Bargaining Chips for the Rotten Delicious: Zackett gives one chip for each Corruptor's Scourgestone, which the bosses of Naxxramas drop, and one for every 10 Invader's Scourgestones from the bosses of Stratholme and old Scholomance. Stones and chips are bound to the Warband, so any character can gather them. The character that will feed Valiance must leave Razuvious alive in its own 10-player raid that week · about 2 h over 7 days

In all: about 10.5 h of play, spread over 7 days, 60 gold, starting from nothing.

/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.

The journal's 'Discovery: Valiance' is this secret. The mount is certain once the understudy has ridden Valiance: Wowhead's guide ('If done correctly, Razuvious will drop the Reins of Valiance mount'), the top comment on the reins (2023, 717 votes) and wow.gg ('guaranteed to drop from the boss's corpse') agree, and no comment reports a miss after doing the steps. Wowhead's 0.6% in the tooltip data is the mount's share of every recorded kill of Razuvious, 533 in 89,499 (531 in 35,435 on 10-player), not a chance.

Only the player who fed the apple gets it: a 2025 comment found that others in the party got his ordinary loot, as players had found in 2023. The feeding is remembered for the account and across raid sizes: players who fed Valiance in the 25-player raid, where there are no Obedience Crystals, or whose boss died too early, finished on 10-player or on another character without a second apple (comments of 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026). The apple will not work from the bags: put it on an action bar, target the horse and press it (2025).

The danger is Razuvious dying before the understudy has ridden: a damage shield killed him for two players in 2023, and one who killed him on the way to the chips had to wait for the weekly reset (2025). A 2025 comment says the reins still dropped when he died while the mounted understudy was on its way back. A 2024 comment says a priest's Mind Control does the understudy's part on 25-player; not confirmed by anyone else.

Whether the 10- and 25-player raids lock a character out separately was not established; Wowhead's guide advises doing the visit on another character 'if you've killed it on your main or are locked to the 25-man version', the chips being bound to the Warband.

The second way in is the Revealed Portal to Naxxramas in the Plaguewood, Eastern Plaguelands (35.7, 22.9), which the achievement opens; it leads to the same raid, and the secrets are also there through the Dragonblight entrance (wiki). Inside, by the wiki: The grapple route starts above Stalagg's platform.

• Valiance's stall: 50, 24
• Razuvious's arena: 43, 40
• Zackett: in the rafters at 35, 23, and afterwards at 55, 49 by the portal in the central ring

After Darkmaster's Scourgestone is handed in, Scourgestones can be gathered by every character of the Warband, and the achievement's Empowered Argent Dawn Commission lets them be picked up in Naxxramas without wearing the trinket (the wiki and Method's guide; Wowhead's guide says to keep it on all the same, which is the safe reading used in the requirements). A character with the old commission from before Cataclysm does not see the cracked one and gets a new one from Duke Nicholas Zverenhoff (Wowhead's guide).

Dark Runes drop in old Scholomance and at Corin's Crossing, and Black Coffee is sold in Shattrath, Stormwind and Dazar'alor (wiki). Method's guide for the mount also lists crafting the Tier 3 transmog as a prerequisite; the wiki and Wowhead's guide do not, and nothing in the steps uses it.

wow.gg's guide (updated 2026) agrees on the steps but uses names of its own (Corruptor's Felshell, Crystals of Obedience) and reads like a translation; it is not linked. Wowhead's guide for old Scholomance, which its Naxxramas guide points to, was not read. All times here are estimates: no source gives any. The reins bind when picked up and ask for level 10 (wiki).

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

Sources

• Wowhead: reins of valiance
• Wowhead: reins of valiance (comments)
• Wowhead: unlock access old naxxramas
• Wiki: Reins of Valiance
• Wiki: Wards of the Dread Citadel
• Wiki: Memory of Scholomance
• Wiki: Inconvenience Fee
• Wiki: Zackett Skullsmash
• Wiki: Death's Bargaining Chip
• Wiki: Makeshift Grappling Hook
• Method: how to obtain reins of valiance mount in naxxramas
• Method: how to unlock naxxramas
• wow.gg: reins of valiance mount guide