How much does the griffon cost?

250 gold, paid as ten separate items of 25 gold each from renown heart merchants, so you never need the full sum at once.

What do I need before starting the griffon?

Path of Fire with the story finished completely, then talk to the Remains of the Last Spearmarshal at Sunspear Sanctuary in Domain of Vabbi.

Is there a time gate on the griffon?

No. This is the only expensive mount with no daily resets involved. Gather the gold and the collections and you can finish it in one evening.

Why can the vendor not sell me the item?

Because the matching renown heart is not completed. Heart merchants only trade with you once their heart is done, so check the list before travelling with a full wallet.

Griffon: 250 gold and no waiting

The Griffon costs 250 gold, the largest sticker price among mounts. It is also the only one that does not make you wait for it: no daily resets, no “come back tomorrow”. Gather the sum, walk away with the bird the same evening.

It flies differently too. Less flight than controlled falling: you dive, trade height for speed, then convert the speed back into height. Crossing maps is out of reach, but clearing a canyon that a Springer cannot even see is trivial.

What you need first

Path of Fire, with the expansion story finished. Not partly. All of it.

Then head to Domain of Vabbi, to Sunspear Sanctuary, and interact with the Remains of the Last Spearmarshal. That is the starting point.

Three collections

You will open Open Skies: Sunspear Sanctuary, Open Skies: Sunspear Wisdom and Open Skies: On Wings and a Prayer. Those in turn give access to five regional collections across the Crystal Desert maps.

The work itself is undemanding: you fly around the desert, find spots, talk to NPCs. No fights at the edge of your ability, no group content. It is a long walk rather than a challenge.

Where the 250 gold goes

Not in one payment. It is ten items at 25 gold each, bought from Renown Heart Merchants scattered across the Crystal Desert.

Two practical consequences follow.

You can pay in instalments. No need to bank all 250 first. Buy one item, advance, go earn another 25.

Open the relevant hearts first. A merchant only sells to you once you have completed their heart. People turn up with a full wallet and stall on an unfinished heart on a map they still have to reach. Check the list in advance.

Why the gold is not the hard part.

For a player who has just closed Path of Fire, 250 gold is a real sum. But it is one-off and completely predictable: you always know how much is left.

The harder part is finishing the Path of Fire story in full. People stall there for months: they get halfway, drift into Living World, come back and cannot remember where they stopped. If you want the Griffon, treat the story as the main body of work and the gold as the side quest.

What the griffon can do

Everything written about this mount is about the 250 gold. Almost nothing is about how it flies, which is the part you live with afterwards.

Swoop does two different things depending on where you are. On the ground it launches you into the air and crashes you down onto nearby foes. In the air it sends you diving at the ground and engages whatever you land on.

Dive is held while airborne to drop and accelerate. Climb is held at speed to convert that speed back into height. Those two skills are the entire game: you trade altitude for velocity and velocity for altitude, over and over, and a griffon flown well never loses height at all.

The other four buttons, Bond of Life, Bond of Vigor, Bond of Faith and Stealth, are shared with every mount you own.

Top speed is 2,000 units per second, which makes the griffon the fastest thing in the air in the game. The roller beetle beats it on flat ground and cannot follow it anywhere else.

The mastery track

Three tiers, 1,879,600 experience in total, paying 12 mastery points along the way (how masteries work). That is the same figure as the roller beetle track, down to the last digit.

Soaring Rescue, 571,500 XP, 3 points. Mount the griffon in midair while falling.
Aerial Prowess, 609,600 XP, 4 points. The diving and climbing momentum that makes the mount work.
Aerial Finesse, 698,500 XP, 5 points. Wing Flap, and the ceiling on what a skilled rider can do.

🔴 Take Soaring Rescue first and do not think about it twice. It converts every fall in the game, including the ones from a failed jumping puzzle, into a mild inconvenience. There is a particular relief in stepping off a cliff by accident and flying away from it.

A sensible order

Springer to mastery rank three. Cheap, and it covers most vertical problems until the Griffon shows up.
Path of Fire story to the end. It also opens the maps where the collections live.
Crystal Desert hearts, at least the ones with the merchants you need.
Gold. Since the payment splits into ten, farming and collecting run in parallel and 250 never feels like a wall.

After the Griffon the next useful bird is the Skyscale, which hovers and climbs vertical walls where the Griffon only glides. Different story, very different price tag.