WoW Dragonflight: Headless Horseman guide – abilities, achievements, rewards, mount, and more

It’s that time of the year again when Headless Horseman comes to terrorize World of Warcraft players and denizens of Azeroth. This time around, Headless Horseman got a couple of tweaks to his abilities, but new loot as well.

Headless Horseman is an iconic Hallow’s End boss in Scarlet Monastery which is normally hunted down because of his mount, Horseman’s Reins, that has an incredibly low drop chance. To make this instance way more exciting, Blizzard Entertainment has added a hard mode for Headless Horseman, and, naturally, it comes with better rewards.

So, here’s everything you need to know about the Headless Horseman encounter during this year’s Hallow’s End.

Headless Horseman guide in WoW Dragonflight

Headless Horseman abilities and tips for normal mode

• Pumpkin Breath: Command a formation of Pumpkin Soldiers to spew a fiery Pumpkin Breath, inflicting 45 Fire damage to enemies affected. The effect repeats with a new formation. Additionally. emit flames at the caster’s location, inflicting 10 Fire damage every 0.5 sec to enemies in the flames.
  • This is an AoE ability that Headless Horseman emits and you need to dodge. Usually, there are three to four Pumpkin Breaths and they look like a red cone.
• Vine March: Call forth Pumpkin Soldiers that immediately attack nearby enemies.
  • Pumpkin Soldier are boss’ adds and you can simply AoE them down.
• Insidious Cackle: Let out a terrifying cackle that echoes within all targets, causing them to suffer 28 Shadow damage and to flee if within range of each other for six seconds.
  • This ability will look like purple circles around you, and all you need to do is move away from other players to avoid being affected.
• Hot Head: Create flaming pumpkins that seek the head of each enemy. The pumpkins periodically ignite the ground, inflicting 16 Fire damage every 5.2 sec to enemies standing in the flames.
  • This is an unavoidable ability, and your healer will just have to heal through this one.

Headless Horseman abilities and tips for hard mode

Headless Horseman hard mode is triggered by interacting with the five Wicker Men at the dungeon entrance. Each of them has a unique curse, and choosing it means you will enhance one of Headless Horseman’s abilities and will apply the Wicker Man’s Shadow debuff that decreases your health by 10 percent throughout the encounter and it stacks. Here are all enhanced abilities:

• Ember Curse: Cursed enemies emit Shadowflame around their location periodically. Each blast inflicts a stack of Wicker Man’s Shadow.
  • If possible, try not to get hit by this because you want to keep your Wicker Man’s Shadow debuff to a minimum.
• Cursed Hot Head: Cursed enemies suffer dark hallucinations manifesting in front of their location. Moving to the hallucination dispels it. Ignoring the hallucination inflicts two stacks of Wicker Man’s Shadow to the enemy.
  • Move to the hallucination to make it disappear.
• Shadow Curse: Insidious Cackle shackles the souls of cursed enemies in fear. The shackled soul slowly moves towards consuming flames. Souls that reach the flames before their shackles are destroyed inflict two stacks of Wicker Man’s Shadow to the afflicted enemy.
  • Destroy the shackles.
• Thorny Surprise: Piercing thorns erupt under cursed enemies periodically. Enemies hit by the thorns suffer a stack of Wicker Man’s Shadow.
  • Dodge this ability. 

It’s important to note you don’t need to activate the hard mode and you’ll still have a chance at getting the Headless Horseman mount.

How to enter the Headless Horseman instance in WoW Dragonflight

To enter the Headless Horseman instance, you need to queue up via the Looking for Dungeon tool. There, select The Headless Horseman dungeon and then click the Find Group button. The minimum level requirement is level 10, and you can complete it through level 70.

Headless Horseman achievements in WoW Dragonflight

• A Cleansing Fire – Defeat the Headless Horseman.
• Bring Me The Head of… Oh Wait – Killed the Headless Horseman prior to the 2023 holiday refresh.
• Don’t Lose Your Head, Man – Defeat any version of the Headless Horseman.
• Kickin’ With the Wick – Defeat the Headless Horseman while cursed by all four wicker men.

Headless Horseman rewards in WoW Dragonflight

• 402 item level gear
• Horseman’s Reins
• Loot-Filled Pumpkin (A chest full of Hallow’s End goodies)
• Weighted Jack-o’ Lantern (An item that jams a pumpkin onto your or somebody else’s head)
• Magic Broom (temporary mount)
• Pumpkin head transmog (Hallowed Helm)
• Hallow’s End pet, Sinister Squashling

Headless Horseman mount in WoW Dragonflight

Headless Horseman mount still drops from this boss, but the drop rate chance still isn’t known. It’s likely to be 0.4 percent again, just like it used to be in the past. So, if you have your eyes on Horseman’s Reins, you have a long grind ahead of you.