Love is in the Air begins on February 5th and ends on February 19th at 10 AM (PST) in all regions.

Something is in the air in the major cities of Azeroth. Some call it love, and some just call it friendship and admiration. Whichever it is, many guards and townsfolk now spend their days giving and receiving tokens and gifts to other amorous citizens.

The more sceptical, however, are suspicious of the strange “love sickness” clouding the hearts of so many. Will this widespread occurrence be simply taken as a recent outbreak of amore? Or will our brave adventurers find a sinister plot behind the source of this plague of passion? Only time will tell…

New in 2024

Excited to see some new items this year including a mount, a pet, some toys and six cosmetic headpieces which are recoloured versions of the Forever-Lovely Rose so I hope you don’t mind farming Love Tokens.

Apothecary Hummel

Players can queue up via the Dungeon Finder or speak to the Steamwheedle Shyster located in Orgrimmar (near the path to Grommash Hold) or Stormwind City (by the Trade District Auction House). A successful group will be rewarded with a Heart-Shaped Box that contains special holiday loot like the elusive Love Rocket mount and Forever-Lovely Rose (cosmetic).

As of Dragonflight 10.0.5, you must be level 60+ to have a chance to acquire the X-45 Heartbreaker, found in the Heart-Shaped Box.

The boss will drop one of the following neckpieces that can be handy for alts:

toxic wasteling

Heart-Shaped Box

Each Heart-Shaped Box contains 5-10 Love Tokens, as well as a chance to loot:

  • Toxic Wasteling (pet) – The oozeling will grow in size as it eats any critters that cross your path. The nice thing about this one is it won’t give you the debuff like the Disgusting Oozeling.

This um, ‘adorable’ little guy likes to play with critters. Just don’t let them get too close.

  • Forever-Lovely Rose (cosmetic) – Wear this rose in your hair for female characters, or in your mouth for a male character. Also available for Love tokens at your faction’s Lovely merchants, although this will only be the temporary version.

Vile Fumigator's Mask

  • Vile Fumigator’s Mask (cosmetic) – a cloth (WOOT!) gas mask that includes a backpack that holds two pressurised canisters of the concentrated perfume used by Hummel. The fluid inside the canisters (as well as the gaseous spray) is the perfume Hummel uses during the fight. When you use the mask, it sprays an enemy with vile fumes, incapacitating them for 30sec. Any damage caused will revive the target and have a 20min CD.

Note: you can hide the mask when you hide your cloak/head but the canisters on the back will always be visible.

  • The Heartbreaker (toy) – This strange experimental device will cause the target to cry while a broken heart appears above their head.

That Mount

Art by Noxychu

The Big Love Rocket had an extremely low chance of being looted from The Heart-Shaped Box, the reward for defeating Apothecary Hummel in Shadowfang Keep during the Love is in the Air event.

In 2016, GuildOx noted it was only owned by 0.42% of players (1 in 238) so you had to be extremely lucky to get one.

In Patch 9.1.5, the Big Love Rocket was renamed the X-45 Heartbreaker as part of the work to remove inappropriate references from the game.

Then in 2023, the drop rate finally increased for the first time in over a decade but ever so slightly.

We’ve heard your feedback on the frustrations with X-45 Heartbreaker’s low drop rate and feeling the pressure of having to farm the mount by cycling through as many alts as possible every day. From now on, the first Heart-Shaped Box you receive each day across your Battle.net account will have a greatly increased chance of containing the X-45 Heartbreaker mount.

Any subsequent Heart-Shaped Boxes you earn on your characters after the first each day will drop the mount at the previous, original rate. Source

That was the year I finally received mine after realising I’d forgotten to open the Heart-Shaped Box in my bag.

Completing all the achievements for the event will award you with The Love Fool title.

Note: You can get more than one of these items per box, but you can only receive one box per character per day.

Love Tokens

Love Tokens are the currency used to purchase pets, a mount and other cool items from the Lovely Merchants in Orgrimmar or Stormwind.

swift lovebird

Note: the Lovebird Hatchling and the Truesilver Shafted Arrow pets are not BoP so expect to see some in the AH.

Dailies

These reward 10 Love Tokens per day with a slightly different version for each faction.

Now I don’t remember ever seeing this commercial but in 2007 Blizzard created this little gem during Burning Crusade to highlight the “Love is in the Air” event as well as the new Jewelcrafting profession.

From the official website:

What do you get the blood elf who has everything? This Valentine’s Day, make it an epic jewel! Yes, the industrial empires of Azeroth aren’t about to let anyone escape the relentless marketing campai- er, bloom of true love associated with this time of year! Take a look at this new commercial but be warned that you may be struck by a sudden impulse to spend all the gold you’ve saved for your epic mount.