garrison-followers
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Patch 6.1: New follower traits and reroll items
Talonpriest Ishaal is finally going to have someone who wants to go on missions with him. Follower races which previously had no synergy traits, such as the arakkoa, will now have them available via special mission rewards. New/updated follower traits The Wildling trait increases success chance when on missions with beast followers. Taught by Winning with Wildlings. The Mechano Affictionado increases success chance when on missions with machine or construct followers. Taught by Grease Monkey Guide. The Bird Watcher trait increases success chance when on missions with arakkoa followers. Taught by Guide to Arakkoa Relations. The Ogre Buddy trait increases success chance when on missions with ogre followers. Taught by Ogre Buddy Handbook. The Speed of Light trait reduces mission duration, similar to Epic Mount. Taught by Sun-touched Feather of Rukhmar. The Treasure Hunter trait increases gold rewarded by missions by 100%. This trait appears to be unique to Harrison Jones. Scavenger now increases Garrison Resource rewards by 100% (down from 200%). Note that many of these missions have had their base rewards increased to compensate, e.g. Can't Go Home This Way was buffed from 175 base resources to 300. There will also be more opportunities to reroll traits and abilities on your followers with Follower Ability Retraining Guide and Follower Trait Retraining Guide. Both of these are rewarded from several new missions, and they can also be purchased for 1500 Garrison Resources each from your garrison quartermaster. As someone who has had awful luck acquiring Follower Retraining Certificates, I'm all for this new way to spend resources.
Patch 6.1: Rush orders allow instant completion of work orders
Tired of waiting for your garrison work orders to finish? In patch 6.1, you'll be able to acquire rush orders which allow you to instantly complete 5 active work orders for that particular building, e.g. Rush Order: Engineering Works. There are a couple ways to acquire these rush orders. Firstly, there are new profession missions which become available based on the profession buildings you have in your garrison. If you have an Engineering Works, you should periodically get missions like You're Fired or The Wonder Gears which reward 2 or 3 of these rush orders. Followers with profession traits have an increased success chance on these missions as well. Secondly, you can buy rush orders with Garrison Resources for non-profession buildings like the Barn and Gladiator's Sanctum. Currently it costs 1000 Garrison Resources per rush order, with the exception of the mine and garden which cost 300 each. Keep in mind this is PTR and all subject to change. It sounds pretty pricey to me, but if you're overflowing with resources it will give you something to spend them on.
Patch 6.1: Claws, Pincers, and Tusks nerfed
Deep down in the blackest parts of my heart, that place of darkness and hate, I have reserved a special place for the garrison mission Claws, Pincers, and Tusks. It's an irrational, unnecessary level of hatred for something so mundane, but come on. The mission requires a total of 5 ability counters for a mere ilevel 615 chestpiece! It's more difficult to 100% than missions that provide way better gear! That's just unreasonable. In patch 6.1, Claws, Pincers, and Tusks requires only 3 ability counters: Group Damage, Massive Strike, and Deadly Minions. Beremus the Overseer has been removed from the mission altogether, leaving Tarina the Ancient as your followers' only foe. Perhaps, when patch 6.1 goes live, I might be able to let go of this hate and feel joy once more.
Patch 6.1: Trade Iron Horde Scraps for follower equipment
If you have a stockpile of Iron Horde Scraps, whether that be due to disinterest in transmogrification or already possessing all of the items you want, you'll be able to put them to good use in patch 6.1. While the War Mill and Dwarven Bunker are already a steady source of follower equipment, patch 6.1 implements a daily quest wherein you can trade 25 Iron Horde Scraps for an additional piece of gear. When you turn in the scraps, you have a choice between an Armor Enhancement Token or Weapon Enhancement Token -- the same items you can earn through select follower missions. That means there is a random element to the reward, your ultimate outcome being anything from a three ilevel improvement via Braced Armor Enhancement to an automatic ilevel 645 via the far more rare Goredrenched Armor Set. If your garrison has been running a Salvage Yard and War Mill/Dwarven Bunker since launch, you most likely have a stockpile of follower enhancement items already. If you haven't had those running for months, this daily quest will be a solid catch-up mechanic.
Patch 6.1: Garrison follower mission UI updates
The patch 6.1 PTR introduces a number of updates to the garrison mission table UI, many of which will be well-appreciated. First, the mission table provides more at-a-glance information about mission rewards without need for a mouseover: ilevel of equipment, the exact number of experience points, and so on. If you do hover your mouse over a mission, a new array of information will be displayed: the ability counters required (and whether you have followers who can counter them) and the mission availability -- that is, how long the mission will stay in your list before it expires. If you have a follower who could counter something but is currently unavailable due to being on another mission, the tooltip will even tell you how long until that follower becomes available. If a mission will expire before that follower returns home, you can quickly and easily make the decision to try that mission with less than 100% chance of success. The tab which displays your list of followers has also been updated. At the top of the menu, the UI now displays the total number of each ability in your active roster. If you have 7 followers who can counter Powerful Spell, for example, that is displayed at-a-glance. As someone who keeps a spreadsheet of his followers, it's a welcome addition. It's likely I'll still keep my spreadsheet, but having the ability to quickly reference that breakdown will make it easier when it comes to recruiting new followers from the inn each week. Using follower upgrade items has also changed: you no longer click on the item, then click on the character's portrait in the list. Instead, you click the item, click the portrait in the list, and then click on their full-size image to use the item. That change seems unusual -- it adds a redundant step to the process -- but the redundancy might be intended to prevent misclicks. An image of the new follower tab can be found below; it's a big one.
The Queue: Followers, transmog, and gross items
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I managed to lose a day this week and thought today was Tuesday rather than Wednesday. For that reason, The Queue is a little late today. I hope you'll all forgive me. Snichy asked: Does getting a follower to "epic" quality have any benefits over them being the same iLevel but blue?
Don't forget your garrison tannery's tents
In my adventures throughout Draenor, I've discovered many are unaware of the tents provided by a garrison's Tannery -- even players with Leatherworking as their primary profession. If you assign a follower to your Tannery, they can craft a myriad of single use tents for the low price of 5 Raw Beast Hides. When the tent is placed, players can stand inside of it for 10 seconds to receive a 10% buff to all stats for 1 hour. While these tents cannot be used in instances such as dungeons and raids, they can be used anywhere in the open world: garrison invasions, trapping elite beasts, the group Apexis quests, or any other non-instanced activity. You can only carry 5 of each type of tent at a time, but they're Battle.net Account Bound and there are 21 different types of tents available. That means you can carry a potential 105 tents per character ... which makes their Unique limitations somewhat pointless. These tents aren't the most powerful thing in the world, but they're neat items and might provide the boost your group needs to achieve Gold in a garrison invasion. If you have a Barn producing leather, you might as well use some of it for a solid questing buff.
New garrison NPC in patch 6.1 will sell you missed followers
Community Manager Crithto teased a new garrison NPC coming in patch 6.1 that will sell followers you may have missed because of quests, missions, buildings, or outpost choices. Remember that quest in Shadowmoon Valley that had you choose 1 of 3 followers? It looks like you'll now be able to get the other 2 -- for a price. This may address one of the concerns I posted yesterday (#5) regarding how easy it is to skip past potential followers on alts. Keep an eye out for more details once the 6.1 PTR launches. Crithto All of this feedback is great so thank you! We have some really cool changes coming to Garrisons in the future and a lot of them are based on what you've shared with us in recent weeks. Also, I've relayed many of the ideas you've posted here, too. One specific change I can share is in the next patch we're planning to add a new NPC to tier 3 Garrisons who will sell followers you might not have access to based upon which buildings and Outposts you've chosen. Definitely keep an eye out for that on the next PTR, test it out, and let us know what you think. Quote: Ohhh, what about for followers that came from quests that give you a choice of three but you can only choose 1. Gotta catch'em all you know =P. Yup! You'll be able to browse for followers you did not choose from quests and any you might have missed from failed missions. source
Garrisons and Alts: How can it be improved?
I sometimes find myself wishing that garrisons were designed to be account-wide from the beginning. It may sound silly, but I'd love to see my alts hanging out in my single account-wide garrison when I'm logged on another character. This is obviously not in the cards, but maybe there could be some changes to make managing multiple garrisons a little bit easier. You can tell yourself that they are "optional" as much as you want, but you'd be missing out a large portion of this expansion if you simply ignored them, even on alts. Thankfully, Blizzard is listening to feedback and plans on making adjustments in the future. Takralus We're looking into ways to make Garrisons a bit more friendly in future patches for those of you who enjoy alts. We see that Garrisons are a bit too much for you guys right now. source Good to hear. I have a few ideas on how things might be improved, some more realistic than others. 1. BoA follower armor and weapon upgrades As it stands, having a Dwarven Bunker/War Mill and Salvage Yard are essentially requirements if you want to partake in the most worthwhile follower missions. Wouldn't it be nice if after your first or second garrison this was no longer the case? I've put a significant amount of time and resources into my main's followers, and I'm at the point where most of them are maxed out in item level. However, I still have a ton of items like War Ravaged Weaponry which I can no longer use on this character. My alts could put them to good use.
The Queue: Abrogator Stones, garrisons, and player housing
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. It took until January, but it's finally cold and snowy in Wisconsin. Now, I'm not a big fan of the freezing cold or anything, but it's Wisconsin. It's about time. Chadalac2 asked: Anyone else not getting that many stones for the legendary quest? I have like 39 and a fellow guild mate has 120. What the heck.
The Queue: Garrisons forever
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. At this point, I think it's fair to say the holiday season has concluded. No, you may not extend it to Valentine's Day. Hopefully we'll see some Warcraft news on the horizon soon. Patch 6.1, anyone? gazaa07 asked: if you could create a new building to be used for your Garrison (can be anything), what would you build?
How to send your followers on raid missions
With the right followers, it's possible to get yourself a piece of genuine Highmaul raid loot without ever setting foot inside the raid. Before you endeavor to do this, you should know that the Dwarven Bunker/War Mill and Salvage Yard are basically required to do this in any sane amount of time. You need both buildings to get enough follower armor and weapon upgrades, as these missions require a roster of ilvl 645+ followers to complete. Raid mission basics Your first raid mission will unlock when you have 3 followers at 645 or higher item level. The mission should stick around for at least a couple days if you want to spend some time getting other followers ready. After completing a raid mission, your next one will unlock 2 weeks later. Any piece of loot from the raid appropriate to your loot specialization can drop, with the exception of weapons. Just like normal drops, these can be warforged, socketed, or have tertiary stats. The quality of loot is based on your current progression in the raid itself: Normal caches (ilvl 655 loot) are rewarded if you've killed 0-14 bosses in normal mode. Heroic caches (ilvl 670 loot) are rewarded if you've killed 15+ bosses in normal mode. Mythic caches (ilvl 685 loot) are rewarded if you've killed 15+ bosses in heroic mode. Mythic caches plus a bonus of 1000 gold are rewarded if you've killed 15+ bosses in mythic mode.
Recruit Soulare of Andorhal for your garrison
How would you like a follower who will happily throw a beam of light on you if you /praise him, and hand over a toy for your Toy Box just to be nice? Soulare of Andorhal isn't your typical follower at all. He's a protection paladin with the usual array of good follower abilities, but it's the fun things this follower does that makes him appealing. There's also the fact that he's a thinly-veiled reference to the Dark Soul character Solaire of Astora, but that's just the icing on the cake. Getting this follower, however, is slightly more difficult than you'd think. He starts out at level 90, because you don't find him out in the wilds of Draenor -- you recruit him from your Inn. In order to get Soulare, you're going to need the right building, the right set of abilities, and a whopping dollop of luck on top of it. But it's all worth it in the end. And if you're not quite feeling up to the challenge ... well, there's some good news on that end, too.
Recruit garrison kitty Goldmane as a follower
He may not be the best-dressed or most literate garrison follower you'll ever have, but Goldmane has one thing going for him, and it's right in his name. Goldmane the Skinner is a level 100 follower with the Skinning trait, allowing him to work at your garrison Barn and increase work order production. Available to both Alliance and Horde, Goldmane is pretty easy to pick up -- he just requires a short trip out to the southern coast of Nagrand. Head to Ironfist Harbor on the southwest shores of Nagrand and you'll come across a base for the Iron Horde that also includes a bonus mission, if you feel up to the challenge of killing a lot of orcs. If not, look around for the tallest tower in the base -- your objective is at the top. Fight your way up the tower, and you'll see two things of note: One very angry kitty locked away in a cage, and an orc by the name of Bolkar the Cruel, who is gloating over his latest captive.
The Queue: Lumbershelly
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Everyone thank Adam for covering for me yesterday. And now I'm taking his place today! Bugboy asked: I'm sure this has been asked and answered, but...well, my apologies for not taking note before. For the legendary quest, do we need to collect and keep 4986 apexis crystals, or can we spend them along the way?
Hotfixes for December 4
Another day, another round of hotfixes. Today's highlights include: Player pets should now correctly rejoin the player after taking a flight path or using a vehicle. Battleground Flag Carriers should now correctly have a 45-second delay before their location is revealed to the enemy team (was incorrectly revealing their location immediately). Recruit-a-Friend characters should now be correctly receiving a 300% bonus to the experience awarded for completing a Dungeon (was incorrectly awarding 900% instead). The full hotfixes can be found below. There are a few class balance hotfixes there, so don't miss them!
The Queue: Garrisons, Socrethar, and disgusting toes
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Good news! Today isn't completely about garrisons. Only mostly. Hallowspite asked: how the heck do I use follower enhancement items? I'm in the mission table follower screen in front of a level 100 follower who's neither assigned to a building nor out on a mission, but nothing is working.
Master Plan addon makes Garrison mission management a breeze
Garrisons are an integral part of the leveling game in Warlords of Draenor, but they're also part of the endgame, too -- collecting various followers and sending them on the appropriate missions will net you rewards like gear, gold, resources, and more. But although I love the garrison game, when you've got 20 followers, trying to keep track of who does what is almost a logistical nightmare. Sure, there's only a handful of threats that your follower's abilities need to counter, but remembering which follower does what is something that I still haven't mastered. Beyond that, the mission interface itself is decent and fairly intuitive, but it's not quite as user-friendly as it could be. So it was with great anticipation that I awaited the inevitable addons that would take missions and follower management to the next level -- because if there's one thing I've learned in 10 years of gameplay, it's that addon authors are ridiculously talented when it comes to redesigning UI functions into elegant masterpieces of design. And the addon Master Plan by Foxlit has done exactly that with the missions and follower interface.
PSA: Beware the Hearthstone Strategy Guide and Supreme Manual of Dance
Though Blizzard issued its own warning previously, but as we're still seeing players make irreversible mistakes they regret, we'd like to mention it again: be careful when using the Hearthstone Strategy Guide or Supreme Manual of Dance on your garrison followers. The Strategy Guide's tooltip reads Use: Teaches a follower the Hearthstone Pro trait. What it doesn't tell you is the Hearthstone Pro trait will replace one of your follower's current traits and you cannot choose what is replaced. Numerous players have used the item under the (reasonable) assumption that it will be added on to the current list of traits, losing something essential in the process. If you accidentally wipe out the Blacksmithing trait from a follower you intended for your forge, you might not be able to get another follower with that trait unless you build a level 2 inn and recruit one from the headhunter. The Hearthstone Pro trait increases experience earned on follower missions by 35%, so it can be useful for leveling new followers, but be cautious where you use it. Similarly, the Dancer trait from the Supreme Manual of Dance is also useful, granting a follower the capacity to counter Danger Zones on missions. Note that Dancer is a trait and not an ability, meaning the follower who uses it will be able to counter 3 abilities rather than the typical maximum of 2. The Supreme Manual of Dance is an excellent thing to use on a follower dedicated to running missions and does not already have the ability to counter Danger Zones, but use it with care.
The Queue: Garrisons, garrisons, some other stuff, and garrisons
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Garrisons continue to be the hot topic around these parts. With Warlords of Draenor leaving so much unexplained, confusion is rampant. dshiryu asked: How do one trigger garrison invasions? We already kill dozens of mobs from an opposing faction daily to get apexis, how many more must suffer to cause retaliation? THOUSANDS?
