garrison-missions
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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 PTR: Blackrock Foundry garrison missions are 660 ilvl
Our friends at Wowhead have datamined a new set of follower raid missions for Blackrock Foundry. Like the Highmaul missions that exist today, these will reward random non-weapon loot from the Blackrock Foundry raid. It's unclear at this point if tier 17 armor will be potential rewards or not. The important bit of information here is that these new missions require your followers to be 660 item level. The current cap on follower item level is 655, so you won't be able to upgrade them quite yet. In the meantime, you can continue to collect upgrades from the Dwarven Bunker/War Mill and Salvage Yard if you want to do these missions when the patch hits. If you want to learn more about raid missions, you can check out our post from last week.
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.
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.
Changes to Salvage Yard rewards
The Salvage Yard has become my favorite building ever since I upgraded it to level 3. The Big Crates of Salvage can be loot pinatas. I personally have received two ilvl 665 epics, a full class transmog set, and numerous green and blue BoEs that have sold well on the auction house. Then, of course, there's all the follower upgrades. This building was so lucrative that people figured out if you kept a single follower in the 90-94 range, you would have a virtually unlimited supply of 30-45 minute missions to gain salvage. Blizzard wasn't a fan of this somewhat tedious requirement to maximize the building's output, so they made some adjustments. Here's a summary of the Salvage Yard changes that have happened over the last few days: Only successful missions can reward salvage crates (failed missions used to reward them too) Successful level 100 missions always reward a Big Crate of Salvage (or Crate of Salvage if you're level 2) Successful level 95-99 missions have a chance at rewarding a Big Crate of Salvage (or Crate of Salvage if you're level 2) Successful level 90-94 missions have a chance at rewarding a Bag of Salvaged Goods, also known as the junk box. This is regardless of the building level. You can read the post announcing these changes after the break.
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.
Garrison Followers, traits, abilities, and training
If you've been playing Warlords of Draenor fairly regularly since release, you should by now be familiar with the traits and abilities of your followers. These abilities and traits are randomly generated when you obtain your new follower, but there are some items in game, obtainable via missions, that will teach a chosen follower a new trait. Apparently there had been some confusion regarding these items, so CM Crithto took to the forums to further clarify how these items work. Crithto There's been some confusion regarding the various items you can use that allow you to change a trait on one of your Garrisons followers, so we wanted to clarify how these items work. If you use an item such as the Supreme Manual of Dance or the Hearthstone Strategy Guide, the targeted follower will gain the trait associated with the on-use item, and lose a random trait which cannot be selected or changed after the fact. Currently, the tooltips for these items are not specific enough about the randomness associated with their outcome, and we're working on getting them adjusted. So if you're now missing a follower with a specific trait you want or need, remember that you can level your Inn or Tavern to tier 2 to gain access to an NPC who will hunt down new followers. When one becomes available, you can then limit your search based on the traits you desire. source
How to get Garrison Resources
Garrison Resources are something you may casually dismiss while leveling up. Quests are granting them left and right, you're not having any problems building your first building or two, and everything looks peachy. So you're thinking that you may as well start buying those Excess Potions of Accelerated Learning for 100 resources a pop, right? Wrong! Anyone who has spent hundreds of their precious resources on those potions could be in for a rude awakening once they hit level 100 and realize they need 2000 resources to upgrade their garrison. Don't let me stop you from buying the potions if you truly need to get to 100 a few hours earlier, but don't say I didn't warn you. Either way, you're going to run into a resource problem eventually. Garrison Resources are the main bottleneck for progressing every aspect of your garrison. Given enough time, you will eventually generate enough resources to do everything you want. But we're not all patient people, are we? Here's a few tips to get your hands on some resources as soon as possible.
Choosing the right Garrison buildings for you
Once you head through the Dark Portal in Warlords of Draenor, you're going to be faced with a variety of choices, particularly when it comes to building your garrison for the first time. While the process may seem like a complicated jumble of various bonuses and purposes, it's actually relatively easy to get your garrison up and running -- and your first few buildings will be handed to you right off the bat. As you continue to level, however, you're going to face more and more choices in regards to what to place in your Draenor stronghold. Garrison buildings are also tied into professions in Warlords, although not quite as rigidly as you might think. Instead, what the buildings do is offer you a way to craft items that involve professions you might not already have trained. It's about flexibility and choice. It's also not something that's going to take up the majority of your time while you're in Draenor. Your garrison is fully capable of functioning on its own, once you've handed out the orders. So how do you pick what's right for you? It's a personal decision, but here are some things you want to keep in mind when you're getting started.
Warlords of Draenor: Garrison Followers and you
One of the largest and most highly-discussed features of Warlords of Draenor is the garrison -- a stronghold on Draenor that you get to construct and customize to your heart's content. Hand in hand with the garrison are a multitude of other things to look forward to -- missions, quests, blueprints, profession buildings, building bonuses, followers, and more. You aren't going to necessarily be spending a lot of time sitting around in your garrison, but you'll be ducking back to it periodically in between everything else there is to do on Draenor. You can kind of think of your garrison as your own, personalized capital city in a way -- you can customize it with whatever buildings you want, and you can switch those buildings out if you decide you're better off with a different kind of building. As for your followers, they are the citizens of your garrison, the NPCs that wander around doing various tasks and spitting out conversations with passers-by. But followers are far more than just eye-candy for your garrison -- they are useful tools to help you get the most out of what the expansion has to offer.
