Some Things That Could Have Made Garrisons Better

I consider garrisons to be the best and worst addition to the warlords expansion.  I really liked having a place of my own, it felt right and it shows that the game does have a place for player housing, even if that is not what garrisons were and surely not what they were intended to be. 

In the same way however the fact that the garrisons were so important, for making gold, for getting gear, for maximizing professions, for getting crafting materials, feasts, savage bloods, etc, they felt more like work than they did fun.

Because of that reason I only have a few alts this expansion.  I did not want to level more alts because I know me and I would have felt I would need to maximize my garrison on all my characters.  While the leveling experience was the best it has ever been in my opinion this becomes the first expansion I have fewer max level characters than the previous one.  And not just slightly fewer, about one third of the max level characters I had last expansion.  Really odd being leveling was so great this expansion, if it were not for garrison I would have had more max characters than ever before.

So for as much as I liked garrisons, I really think they hurt the game a much as they helped it.  At least for myself.  They where awesome, but they were work, and no matter how much you love your job if you feel like you are doing nothing but that job you will start to hate it.  That is not an opinion, that is a fact.

I think there are a few things they could have done to make the garrisons way more friendly and less work like as well as making them closer to player housing and less like a mini game in your own little space in an MMO.

Fewer Missions, More Followers:

I think limiting us to 25 followers was a mistake.  If we wanted to have 100 we should be allowed to have 100.  Instead of limiting the number of followers we had they should have limited the number of missions we had.

It would work the same, sort of.  The reason to limiting us in followers was to assure we could not 100% all missions, which most, or at least many, of us managed anyway with only 25 followers.  So that really was a non issue and no real excuse of limiting us to only 25.

If they had missions spawn at a rate of one mission every 4 hours, even if you are offline, than that would mean a maximum of 6 new missions a day.   If they let them stack up to a total of 50 missions before they stopped spawning new ones until the old ones were done, that would mean you could go for quite a long time without visiting your mission table, without having the feeling that you are missing out on something by not doing as many missions as possible.

Having more followers active would make everything easier to 100% but at that late game stage getting 100% was not a problem anyway.  So people could log on once a week and with their 100 followers they could send all their missions out.  In a case like this, with so many missions going out at once, it surely would have lead to a great many of those missions you could not 100% because the people that could do so with would be out on other missions.  So you could wait for them to come back to 100% them or risk them if you know this was the only time you would be on all week.

It would decrease the feel that you needed to log on every day as often as possible to get the most out of your garrison mission table.  Which just so happens to be the #1 compliant I heard at the beginning of the expansion.  And is still a problem when leveling alts when you also need to level the new followers which means logging in as often as possible to do as many missions as possible so you can level your followers as fast as possible.

I believe that fewer missions and more followers would have eased some of the issues people had with garrisons early on, and the problem that some still have trying to log in as often as possible to do every mission all the time.

Mine and Garden Workers:

Like the mission suggestion I believe the mine and garden could have been made to feel less mandatory, or less work like, if you will, at the very least if our workers actually, you know, worked there.

I said this in beta, I said this on release, and I will say this once again.  If you assign a worker to your mine or garden they should do the mining and herb gathering.  It is their job, they are your follower, they should do the work.  Simple as that.

They could have capped it at one stack of each item would be gathered before you picked it up from them, so they could not stock up an endless supply.  They could have even set it up that people received 20% fewer materials if their followers gathered the materials, because they are not as skilled as we are, that is why we are leaders and they are followers after all, and I do believe a great many people would have been glad to use than option instead of feeling like "I have to get to all my mines and now I have no time for anything else." which happened to a great deal of us, myself included, at the beginning of the expansion.  I cycled through characters and by the time I was done mining all of them I noticed my play time for the day was done.

Professions Building Bonuses:

Professions buildings were nice and all, but they became another thing people felt they needed to do.  They felt to make as many crafting materials they needed to keep their profession building running 24/7, and they were not wrong.  I did it, you might have done it, and many many people did it.  Logging on to all their characters to make sure they were maximizing the materials gathered from their profession building.

They should have ditched the work order idea and had it tie to the actual crafting you do.  That little crate in front of your professions building would still fill up with materials, but in a different way depending on the level of your building and crafting skill.

When you did your daily cooldown and received 10 burnished leathers, your storage would get 2 additional that you needed to pick up from there, at level 1 of course.  A level 2, when you did your daily cooldown 5 were added there, at level 3 it could be 10.

In addition, whenever you crafted something there was an 10% discount on the cost to craft it and the materials would appear in your professions building cache.  With a level 2 tannery it would be 20% and 30% for a level 3.  And there would be a small chance to proc a double return.  Say you just created a level 6 upgrade to leather gear and surprise surprise, 105 burnished leather and 18 felblight just appeared in your cache.

There would be no cap on those caches, you could let it build up and clear it out whenever you wanted to being you earned those materials from your very own crafting, but I could see the need to add some cap if they felt strongly about it and I would not be adverse to that if they wanted to add one.

Having a worker in the building, as well as adding bonuses they currently do, would increase the chance of having a proc to get more materials returned when crafting something.

This would give profession building a worthwhile reason to have them, and to level them for greater recovery, but it would remove the number one complaint people had, that they had to keep refilling orders.  Not like it was a big deal, but many people felt like it was just busy work, and it was.  There would no orders to be placed, just craft, and get a bonus for crafting with the building, sounds good to me.

Blueprints:

Account wide blueprints, 'nuff said.

Okay, since when have you known me to keep anything that simple.  Let me expand.  Being we would be having fewer missions over all, meaning fewer gold missions and fewer salvage crates, there would be less of a gold influx into the game than there is now.  As such the expense of buying the blueprints with all characters would become a bit more of a burden on those that are not very good at making gold.

So account wide blueprints would just make more sense with these changes.  However even without these changes with the advent of account wide this and account wide that, account wide blueprints should have been a no brainer to begin with.

Trophy Room:

Not like those monuments we have now, those can stay as is, I am talking about an area were we can display trophies.  Lets say anything you have a feat of strength for you can scroll through and display it.

An area with lets say 2 display places for a level 1, 4 for a level 2 and 8 for a level 3.  A place where you can put up your trophy for cutting edge garrosh, or high warlord, or whatever you have that you might be proud of that is a feat of strength.

This would lean more toward connecting garrisons a little more to a player housing idea, and I see nothing wrong with letting it be such.  It would be cool to invite your friends to your garrison and they can see your accomplishments.  It would also mean, if at least only in this one small area, each persons garrison was individual instead of cookie cutter. 

Needless to say that with less pressure to log in every day and do everything there every day, the garrison would no longer be a place where you hung out as often, so some personal touches would not be such a bad idea I think, even if just for yourself.

Armor Dummies:

How about a place where you can put armor that is in your void storage on display.  A dummy you could dress up with all the pieces of that set.  You could have as many as a dozen dummies that you could display your tier sets on, your personal designs on, and even more importantly, a one button outfit change when you click on a dummy that has a set on it.

When you click on one of your armor dummies there would be options to add, remove, or wear.  If you choose to wear a price would pop up and if you click okay it instantly transmogs you to that gear set on that dummy.

Transmog fans rejoice, this is exactly what you wanted, you just did not know you wanted it until I told you about it.  Sure this is another thing that more fits player housing, but why not, it would have been a pretty cool addition.  Not to mention it would be something additional that would add a bit of a personal touch to garrisons and step away a tiny bit from the cookie cutter we all have.

Skins:

Why must all alliance be humans and all horde be orcs?  We should have been allowed to skin our garrisons anyway we wish.  If I wanted a night elf design with night elf buildings I see no reason why I should not have it as such.  I can already have all night elf guards, which I do, so why am I stuck with an all night elf run garrison in a human city?  It just does not feel right.

They could even go further and offer skins for any faction in which you are exalted with.  So you could have hodir designs, consortium designs, or even klaxxi designs.  Talk about choices and the chance to have something different.

Sure there is the "would you sacrifice a raid tier for that" argument but please, go take a long walk off a short pier if you are coming out with that uninformed response to something that is nothing more than artwork.  There is no coding, outside of the switch skin coding which would only need to be made once and done, not once for every skin, so it is all just art work.

While it is true you can not just "throw more people at it" for many things in the game as there is so much more involved, any artist can make art assets provided they have the skill as an artist, so you can in fact "throw more people at it", don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Again, more of a player housing of an idea than the garrisons we have come to love and hate, but there are a lot of people that would have liked this option and I do believe having this option would have made them better, even if I doubt I personally would have cared to change the art on any of my characters outside of that of my main.  But I would not have minded seeing that option there.

Non-Mandatory:

When warlord was first announced at the first blizzcon blizzard said they were not going to be mandatory.  When people voiced concerns on the beta blizzard said they were not going to be mandatory.  At the second blizzcon blizzard reiterated that garrisons were not going to be mandatory.  When warlords was released they said garrisons were not mandatory.  When 6.1 came out they said garrisons were not mandatory.  When 6.2 came out they said garrisons were not mandatory.

I guess that blizzard and I have a completely different definition of the word mandatory.  But I guess it all depends on what you intend to do.  For the things I like to do, it was, in fact, mandatory.

If you wanted to experience the entire story through the campaigns, a garrison was mandatory.  If you later wanted to experience the later campaigns you not only needed a level 3 garrison, but you needed the shipyard upgrade too.  If you wanted to open the flight point to the area were the garrison would be, you needed to have a garrison.  If you wanted the portal to ashran, you needed a level 3 garrison.  If you wanted to do the pet battle daily, the good one, you needed a level 3 garrisons just so you could get the level 3 pet menagerie.  If you want to do the weekly events, like the timewalking quest, the pet battle quest, the PvP quest, the mythic dungeon quests, etc, you need to have a level 3 garrison.  If you wanted to do the tanaan quest line you needed a garrison.  If you wanted the tanaan base flight point you needed a garrison, if you wanted the tanaan dailies, you needed a garrison, if you wanted to buy the upgrade pieces for 695 gear, you needed that tanaan base which means you needed a garrison.  Oh, and if you ever wanted to fly on draenor, you needed the garrison.

I could go on and on with all the things you need a garrison for but the be all end all is this, being the expansion is about raiding and nothing but raiding.  If you wanted to complete the legendary quest line, you needed a garrison.  No ifs ands or buts about it, you could not do this without the garrison, a maxed out one at that with the level 3 shipyard addition as well.

I don't know about you, but garrisons seemed pretty damn mandatory to me, even if blizzard still keeps saying differently.  They say things like, "You can get to draenor without a garrison" and "You can get to tanaan without a garrisons"  but seriously blizzard, look up the definition of mandatory.

I think garrisons would have been 100% better if it did not feel like they were 100% mandatory.

So what changes do you think would have made garrisons better?

A Personal Guide to My Shipyard Plans

I am not really a fan of shipyards after the first week.  Losing an epic ship or two on missions of 88% and 92% chance of success can really put a kink in my enjoyment and I would not be surprised if others have felt the same.  A guild mate failed a 98% mission yesterday and lost two epic ships on the same mission while failing it.  To say he cursed a blue steak would be generous.

I have developed a tentative plan of attack on how I will manage my shipyard and perhaps some people might benefit from following the same pattern, or perhaps can offer some tips of their own.

Race Matters:

Race played such a minor part with garrison missions that most people ignored it.  The people that did recruit followers based on race were doing so more for their looks than their functionality even if with the right traits there was some functionality to it.  With ships it seems to be the exact opposite.  The race of your crew is insanely important.

Each faction basically has only one race that can counter something and one race that can help with mission success, all the others are useless in my opinion.

Alliance have a Draenic crew that can counter dense fog and the horde have an Orc crew that can counter Icy waters.  If you can snag a non faction related race you could also pick up a counter with the murloc crew countering land objective and the Arakkoa crew countering a battleship.

These are the big four crews, the ones I want most.  The other two crews I might consider keeping are the Human and Undead crews as they both increase mission success chance.

While the Draenic and Orc crew have direct counters they are specific and targeted, so useless if the counter is not being used whereas the Human and Undead give a bonus to all missions.  There is a plus and a minus to both but having a selection of the four might serve you well.

All other crews can go on dangerous missions.  Why not?  Risk them.  If they succeed, congratulations, if they don't and get destroyed, who cares, it will allow you to build a new ship that could have a better crew.

The Arakkoa crew comes on one ship and one ship only, The Awakener, which is a unique ship you can purchase from the Order of the Awakened at exalted.  The Murloc Crew is a rare proc, one of a submarine called the Brgrggrgl Mark II and one of a destroyer called the Mrgrggrgl Mark III.  Good luck getting them.

My plan of attack?

I want one Awakener (destroyer), one each of the Murloc crew (submarine and destroyer) and the rest an assortment of Draenei / Orc or Human / Undead, adding in some transports battleships and carriers of course.

I believe having these crews will greatly benefit me in the success of missions thanks to the extra counters they provide and I will keep building ships until I get the crews I want.

Sink Happens:

One of the first things I advise people of when they mention they want to try PvP is to stop thinking of death as a bad thing.  Once you learn to handle that everyone dies in PvP it becomes a lot easier of a pill to swallow.  I think the same advice should be given here and people need to understand that ships will sink, it is how this part of the game was designed.

Embrace to sink.  If you have a fresh green ship, risk it.  If you have one with an unfavorable crew, risk it.  Heck, even if it is an epic, if it does not have a favorable crew, risk it.

The worst that could ever happen is a ship sinks.  Oil is easy enough to come by, so that is not really a limiting factor on how many ships you can build and the garrison resource cost of building ships is low enough that is should not hurt anyone too badly.

Each time you build a ship you have a chance for it to come out as epic and / or for it to come out with a crew you like.  So maybe losing a ship with a Gnome crew could be a good thing when it ends up replaced with a Human one.

Learn not to take the loss of a ship to hard because sink happens.

My plan of attack?

I lost some epics and I have learned much like PvP loss happens.  I also think I will take a page from PvP and sometimes realize that loss is a good thing.  It could replenish your mana, move you across the map, or in the case of ships it can get you a better crew and maybe even a higher quality ship.

I am going to play it fast and loose with my ships, at least the ones that will not be part of my end core.  Being murloc ships are rare I will keep them safe and I will try to play it safe with the quality races that I mentioned but any other race, as long as the mission is over 50% they are going on it.  Who cares if I lose them.  You can't win if you do not try and in this case, even if you lose, it could end up being a win when you replace your useless Gnomish crew with an infinitely more useful Draenic crew.

Scavengers are the new Treasure Hunters:

Remember the days before treasure hunters when scavengers were the shit?  Everyone was trying to get them and when one of your followers rolled with this stat it felt like a huge win.  With treasures being nerfed some people are not as interested in treasure hunters as much any more (not sure why because they are still great).  The thing is if you want to succeed in shipyards you will need a lot of garrison resources.

Equipment costs resources, resources are limited and not unlimited like gold, so you can only get so many per day.  So to maximize the ability to get the equipment you need when you need it you will need to have a steady flow of garrison resources coming in.

So the day of the scavenger is back.  Nothing better than turning that 300 resource mission into 600, or 900 or 1200.  Even more so when replacing the equipment completely on one ship is going to run you 1000.  Trust me, you will need resources.  Anyone that has gone into this for a full week and replaced some equipment to get missions done can tell you that their previous stash of 10,000 is fast approaching 0.

You might even want to consider going back to a trading post or lumber mill if you ditched them.  Just think of it this way, it is entirely possible that if you want to get close to 100% on a three person mission you might need to replace all your equipment and that could run 3,000 garrison resources.  So if you plan on doing this right, you will need a good flow of resources. (yes I know that is unlikely but it is just and example)

My plan of attack?

All those deactivated scavengers are making their return to the active roster one at a time.  No, I am not benching my treasure hunters but I am no longer as concerned about having the perfect crew for gear missions as I no longer need any gear for them.  Garrison followers will be filled with resource collectors only, gold, garrison resources, oil, apexis, you name it.  But scavengers are at the top of my list.

Equipment:

Getting all of the available equipment is a top priority in my opinion.  Most of them you can get from killing rares in Tanann (also known as T2) and I would suggest it is even worth camping those rares or at the very least when doing additional bonus objectives, do the ones in the areas near were those rares spawn so even if you do not wish to camp them you can still kill them if they happen to pop up while doing your objective.

You will need a group to kill the savage whale shark that has one of them but I am sure you can find a group on group finder for that but the sooner the better.  This has been out a week already and the longer it is out the fewer groups you will see for killing massive creatures like this.  It is a get it done while it is easier to do so situations.  At least this is not a rare so it is basically up all the time somewhere, it is just an elite.

One comes from the second boss in hellfire citadel which if you are not a raider or do not have the item level to get into a pug you might need to wait until LFR comes out to get this one.  If you are a raider or even a part timer or past raider with the appropriate item level to pug go for it.  The first two bosses on normal are rather easy in the grand scheme of things and even a loosely assembled pug with somewhat competent people should be able to kill the first two bosses without incident and the second one is the one you need.  Everyone in the group get the pattern, so don't worry about having to win a roll for it.

Any other ones are really not worth getting.  The ones requiring reputation do not counter anything so they are not really anything to worry about unless you are have completion addiction like me.

I purchased the fishing net and used it for a while to get a feel for it and it really is not worth a lot.  The best I ever got was a total of 34 enormous fish but the worst I ever got was 14 regular fish. It is not worth losing a counter for such a tiny amount of fish, so do not even consider this one, ever.  Just don't.  In the vernacular of watcher, if you are using the fishing net you are doing it wrong.

The unsinkable equipment that you can get with our faction related reputation at revered might seem like an awesome thing being your ships can never be lost with it, does not counter anything.  Do you know what is better than having an item that makes it so your ship won't sink?  Getting 100% on the missions so there is no chance of sinking.  Use counters, not unsinkable. 

One thing of note with unsinkable is that you will also need to replace it after any missions that failed where your ship would have been destroyed.  What it does basically is destroys the equipment instead of the ship.  So if you do decide to use it make sure that if you fail you check to see if it is still there or was taken off.  Maybe after you are done with the legendary quest line and the mount and pet missions and just want to do it for fun, unsinkable will work so you never need to worry about losing a ship, but early on, just work on getting the missions done and having an actual counter is better for getting them done.

My plan of attack?

None really.  I have all the equipment already except unsinkable which I will be getting in a day or two most likely.

Switching Equipment:

Now for the end of this post.  You should have the right crews, understand the risks of losing a ship, have been stocking up on garrison resources, and have a full selection of all the possible counters through your equipment.

Don't be afraid to spend your garrison resources.  You are better off spending it and making sure you can complete those important missions than you would be by being stingy with your garrison resources.

I know many people, myself included, are hoarders and do not want to part with things, we would want to save them for later should we need them.  Well, right now is later enough in this case.  Spend those resources, do not hoard them.  Just spend them smart, think about which ships you are sending and which counters you need to add before just changing things all willy nilly and you will do just fine.  Just don't fall into the "I don't want to spend them, what if I need them later" mentality that so many of us have sometimes.

My plan of attack?

Once I have all my key ships to epic with two equipment slots each I am going to switch around their gear whenever I have to so I can make sure to maximize my chance of success at any given mission.  I will freely spend my garrison resources to change each and every counter as needed for each mission.  Perhaps in time even figure out a few ships that I can basically lock in as done and never change.

Once I have built it all up, having my ships with my crew and my equipment, I will finish all the best quests, knock out the achievements I might not have by the time that happens, and then never step foot into the shipyard again.  Except for perhaps a gear mission here and there whenever they pop up, meaning I will only need to check the shipyard every two weeks or so after I am done, and that is what I am looking forward to, being done with the shipyard because it is not fun, not at all.

Fair winds and a following sea.

Garrisons: It is Time to Ditch the Bunker / Mill

Remember the caveat emptor that the PTR is the PTR and things are subject to change but we always look to the PTR for early indications of what we might want to get ready for with the next patch.  Best case scenario the next patch is still a few months away so you have time to work on things.  But that also leaves the door open for change on the PTR.  With that said, lets move to the topic at hand.

Note:  If they change it that the dwarven bunker /war mill can give you ship fleet upgrades than please disregard this post, forget you were ever here.  This post is written with the idea that the bunker / mill will continue to only give follower upgrades.

We have been told that the maximum follower item level will remain at 675 in 6.2 from this twitter post.

With that said it is time I change my suggestion that people have the dwarven bunker / war mill in their garrison.  This was one of the two main buildings for getting follower upgrades.  Between this and the salvage yard giving follower upgrades I would hazard a guess that most people are somewhere in a position like I am at the moment with multiple stacks of follower upgrades and 40 followers or more sitting at 675 item level.

If we are not going to be getting any new followers and the follower item level is not going to be increased, the value of the dwarven bunker / war mill has greatly decreased.  Unless you are still collecting the pieces to buy for transmog or really really like getting a free coin to roll with, and we do not know yet if it will give the new coin so beware, there really is no reason to have the dwarven bunker any longer.  If, and only if, the dwarven bunker / war mill does not give the new coin than its value is basically nil.

So I suggest it is time to ditch the dwarven bunker / war mill.  The only reasons I can currently see to keep it is if you are still trying to collect the transmog gear or if you are a new, or newish, 100 and still want to gear up your followers.

Remember, the old follower missions will remain which means there will still be highmaul missions and blackrock foundry missions which could serve as a nice way to gear up an alt, albeit slowly and requiring luck, but a solid way none the less.  Not to mention doing missions for gold will always be nice and higher geared followers means better missions and more success at them.

Outside of those reasons it is now time to take a look at what other level three buildings there are out there that could be an option.

If everyone read my guides here from the beta and took my suggestions I am going to guess you all have the barracks.  If you do not then that is worth considering.  The barracks allows you to have 25 active followers which means you can send more out on missions.  This means more treasure hunters to make you gold, more scavengers to make gather you resources, more people to get you salvage boxes or other goodies that you can sell.  So the barracks is the best option to replace your dwarven bunker / wall mill if you did not already have one.

The stables would be my choice for the small increased mount speed, the protection from being stunned or dismount while riding and the bonus that you can interact with items while remaining mounted.

If you happen to be a gather this ability is priceless in my opinion.  For the time I had the stables while I was collecting the 8 free mounts, 6 from quests and 2 from achievements, this was my favorite feature as an herbalist.  I always stopped to gather every time being I did not get dismounted but since I replaced the stables with the bunker I have not stopped to gather a single herb in the world, not worth stopping if I am going to get dismounted.  So this is the leading candidate to be my second large building.  I like being able to interact with items while mounted.

But do not discount the mage tower / spirit lodge.  It sure has its uses.  In the past patch they added work orders to the tower / lodge so that you can get mission rush orders from it.  This is great for completing missions faster.  Getting the gear missions done instantly, getting that gold faster, getting your treasure hunters on one missions, finishing it, putting them on another, finishing it, etc over and over.  That way you can end up getting the maximum effect from your followers.

Add that nice little bonus recently added to the tower / lodge that was not a part of its original release and the portals you can have all over draenor and you might just have a winner of a choice here.  I have the tower on my tank and I have ports to nargand which was right near the highmual raid and to gorgrond which was right near the blackrock foundry raid so hoping that they keep up with what seems to be the idea we might see them adding a port to tanaan that is right near the new raid.

There is also another beautiful thing with those portals if you happen to be the raid leader.  If you have a portal to the area right near the raid, people can visit your garrison and use your portal to get to the raid faster.  A great little bonus for groups without a lock or even for groups with them, so the lock can get there faster.  So the mage tower / spirit lodge is not only a very viable replacement for the bunker / mill but it might be the best one for you.

The last large building that remains is exactly as it was when I first described it, a complete waste of time.  You can build the gearworks if you wish, it will give you many fun toys that you can use out and about in the world and who does not love having a robot chicken fight with you or a rocket pack so you can "sort of" fly around draenor some.  But outside of the "fun" factor the gearworks holds absolutely no practical purpose like the stables or the tower / lodge do as a replacement for the bunker.

Do you think it is time to ditch the bunker / mill?  I sure do and it is my suggestion that people do so.

I will most likely be going with the stables on gathering characters and the tower / lodge with non gathering characters.  A simple either or decision for me as those are the only two options I see now for a second large building, of course with the barracks staying our first.

Garrisons, The Good, The Bad, The Grind and The Burnout

Someone made a comment on my blog when I had not posted in over a week saying that maybe my garrison swallowed me and they were not to far from the truth.  My garrisons had become such a huge task eating at my play time that I had no choice but to take a step back for a while.  I had to retrain myself, to not do what I would normally do, to not care about my alts.

I play a lot, a hell of a lot really, but when it finally came to the point that I was logging in and cycling through 7 level 100s and 3 lower levels all with their garrisons and then noticing that I had no time left to do anything else in the game, the game started to move from "fun" to "work" for me.

I had no time during the week to grind reputation, to do dungeons to gear alts, to pug raids, to farm materials I needed, like traps for my barns, to do the daily, to squeeze in challenge modes, to even get in world boss kills on all my 100s, to do the myriad of other things the game has to offer that I might think of as fun because I felt I "had" to keep up with my garrisons and professions first.  Once that was done I usually had no time left to play the game.

So I did get swallowed by my garrisons.  I was in a cycle of doing nothing but my garrisons.  I love garrisons, don't get me wrong, I think they are a nice addition to the game, but when you have alts like I do and play the way I do where I feel I need to do everything I can do to better my characters, they became too much.  Too much of a time investment.

I love to level characters and now I am stuck in a place where I did not want to level any more characters because I did not want to add any more garrisons to stable of things I needed to do each day.  In a way the garrisons and the prospect that they are waiting for me there was keeping me from doing something I really enjoy doing, leveling characters.

Taking a step back and saying, no, I will not do them, was something I needed to do.  If I did not step back from the garrison grind I might have ended up quitting the game because that is all the game would have become for me.  The daily grind of doing garrisons with no time for anything else.  Sorry, but I work 11 hours a day as it is, I do not want my 2 or 3 hours at home to be more "work" and garrisons had become that.

I found myself playing longer than I normally did, because I felt I had to if I wanted to get some "fun" time in.  It took me so long to do my garrison work that now I needed to stay on longer to get the things done I wanted to do.  To squeeze in some challenge modes, to run some dungeons on my alts, to do my daily for apexis crystal quests on a few characters, etc.  So I was playing even more than I had played before because my normal weekday play time was no longer enough as it was spent working in my garrisons instead.

I now have barns empty with no work orders churning for over a week.  I have full stacks of orders sitting on many characters and only get to them when I log into that character to do something with them.  I am way behind on my burnished leather, hexweave cloth, and other parts because I refuse to log into them to do their daily cooldown because I know I lack the self control to not just do that and I will end up doing their entire garrison and wasting my time I should be playing doing work instead.

I hate playing less than effective.  I should be doing my daily cooldowns, I should be doing my garrisons daily, I should make sure I do all the little things I can be doing but I can't.  I can't because if I do it would hurt my enjoyment of the game.  But isn't it hurting my enjoyment some knowing that I am not taking advantage of everything I can in game?

The garrisons are the rock and the hard place and I am caught up in them.  Do them and feel like I am doing everything I can for my characters or don't do them and focus just on one or two characters and have fun with them.  Either way I am leaving something behind.  Leaving behind my alts by not doing them or leaving behind the fun time so I can do them.

I had to take a break because of the garrisons, but I also came back because of them.  I do like them.  I just need to learn to change the way I play so I can get the most out of the game while not pushing it so far it feels like work.  I need to change because the game changed.  That is just the way it is with this game and every other game.  Times change and you either change with it or move along.  I am trying to change.  Garrisons are forcing me to.  Because if I don't change, I will have to move along and I am not quite done here.  There is still a lot of game left to play.

How are garrisons affecting how you play? 

Garrisons are good, they are bad, they are a grind, and they can cause burnout if you are not careful and get swallowed by them, trust me on that one.

I Am a Crate-A-Holic

Before the expansion even came out I was making suggestions to people on which buildings to have in their garrison and one of those suggestions was to make sure you got the salvage yard in your garrison as soon as possible.  And then further to get it upgraded to level three.  It was solid advice then and it is solid advice now.  But something happened, something that I am not actually surprised about, I now find myself addicted to opening those big crates of salvage.

When blizzard changed it so level 90 - 94 missions no longer dropped big crates I was upset, as were many others.  We were purposely keeping a few low level followers on our team so we would have lots of low level quests which were short.  Short quests are good for when you are going to be online for any extended period of time because you can do more missions which in turn meant more chances for big crates.

Big crates not only got you follower upgrade items which could be used to gear up your followers so your followers in turn could get better missions and do better at them but those crates could also contain world drops.  665 world drops to be more precise.  Who would not want some 665 bind on equip world drops really?  I bet you would be hard pressed to find anyone that would say, nah, I don't want them.

But that is not all.  Those crates had a lot of grey items that were worth some gold, not the standard few silver type of greys either, 5 and 10 gold greys.  They also had some classic items that you do not see around very often and for people that are into transmog that has been a little slice of heaven.  And if you are lucky enough like me you have also run across a few pieces of gear that have otherwise been removed from the game.  It makes me wonder, how far does this go, what type of removed from the game gear can I find in there.

Even when I open a crate that has complete junk, meaning nothing decent for trasnmog, no follower upgrades, no crafting materials and no 665 items, I am still happy to open it.  Sure I might not be all that happy that I did not get something good but even a crate filled with junk can be a good crate.

One of my characters has made over 3K while sitting in the garrison the last three weeks.  She has not stepped outside of it at all.  I just do missions and pop back from time to time to refresh them.  That means she is making 1000 a week just opening salvage crates and selling the junk I get from it, from 48 gold greens to 7 gold greys.  If it is not something I think I can sell, which it usually isn't, and it is not something I can use, which it usually isn't, it is just vendor trash.  And at the rate of 1000 a week on an alt that does not even leave the garrison, it is pretty good vendor trash.

So while I am not getting nearly as many big crates of salvage as I could if it were not for the change from blizzard I am still doing quite well with it.  It has become more about me getting them than what it is in them.  Opening them is like gambling, getting them when doing 95 - 99 missions is like gambling.  You never know when you will get them and then never know what you will get in them.  It is kind of addictive trying to get more and then to open more hoping for that huge surprise when you get something you needed or wanted.

The first thing I do when I log in is cycle through all my characters to collect my crates and then send all the followers back out on missions to try and get me even more crates.  I then open them all with the excitement of a gambling addict watching a horse race and screaming "go 7, go 7, go 7" as their horse is pulling close after the last turn.  They know having a ticket does not mean winning, but the excitement of watching the race sometimes is enough and then the exuberance of victory or the anguish of defeat makes them just want to try again.

If you win, you want to win again.  If you lose, you want to try again so you can win.  The big crates of salvage really work on that hook and that is what keeps you coming back for more.  You just want to win.

I am not a gambler but I can't help but feeling like one each time I open a crate.  It is like buying a scratch off lottery ticket.  You know you can scratch off hundreds of them and win nothing, but it is knowing that you could win something that keeps you buying them.

The crates are taking over my life.  Bouncing from character to character to get as many missions done as possible so I have as many chances to win as possible is making it hard for me to actually progress in doing anything else because "if I join a pug on my druid that means there will be 2 hours I can not cycle through my characters to send them out on more missions".

I am addicted to getting the crates and opening the crates.  It is an addiction that is keeping me from doing other things I know I should be doing. 

Some might say that is why blizzard limited how often people could get them, they were trying to save us from ourselves, but I feel it is quite the opposite.  Now that I get crates less often it has become even more important I keep those missions running to drive my addiction.  If crates flowed fast and furious and I could get a bunch quick and easy whenever I wanted them to feed my crate addiction and get my fix.  I might not feel so pressed to get every single one I can, like I am now that they are limited, to some extent.

I got hooked in such a simple way and very early on.  The first day I got my salvage yard up to level three and turned in my missions and I heard that, what has become glorious, thunk when the box went into my bags.  I collected a few boxes from a few quests and ran over to my salvage yard with the excitement of a young boy on christmas morning looking to see what santa has got him, and I opened up the boxes like unwrapping presents.

That first day I got myself a 665 bind on equip item.  Sure my hunter could not use it, but I was hooked instantly.  I saw what could come from it and from that point on I was an addict. Nothing could change it now.  Running to the mission table hoping to hear that wonderful thunk of a big box of salvage landing in my bags and then running to the salvage yard is what keeps me logging in.  That has been all this expansion has been about.

I got achievements, factions to exalted, leveled followers, bodyguards, killed raid bosses, world bosses, got loot from them too even, I have done so much, yet the only thing that matters to me when I log in are my missions and if I got some big crates of salvage.

It is no longer about getting something good, it is about getting the box and opening it.  That act alone is a reward in a way, feeding my addiction.  I think I need help.  Is there a crate-a-holics anonymous in game?  Because if there is, I really should join.  I need a crate intervention.  I need crate rehab.  I need it because all I can think about is how many crates my characters have gotten me while I was writing this.

Dear Blizzard Garrison Developers

Dear Blizzard Garrison Developers,

Let me take a moment to introduce myself.  I am the commander of the free armies from Azeroth on Draenor.  I have saved the world from destruction, I have fought kings, old gods, and threats of all sizes.  I have all the faction leader's ears and their highest respect.  I am privy to knowledge directly from leadership that no one else could know because I have earned the utmost level of trust.  Whenever there is anything that needs to be done I am the first person that is sought out to solve the problem.

I have outposts in every area of Draenor and lead all the wonderful men and women that defend them and they all trust my choices and follow my commands, without question.  I have hundreds of followers that left their lives behind just to be with me and they would go out on my command on what could possibly be a mission they will never return from, never even once questioning my orders.  I am respected, honorable, and skilled as both a fighter and a leader.

I have fought countless battles, retrieved precious artifacts, collected badges of honor from completing tasks no one else could, and traveled from one end of the world to the next building a legend like none have ever imagined possible all while receiving accolades every step of the way.  I've friends, confidants and informants all over the place and the most powerful beings in the world either fear me, or come to me for assistance.

I am a legend.  I am a leader.  I am the last hope for our world and I have never let the people of our world down.

So I ask, with the greatest respect, please, by the light of Elune, why can you not teach my followers to mine and herb on my garrison for me?  A person of my stature should not be tied down by such petty tasks, I've got an army to lead and a world to save.  I believe I am busy enough.

Thank you for your time,
The Grumpy Elf

What Would You Like to See Later for Garrisons?

We will work on the assumption that there will only be one more raid tier here, as that is what we are expecting to happen.  I am also going to try to keep this from turning into a wish list sort of thing at first.  I will post what I think we will see and then I will get into the pipe dreams of what I would love to see, as in wishful thinking.

I am going to basically try to predict the direction they will take with garrisons first.

Level 4 Garrison:

We will be allowed to level our garrison to level four.  It will not get any bigger, just allow us to build bigger and it will also open one additional small slot for us to play with that is already sitting there unused, as many have noticed.  With upgrading to a level four garrison, which I can see costing around 5000 garrison resources and 5000 gold, we will be able to upgrade our buildings to level 4.

Unlike the level 3 patterns that needed an achievement to unlock them the level 4 patterns will be attainable from the blueprint vendor next to your architect table in your garrison as soon as you upgrade to level 4.  The cost would be 1500 gold for the blueprints of all level 4 buildings.  You will also be able to get two new books intended to be traded in for two level 4 blueprints from doing the quests in tanaan jungle and they will be traded in at the same place you traded the other books in.

Each level 4 building will add new bonuses to them, of course, and level 4 profession building (if you do not have the profession) will allow you to craft new starter gear close to that current raids item level that will be upgraded just like the previous ones.  People who have the profession will be able to buy the patterns just as they purchased the previous patterns.

The new small slot will be capable of holding any small building you wish.  You can go with another crafting station or you can go with a storehouse or salvage yard if you did not already have one.  The choice is up to you.

Each new building will come along with new quests, such as opening another portal in the mage tower, getting a new mount quest line in the stables, etc.

There will also be a legendary follower that comes along with the achievement for upgrading all buildings, including the standard ones like mine, fishing shack, pet menagerie, and garden, to level 4.  A second legendary follower will be awarded with the completion of the legendary ring quest line.

This is what I can see happening in the future with garrisons, at least what I believe we can reasonably expect to see.  Nothing I mentioned is crazy to expect or really out of line with how blizzard has done stuff in the past.  So I would say it is all possible.  Except maybe the legendary follower for upgrading all buildings to level 4, but I can see the legendary follower for finishing the legendary line.  It would be one of the familiars.

Now, for what I would want to happen, but I know won't happen.

I would like all crafting materials made in the buildings you have to become BoA and not soulbound.  So I can have multiple engineering buildings sending all their gear springs to my engineer.  Multiple tailoring buildings sending their hexweave to my tailor, etc.  I would really love to see this happen, but I honestly do not expect blizzard to be this generous to us. 

It would be too over powered for people with many alts and might make others feel as if they "have to" level alts to run buildings, and we know that after last expansions "mandatory" heaven that blizzard is making every attempt they can to shy away from anything too easily labeled mandatory.  Doesn't change the fact that I would love to see that happen.

I would also like to see the ability to change slot size.  If I wanted three large buildings and only two small ones that would be one hell of an option to have.  Once again, I do not see blizzard doing anything like that, but it sure would be cool.  Not because blizzard would not want to, but because the size of the plots are kind of written in stone there and as such there really isn't much play room that could allow us to switch sizes.

What would you like to see in the garrison of our future, both reasonable, and wishful thinking?

Follower Leveling and Mission Advice

Your mission table at your garrison contains a mini game in its own right, one filled with randomness but not completely lacking in the need for planning and preparation.  In an effort to work a plan of attack for the most important missions I decided that I would share my findings and opinions on building up to complete these quests in a hope it can help others level their followers and properly prepare them for missions.

Leveling Your Followers:

The more active you are the more missions you can do, it really is as simple as that.  Even if your followers fail at their missions they will receive some experience, but of course you want to try to succeed when doing thenm as success offers more experience and sometimes great rewards.

1) Available Missions:

What missions you have available at your garrison depends on what level followers you have.  Missions offered to you are usually equal to the level of your characters, which in some cases can cause problems leveling them.  To avoid running into a series of missions with low success chances and or mostly missions which you can not do I suggest you keep a few low level followers active.

By keeping a few lower level followers active you will assure you have some lower level quests.  For example, if you keep a level 92, a level 94 and a level 98 active when your others are all at level 100 you will most likely see a selection of 92, 94, 98 and 100 missions available for you at your mission table.

Why do we want lower level missions you might ask.  The answer is simple.  We want them because they are more likely to have a higher success rate.  This means more salvage boxes if you have a salvage yard, which you should have, and more rewards, be it gold, experience, garrison supplies, gear, what have you.  They are also usually shorter meaning you can do more missions with your time.

It is also worth noting that even if you only have one level 100 you will start getting 100 missions that require 3 followers, which of course you will not be capable of doing with any reasonable rate of success.  This extends to when you start to gear followers.  As soon as you reach 615 on one follower you will start getting missions that require three 615 followers.  Same goes for 630 and 645.  So I can not stress enough that when you start to gear your followers, as inviting as it might seem to pile all those upgrades into one so they can get to a high item level, do not do that, or you will be flooded with a bunch of missions for high item level followers and only have 1 follower capable of doing them.  More on this gear leveling later. Slow and steady wins the race in this case.

2) Leveling Past 100:

You can level your characters past 100.  There are rarity levels of uncommon, rare and epic.  Every follower can become an epic and you should keep doing as many missions as possible once you reach level 100 until you get every follower to epic.

Once a follower is epic it will gain an additional main ability.  This ability is completely random, so my epic of Delvar might be different, much different, from your epic Delvar.  This is also why during this post I will speak about abilities of your followers, not specific followers.  Because which followers have which ability is random past their preset starting ability.

Past the rarity leveling, for which epic is the maximum a follower can get which awards the additional ability, there is gear leveling.  With your salvage yard, which I suggest you have, you will be getting follower upgrade items to upgrade their gear level.  Along with the dwarven bunker /war mill, should you have it, which could supply a few more upgrades, you can start gearing up your followers in two specific slots only.  A weapon slot and an armor slot.  You can only apply gear to a level 100 follower regardless of quality.  Currently the max item level any follower can be is 655.

So just because your follower has reached level 100 does not mean their leveling is over.  You will need to keep working on them until they are max rarity and max item level.

3) Gearing Your Follower:

The salvage yard and the dwarven bunker / war mill are the only two ways, outside of the occasional mission, to get gear for your followers.  I suggest everyone have a salvage yard.  You can use a bunker / mill as well if you wish to speed things up but that is entirely up to you as there are other buildings in the same slot size which are options that many like whereas there are very few decent choices for small slots making it so that putting the salvage yard in one of the small slots goes without saying.

I suggest when gearing followers you do not funnel all gear into one follower because you will start to trigger missions based on your followers item level that you have no chance of ever completing, as mentioned above.

There are two types of gear upgrades you can get for your followers.  A flat +3, +6 or +9 increase to armor or weapon and a base 615, 630 or 645 armor or weapon upgrade.

Now, this is all going to depend on how much space you have and are willing to invest as well as your luck getting these upgrade items, but here is my suggestion for leveling up your followers with gear.

Wait until you get the base pieces, as in the ones that say equip a 615 item level weapon.  The reason for this is that if you invested two +3 weapon upgrades into a character they would now have a 606 weapon.  If you later use the 615 weapon one on them it would give them a 615 weapon and forget you ever added the two +3 upgrades.  So you would end up having a 615 weapon only whereas if you saved those two +3 pieces until you had the 615 applied and then used them you would have a 621 item level weapon.

If you are unlucky, like my druid who as 28 +3, +6 or +9 pieces and is stockpiling them, and no they do not stack so you need space to do this, you can of course give up and put them into one of the followers instead of waiting until you get the base piece.  That is completely fine.  Just do not use a base piece on a follower that already has some upgrades because it would be wasting upgrades, and there will be many followers you want to gear up that you can use it on later.

4) Max Gearing For Missions:

In the final step of leveling your follower, after it is epic and you have started to apply some gear to it, you will open new missions as you level up.  When you have at least one follower at each 615, 630 and 645 item level it will open up new quests that require all followers to have a 615, 630 and 645 item level.

As that is the case I suggest you try to level your followers, at least as best you can, close to each other.  It would be better for you to have three different 615 item level followers than to have funneled all that gear into one follower and that one follower be 645.

If you have three followers at 615, you will open up the 615 missions and might have a chance to finish those missions, should you have the right talents.  If you have one follower at 645 you will unlock the 615, 630 and 645 missions and you will not be capable of doing any of them.  Unless you think your luck is good enough to complete a 0% or 7% or 11% chance, at best, mission on a regular basis.

One might ask why you would need more than 3 followers maxed out and the answer is two fold.  One is the more followers you have the more missions you can send them out on meaning more boxes, more gear, more rewards, etc.  Two is that not all 645 epic followers are equal.  They might all have two main abilities and three lesser traits but they might not have the ones you need.

It is entirely possible to have three followers completely maxed in item level and rarity and get a level 645 quest and still no real reasonable chance at success.  That missions might require certain skills your 645 followers just do not have, so having a nice mix of followers high up will greatly increase your chances at success.  So yeah, you need all your characters up high, not just one or three.

The Big Mission:

If you are like me the most important missions will be the raid missions.  The raid missions offer you raid quality gear equal to one level higher than your current raid progression.   This means that if you have never done a raid, as is where we all are right this moment until the new raids are out, if you get a raid mission it will offer you a piece of random 655 gear.  Once the raids are out if you finish normal your raid quest can offer you one piece of 670 heroic raid gear.  If you finish heroic the raid mission will offer you one piece of 685 mythic gear.  And last but not least, if you finish mythic the raid mission will give you one piece of mythic gear and a nice little chunk of gold.

These missions are rumored to have a two and a half week cooldown between when they will appear, so you can not really gear up this way but even if you only get one piece of raid gear equal to one level higher than that character has ever raided every two and a half weeks, that is nothing to sneeze at, and is even something that could be huge for an alt.

As these are the hardest missions to complete you want to build your follower team around completing them.  Not only so you can get to a 100% completion rate on them but so you can basically do every other mission that might pop up with the same all star cast of followers.

1) Preparing For The Big Mission:

There are 4 different raid quests.  These 4 quests are the exact same no matter which one you are going for, the 655 item one, the 670 item level one, the 685 item level one or the 685 item level plus gold one.  So you basically need to build a team to handle each of the four of these to assure you have the right team to get to a 100% completion rate, or as close to it as possible.

Unlike a lot of the missions you might be used to seeing, these missions are not as simple to set up the right team to counter them.  You will need to be able to counter 6 abilities.  Having the appropriate traits for the team make up won't hurt either, even more so if you happen to be missing one of the 6 ability counters you need.

This is why I said you want to keep leveling all your followers past 100.  Not only will they all need to be over 645 item level but they need to be epic.  Not a suggestion, they really do need to be epic.  Sure you can get by with less if you are lucky, but if you want to get to that 100% chance to complete it, they absolutely need to be epic.

When a follower is epic they get a second random ability.  The name of the ability is of no real consequence, but what it counters is.  That is how we refer to things here.  If I mentioned a follower has the Massive Strike ability that does not mean he has it, that means he has the counter for it.

2) Knowing The Counters:

There are nine different abilities you will run into and across the four raid missions you will encounter you will need to be able to counter every one of them in one or the other.  The logic behind the counters is rather simple really.  For example a blood DK follower might have the bone shield ability which would naturally counter the massive strike ability.  But remember, even if Delvar, for alliance, comes with the massive strike counter, once he reaches epic he will get another counter.  It could be anything really, as the system is random.  So I can not suggest him specifically should you run into something with massive strike and danger zones.  Maybe my Devlar might be perfect because my second ability counters danger zones, but yours might not have that same second ability.

So when picking your team do not pick by the name of the character because you like them.  Do not pick based on the class of the character because you think a priest might be good for the fight.  Do not pick by the spec of the character because you think a tank might be perfect for it.  Pick based on what abilities that character can counter.  It is entirely possible to find yourself with a hunter from the inn that just so happens to have the counters for massive strike and wild aggression, something you might think would be more natural for a tank to have.

Do not let judgement on the followers cloud your vision.  The best follower for the job is the one that counters exactly what you need to counter.  Who or what the character is otherwise is meaningless.  Unless it is Nat Pagle, because he is awesome and can solo all the raid quests (disclaimer: just kidding if you didn't notice that).

Danger Zones: (DZ) An ability that effects a target area and must be avoided or escaped.
Deadly Minions: (DM) An enemy with powerful allies that should be neutralized.
Group Damage: (GD) An ability that deals damage to multiple party members.
Magic Debuff: (MD) A dangerous harmful effect that should be dispelled.
Massive Strike: (MaS) An ability that deals massive damage.
Minion Swarms: (MiS) An enemy with many allies. Susceptible to area of effect damage.
Powerful Spell: (PS) A dangerous spell that must be interrupted.
Timed Battle: (TB) An enemy that must be dealt with quickly.
Wild Aggression: (WA) An unpredictable enemy whose aggression should be controlled.

3) Building Your Team:

Once again I will note, I can not give you names because the abilities past the preset on a few are random.  I will only tell you what you need to counter.  Whichever follower you have that can counter those abilities is the best to use.

Note:  It does not seem to matter where your characters are placed in the group, as long as all the abilities are countered you can reach 100%.  For example, if the first guy you put in counters something from the first enemy and the third enemy it is just fine.

Quest 1:

Enemy One: (WA) (DM)
Enemy Two: (MaS) (TB)
Enemy Three: (DZ) (PS)
Bonus Trait: Swamp

Quest 2:

Enemy One: (WA) (GD)
Enemy Two: (GD) (DZ)
Enemy Three: (MiS) (MD)
Bonus Trait: Gronslayer

Quest 3:

Enemy One: (MaS) (TB)
Enemy Two: (MiS) (MD)
Enemy Three: (DM) (TB)
Bonus Trait: Ogreslayer

Quest 4:

Enemy One: (WA) (DM)
Enemy Two: (DZ) (PS)
Enemy Three:  (DM) (TB)
Bonus Trait: Plains

Note:  You can use the supreme manual of dance to add a trait to any single character which would add the dancer trait that counters danger zones.  Be aware you will also lose something random in the process, even if the item does not suggest that.

The idea is to get enough followers with the appropriate skills to be able to match all the possible combinations.  There will be a little luck involved as the second counter is always random so it is quite possible that you will need an inn to recruit people and level up many followers to epic to find the perfect team.

In theory the absolute worse case, should you find all counters exactly as they are listed, is you will need 12 followers maxed out in both gear and rarity.  While that does not sound hard, getting the perfect abilities might prove to be so.

It is true that you can lower that number considerably.  For example, as you might have noticed, every fight that requires (WA) also needs a counter for (DZ) so if you happen to have someone with both abilities you can lower that required number of followers you would need to have maxed out to 10.

Being I am just writing this up now I have not delved into what would be the perfect set up to look for in terms of the minimum number of followers needed to do this.  But even at 10 or 12 it should not be too hard to get all those characters to epic and at or above a 645 item level, even if it will require a bit of time to do so.

Even if you can only match 5 of the 6, which is much more likely early on unless you get perfectly lucky with abilities, you can still push your chances at success well over the 90% mark with traits.  If you are capable of matching the bonus trait you will push your completion rate up.  Also, depending on the members of your group, for example, like if you have a dwarf  and another person has the trait that increases success rates when grouped with a dwarf it will help.  Having a follower with high stamina which increases success rates on missions over 7 hours, as these are, will also prove helpful.  So even with only 5 abilities it is entirely possible to still get a completion rate well over 90% thanks to traits.  Of the one of these I have done so far I only had 5 abilities but thanks to traits I had a 93% success rate and won myself a piece of gear from the highmaul raid before it even came out.

The Ultimate Follower Mission Garrison Build:

For my alts that I rarely play but might consider using later down the line, so I might like for them to have a few decent pieces of gear, I have devised a plan of attack to make sure that my followers are up to the task of completing missions with maximum efficiency.  This will allow those alts to get at least one piece of normal mode raid gear every couple of weeks.  Not to shabby if you ask me for a character that I do not intend to really leave the garrison with much after it hits max level.

1) Large Buildings:

Slot 1:

Barracks:  The reason for keeping that starting barracks is for two things.  First is that at level 1 it opens patrol missions, which will help level followers and often are shorter missions which means you can send them out more often meaning more chances at getting salvage.

Once the barracks reaches level 3 it will allow you to keep 25 active followers instead of 20 which can be both a quality of life thing and make it easier to keep enough followers on hand to do each and every possible raid mission that pops up.

Slot 2:

Dwarven Bunker / War Mill:  The reason for this building, like the barracks, is two fold.  At level 3 the dwarven bunker will give you one seal of tempered fate which allows you an extra roll on gear.  For an alt that you rarely get into a raid, and play less often, it would be easy to forget to pick up your free roll coins, this assures you get some extra rolls even if you forget.

The main reason for the bunker / mill however is for your followers.  Work orders have a chance to give follower gear upgrades.  You will need a nice selection of 645+ followers if you want to assure you are going to finish those raid missions so having a way to gear them up faster is, without a doubt, a good thing.

2) Medium Buildings:

Slot 1:

Inn: At level 2 of the inn you can start recruiting followers and this is huge.  You will be leveling followers like crazy to try and find the best team to get those missions done, this means you need to luck into them having the right abilities for it.  You will at least be able to start by looking for which one ability they will have for sure which is a start.  After they level up you will just hope and pray that their second ability is what you want.  For example if you can really use someone that counters (MS) and (DZ) you can choose to search for recruits with (MS) and keep leveling them to epic until you get lucky enough to get one that procs (DZ) as its second ability.  Sure it could take a while, but for an alt, all they have is time.

The level three inn also opens up treasure missions which will be a perfect thing to do while waiting for your new raid mission to pop up.  You will have, with this set up, a massive collection of well geared followers, might as well put them to work on treasure missions so they can make you some gold while you wait for the next raid mission to appear.

Slot 2:

Trading Post:  A trading post is a great way to generate some garrison resources and being you will need resources for bunker / mill work orders this works as a nice counter point.  Not to mention if this is an alt just farming up some gear in case you ever play them that would mean you most likely have a main, or mains, to funnel them anything they would ever need for their work orders.

3) Small Buildings:

Slot 1:

Salvage Yard:  There are no ifs, ands, or buts about the salvage yard here.  Every character should have one because it is great for followers so of course a follower mission alt will have to have it.  If there was ever one building that you could call a no brain needed decision, this is it.  Once you reach level 2 you can start getting follower upgrade items from the salvage yard and that is when this building really starts to work.

At level 3 your garrison missions will start giving you big crates of salvage and in those, aside from the follower item we are already seeking, you have a chance to get 665 BoE items which are either good to sell, use, or send to another alt that might need it.

Slot 2 and 3:

Whatever you want can go here.  There really are no other great follower centric buildings that can be put into these spots.  Maybe a storehouse for quick access to your bank, where you might have upgrade items stored to save some bag space, could be a good thing.  But that is entirely up to you.  There are no really solid must have choices here.

There you have it, a garrison that is built with the sole intention of building up your followers gear level so they could in turn get your alt gear so they can easily play catch up if you ever decide to play them.  This build might also work suitably for someone that has zero intention of ever raiding as it would be the only way they will ever be able to get raid gear.

Hope my babbling helped you some, good luck on your missions.

Who is Your Favorite Follower Thus Far?

It is still early in the expansion and our opinions might change as time passes but right now I kind of like my followers and their seemingly different personalities.  I understand that much of their personality is really in my imagination.  I doubt blizzard really coded them to all be different but it sure seems like they are.

One of the followers I make sure to get as soon as I can when I first get to draenor is Fiona.  It is not because she has some great abilities that I must have, it is because she is Fiona.  I liked her quest line in the plaguelands and it is kind of cool to be hanging out with her.  Actually I have found her abilities to be quite lacking.  Her herbalism ability of course can come in handy when you get your herb garden up and running but outside of that there really isn't anything stand out about her.

There are a few followers like Blook that are just so huge I never feel as if they fit well in my garrison, but because of their size they can make for some interesting visual effects.  I once saw Blook standing in front of the inn just looking in the front door.  There is no way he can fit, at least not reasonably.  And it seemed as if he knew that.  He was just staring into the inn and I found some humor in that.  He eventually did walk in and it was not exactly what you would call visually correct but in my mind I could just picture him bending over and squeezing himself through the door after those many minutes spent staring inside wishing he could enter.

Pleasure Bot 8000 scares me a little bit and I think he might be a stalker.  I know he is supposed to be some sort of butler unit and not a pleasure bot that some people think of when they first hear the name but the fact he keeps offering to give me a massage I might question that one a little bit.  Lets face it, even if pleasure bot 8000 gives the greatest massages in the world do you really want cold metallic hands being the ones doing it, or more so cold metallic hands that were created with gnome technology doing it?  I guess it is better than if it were goblin technology, so that is something.

Professor Felblast is one of those odd followers that make me wonder why is she even following me.  If ever I see her in my garrison and walk toward her she starts moving away, as if to avoid me.  Even if she was standing still for 10 minutes, the second I make a break for her she apparently has something so much better to do than talk to me.

Then you will always have those followers that have traits you never expected of them, traits that are not listed as one of their traits like my Phylarch the Evergreen has.  More often than not I can find Phylatch either sitting at the bar in the inn or standing right in front of the pet battle ring watching the fights.  So here is this tree, something we consider part of nature, good and pure and natural, that just wants to get drunk and watch caged animals fight to the death.  It just doesn't seem like what I would have expected from a tree.

While playing around with my skyterror personal delivery system from the gearworks I landed on top of my garrison to check things out from above and to my surprise there was one of my followers, just standing there alone on a little patio looking out at everything.  I wonder if he wanted to be alone to think things out, was being protective and seeking a place where he could see everything, or just managed to get lost up there and could not find his way down.  The idea along that the followers moved around like this, even in and to places I did not know existed in my garrison like this, gave them more life in my mind.

I am not sure I have a real favorite yet, but I do have a few I really like and it doesn't really have much to do with their looks or their story or anything else as it has to do with how they act around my garrison.  Even if I make these persona's that they have up in my own mind, it is those little things that make me like them.

Do you have any favorite followers yet?

Ideas for Planning My Hunters Garrisons + The Perfect Build for Everyone.

Please join me while I explore what I intend to do with my garrison, at least on a few of my hunters. I will go over my main hunter of course as well as hunters with two crafting professions and hunters with two gathering professions.  Horde and alliance side and on servers with other characters and solo.  Each garrison will of course have a different impact on the character based on the supporting staff they have on that server.  And make sure to check the last one, what I believe to be the perfect raiders build for a hunter, even if that character is the only character you have.

Welcome to my Garrison:

This is my intended garrisons first incarnation

The main hunter:

Theses are the buildings one of my hunters (main with support) will be moving into warlords with.  This, of course, will not be the final incarnation of my hunters garrison, this is just my starting one.  I intend to change some buildings over time.  As this is my main hunter I will likely bounce some buildings for achievements here because this is the hunter I will likely spend the most time on.  For the record the professions this hunter has are herbalism and alchemy.

I will explain my entire process of thinking with all these buildings and my intentions on when I will be changing them, perhaps so you can read into the method of my madness and get some ideas of your own.

The buildings that I will have from the start are as follows:

Base Buildings:  Town Hall, Garden, Mine, Fishing Shack, and Pet Menagerie.
Small Buildings: Alchemy Lab, Enchanters Study, and Salvage Yard.
Medium Buildings: Trading Post and Lunarfall Inn.
Large Buildings: Barracks and Stables.

The reasoning behind my small buildings:

The salvage yard will help me gear up my followers so I can do better missions.  It seems almost like a no brainer to have something in your garrison from the start that can help your followers because your followers will end up helping you in return.

The alchemy lab makes sense because I am an alchemist of course.  It will allow me to make additional items that are required for the larger flasks and those flasks, even more so in the first tier of raiding, will be a pretty large boost to what we are capable of doing.

The third small building was a bit of a decision for me to make because as it seems if you do not have the profession to go along with a small building the professions small buildings are pretty much useless.  If you could trade the special crafting materials I would most definitely have taken a tannery, but being you can't, and the storehouse feels like a complete waste of space, the next best thing is the enchanters study.

Lets not forget that the enchanters study is, without a doubt, the best hunter fill in building.  Why is that you might ask?  Because the only things you can not make with the enchanters study that an actual enchanter can make are weapon enchants and guess what, hunters do not need weapon enchants.  So we can effectively get all of our enchanting done 100% with the enchanters study.  For a hunter, the enchanters study is like a complete and full profession without having the profession.  No other class can claim that of any profession building, cool, huh?

Add to the fact I solo a lot on my hunters and you can disenchant items in the enchanters study.  So it would be a good idea to have one to get extra materials.  Even more so when you think that a main, or a character you play often, will end up with a lot of gear won from coins that you do not need, so having a way to disenchant that gear you can not send to your enchanter seems like a solid idea to me.  Well, that, and there are really no other decent small buildings.

The reasoning behind my medium buildings:

The trading post is a must have, and so is getting that auction house going ASAP.  It will save me a lot of time running back to the city to put stuff up for auction and from previous experiences of expansions past there is a lot of money to be made from really impatient people that will willing pay 800 gold for something today that will be listing for 20 gold in a few weeks time.

Also the trading post will help me make sure I can keep up with the flow of garrison resources I will need being I expect to level quickly meaning I will probably run out of garrison supplies pretty fast.

The second medium building, the Inn, is one of those buildings I know is a part time building the second I build it.  I am adding it for one reason and one reason only.   To get everything I can out of it and get rid of it.  I will keep the building long enough to get any achievements tied to it, do all the dungeon quests to get all the goodies tied to them, and recruit a bunch of followers for the weeks that I do have it.  Once I have everything, and enough followers recruited to ensure I can get the 40 follower achievement and once I finish the other things, I will ditch the Inn and move along to another medium building.

The reason I decided on the Inn first of all the medium buildings I plan to rotate my way through was two fold.  One being that my first character will most likely be doing more dungeons than any other because it will need the gear.  So doing the dungeon quests on it makes more sense being it will be doing dungeons to begin with.  The second is that I want to get a full group of followers ASAP and get them leveled and geared as fast as I can.  While I could have used one of the other building as my first medium that I will rotate through, this one just made the most sense to be the first one to do because it has no lasting effects once you have gotten everything from it that it offers.

Depending on how things are looking, I will either end up with the barn for the savage blood creation so I can either sell it or craft some gear for my non raiding alts being savage blood is not bound or the gladiator's sanctum for some skull bashing fun.  Even if I am not into PvP generally, this option does seem to really appeal to me for some reason and will most likely be the building I end up with when all is said and done in a medium spot.

The reasoning behind my large buildings:

You start with the barracks anyway and it is not a bad building at all, so might as well keep it.  It will give me more missions for my followers and that will help them level faster.  Then once it is level 2 I can start working on my bodyguards and leveling them up.

As a hunter I am considering using a healer as my bodyguard I level first because it could offer me some heals while still at that low geared just hit 100 phase and that might be needed.  But also because the healer follower, once level 3, will have the portable mission table, which at the beginning will be the most useful additional ability any of the bodyguards can offer me.  While I am out achievement hunting, treasure hunting, fishing to get nat pagle as a follower, I will be able to call the mission table with my healer and send followers out on new missions instead of having to return to the garrison to do so and if you are looking to level them as quick as possible starting a new mission as soon as the old one ended is the best way to do that.

After that one is leveled, and most of my followers are leveled and it is not so pressing to start new missions ASAP I will level the bodyguard with the summon ability because lets face it, having the ability to summon a friend to you is pretty darn awesome, wouldn't you say?

For the second building I decided on the stables because capturing and training wild beasts is what I do.  I am a hunter after all.  At first I did not consider the stables a good option but as I did more research it seems to be the best option for a character that is a main or is played a lot and more so one that you will be on a lot before flying is added to the game, if it ever is.

The 20% mounted bonus of course is a huge plus but that does not come until you have a level 3 stables.  First you have to hunt down and capture and tame a bunch of mounts and who better to do that than a hunter, more so a hunter that is a main character which means they will be better geared, thus better suited for the task at hand.

Once flying is added I will ditch this building, as I am sure I will be done with all the quests, achievements and such associated with it, and pick up the gnomish gearworks doing all those achievements and then finishing it off with the mage tower most likely.  Even with flying, getting around fast is not a bad idea to have just sitting there waiting for you.

A double gathering setup

The double gathering hunter:

As a skinner / herbalist on a server with no support system being a solo character there this character will be left in the wind not really being able to craft much of anything for itself.  Being my main hunter and a few other alts will be taking care of all the achievements, this hunters set up will most likely be what he ends up with.

Base Buildings:  Town Hall, Garden, Mine, Fishing Shack, and Pet Menagerie.
Small Buildings: The Tannery, Enchanters Study, and Salvage Yard.
Medium Buildings: Trading Post and Barn.
Large Buildings: Barracks and Dwarven Bunker.

The reasoning behind my small buildings:

Once again the enchanters study for the above mentioned reasons.  Even more so being this character has no support system on the server so making their own enchants can save a bit of gold.  The tannery works because one of the gathering professions is skinning.  While I will only be able to make 640 pieces because I do not have leather working I can sell additional 640 pieces and save that gold to purchase the upgrade items, if need be.

The reasoning behind my medium buildings:

The trading post is for the same reasons mentioned above.  The barn is because I will need some way to generate a fair bit of cash flow so I can buy upgrades to the gear I craft should I need it, or just gold in general is always good if I don't, and savage blood will be the golden goose for the beginning of the game so we might as well squeeze as much gold out of it as we can.

The reasoning behind my large buildings:

The barracks for the same reasons as mentioned above.  The dwarven bunker because I can get more follower upgrade pieces and for any character that might not be entering raids right away having followers well geared up is a great way to help gear your character, slowly sure, but still a plus.

A double crafter setup

The double crafting hunter:

This is an engineering and leather working hunter that has some support.

Base Buildings:  Town Hall, Garden, Mine, Fishing Shack, and Pet Menagerie.
Small Buildings: The Tannery, Engineering Works, and Salvage Yard.
Medium Buildings: Trading Post and Barn.
Large Buildings: Barracks and Dwarven Bunker.

The only difference:

This will end up being my default set up for alts.  It has both the salvage yard and dwarven bunker to help gear them up and the barracks to allow for more followers to be active.  The main difference for the double crafting hunter is that he will have both buildings that match his crafting profession and the salvage yard as his third small building.  If the hunter happens to be on a server without an enchanter to support it with enchants than I could remove the salvage yard and add the enchanters study and not lose too much being I still have the dwarven bunker to get some follower gear.

The perfect set up:

If you are a raider and a hunter and you are looking for the perfect set up this is what I would suggest.  This set up would work if you are with a support staff on the server or on a server all by yourself.  This build is designed for the hunter that will be downing raid bosses the second the raids are released and clearing content rather quickly, at least at normal mode and even better if you do heroic and mythic.  This means it is missing any way to make the crafted gear as you would have no need for it being normal and higher all drop better gear than anything you could make.  You would need to have jewelcrafting and engineering as your professions to take complete advantage for the perfect set up.

Base Buildings:  Town Hall, Garden, Mine, Fishing Shack, and Pet Menagerie.
Small Buildings: Gem Boutique, Engineering Works, and Enchanters Study.
Medium Buildings: Trading Post and Barn.
Large Buildings: Stables or Barracks and Dwarven Bunker.

The reasoning behind this build:

Being you will be downing raid bosses crafting your own gear is of little use.  Even at the best level crafted gear is only 665, which is below even normal mode raiding, so there is no need to even care about crafting your own gear.  The same goes for followers.  You will, or should, not be counting on them to help gear your character so having  buildings specifically meant to help your followers gear up are not really required but you will still be able to do so with the dwarven bunker around, if you wish.  I would say it is worth it anyway, even if not required. 

The small buildings would match your professions which should be jewel crafting and engineering to make this work.  The third building is the enchanting study.  The reasoning for these two professions and the third building should be pretty clear.

These three small buildings will make your character completely self sufficient.  You will be able to make your own scopes, your own gems and your own enchants.  Being the only enchants you can not make with the study are weapon ones and we do not need them, that means we can get everything covered with this make up.  It is also why it works so well for even a solo hunter on a server all by themselves.  Because they do not ever need to seek out anything to buy, they will be able to make everything themselves.

The reason for the stables is because a speed increase is nice, but you really could replace it with something else if you wish, the barracks is the next solid option, almost tied and maybe better.  Stables or barracks will come down more to the individual, neither is a bad choice. The reason for the barn is to make some gold.  People will need savage blood, they will need it in large amounts, might as well take some advantage of it and with your trading post, and by process auction house, you can list it as soon as you get it.
With the dwarven bunker giving you one coin a week, the trading post easily making the garrison resources for another one each week, and the savage blood surely being capable of buying you the third coin each week after they sell, you effectively get all three extra rolls for free each week.  Nice work hunter, and all done without any need to be on for more than raid night alone.

I have 2 of my 3 solo hunters that are all alone on their servers which will be switching professions to this set up, and being you only need to be level 1 of a profession to do everything I mentioned, anyone can change if they want to.  Remember, all you need to do is raid normal to make this a good set up where you can keep yourself perfectly gemmed, enchanted, and ready to rock and roll without any support what so ever.  Some might say, this building really can turn warcraft into a single player game.

The perfect build for non hunters: 

This build works for you as well.  You would need to have jewel crafting and enchanting as your professions to cover everything you need.  Your two small buildings would be the gem boutique and enchanters study to go along with your professions of course.  Your third small building could be a choice for you.  Salvage yard would be what I suggest but making a storehouse, if you wish, or even an alchemy lab, might not be too horrible of an idea.  While you will not be able to make the big flasks you can make the small flasks needed to make big ones and then pay an alchemist to complete it for you.  Either way, this is the perfect solo play raider build for non hunters.

So, what are you building?