January 2, 2015 | Posted in: World of WarCraft
The Follower Meta Game in Warlords of Draenor is brand new and isn’t the easiest system to grasp right out of the gate.
I’ve leveled three toons from 90-100. A fourth is 98. A 5th garrison is semi operational at level 91. I have some experience I can share and perhaps make your life easier.
Which followers are the best? Which buildings are the best?
Blizzard’s 5th expansion in the World of Warcraft allows 20 followers. Increased to 25 with level 3 barracks which is 1200 garrison resources. I run light on garrison resources because I wasted so many figuring out which buildings I needed based on play style and this feature, garrisons & followers, are brand new.
Sure, you have your beta crowd but we’re 8 weeks into the release and it’s 2015 … more knowledge on the actual content has been developed.
This 3 minute video attempts to educate. It’s a video … here, I can link the video and write subject matter. YouTube Channel and Website working in tandem in an attempt to make someone’s life out there just a little bit easier because they took 3 minutes to watch the video in it’s entirety. I need to change the categories on the site … sigh, one project inspires another.
Garrison Building Must Haves
1. Barn – you have to be producing Savage Blood yourself. Expect 2-3 weeks from the time you build a barn and actually produce a Savage Blood.
2. Barracks – the follower mission rewards too good
3. War Mill – the followers need to be upgraded for the really too good stuff. Properly managed followers combined with end game raiding success are producing iLvl 670 gear from Follower Missions. You have my attention Blizz because there were a bunch of other new things to learn and I didn’t realize just how good and useful the mission rewards … gold, follower experience, gear – draenic dust anyone?, honor, bonus roll tokens, other followers, weapon/armor upgrades for your followers, legendary quest items (some of the 125 most people need to progress in the legendary ring quest line) … it’s simply too useful to not be participating 100%. And hey, thank blizzard, I was tired clicking on a blue ! collecting, eliminating, doing X number of this, that, and the other, then clicking on the yellow ? … I appreciate the new style dailies you’ve been making me do since Burning Crusade … I did them because I wanted the associated gear or recipe. I do them now because they’re kind of fun and I want what they have to offer … iLvl 670 Heroic Gear as Follower Mission Rewards.
Both your large plots are taken … 2 medium plots remain. plus you’re 3 small plots (professions may take 2 plots).
Follower Abilities Must Haves
1. Magic DeBuff – Apparently there’s 3 of 48 potential followers with this ability. Priest Ishaal in the video is one of them. Another is a follower mission reward … and apparently there’s some problems if you somehow failed this mission.
2. Wild Aggression – I found myself light on this ability based on “naturally” acquiring 20 followers. Tormmok has this ability, the video shows you where and how to get him.
3. Tailoring – I had to use the world wide web to learn about Pleasure Bot 8000. He was in a quest area off the beaten path, easy to miss like the two mentioned above. And, this follower has Timed Battle as it’s Ability. When I increased my follower limit to 25, I went and found the information needed for these 3 abilities.
And, an engineering profession follower, there may be only 1, I’m not sure, I don’t have an engineer … it’s an 11th profession and 6th toon. I’ll pass Blizz, but I am interested in the 3 new professions introduced to replace the gathering professions. Skinning is unique though.
Do the follower missions. Use garrison resources on War Mill work orders. Try to upgrade strategically. You probably don’t need both your Magic DeBuff followers at iLvl 650 while your only timed battle follower is at iLvl 620 decreasing the odds on truly wonderful mission rewards. Apparently when my guild kills 3 more Heroic Bosses and the total is 15, iLvl 695 Mythic Gear is the reward even though we haven’t downed a Mythic Boss.
It’s an attention grabber. And Warlords of Draenor is a game changer for the franchise. You made good gear more tangible for all of azeroth. You really worked in PvP gear well with the new structure, the 5 iLvl 660 Conquest Pieces in my iLvl 658 PvE set, draw some envy. Quiet envy. You upped the mechanics in raid encounters. Certainly in Heroic encounters. You reintroduced 40 v 40 PvP which is a clinic on user interface. Which team of 40 has more pros who can tell the difference between a healing shaman and elemental shaman (in Ashran & Southshore).
Only you can be honest with yourself and answer truthfully … when I’m in Southshore or Ashran, can I tell the difference between a holy priest and disc priest? can I tell the difference between resto druid and boomkin – glyphed so it doesn’t show the owl form, restoration shaman or elemental shaman? Is my screen just a big patch of floating green names, 40 on each side?
Enemy Nameplates in the “On” position … with class color checked … the Add On Healers Have to Die and perhaps you’re a bit more “raid ready” and in the smaller pvp encounters … oh, that’s the healer … producing “raid ready” gear, perhaps there’s more people exploring the other half of their classes rotation and abilities.
The franchise has always been two games … PvE and PvP. The balance people have bitched about for 8 years is between these two play styles … and yes, they have different rotations, different glyphs, different talents …
And the franchise did well with this one. We’ll see what the future holds. Blackrock Foundry is a mere 3 weeks away.
Does my organization have what it takes to be a Mythic Progression Guild?
Hey Boss, do you doubt my Ko’Ragh encounter expertise? Read This.
Hey Boss, if you read it and watched the video in it’s entirety …
1. How many pulls at the normal and heroic level would this have saved? 30 might be a generous number. 4 kills on Normal Difficulty plus the Heroic debacle night where your 20 man mythic team wiped to trash then got their ass spanked by Ko’ragh’s Add Phase for 3.5 hours. First normal kill was 3 hours of wiping. 2 full raid nights. How many total pulls have we had as an organization? 45?
The facts in life are sometimes difficult boss.
2. How many pulls will it take to down this boss on Heroic Difficulty? How many pulls are saved if we have a ranged and healer stack on the add tank when the 3rd round of adds spawn starting from the beginning? Why do we have to spend the 5 pulls learning?
And hey boss, I’m just happy to be getting EP … there’s 10 people on our 30 man heroic waiting list, we’re a long way from being Mythic ready (boss, we need runs of 6/7 (H) to even have a shot at 2/7 (M). We’re dying to Heroic Twins because of the dodging fire positioning problem, dying on Heroic Brackenspore because ranged doesn’t want to stack with melee under green mushrooms … we can’t even get back to K0’ragh and when we wipe on Tectus during second transition because ranged and melee didn’t move TO the Spawn Tank … you’re banging your head against the wall unnecessarily.