Mage tower work orders?

[Polarthief]

Whoa, 180?! It might be worth tossing out my bunker then.... Now that I've got all the transmog from it.

If you got all the mog you wanted and your followers are decked out in 675, Bunker becomes quite worthless. You'll continue to stockpile enhancements from Salvage and they won't cost you Resources (which will get you more rerolls and other neat shit).

Also, on average, I'm guessing it's more like 150 because I've gotten WOs as low as 103 and some as high as just over 200. It definitely gets you 2+ free coins a week though, that's for sure (not to mention the all important Mission Rush Orders you can't get anywhere else!)

[Baracuda]

If you got all the mog you wanted and your followers are decked out in 675, Bunker becomes quite worthless. You'll continue to stockpile enhancements from Salvage and they won't cost you Resources (which will get you more rerolls and other neat shit).

Also, on average, I'm guessing it's more like 150 because I've gotten WOs as low as 103 and some as high as just over 200. It definitely gets you 2+ free coins a week though, that's for sure (not to mention the all important Mission Rush Orders you can't get anywhere else!)

Bunker is for gearing up, Spirit Lodge is for when they're geared.

[MrExcelion]

The way I see it, Harrison Jones's mentor trait was to make alt garrisons more friendly and slightly nerf bunker and salvage dependence for follower tokens. Mission Rush Orders is a nerf to epic mount dependence. And we know Scavenger dependence got nerfed in those mission changes, along with the introduction of treasure hunter. All great changes. I just wish they went a bit further and nerfed barracks by raising the cap by 5 baseline, so 25 without and 30 with. The barracks is already good enough on its own because its the source of those huge XP patrol missions [and extra missions have an inherent value because of the salvage yard]

[Polarthief]

Here's some more data about the WOs: 2 WOs gave me 475 Crystals, which would be 237.5 a piece. Maximum is higher than 200, and by a fair margin. Maybe 250?

Lowest I've gotten is 103, so I'm thinking 100-250 a WO.

Edit: Just got a 232; still within my 100-250 prediction.

[MrExcelion]

I haven't had much luck selling apexis battle pets since the patch, probably because everyone's swimming in apex from Mage Tower and the missions. Doesn't look there's much else to do with them if I don't need the gear. Looks like you can buy and d/e the blues for 3k crystals, which is something at least. I see why they got rid of the apex/savage blood conversion, would have outclassed the barn.

[Chickat]

Here's some more data about the WOs: 2 WOs gave me 475 Crystals, which would be 237.5 a piece. Maximum is higher than 200, and by a fair margin. Maybe 250?

Lowest I've gotten is 103, so I'm thinking 100-250 a WO.

Edit: Just got a 232; still within my 100-250 prediction.

So 800-1700 is possible per day. Pretty good stuff. How long does it take to farm the stones for a days work orders? Any longer than 20 minutes and it sounds a but meh considering you can get more by just doing GR missions for 800. Build 2 GR generating buildings, and do 2-3 GR missions a day.

[Polarthief]

So 800-1700 is possible per day. Pretty good stuff. How long does it take to farm the stones for a days work orders? Any longer than 20 minutes and it sounds a but meh considering you can get more by just doing GR missions for 800. Build 2 GR generating buildings, and do 2-3 GR missions a day.

600-1500, and it took me like 30-40m late at night (NO ONE AROUND) on Grimfrost Hill to get about 500 (100 work orders, which is about 3 weeks worth).

[Mizzet]

Well, my first set of 21 work orders are up and I got roughly 7-8 of them in total. If that's a reasonable amount to expect on average I'm quite satisfied with the droprate.

With them being so available, I'm actually a little annoyed by them being Unique(5) because I still tend to be stingy with them, I almost wish Blizzard would increase it to (10) at least. No biggie, since I can just burn any extras on the spot before collecting the work order, but just to illustrate that in my case supply of the completion orders is comfortably outstripping my demand for them.

On a side note, is anyone else experiencing any buggyness with the Amperial Constructs that come with the Mage Tower? Apparently they offer different abilities apart from the default portal (a jump, a speed boost, etc) but I'm not seeing any way to toggle that. I also sometimes find them shifted around a couple of yards or so when I relog, which is annoying since I like to set them up juuust right in a particular spot, only to come back later and find them skewed and off-center.

[Tiberria]

I was able to farm 365 Ogre Stones (at Stonemaul Arena in Gorgrond) in 55 minutes of farming time. That works out to 5-6 minutes or so for the 30 you need per day. It's obviously faster to farm at least a week's worth at a time.

For anyone swimming in follower upgrade items, replacing Bunker with Mage Tower seems like a no brainer.
- It's probably at least July before we get another raid tier/new raid missions. You will get more than enough follower tokens over the next 4-5 months from Salvage Yard and missions to have more than enough before the next raid tier. We only had like 2 months between Highmaul and BRF and anyone that was doing missions regularly were swimming in tokens.
- While you lose out on the extra bonus roll, you get enough Apexis Crystals from work orders to buy all 3 bonus rolls instead of just 1 (especially if you count in the apexis crystal missions too).
-If you had bunker and were using garrison resources for your other 2 bonus rolls each week (like me), you save 900 garrison resources.
-You save 120 Garrison Resources per day/840 per week from not having to do bunker work orders. Those can be put towards more follower reroll items to maximize followers, towards buying fish flesh for the 125 food, or just buying raw mats to sell from the trading post.
-You get 1 Mission Completion Order per day on average. This is really nice to instantly complete your Highmaul and BRF cache mission, the elemental runes mission, or any other long/high EXP mission when levelling a follower. It also reduces the amount of epic mount followers you need to have on your active roster.
-The zipline that you can setup within your garrison is nice for moving around the garrison a little faster.
-The rune that spawns that gives you 100% Crit (in the open Draenor world only) is nice for farming/dailies, etc.
-The 3 portals that you get are also a useful perk.

Really, the only trade off in dropping the bunker is less follower items, but if you don't actually need those follower items, you gain so much more from a Mage Tower. Mage Tower is probably the strongest large building now.

[Polarthief]

Mage Tower is probably the strongest large building now.

I'll definitely admit second strongest, but having 5 extra followers to be able to 100% any mission, including all resource missions with full scavengers and Treasure Hunters, it definitely not doable without a Barracks. Definitely the top two for players who have a fully geared Garrison, otherwise, Bunker is still good.

- - - Updated - - -

OH and new Work Order data: 253 from a Work Order, so my 100-250 is no longer accurate! The absolute maximum is even higher than 250 a work order.

[Tiberria]

I'll definitely admit second strongest, but having 5 extra followers to be able to 100% any mission, including all resource missions with full scavengers and Treasure Hunters, it definitely not doable without a Barracks. Definitely the top two for players who have a fully geared Garrison, otherwise, Bunker is still good.

- - - Updated - - -

OH and new Work Order data: 253 from a Work Order, so my 100-250 is no longer accurate! The absolute maximum is even higher than 250 a work order.

It is definitely possible to be able to 100% any mission and still have 2-3 scavengers and treasure hunters without a Barracks - if you aggressively min/max racial trait synergies. It's definitely a lot easier with the 5 extra followers, especially if you want to have followers working (which have to be left working now). I personally would never get rid of Barracks, because I can't stand not having the portable mission table. Plus, both Stables and Gearworks are nearly useless so it isn't like it's a real decision.

[Polarthief]

It is definitely possible to be able to 100% any mission and still have 2-3 scavengers and treasure hunters without a Barracks - if you aggressively min/max racial trait synergies. It's definitely a lot easier with the 5 extra followers, especially if you want to have followers working (which have to be left working now). I personally would never get rid of Barracks, because I can't stand not having the portable mission table. Plus, both Stables and Gearworks are nearly useless so it isn't like it's a real decision.

Oh I know it is, but realistically, it's not unless you have some INSANE luck. I only have two followers with what I'd call "god tier" levels of traits. My Abu'gar has Burst of Power and 2 (good) racial bonuses, and my Blook has 2 racial bonuses plus his combat experience. NONE of my other followers have 3 good traits (professions, slayer, locations, etc being all "bad" traits)

And yes, the only decision in the Larges is Barracks, Tower, and Bunker at this point, and which one do you not use. Do stables once for the mounts (or on an alt) and there's no point to really keep it because its benefits are so marginal compared to the others.

[MrExcelion]

When I get a Mage Tower I'm going to look to use Mission Completion Orders with my future Treasure Hunter crews because they likely won't have epic mount and I won't have very many of them. Occasionally my Scavenger crew too if needed. Also great for raid missions and power leveling.

[Polarthief]

When I get a Mage Tower I'm going to look to use Mission Completion Orders with my future Treasure Hunter crews because they likely won't have epic mount and I won't have very many of them. Occasionally my Scavenger crew too if needed. Also great for raid missions and power leveling.

Yup yup! I plan to ALWAYS keep one for the 24h missions though unless I can pile on 3 epic mounts to it XD

[Nir]

Post 6.1, is there anything useful to do with the crystals if you don't need the gear ?

[Polarthief]

Post 6.1, is there anything useful to do with the crystals if you don't need the gear ?

Seals of Twisted Fate. If I couldn't get them through Apexis, I'd probably never have bothered with the Mage Tower, but because it makes on average, over/around 7k Apexis in a week's worth of Work Orders, that nets me THREE free coins, as opposed to the Bunker's 1. Even if they nerf it, it should still net two coins a week and I'd either throw Resources or Honor at the third.

[Chickat]

600-1500, and it took me like 30-40m late at night (NO ONE AROUND) on Grimfrost Hill to get about 500 (100 work orders, which is about 3 weeks worth).

Nice. Definitely picking this building up tomorrow.

[Mizzet]

Asking again because this is really bugging me, but does anyone else have problems getting the Amperial Constructs to switch abilities? Apparently you can swap out their zipline function for a bunch of other utilities but I'm not seeing any way to do so.

With how niche the Mage Tower is compared to the standard Barracks/Bunker combo that 95% of people use, it's been awfully hard getting any information on this.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...0869303?page=1 Additional thread for reference.
http://www.wowhead.com/npc=82441/amp...ruct#abilities You can see the 4 different abilities here.

[ttak82]

Ws muling over the usefulness of this building but it seems thats its not too bad. Great for alts even if you're sick of doing the Apexis dailies on one character. Will consider it for an alt at least

[drakonblayde]

Where do you farm your ogre waystones?

I farm mine in Bloodmaul Slag Mines on Normal. Takes 5 to 10 minutes to clear the ring without needing to kill any bosses, yield is usually between 30 to 40, and no competition for mobs