Garrison Preview Part 2—All Buildings Great and Small
You can find some more detailed overviews of buildings such as the Inn, Lumber Mill, Trading Post, and more in previous news posts.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
In this series of blog posts, we’re giving you a much closer look at how Garrisons are shaping up and how you can expect to interact with them in Warlords of Draenor. This second installment maps out the buildings that make up a fully armed and operational Garrison and how they impact your professions.
As we mentioned in part 1 of this series, we want the process of staking your claim on Draenor to fundamentally shape your gameplay experience. Your Garrison mainly comprises buildings and the Followers who inhabit them. As your Garrison grows, so will your options and opportunities to use these assets to your advantage on Draenor. The Followers that populate your Garrison will grow in number and power, and what they can do for you depends which buildings you choose to construct in your base.

Start Small, Think Big
Even in its fledgling state, your Garrison will contribute to your professional development almost immediately. You’ll have many choices for what to build, and your choices directly impact what your Followers can do and the rewards you’ll get from them.

The space you have available for buildings is determined by your Garrison Tier. At Garrison Tier 1, you’ll have one small and one large plot for buildings of those sizes. Quests will take you through placing a building that matches one of your primary professions in your first small plot and a Barracks in your first large plot.

At Garrison Tier 2, you’ll gain one additional small plot, one medium plot, and room for three of four preset buildings: the Fishing Shack, Herb Garden, Pet Menagerie, and Lunarfall Excavation (Alliance) or Frostwolf Mine (Horde). Everyone can eventually unlock and use all four presets, and each provides a great deal of synergy with its associated activities. For example, the Fishing Shack not only allows you to fish in Garrison waters and take on daily fishing quests—it also makes it possible for you to attract Nat Pagle as a Follower and gives him a place to work with you on Draenor.

Quests to gain access to each of the four preset buildings become available as you level up your character. You can obtain the mine at character level 92, the Fishing Shack at level 94, the Herb Garden at level 96, and the Pet Menagerie at level 98.

At Garrison Tier 3, you’ll gain room for one more building of each size (one small, one medium, one large, and the final preset)—but to start, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with your first building and then consider what you’re going to do with the other precious spaces that become available.

Small plots can hold the Engineering Works, Alchemy Lab, Enchanter’s Study, Gem Boutique, Salvage Yard, Scribe’s Quarters, Storehouse, Tailoring Emporium, Forge, or Tannery.

Buildings level up, too, so you’ll want to raise both your Garrison and each building inside your walls to reach their highest potential. You do this by obtaining blueprints for the building and level you want from the blueprint vendor:
  • Level 1 blueprints all become available to you when your Garrison reaches Tier 2.
  • Level 2 blueprints become available at different times depending on their size:
    • Small buildings: Reach level 96 or complete the Talador zone.
    • Medium buildings: Reach level 98 or complete the Spires of Arak zone.
    • Large buildings: Reach level 100 or complete the Nagrand zone.
  • Level 3 blueprints become available as you complete certain achievements across Draenor.
  • Level 3 blueprints are account-wide. Once you unlock one on a character, it’s available to all characters on your account.

Do Medium Well
Some of the most impactful decisions you’ll make when planning your Garrison will come when it’s time to choose medium-sized buildings. Medium buildings, unlike the smaller professional workspaces, make use of more real estate to give your Followers room to work on bigger projects with you and interact with each other.

Medium buildings include the Horde’s Frostwall Tavern and the Alliance’s Lunarfall Inn, the Barn, the Lumber Mill, the Gladiator’s Sanctum, and the Trading Post.

If you go with the Inn or Tavern, each day you’ll find a visitor who offers you a dungeon quest with generous rewards. At level 100, you’ll get two such quests per day. As it grows, you’ll have the opportunity to recruit random followers with traits and abilities that you particularly want—and at its grandest, it unlocks Treasure Hunt missions with hefty payouts.

The level 1 Barn grants the ability to capture clefthoof, elekk, wolves, and talbuk for leather and fur that can be used in Leatherworking and Tailoring. To make a capture, you’ll drop a trap and coax low-health creatures over it. At level 2, you’ll learn how to capture boars and riverbeasts for rare meats that are used to cook the most powerful recipes, and at level 3, the Barn will allow you to capture elite beasts and extract their Savage Blood, an ingredient for epic crafted armor and weapons.

Meanwhile, over in the Gladiator’s Sanctum, you’ll earn a bonus to your out-of-combat regen in outdoor zones on Draenor, gain the ability to fall safely and breathe underwater outdoors on Draenor, learn a unique damage reduction ability, and ultimately gain access to the intense Highmaul Coliseum gladiator tournament that unlocks a special Nemesis PvP quest series.

The Nemesis quest line challenges PvP players to focus on hunting down enemy players of specific races to earn renown and over a dozen character titles such as Draenei Destroyer, Troll Hunter, Orcslayer, and Gnomebane. Truly vigilant players who complete every Nemesis quest will be rewarded with the title Warlord of Draenor.

Large and In Charge
Your Garrison is never intended to be sealed off from the many harsh hazards of Draenor. You and your Followers have work to do out there if you’re going to deal with the Iron Horde . . . and you’re going to deal with the Iron Horde! Maximizing your effectiveness—and your chances of success—requires a couple of large buildings.

Large plots can hold the Alliance’s Mage Tower or its Horde equivalent, the Spirit Lodge; the Barracks; the Dwarven Bunker (Alliance) or War Mill (Horde); the Stables; or the Gnomish Gearworks (Alliance) or Goblin Workshop (Horde).

This Mage Tower is remarkably powerful. From the moment you build one (or its Horde variant, the Spirit Lodge), you’ll start collecting Ogre Waystones from ogres on Draenor. The building then becomes one end of a system of two-way portals via Ogre Waygates you’ll find in every zone on Draenor. You’ll use the Waystones to activate one gate at a time at building level 1, two at level 2, and three at level 3.

With the Stables, you can capture and train special mounts on Draenor. These unique mounts spawn all across the world, and after you find and lasso them, you’ll send them to your Garrison for training. The subsequent training quests will allow you to add the mounts to your collection, learn the ability to remain mounted while interacting with objects in outdoor Draenor zones (at Stables level 2), and ultimately reward you with an increased mounted speed across Draenor at level 3. Achievements associated with this remarkable building unlock even more mounts, as well as the title Stable Master.

When you go large, perhaps the Gnomish Gearworks or Goblin Workshop will catch your fancy. It’s a veritable toy store, granting access over the first two levels to unique items such as the Robo-Rooster, Personal Delivery System, Sentry Turret Dispenser, and Micro-Jetpack. Then at building level 3, the real fun begins, as you gain the ability to deploy a siege vehicle to take out for a spin. And by “out,” we mean right out of the Garrison and anywhere on Draenor—yes, that includes Ashran.

No one ever said it’s going to be easy to choose your buildings!

While you’ll certainly have the option to tear down a building and replace it with a different one, knowing your options ahead of time will help you better plan your Garrison to reflect your character’s style and needs.

Plotting Ahead
If you missed it, check out part 1 of our Garrisons preview here. In part 3, we’ll take a closer look at Followers, missions, and how you’ll use them to bring home rewards. If you’re beta testing Warlords of Draenor with us and have any Garrison-related questions or experiences to share, head over to our Beta General Discussion forum and post it there. You can also leave a comment below.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Garrison Preview Part 2—All Buildings Great and Small started by chaud View original post
Comments 44 Comments
  1. zrankfappa's Avatar
    cookie cutter garrison plan websites in 3 -2 -1 ...
  1. lunchbox2042's Avatar
    It only took them 4 months to write this article.
  1. cuafpr's Avatar
    Garrison's coulda been the most amazing feature ever :/ now it just feels like its going to be cookie cutter for leveling and then raiding....
  1. mmoccaa36ef445's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by lunchbox2042 View Post
    It only took them 4 months to write this article.
    Was it neccessary to have this article earlier? No.

    Just hate everything Blizzard does, it doesnt get any dumber.
  1. Stacie's Avatar
    Well anything that benefits the raid will be picked as Zrankfappa said.. Cookie cutter garrison plan websites in 3 - 2- 1 ...
  1. Saravat's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by lunchbox2042 View Post
    It only took them 4 months to write this article.
    I was just thinking that. I like Blizzard, but stuff like this just really makes me wonder about them.

    I wish they would provide clarity about things like their overall agenda for crafting and why they decided to weave crafting in so tightly with garrison mechanics, or provide some rational explanation as to why I have to wait until level 96 for the herb garden, but the mine shows up at 92.

    But instead we get this generic overview that just regurgitates really basic information that has been out there for weeks and weeks.
  1. Amerissis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by zrankfappa View Post
    cookie cutter garrison plan websites in 3 -2 -1 ...
    You mean like http://wod.wowhead.com/garrison-calc#AkUlIAU ? Which has been around for months...?
  1. Rackfu's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr Chaos View Post
    Well anything that benefits the raid will be picked as Zrankfappa said.. Cookie cutter garrison plan websites in 3 - 2- 1 ...
    For cutting edge PvE players, maybe.

    People interested in PvP will pick different options, as will those who prefer pet battles, mount collecting, leveling alts, transmog, etc, etc....

    Pretty far from "cookie cutter"
  1. mmocf93185380c's Avatar
    I just want to play world of warcraft
  1. mmocf29d93ba50's Avatar
    I'm really looking forward to Garrisons, very much. Only wish there'd be some cosmetic options regarding the buildings and such. Still think I'm gonna have a lot of fun with it, and a lot of hard choices to make.
  1. Rackfu's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by DAV_76 View Post
    I just want to play world of warcraft
    Did you not notice the Gladiator's building which gives you quests to kill members of the opposite faction and earn titles?

    The Garrison is just basically a huge quest hub that people can tailor to their personal style and earn some rewards for doing so.

    It doesn't take the war out of warcraft.
  1. zrankfappa's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Amerissis View Post
    You mean like http://wod.wowhead.com/garrison-calc#AkUlIAU ? Which has been around for months...?
    I was actually thinking more like LoL Item Planner type of stuff, not just a calculator.
  1. mmocfdc0f653d7's Avatar
    Has anyone read anywhere what happens say if you build the stables ..... collect all the rare mounts ect and then destroy the stables to build something else ..... do you retain all the mounts and stuff you have accumulated even if the stables has been flattened for a new building?

    And secondly if i has JC as a main prof ... what benifits do i get if any by building the JC building. Or are the prof buildings just ment as a way for you to pick up the first few tiers of that proffessions items ect without having the prof as a main skill on that toon????
  1. chaud's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Vishudhara View Post
    Has anyone read anywhere what happens say if you build the stables ..... collect all the rare mounts ect and then destroy the stables to build something else ..... do you retain all the mounts and stuff you have accumulated even if the stables has been flattened for a new building?

    And secondly if i has JC as a main prof ... what benifits do i get if any by building the JC building. Or are the prof buildings just ment as a way for you to pick up the first few tiers of that proffessions items ect without having the prof as a main skill on that toon????
    IIRC you keep the mounts, even if you get rid of the building.

    As far as the profession buildings, they give you extra perks even if you have that profession, such as access to the best recipes.
  1. mmocfdc0f653d7's Avatar
    i see so you can only obtain top tier prof recipies if you have the prof building to buy them from.... so i assume you can then ditch the prof building for something else once you max it out and purchase all the recipies at top tier you require.
  1. Ukerric's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr Chaos View Post
    Well anything that benefits the raid will be picked as Zrankfappa said.. Cookie cutter garrison plan websites in 3 - 2- 1 ...
    Simple:

    For the pure PVE play, well, the Barracks and Dwarven Bunker (large), Inn (Medium) and Salvage Yard and Storehouse (small) are no-shit-sherlock buildings. You're being told to build one additional small building for your profession, which completes your 3 smalls. So, the only question is: Lumber Mill or Trade Post for the medium. Probably the Lumber Mill, we'll have to see what the trader offers really to compete with the fact that it requires your trade-skill resources.

    (Storehouse and Lumber Mill or Trade Post are there to speed up your production of resources)
  1. Phovos's Avatar
    Are garrison's going to be skippable? Just curious. Not really something I prefer to be doing at the start of an expansion.
  1. mmoc1f48e0f23e's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Phovos View Post
    Are garrison's going to be skippable? Just curious. Not really something I prefer to be doing at the start of an expansion.
    Not entirely but can be played around by viewing it just as a quest hub deal. Once you're done with the introduction stuff you can skip onwards and progress just fine, albeit slower and with some grinds blended in. But I tested and you can, outside of the basic garrison stuff, choose to completely ignore its' existance. It voids you alot of things so doing it is not recommendable but possible.
  1. zrankfappa's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Phovos View Post
    Are garrison's going to be skippable? Just curious. Not really something I prefer to be doing at the start of an expansion.
    Bliz is all about giving you interesting choices, and skipping Garrison's is not an interesting choice.
  1. Croy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ukerric View Post
    Simple:

    For the pure PVE play, well, the Barracks and Dwarven Bunker (large), Inn (Medium) and Salvage Yard and Storehouse (small) are no-shit-sherlock buildings. You're being told to build one additional small building for your profession, which completes your 3 smalls. So, the only question is: Lumber Mill or Trade Post for the medium. Probably the Lumber Mill, we'll have to see what the trader offers really to compete with the fact that it requires your trade-skill resources.

    (Storehouse and Lumber Mill or Trade Post are there to speed up your production of resources)

    Not really... I will do Mythic raids in WoD and I will not pick Dwarven Bunker for two reasons: it's a free bonus roll, not an extra bonus roll (3 per week limit applies even if you have the Bunker) and also I don't like the mail transmogs.

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