Druid Class Hall Followers Optimization

[Etamalgren]

When you have both the Gold/AP and OH/AP equips on a follower, you get two 20% chances at a humming shard.
With those up, you have a 64% (.8*.8) chance of getting no shards, a 32% (.2*.8 + .8*.2) chance of getting one shard, and a 4% (.2*.2) chance of getting two shards.


If you were getting two shards every time you complete a WQ (when it procs, at least), you've just had an insanely lucky streak of WQs.

I usually wind up with three or four after completing 10 WQs, which is about what you'd expect from two AP token champ equips.

[Lunnar]

Anyone here with CA equipment Pouch of wonder + share of twisting nether, 50g + ap token and 100 resource + ap token?
As of the most recent patch, I noticed I do not get 2x humming shards (the ap token) when it procs for a wq. I wanted to know if anyone else running this combo ran into this issue as well.

I've only recently got ahold of the second one on my Bodyguard. I sometimes get 1 AP Token, sometimes 2 AP Tokens and something no AP Tokens. Seems RNG to me. One of my Guildies before this Patch did say he was getting a crazy amount of 2 AP Tokens per WQ with that combo though. Maybe it was a bug that was recently hotfixed? Or you've both been very lucky before now.

[Williee]

I've only recently got ahold of the second one on my Bodyguard. I sometimes get 1 AP Token, sometimes 2 AP Tokens and something no AP Tokens. Seems RNG to me. One of my Guildies before this Patch did say he was getting a crazy amount of 2 AP Tokens per WQ with that combo though. Maybe it was a bug that was recently hotfixed? Or you've both been very lucky before now.

Ya pretty much i was running into that situation, I recall seeing you received humming shard line twice in a row when it did proc. I also notice my humming shard count in my backpack have dropped significantly since the patch. So it makes a lot of sense if they fixed the bug.

2nd day of doing wq since the patch, noticed # of humming shards a lot lower, by almost 1/2. Glad to know someone else had someone they know report something similar to what I noticed.

[Lyvar]

Wasn't there a patch where you went from 100% of n AP to 20% of 5n AP? That could be the reason for a guaranteed item per WQ.

[Polarthief]

Wasn't there a patch where you went from 100% of n AP to 20% of 5n AP? That could be the reason for a guaranteed item per WQ.

Yes, that was 7.2.5 I believe which changed it. TBH that'd have gotten super annoying to get 100% of the time, considering Humming Shards aren't an instant-cast AP token and are instead a cast-time one.

Speaking of which, why is ^ a thing?

[Biomega]

Every second of pointless play they squeeze out of us is another drop in the vast ocean of money on which Blizzard floats.

It's the only reason, really. They may bullshit you with "immersion" or "anticipation" or whatever, but it's just that. Same with flight paths taking idiotic routes or doing an extra circle, or usable quest items having arbitrary and unnecessary cooldowns on them, etc.

[Nitania]

Sorry for an off-topic but what CA would you recommend for the priest.
I used the build recommended in that great google docs spreadsheet and was running Aelthaliste as CA. But my hooded priests are spells and hazards counters so I'm left with only one minion counter and that doesn't feel good.
I got a nice legendary for the CA today and dont want to mess it up. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[Marrilaife]

Sorry for an off-topic but what CA would you recommend for the priest.
I used the build recommended in that great google docs spreadsheet and was running Aelthaliste as CA. But my hooded priests are spells and hazards counters so I'm left with only one minion counter and that doesn't feel good.
I got a nice legendary for the CA today and dont want to mess it up. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Well tbh in most cases CA is just trinket carrier for all these order resource / AP / gold tokens, so it doesn't matter if they're of any combat usefulness at all (if you have a weak character on Argus, pick the Warframe matrix upgrade and you're golden), so if you want specific mission setup, just chug as a CA whoever is left out. Sol could be a candidate because he's the weakest of Holy champions now that we're in Argus and Yalia's passive is actually useful. Me myself I'm kinda bound by rule "only clicky button combat allies" because full fledged bodyguards annoy the hell out of me, so I'm kinda stuck with Ishanah, which is kinda bad due to power of troop healing items atm. But it's always a tradeoff - CA you want or the champion setup you want.

Assuming you want a good mission setup, you should probably go Yalia, Ishanah, Aelthalyste, Calia, Alonsus, Zabra, which leaves only Sol as a CA (that counting a non-meatball setup, you didn't say if you have him), if you have Meatball you'll always be short on something so you might as well keep using what you were using. I could see swapping Natalie + Mariella to free Zabra and Alonsus for combat ally purposes. Natalie bonus is weaker now though as greater troops are not auto-include in every mission anymore.

[Polarthief]

if you have Meatball you'll always be short on something.

Irrelevant on a Healing Items class (which Priest is) and even then it's not so bad. The ONLY class I'd recommend not using Meatball (or not balancing specs) is Warrior due to how disgustingly terrible Svergan (one of their only two prot champions) is, and Finna (their other prot champion) isn't too hot either. Warrior is a fucking hot mess to optimize while every other class is pretty easy and even has some decent options. Warrior is "pick what you want to give up", whether that's Meatball, not having 2 Prot champions, or half-decent bonuses. Can't really have all 3 of those.

[Nitania]

Assuming you want a good mission setup, you should probably go Yalia, Ishanah, Aelthalyste, Calia, Alonsus, Zabra, which leaves only Sol as a CA (that counting a non-meatball setup, you didn't say if you have him), if you have Meatball you'll always be short on something so you might as well keep using what you were using. I could see swapping Natalie + Mariella to free Zabra and Alonsus for combat ally purposes. Natalie bonus is weaker now though as greater troops are not auto-include in every mission anymore.

Sorry for not mentioning it, I do have Meatball. And I don't really care who's following me around (don't have shadowmeld so I don't mind body guards), all I care for is a good setup for missions. I've been away from the game for almost 6 month so only started on the new stuff now. But I'm somewhat short on resources so I don't want to run without CA at all.
I'm not sure if I should just keep things as is, respec back to hooded priests and get minion counter. Though it would be some waste of resourses and will force me to run minus one follower for a couple days.

[Marrilaife]

The ONLY class I'd recommend not using Meatball (or not balancing specs) is Warrior due to how disgustingly terrible Svergan (one of their only two prot champions) is, and Finna (their other prot champion) isn't too hot either. Warrior is a fucking hot mess to optimize while every other class is pretty easy and even has some decent options. Warrior is "pick what you want to give up", whether that's Meatball, not having 2 Prot champions, or half-decent bonuses. Can't really have all 3 of those.

Why would you not run Meatball on a class that has the easiest decision who to cut out from 2/2/2 setup? (I.e. Svergan)

EDIT: Actually tbh now I think if you cut Svergan you might have problem getting decent counter setup AND a combat ally, damn me. Wish Ymiron or some other useless dude could be a combat ally...

I just checked your spreadsheet for priest (btw wish you had it in sig or something so it's easy to access every time to check stuff), but with the 2/2/2 + Meatball build the question who do you cut for your combat ally slot still stands. I'd say for a Priest if you empowered t2 troops you shouldn't cut a shadow champion, otherwise probably Zabra has the weakest perk. I wouldn't cut a holy nova (minion counter) though because elite strikes are still a thing (I do send the AP mission nowadays as legionfall supplies are no good anymore).

So yeah I would defo use Aelthalyste for missions and cut probably a disc champion (Mariella/Alonsus) or maybe Yalia.

As Sol is useless no matter what, he's a safe bet for being on CA duty.

[Polarthief]

Why would you not run Meatball on a class that has the easiest decision who to cut out from 2/2/2 setup? (I.e. Svergan)

EDIT: Actually tbh now I think if you cut Svergan you might have problem getting decent counter setup AND a combat ally, damn me. Wish Ymiron or some other useless dude could be a combat ally...

*bows* It's not that I wouldn't run Meatball, it's that not running Meatball is actually a half-decent option. Warrior is just beyond fucked.

(btw wish you had it in sig or something so it's easy to access every time to check stuff)

Good idea. Done.

I just checked your spreadsheet for priest but with the 2/2/2 + Meatball build the question who do you cut for your combat ally slot still stands. I'd say for a Priest if you empowered t2 troops you shouldn't cut a shadow champion, otherwise probably Zabra has the weakest perk. I wouldn't cut a holy nova (minion counter) though because elite strikes are still a thing (I do send the AP mission nowadays as legionfall supplies are no good anymore).

So yeah I would defo use Aelthalyste for missions and cut probably a disc champion (Mariella/Alonsus) or maybe Yalia.

As Sol is useless no matter what, he's a safe bet for being on CA duty.

Sol or Aelthalyste I think were the two most often picked, both of which also counter Minions, making Holy Nova an almost auto-pick for one of your T7s. I don't know what they do as far as CAs go though. Everyone I talk to about Priest (which is actually my most discussed class, short of Druid of course) always picks one of those two as their CA.

[Marrilaife]

I don't know, tons of people have big fondness for 7.2 combat allies (any class), and about Sol, he's bad for missions so he's easy pick for a CA. If you pick Ishanah like me for example, then you deny yourself a stream of healing items which is a bigger sacrifice. I see people run Zabra too. Sol / Zabra are your standard old bodyguards, don't think they provide any special perks.

[Polarthief]

Only took til 7.3.2, but Ingram's Puzzle is now confirmed to also drop Argus items.

[Lunnar]

I liked the little fix to Ingram's Puzzle but sadly I'm still getting Rare Quality old Follower Items.

[Polarthief]

So I'm not fully sure what's happened but my resources haven't been dwindling as crazy as of late, and I've even been hitting up Blood missions when I have a lack of Rep/Gold ones. I don't know if it's because of stealth-nerfs to resource costs in 7.3.2 (IIRC there were datamined changes to mission costs during the PTR but that might have just been patch fixes from the Hotfixes that "reduces mission costs" pre-patch) or whatever, but yeah, resources aren't getting destroyed like they were earlier.

[aliandren]

I always do the blood ones with broll included, then trade in for resources. Its net gain in resources for a few hours of champion use.

Not sure if this is common practice but my active 7 are all using -30/25 duration & +50% on < 8 hours. 2 on bench with -30/25/20. Send 3 guys on an 8 hour mission and it's done in an hour.

This maths out to more missions completed over time than sending solo missions. The bench people are to get elitestrike undet 8 hours sl i can spam that mission (6-7 every command center cycle).

Have to use strange ball of piwer occasionally.

Active: meatball, Sylendra, Archdruid, mylune, broll, keeper, brightwing (2 of each counter)
Bench: thisalee, nat. Haven't gotten around to leveling zentabra yet.

[Polarthief]

I always do the blood ones with broll included, then trade in for resources. Its net gain in resources for a few hours of champion use.

TBH that's not a bad idea and my horrible bias against Shitmantle made me blind to him even existing. Might be worth benching Thisalee for him specifically for the high resource missions. 70% of 1800 resources is 1260, giving you almost a 2x profit (+540 from Broll; bloods give +600) than without him.

That or people who still use Thisalee as a BG might like this setup too.

As for the rest of your stuff, yeah that's a great setup for people who check missions once every hour or so. Even though I'm at home most of my time, I don't even bother with it that much

Honestly, the biggest potential change is when ABT comes live and we'll have no clue what the mission for the raid cache will look like. Let's just hope it's a 3-slotter, even if it starts at -100%!

[lycanious]

Thats my situation:

Thisalee is my CA and has 3 legendarys (so won't be changing any time soon).
Others on the main roster are Meatball, Sylendra, (2*reduc,<8), Remulos, Brightwing (reduc,counter, <8) Hamuul & Mylune (reduc, success, <8).
Every day I swap in/out Thisalee for Broll (reduc,counter, <8) or Moroes (3*reduc) depending upon current mission table.

I generally check missions twice during the day and log-on to game during evenings. Also interested to see the ABT mission.

[Polarthief]

Thats my situation:

Thisalee is my CA and has 3 legendarys (so won't be changing any time soon).

Yeah if you have CA leggos on a follower already, there's little point in swapping them out, especially when there's a literal copy/pasta alternative. You lose out on 5-10% success when paired w/ Argus troops but with how expensive some missions are, that's not TOO horrible of a thing.

- - - Updated - - -

Hey here's a nice stealth-addition to the order hall as of 7.3.2: Pet Charm missions are back!

Still don't see any dungeon missions but I really, really don't give a flying fuck about those (along with the PvP ones too).



- - - Updated - - -

Small note since no one's mentioned it: Make sure you grab the weekly quest in Dalaran. This week's event is WQs, which means an easy-and-free 5k resources (assuming you still do emissaries and WQs to begin with).