[WoD] Garrisons & PvE

[Korie]

as Ive heard people talk about minmaxing their garrisons, what would be the best buildings? I'm a PvE retribution Paladin with Engineering and Enchanting, meaning I could skip the engineering hut & enchanter hut(?) & get something else, my main focus is as always Heroic(Mythic) raiding, meaning I would like to obtain as much gear as possible before Dec 2.

[Sonnillon]

It's actually a good question, I've dabbled around with wowhead garrison tool - http://wod.wowhead.com/garrison-calc#AkUlIAU

Although I would say that the building which give you the matts you need for those 2 professions. So I would start by seeing what you need for enchanting and engi from here - http://www.wowhead.com/guide=2327/wa...sions-overview (the profession guides under each of the small sections) and the focus on getting the building which support the professions of yours.

I would also for the first largest plot get a warmill for the chance of gear upgrades. But as I have not personally tried beta, then it's just the way I would go...

[femur68]

For a PvE perspective, here's what I'll say:

I've been toiling around in the garrison on beta for a couple months now. Despite what Blizzard stated about Garrisons "not being mandatory," they are. There's just too many benefits you get with them. But, don't expect them to be farm 2.0. They're very far from that. They're much more involved and honestly, much more fun. I know I'll be spending endless hours in my Garrison.

So, let's start with small buildings:

By default you will want to start out with your profession buildings for every production profession you have. This will take up anywhere from 0-2 of your three slots for your small buildings. After you are done getting all of your stuff you want from your productions professions, could you tear it down for another building you want instead? Sure, but know that not having a building for a production profession you have greatly inhibits its capability to craft items. Work orders is how you generate 90% of your main resource for each profession. Your own profession itself hardly holds a candle to the building's output.

I will also say this about small buildings. Say you are an Herb/Alch and want to make some sweet crafting leather gear for yourself. You can do that by building a Tannery. You will be able to craft ilvl 640 pieces (ilvl 640 ~ LFR level gear) with your new building. But, you will not be able to craft the upgrading items a typical LW would be able to craft if they had the Tannery. There are two items that upgrade gear from 640 to 655, and 655 to 665. So, you would have to go on the AH to buy those upgrade items instead. Also, you're limited to only wearing 3 pieces of crafted gear at a time.

Every profession essentially has these "super powerful items" that you can only craft if you have that actual production profession. For armor crafters its the upgrade items, for alchemists is the greater flasks, JC is the greater gems, etc. So, keep that in mind.

Also, the Salvage Yard building has a chance to drop pieces of 665 gear allegedly, I've yet to see this occur, though.


Now, Medium buildings:

These are by far the most mandatory of the buildings. If you are looking to craft some epic gear for yourself, and you are an armor crafting profession, you will need something called "Savage Blood" from the level 3 Barn building. You get them from work orders from trapping animals. You can also sell these Bloods on the ah for a massive profit. Expect the barn to be mandatory.

The Lumber Mill will be a great way to make your Garrison boom. The extra resources from cutting down trees in the world is pretty good. You can also get random lots of 50 apexis crystals in your work orders allegedly as well.

The Inn is a great way to great extra stuff in dungeons and fill in the gaps in your follower base. If you are focusing on early dungeons, it's a nice way to boost your output from the dungeons themselves.

The Trading Post is great if you want a specific crafting items but don't have normal means to obtain it. You can buy any crafting mat from the trading post with garrison resources.

Myself personally I plan on going Barn/Lumber Mill and then when the Lumber Mill loses its usefullness switching to the Inn.

Now, for Large buildings:

These are the least mandatory. The only one I see being good is the Barracks, which lets you get high XP missions for your followers to level up faster. Your followers once they get to high enough levels will be able to fetch you a piece of raid gear every few weeks. So, the Barracks will be a great way to get those followers lvl'd up quickly.

The War Mill would be nice if your lazy as well, as the free raid roll every week from it will be a nice take off your work load. You'll only have to work for two then.

I'll probably end up taking the Barracks and Spirit Lodge/Mage Tower, that way I can just get around Draenor more quickly.

[Satori]

Very helpful post, thanks a lot.

Question: how hard is it to change buildings?

Also not totally sold on the Barn thing. You could have it on ats and go for a building that provides more personal benefits to your main.

[Raiju]

Also not totally sold on the Barn thing. You could have it on ats and go for a building that provides more personal benefits to your main.

Certainly a good point - both the barn and the trading post are ideal plots for alts.

I'll add to his post that the 3 item limit applies to most WoD craftables (ilvl 640/650/665), not just LW / tailoring / BS. This means that if you are an engineer you do not need to get your complimentary building at all unless you really want to make some gadgets faster, as the engineering helmet is going to be the weakest item you can pick up before raid are available (everyone getting a molten core helmet equivalent to LFR). Consider the salvage yard here if theres more evidence of gear chances from it. (or from your less important profession generally - crafting requirements wise)

I believe it's a gold cost to buy the plans for a new building, although not sure on that. I'd say if you're really pushing the raid maximizing agenda the war mill is also mandatory with the barracks, not because of the free seal but because of the chances to upgrade your followers and equip them better.

[femur68]

Very helpful post, thanks a lot.

Question: how hard is it to change buildings?

Also not totally sold on the Barn thing. You could have it on ats and go for a building that provides more personal benefits to your main.

It's not that bad to change buildings. It has to start back at level one. It takes about an hour to build/upgrade a building. And replacing a building is as simple as placing a new building over the old in the UI.

And yes correct, you could do the barn on an alt. You need a lvl 3 barn to obtain the savage blood though. One of the best places to go trapping is nagrand which is a higher level zone. So just make sure you level the alt (which won't be much of an issue seeing as leveling is quick this expansion).

Also don't forget lvl 3 buildling blueprints are account wide. So building already unlocked buildings on alts is merely a factor of gathering the resources for it.

[Deleted]

The War Mill can create armor and weapon upgrades for followers through work orders. This'll get your followers to a higher ilvl faster, which is a requirement for the rare missions that award raid gear.

Keep in mind that the plans for the upgrade items require 15 Secrets each to purchase. Secrets are made through a daily profession cooldown. You can probably see where this is going if you're the minmaxing hardcore raider type. Just buying the plans for 3 armor pieces and the two upgrade items would take you 33 days of cooldowns. If you want to have crafted 665 epics ready to go for Mythic Highmaul, you should probably have 2 crafter alts. Each alt can specialize in a specific upgrade item, and you can get the armor plans on your main character.

[Alroxas]

For min/maxing, Followers can actually make a big difference because there is a follower quest that is suppose to reward you with the raid loot that is up a tier from what you're working on. So if you're working on Normal Raids, there's a chance for Heroic Raid quality gear. Heroic rewards Mythic and Mythic rewards Mythic plus gold.

The fourth tier is special in that they show up rarely, but they're raid missions for your followers that reward your character with raid quality loot of a tier higher than you're currently running. If you're doing LFR, you'll get normal quality raid loot, if you're running normal raids you'll get heroic quality loot, and heroic raiders will get mythic quality loot. Mythic raiders will get mythic loot and 1k gold.

Source

Still not entirely sure how the system knows what level of raiding you're at but that's definitely something that raiders might be worth looking into.

[Raiju]

Still not entirely sure how the system knows what level of raiding you're at but that's definitely something that raiders might be worth looking into.

They said it wouldn't be as simple as having one kill on the difficulty, so I imagine you'd have to have attempted bosses on that difficulty X number of weeks, either recently or just in general.