Over the lifespan of the WoD Beta we’ve covered a lot of what you can expect from the Garrisons. however because there’s so much information to cover here’s a complete guide with just about everything you need to know as well as links to our various videos/guides.
The basics
You get your garrison almost right after you finish the Tenaan Jungle intro event. You get a set of quests that take you through all the waves and motions of the Garrison mechanics. Let’s go over each of those mechanics.
Resources
When going about the daily goings of your garrison you’ll need resources. You can earn these from multiple sources: The garrison resource chest, quests, garrison missions, rare mobs and garrison buildings such as the lumber mill and the trading post. Once you reach maximum level you’ll mainly earn the resources from the garrison chest, garrison missions and garrison buildings.
You’ll use resources for things like building buildings, upgrading them and sending followers on missions.
Plots/Garrison Leveling
When you build up your garrison you can build the garrison buildings in plots. The type of plot determines which buildings you can put on them. There are more buildings per type of plot than there are plots, which means you will have to make a choice as to which buildings you want. This matters because you get perks depending on the buildings you choose (more on that in the buildings section).
You will need to level your garrison up to get more plots. Your garrison starts at tier 1 and you can level it up to a maximum of tier 3. See the below table for the amount of plots per tier.
| Tier | Amount of Plots |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 small, 1 large |
| 2 | 2 small, 1 medium, 1 large |
| 3 | 3 small, 3 medium, 2 large |
Tier 2
To level your garrison up to tier 2 you will simply need to have completed both buildings in the plots. You will then get the quest to upgrade your town hall. To do so you have to click on the town hall in the architect interface and click upgrade.
At tier 2 you will also get quests depending on your level to unlock new buildings, these don’t cost extra plots.
| Level Required | Building |
|---|---|
| 92 | The Mines |
| 94 | The Fishing Shack |
| 96 | The Herb Garden |
| 98 | Pet Menagerie |
Tier 3
To level your garrison up to tier 3 you simply need to be level 100. The upgrade itself will require 5000 gold and 2000 resources.
Buildings
As mentioned before the plots determine which buildings you can build. At garrison tier 3 you can build 3 small, 3 medium and 2 large buildings. Each building has 3 levels and depending on the level you’ll get perks from having those buildings. Check below for all the different buildings and their perks so you can start thinking about which buildings you will want to build first when you get your own garrison. To build and level up your garrison you will need to get blueprints.
| Type Blueprint | How to Obtain |
|---|---|
| Level 1 blueprints | Become available to you when your Garrison reaches Tier 2. |
| Level 2 Small building blueprints | Reach level 96 or complete the Talador zone |
| Level 2 Medium building blueprints | Reach level 98 or complete the Spires of Arak zone |
| Level 2 Large building blueprints | 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.
Large
Barracks
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unlocks patrol missions. Patrol missions have higher than normal follower experience rewards. | |
| 2 | Allows a follower with the bodyguard trait to accompany you as a guardian in Draenor zones. | |
| 3 | Increases your follower limit by 5 and grants access to racial guards and banners. | Level 3 Perks Video |
Dwarven Bunker
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Doubles the chance for your quest rewards to get a rare or epic Bonus Upgrade, and increases the potency of the upgrade. Allows the collection of armor scraps from the orc clans of Draenor for armor transmogrification use. |
|
| 2 | Opens up work orders for follower weapons and armor in exchange for garrison resources. Also, new armor transmogrification items unlock. | |
| 3 | Grants 1 of your 3 seals of tempered fate (raid bonus loot roll) at no cost each week. |
Gnomish Gearworks
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unlocks a personal engineer that creates a powerful invention each day. Exceptional work! | |
| 2 | Your engineer gains access to five new and amazing devices. | |
| 3 | Allows the creation of a siege vehicle once per day. Drive it to victory in Draenor! (Can be used in Ashran) |
Mage Tower
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Allows the collection of ogre waystones from Ogres on Draenor. These waystones can be used to power an Ogre Waygate of your choice on Draenor. Also occasionaly triggers Runes of Power during combat. |
|
| 2 | Unlocks access to a second Ogre Waygate for a total of 2. | |
| 3 | Unlocks access to a third Ogre Waygate for a total of 3. |
Stables
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enables the capture and training of special mounts on Draenor. Also allows you remain mounted while interacting with objects in outdoor Draenor zones. |
Taming Quest Video |
| 2 | You will no longer get dazed by enemies while riding mounts in outdoor Draenor zones. | |
| 3 | Increases mount speed in Draenor by 20%. | 6 Stable Mounts Video |
Medium
Lumber Mill
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Allows you to mark small trees in Draenor for harvest. Harvested Timber can be converted to work orders for garrison supplies. | |
| 2 | Allows you to mark medium trees for additional Timber. | You can earn a special follower via the lumber mill. |
| 3 | Allows you to mark large trees for even more Timber. |
Trading Post
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A merchant shows up each day selling trade goods. Also allows the trade of crafting reagents for garrison resources. | |
| 2 | Grants access to the Sha’tari Defense or Laughing Skull factions. Also unlocks the ability to acquire parts from around Draenor to build an auctioneer. | |
| 3 | Increases reputation gain in Draenor by 20%. |
Barn
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Allows you to capture clefthoof, elekk, wolves and talbuk for leather and fur. used for leatherworking and tailoring recipes. | |
| 2 | Allows you to capture boars and riverbeasts for rare meats used to create the most powerful food. | Expected to use for raiding food. |
| 3 | Allows you to capture elite beasts to harvest for savage blood, used in all epic crafted armor and weapons. | Required for crafting the best armor and weapons. |
Gladiator's Sanctum
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Increases your out-of-combat regeneration in outdoor Draenor zones and allows the collection of broken bones from defeated enemy players (used for Conqueror’s Tribute). | |
| 2 | Enables safe fall and underwater breathing in outdoor Draenor zones. Also enables the Nemesis quest series for defeating enemy players of specific races. | |
| 3 | While below 35% life, all damage taken is reduced by 50% in outdoor Draenor zones. Grants access to the Highmaul Coliseum gladiator tournament. | Coliseum Video preview |
Lunarfall Inn
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Each day, a visitor offering a dungeon quest with generous rewards will spend the day at your inn. | |
| 2 | Recruits random followers each week. You can specify traits and abilities you’re especially interested in. | |
| 3 | Unlocks the particularly lucrative treasure hunter missions. |
Small
Profession Buildings
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Allows the production of profession items. Enchanter’s study allows disenchanting of items. | |
| 2 | Allows followers with profession trait to work here, granting a unique bonus. Also allows up to 14 work orders at a time. | |
| 3 | Allows up to 21 work orders at a time. |
Salvage Yard
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Allows Salvage to be occasionally recovered from missions | |
| 2 | Increases your chance at recovering Salvage from missions. In addition, you may now discover follower items in Salvage | |
| 3 | Greatly increases your chance at recovering Salvage from missions. In addition, you may now discover player items in Salvage. |
Storehouse
Perks
| Level | Perk | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enables access to your personal bank and increases the total number of active work orders for all buildings by 5. | |
| 2 | Enables access to your guild bank. | |
| 3 | Enables access to an Ethereal Trader for Void Storage and Transmogrification and increases the total number of active work orders for all buildings by 15 |
The Salvage Yard
The salvage yard is the only building for which you will need to earn the level 1 blueprints in a seperate way. You will need to finish the goblin chain quests to the east/southeast in Spires of Arak at lvl 98. Together with the work orders from the Dwarven Bunker, the salvage yard is your main source of follower gear upgrades. But not only that, you can get legitimate item upgrades as well as character creation screen transmogrification sets. Check out some of the possible items below (note the dkp values are from a custom addon)!
The non full set upgrades are now either +3, +6 or +9 item levels.
Followers
As you adventure through Draenor you’ll get the chance to build up your own private army. You can earn these followers through exploring, questing, achievements and dungeons. You can send these followers on missions to earn follower experience, gold and other tidbits. There’s a few things you need to know about these followers.
- You can have up to a maximum of 20 active followers (25 with lvl 3 barracks)
- Once you have more than the maximum amount active you cannot send followers on missions until you put followers on inactive (right click follower to do so) until you have the maximum amount of active followers again.
- Followers can be leveled up to lvl 100
- Followers have uncommon (green), rare (blue) or epic (purple) quality. These determine the amount of abilities and traits the follower has.
- Abilities and traits counter mission dangers or give your followers buffs during missions to increase the chance of succesful missions. They can also have profession traits, in which case you can assign them to the appropriate profession building via the architect interface.
- Once a follower is level 100 they can continue to gain experience until they are of epic quality.
- Once a follower is level 100 they will have an item level, starting at 600. You can upgrade their gear, which will be needed for harder missions.
For an overview of all the followers we’ve found check out these guides.
Missions
Missions are your way to keep your followers busy. Once you have your very first follower you will be sending them on a mission right away. Missions have many rewards, from gold to experience to follwer item upgrades there’s plenty of reasons to keep sending your followers on new missions. You can choose which follower you send on which mission in the mission interface by dragging them to the open follower slots.
The list of missions you get can grow for a bit, so if you can’t log on for a day there’s no harm done, you’ll still be able to send your followers on plenty of missions without falling behind in leveling them up! Missions at maximum level have 4 tiers, corresponding with follower item level. There are even raid missions, Kalgan explained them a while back:
Once you have followers at ilvl 615, the second tier of level 100 missions unlocks, at 630 the third tier unlocks (includes missions with ilvl 645 gear for your character), and when you have followers at ilvl 645 the fourth tier unlocks.
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.
These missions show up rarely enough that you won’t be able to deck out your character in these items before the next raid zone shows up, but having a handful of them will give you a nice edge.
(Note: DKP Value in item is from a custom addon)
Monuments
In your garrison you will be able to put up monuments that commemorate the feats you’ve achieved in draenor. There are currently 6 monuments to earn and 3 slots in a tier 3 garrison to place them in. You can earn them in the following ways:
- Get 5000 honorable kills in Draenor
- Craft 50 epic items with an item level of at least 600
- Complete mythic raiding achievements
- Win 2000 pet battles in Draenor
- Collect 100000 Apexis Crystals
- Complete a likely legendary ring achievement
The monuments are purely cosmetic and allow you to customize your garrison a bit.
Invasions
You will be able to take part in invasion events. In these your garrison is under attack and you’ll need to defend it from various invaders. The fun part of these is that your followers will fight alongside you and that you’ll be able to earn points and try and earn rewards with these!
Outposts
In each zone other than your garrison zone you’ll get to build a garrison outpost. At each outpost you’ll have be able to build 1 building, with the choice from 2. Once you’ve built it you will have access to a garrison ability in that zone. Check out the table below for the overview.
| Zone | Building 1 | Building 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Gorgrond | Lumber Mill | Sparring Arena |
| Talador | Mage Tower | Artillery/Armory |
| Spires of Arak | Inn | Trading Post |
| Nagrand | StablesPerk: Special Mount For Combat, allowing casting while moving | Siege Works |
Concluding Remarks
Garrisons are a big part of WoD (but optional for the most part), and this guide certainly shows it. There are many aspects to it and it might seem like much, but once you play with it yourself and start building your garrison it is actually quite easy to deal with. If you’re a collector you’ll enjoy going around Draenor to collect the followers and build up your own private army!
So im not too familiar with the new exspansion. But this is something i will be able to unlock very early but will need to level / progress to stay competitive?
Well if you want to min/max then yes you’ll want to use level up your buildings to stay competitive. For example you can use a tailoring building as a tailor to get additional tailoring materials each day, meaning you’ll be able to craft quicker and then be able to sell the item quicker. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, just look at raiding. You can choose to take a more casual approach to it and not get gear as quickly or you can join a dedicated raiding guild and raid 3/4 times a week. Just like most things in the game it’s about choosing to put time/effort into something or not.