Four Things I have learnt about my Garrison this week

The more time I spend in my own little oasis of Shadowmoon Valley calm, the more I’m enjoying my Garrison. Life however is very much a learning curve and thus I thought I’d share with you all the handful of facts that I’ve only just figured out despite having been level 100 since the 16th of November.

1. Getting a Follower as Green or Blue whilst obviously not as awesome as getting them as Purple is not the end of the world.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

As you can see from my rather messy UI, both of these screenshots depict the robot belonging to Snowflower. The first one shows him in the state I found him in and the latter shows his condition many missions later.

2. If your minions have good enough gear, you can potentially get better items than you can get from the Raid Finder purely through missions.

Kit a bunch of them out in item level 630 gear (the Salvage yard is great for this) and cross your fingers. So far Mr Harpy has received a 645 chest and 645 boots from letting his Followers take the strain whilst he’s been out at work. I must admit I have mixed feelings about this, should NPCs essentially go and fetch you higher item level gear than you get playing with other random people in a multi player game but it does give you options when you’re looking to gear up for raiding.

3. If you possess a Stables, favourite the Mounts you want on the Mounts collection screen and watch them turn up.

Here are my favourites and yes, they can all be loosely classed as horses. Below you can see half of my level 3 Stables complete with said Horses wandering around.

4. Mining is a nightmare with a level 3 Mine, however the best way to make it as pain free and quick as possible is to use the Goren Garb because it makes you roll both cuter and faster. The egg you loot this from does however take seven days to hatch so the sooner it’s picked up the better. You loot the egg from a Cracked Goren Egg in Gorgrond and instructions on the actual location can be found on the WoWhead page.

There is definitely a world of potential out there with the Garrisons and it will be interesting to see how Blizzard keep taking it forward as we move through the patches.

Home Sweet Home – The Garrisons are coming

Given that I won’t be leveling straight away due to Mr Harpy’s work schedule, the first thing I’m probably going to do when I wake up on Thursday morning is start establishing Garrisons for the many Alts. This naturally has required some planning and whilst I’m still torn about a couple of buildings on some characters, I thought I’d share my rough Garrison master plan.

Snowflower – Holy Priest and mostly main

My ultimate goal for Snowflower will be as follows:

Building Name	Size of Plot	Rational behind choice
Dwarven Bunker	Large	Given that I haven’t raided at all in Cataclysm, a slightly higher chance to get decent upgrades whilst questing would be useful.I like the transmogrification sets, especially the cloth one which can be gathered through the Bunker.Making my seals of tempered fate go further will be useful given how much I hate farming.
Stables	Large	Show me a list and I’m hooked. Collecting whether mounts, pets or toys is a massive draw to me so being able to get mounts through the Stables is a big part of the attraction.As a Holy Priest being able to gather quest items on the go rather than necessarily having to dismount and fight suits me when solo.Being dazed is up there with the suppression rooms in terms of my pet WoW hates. Riding 20 percent faster on Draenor means getting places faster and could be handy for that odd bit of world PvP.
Lunarfall Inn	Medium	Ignoring the RP aspect, i.e. how can you have a Garrison without an Inn.. this appeals again to the collector in me. There are two pets, the adorable Everbloom Peachick and the Sentinel’s Companion available from questing through the Inn as well as toys like Gamon’s Braid and the Void Totem.
Trading Post	Medium	Whilst reputations are perhaps less important in this expansion than they have been in the past, i.e. not providing much in the way of gear upgrades, they do give toys and pets.  I’m also particularly interested in both Wrynn’s Vanguard as they allow you to acquire some PvP gear and also the Sha’tari Defense whose goodies are only available through the Trading Post.
Engineering Works	Small	One of Snowflower’s primary professions
Alchemy Lab	Small	One of Snowflower’s primary professions plus I’ll already have a herb gatherer in Draenor before Snow due to leveling constraints.
Enchanter’s Study	Small	Because disenchanting always comes in useful.

 

I chose to leave out the Barracks because I’m not hugely interested in the whole follower side, I know not having it will slow down my efforts to get 20 followers to 100 in order to upgrade my Dwarven Bunker but I can live with that. I also don’t like the idea of having a “body guard” whilst out and about given that I already have one in the shape of Mr Harpy and our experiences with NPCs has been lacklustre to say the least, i.e. pulling extra mobs, keeping them in combat with you whilst you’re trying to shadowmeld to avoid dying etc. In fact I’m not particularly keen on this building on any character but Mentzelia will probably draw the short straight mostly because I’m not that good at being a Boomkin.

Whilst I love the look of the Mage Tower, I didn’t feel that it brought enough to the table other than looking pretty. My Mage however will obviously have one because … well you can hardly call yourself a Mage without a Tower now can you! My Warlock will also probably have one because she wants everything that Mages have.

Sproutling will definitely be picking up the Barn, both because it’s useful for tailoring and also because being a Gnome she wants to get herself a pygmy cow.

Saying no to the Gladiator’s Sanctum was hard on my main but I suspect my Mage will be picking up and blowing the ashes off the bones. Plus out of combat regen isn’t particularly important to a healer.

Needless to say that by Friday, this table could be completely obsolete.

For proper Garrison suggestions, driven by something other than what in my personal option looks good, check out the Godmother’s wonderfully awesome Garrison guide complete with everything you need to know about Garrisons.

My Garrison Wishlist

The WoW Insider Breakfast topic a couple of days ago asked what we’d like to see in our Garrisons and as it happens, I have quite a list.

1. A Garden

I don’t just mean somewhere to plant herbs and cabbages but a proper garden, a place for relaxation and reflection. Dulca is a herbalist and a botanist at heart and would love an area to show off her exotic plants. Bonsai from the Jade Forest and swamp-like plants from Isle of Giants, twisted ferns and poisonous berries. Just think of all the possibilities, the Stratholme Lily (the off-hand you buy from the dungeon) could be planted and grow into something like this:

Merchants could have either seeds or strange little plants on them and players could customize their gardens to suit their characters. Rogues and Undeads in general might want twisted poisonous plants whereas Healers might to want to grow healing herbs. Perhaps as a herbalist bonus, whenever you pick herbs, you might have a chance to get a plantable version which would flower in your garden every day, allowing you a quick and easy source of materials for flasks.

2. The ability to customize properly.

That to me at least was the biggest letdown with the farm. When it was first introduced, I wanted to be able to pick furnishings and bits and pieces for it. I love the fact that each friend you make gives you an new addition, for example Dulca has finally got pigs on hers but I feel it could have been expanded more. Why can’t we add items that we acquire on our travels, for example this:

It could also be handy as a method of showing off the various items we get from archaeology. The wind chimes could hang in a window for example

3. I’m also hoping for these:

Having somewhere quiet to practice whenever you change spec or level a new character can be priceless.

4. A Proper Stable

One in which you can have some mounts out and about at all times so you can show guests the pride of your collection as well as feel that you don’t just have all these poor creatures stuck in a void in the twisting nether until you need them.

The kennel would be a massive bonus and one I’d adore.

5. A cosy fire side nook

Most of all, though, I want something like this:

Somewhere I can sit by the fire after a long day slaughtering Orcs with my faithful hound and my books and a good Dalaran Red to relax. Somewhere there aren’t any Nightelfs taking off their clothes unless I’ve invited in them and no one is mentioning dirges, just peace and quiet.