Blizzard
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 Level 1 in your first large plot.At Garrison
Tier 1, 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
Lunarfall Excavation / Frostwall Mines Level 1 at character level 92, the
Fishing Shack Level 1 at level 94, the
Herb Garden Level 1 at level 96, and the
Menagerie Level 1 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 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 Level 1 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 Level 1 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 Level 3, 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).The
Mage Tower / Spirit Lodge Level 1 is remarkably powerful. From the moment you build one (or its Horde variant, the Spirit Lodge), you’ll start collecting
Ogre Waystone 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 Level 1, 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 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 (
Armored Frostboar,
Armored Frostwolf), 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,
"Skyterror" Personal Delivery System,
Sentry Turret Dispenser, and
GG-117 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.