Thursday, November 27, 2014

World of Warcraft - Bodyguards for your Body in Draenor

Felinos in his DPS Discipline spec -- and Defender Illona.  He needs a lot of defending.|











You And Your Bodyguard

I couldn't wait to upgrade my barracks and get a bodyguard for Draenor, because my main toon, Felinos, is a holy priest.  While he isn't that easy to kill, it does take him longer to kill things, and questing gets tedious.   I upgraded, grabbed Illona as my bodyguard but she seemed to die too easily, so I took on Delvar. 

...and regretted it about ten minutes later. 

It wasn't that he was bad at anything, but he talked constantly, bragged, and got drunk.  He seemed the hypercritical sort -- as though following a (male) priest in a robe (dress) around was beneath him.  Two bodyguards later, I figured out what I was doing wrong.

As with dungeons and raids, bodyguards have one of three roles:  DPS, Tank, or Healer-damage.  Illona was a tank, but I hadn't been treating her as a tank.  Delvar was pure DPS, which meant that a lot of the time the mobs decided a live Night Elf priest looked a lot tastier than a plate-wearing undead Dwarf.  Leorajh is a shammy who heals and does ranged DPS.  And once I got THAT sorted out, things began to make sense.

So consider your role before you pick a follower

Falcos, my druid tank, ended up with Leorajh as a follower.  He needs heals but he does NOT need someone for Competition Tanking (which was what happened when teaming up with Illona.  Felinos, my priest, ended up with Illona because he needs someone to charge in and entertain the mobs while he heals and does ranged damage.

My hunters did better with tanks and melee DPS, and my warlocks seemed to do much better with melee DPS and the Voidwalker as a tank.  I went with ranged DPS for my death knight.


ALLIANCE:
Delvar Ironfist: - melee (Blood) Death Knight
Defender Illona - tanking (Protection) Paladin

HORDE:
Vivianne: - Mage
Aeda Brightdawn: - Warlock

NEUTRAL:
Talonpriest Ishaal: Shadow Priest
Tormmok:  (Arms) Warrior tank
Leorajh: Ranged (Restoration) shaman DPS


You'll notice that you get reputation at 10 points per kill with your bodyguard.  It takes a LOT of kills to get to the next stage.  With the second level of honor, your bodyguard gets a new damage ability.  With the THIRD leve, the bodyguard gets an ability that is useful to you...

Delvar can set up a "death gate" portal to your garrison
Vivianne can open a portal to your garrison.
Illona can use "guiding light" to summon party members to your location
Aeda can set up a summoning stone so you can summon party members

Ishall can bring a raven (mailbox) to your location
Leorajh can set up a garrison mission table for you
Tormmok can repair your armor in the field.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

World of Warcraft Garrisons (Alliance)

Ah yes... SilverGeek is also a Warcraft junkie.  I've been enjoying the new expansion, though learning what to do with the garrisons has been a bit of a head-scratcher.  Although I play-tested both the alpha and beta releases, I was more interested in the quests and storylines and details than I was in playtesting the garrisons.

Still, they're a lot of fun, and it's been interesting to work them.  This set of notes is a general "guide to starting a garrison" as learned (the hard way) by me.

HEARTHSTONES:
The best bit of advice I got was to keep your old hearthstone along with the new garrison hearthstone. Yes, you can use the portals on Ashran (the PVP island) but those are useful only if you want to go to Stormwind or Ironforge.  If you want to go to (say) Shattrath or Darnassus, you have to take the long way around.  Setting your old hearthstone to the main shrine in Pandaria is a much easier solution.

One of the features you'll notice with garrisons is that you do (ugh) get the old "city chat channels" by default.  One of the NEW things you'll notice is that they've limited how frequently you can post something to the chat.  There's less stupid "impress the world" chat and a bit more useful information on it.

BUILDING THINGS
The first building you will learn for your garrison is your barracks, which teaches you how to put buildings in the garrison.  Once it is finished, a reward announcement shows up along with a button that you can drag to your action bar.  You will want to keep this on your action bar -- if you get in trouble or you're trying to take down an elite, clicking on this button gives you reinforcements.

When you go into new areas, you will be able to build a "garrison outpost."
I built the Guardian Orb at Ft. Wrynn because the damage from this lasts longer.
I built the Shredder at Highpass because it gave me a mobile "tank"
I built the Trading Post in Spires of Arak
I built the Tank in Nagrand because it gives you a nice solid fighting vehicle for ten minutes.

 I'm not wimpy, but I don't like dying and I don't like repair bills.

 Shortly after you garrison is in place, other building plans will drop for your professions (though there's no 'kitchen' for cooking.)  You will find that your professions act in very different ways now.  You will eventually get a mine where you can mine ore, and a fishing shack.   At level 95 you can build a lumber mill, at 96 you get a herb garden.

These three professions give you a unit of currency called "garrison resources" (and later, apexis shards).  Gold is not that hard to collect in Draenor, but other things like the apexis shards and garrison resources can be a hard grind. 


LUMBER MILL:
Build this rather than the other choices.  Lumber mill generates Garrison Resources.  The other buildings don't.

DAILY TASKS:
If you are undergeared or don't like wasting time (or are a caster with low DPS), get one of the people in your garrison to follow you around as you collect herbs from your herb garden or mine or do other collection tasks.  Occasionally you get jumped by mobs, and your follower will help you kill them quickly.  Anytime there's a quest inside your garrison (the "seismic" one, for example), get a follower to help.


FOLLOWERS:
Be choosy about which missions you send them on.  Each mission costs (usually 5-10 garrison resources) and you can choose ones that give YOU (yes, you) experience or the occasional epic object or gold (most often) or garrison resources.  My first time through I sent them off on every available mission.  When I hit level 100, I found myself resource-short for garrison upgrades.

At level 95 (or near there) you will get the quest that gives you blueprints for a level 2 barracks.  When you do this, you can go to your "architect board" and assign yourself a bodyguard that follows you all over Draenor and helps you kill things.  This is a great timesaver, because things die faster with help.

EXTRA RESOURCES:
Not everyone in your garrison is honest.  As you prowl around, you will find pilfered supplies (the guy in your fishing pond, the pug... and so forth.)  These are "one time" resources but still pretty handy.