I’ve really liked garrisons in Warlords; it’s good to have a home away from home – moreso now that I have dwarfs guarding the garrison of my main. It’s a little slice of Ironforge on Draenor!
The garrison has buildings associated with professions and if you are doing professions you’ll want to have the relevent buildings – if nothing else it’ll generate more of the daily cooldown materials every creation profession has.
You can also assign followers to buildings if they have the associated trait and doing so increases the yield from the building. At level 90 a follower will increase the yield by 50%, rising as they level to 100% at level 100.
I’ve been leveling up the followers I’ll be assigning to buildings since if they’re assigned to a building you can’t send them on a mission unless you unassign them. Blizzard have also said they intend followers to always be assigned to buildings – they’ll fix the trick of only assigning followers to their building when you collect the work orders to still benefit, being able to send the follower out on missions in the meantime. Blizzard have said they give followers assigned to buildings XP – that’s in development however.
The whilst some of the followers below are cross-faction, most are from an Alliance view of the world.
A word of warning – be careful when using items like Supreme Manual of Dance or Hearthstone Strategy Guide – these replace existing traits on a follower with other abilities; it is possible to remove the profession traits a follower has!
You can use the Inn once a week to search for followers with specific traits – including the profession traits below – so you’re not completely stuck if you miss out on any below. Or accidently remove the trait with one of the items above!
If you decide to unassign a follower from their building you can do so from the garrison architect’s table. Select the building and then click the red crossed through circle:
In the table below I’ve noted the level the follower will be when you first encounter them; this is of more importance than their class or abilities as you’re getting these followers for their tradeskill abilities, not their traits. The closer they are to level 100, the less work is required to get them to get them to their full potential.
That said, some of them do have useful traits – eg Rulkan can hex, a counter against deadly minions. More than once I’ve been trying to find the right followers to use, only to see that the perfect follower is helping with my alchemy or fishing!
At the moment you can move a follower away from working on a building to put them on missions, you just have to make sure that they’re back working when you make use of the building. Myself, I prefer to not have to worry about doing that level of management and it feels like something Blizz may well fix in the future – better to get other followers with the traits you need.
| Alchemy | Bruma Swiftstone | Level 90 |
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| A follower you’ll encounter very early on – she becomes a follower during the garrison intro quests and is sent out on one of the first follower missions to be run. | ||
| Blacksmithing | Rulkan | Level 92 |
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You need to follow the Alliance intro quest line A Hero’s Welcome quite far to reach Rulkan.
That is a line you’ll do anyway as it can open up the lvl2 garrison before you hit level 92. However you’ll need to follow the Chasing Shadows mini quest line where you meet Rulkan and learn a little bit more about Ner’zhul. Whilst watching the cutscene in the cave, don’t forget to loot the treasure item in the back of the cave which grants garrison resources. |
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| Enchanting | Ahm | Level 95 |
| You’ll come across Ahm in northern Talador where he offers the quest Dying Wish; complete that and he’ll appear in your Garrison offering a quest to become your follower | ||
| Engineering | Apprentice Artificer Andren | Level 90 |
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This is a somewhat involved quest line which starts with Migrant Workers in your garrison. If you follow that chain you’ll end up helping out the three Exarchs and in the end be offered a choice of followers in Friend of the Exarchs – you can pick between Apprentice Artificer Andren, Rangari Chel and Vindicator Onaala.
An alternative is Kimzee Pinchwhistle, a level 97 follower, who you’ll get doing the quest line in Spires of Arak to get the Salvage Yard garrison plans. That starts with Defungination in the south of Spires of Arak. |
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| Fishing | Nat Pagle | Level 100 |
| A rare quality level 100 follower, Nat Pagle is a nice catch.
Unfortunately it requires you to get a level 3 fishing shack. That means you’ll need:
The last will probably take the longest as you’ll need to fish up a total of 700 enormous fish – 100 of each of the seven types of fish you can get in Draenor. Whilst you do this you’ll end up reaching 700 fishing though, assuming you started at level 600. Every garrison can have a fishing shack, if you want one. It’ll mean you can catch enormous fish at the pool where the fishing shack is based. |
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| Herbalism | Fiona | Level 90 |
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You’ll need to do all of the quests that Fiona and her friends offer to gain her as a follower.
If you’ve done the Eastern Plaguelands quests after their Cata revamp, you may recognise them… Every garrison can have a herb garden – it doesn’t take a normal slot up. |
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| Inscription | Admiral Taylor | Level 96 |
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This takes some work as you have to open up your outpost in the Spires of Arak and do the full quest line of investigating what happened with Admiral Taylor’s garrison.
Make sure you read his diary |
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| Jewelcrafting | Artificer Romuul | Level 92 |
| On the southen edge of Embaari Village in Shadowmoon Valley you’ll see a cross swords event icon. You’ll find Artificer Romuul; speak to him, complete the event and he’ll become your follower. | ||
| Leatherworking | Shelly Hamby | Level 90 |
| You’ll get this follower if you complete the quest line which starts with Lost Lumberjacks. The quest appears when you have a level 2 garrison built. | ||
| Mining | Lantresor of the Blade | Level 99 |
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You’ll need to complete the quest line which starts with They Call Him Lantresor of the Blade in Nagrand. Once you’ve finished off the quest line he’ll wait outside of Telaari Station for you.
Every garrison can have a mine – it doesn’t take a normal slot up. |
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| Skinning | Hulda Shadowblade | Level 96 |
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Gained as a follower if you pick the Brewery as your outpost in the Spires of Arak.
If you took the Smuggler’s Run outpost you’ll have to camp Bolkar the Cruel in Southern Nagrand to gain Goldmane the Skinner as a follower instead. When I tried, Bolkar was rarely spawning and there is some debate as to if he has a long spawn time or just bugs out really easily. Given you can no longer purchase garrison resources from the smuggler’s run, picking the Brewery may be the better option now anyway – although you’ll not be able to make use of the zone buffs and large bag the smuggler also sells. The barn produces feasts for raiding as well as materials for leatherworkers and tailors. At the top end it is the only source of Savage Blood outside of spending 50x Primal Spirits for one blood. Given that you need a 30 savage blood to upgrade a 640 crafted item to 665 – in two steps – this is potentially an important follower to gain. |
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| Tailoring | Pleasure-Bot 8000 | Level 94 |
| You’ll need to do the quest Clear! in central Talador. After turning that in, wait a little bit and the Pleasure-Bot 8000 will come alive and offer a quest to become a follower. | ||
Sivation's musings about WoW... and cooking 
How do you unassign them once you have assigned them? I need on of my characters back in action but can not figure out how to unassign him from the alchemy lab
From the Garrison planner, select the building. There should be a red circle with a cross through it next to the follower.
Clicking on that should unassign them from the building