The Draenor expansion is full of awesome stuff. I’m going to list a few here and add to it as more occur to me.
If you are new to Draenor you might as well work toward flight as you level. Go to Wowhead and bookmark the flying progress tool. As you work through each region, finish the requirements for Draenor flight. When you get to Tanaan you’ll be most of the way through the required achievements.
Sergeant Crowler in your garrison sells a potion of accelerated learning. It costs 100 garrison resources and increases your xp for one hour. If you’re in a hurry to level it’s a must purchase.
Make sure you have Handinotes and Handinotes:Draenor addons loaded so all the treasures show on the map. Collect them as you go. You will need the garrison resources.
You can equip three warforge crafted items at level 91. Watch the auction house and get the best buys you can. If the stats aren’t perfect you can buy items that reroll the stats to those more favorable to your build. If you are an alchemist you can make a 620 trinket. You need the stone for some of the alchemy transmutes and this stone does not count toward your warforge crafted limit of three.
There are a plethora of followers in Draenor.
- Collect Fen Tao (standing next to the town hall steps in Stormshield) when you fly there to do the quest line that gets you Delvar (bodyguard follower).
- Get Romuul (jewelcrafting), Rulkan (quest line, blacksmithing) and Shelly Hamby (quest line, leatherworking) while you’re running Shadowmoon Valley.
- There are two followers in Gorgrond that aren’t apparent, Blook (beat him up) and Tormmok (protect him). Look them up for the coordinates. They’re both down by Bastion Rise. There are a couple others you’ll get when you quest through.
- In Talador pick up Ahm (inscription), Pleasurebot 5000 (tailoring) and Ilona (bodyguard). Choose the artillery outpost ability in Talador and bomb the npcs for an easy peasy win for Ilona. Artillery is the best choice here because you’ll use it in Tanaan . . . a lot. Save yourself 5000g by choosing artillery the first time. Yup, been there.
- In Spires of Arak get Leorajh (bodyguard). The other followers here are questline. Make sure you read the linked follower guide and watch vids on how to get Leorajh. Without flying he’s a bit difficult to get to.
- In Nagrand get Lantresor (quest line, mining follower) and Abu’gar (collect scattered parts).
This is a bit of a repeat but . . . if you are a blacksmith or will have a blacksmithing hut, make sure you get Rulkan in Shadowmoon Valley (Alliance, Horde has a similar follower). As a follower assigned to the blacksmithing hut, she provides a 4 hour buff that protects your armor and provides a elemental to fight with you which, other than bodyguards, makes her the best follower in the game.
In Spires of Arak get the Peon Mining Pick. If you have mining it cuts mining time in half. It stacks with the Preserved Mining Pick Lunarfall Excavation buff and reduces your Lunarfall Excavation node mining time to half a second (this is for everyone, not just toons with mining profession). With the mining pick in your bag and the mining pick buff onboard, it takes longer to loot than to mine. Sweet! Oh, and Miner’s Coffee stacks. The funniest in-game thing at the moment is male Panda monk on three stacks of miner’s coffee. OMGosh. And if you’re efficient you can complete the mine in the three minute limit of miner’s coffee. If you can’t due to goren infestation, the stack renews to the full three minutes when a new miner’s coffee is added so don’t start with a stack of five or you won’t have room to add one.
In Nagrand get Gorepetal’s Gentle Grasp. It cuts gathering time in the garden in half for everyone. If the toon has the herbalism profession it cuts gathering to half a second Draenor wide. This and the Peon Mining Pick don’t have to be equipped but they do need to be in your bag to provide the buff. Gorepetal doesn’t show up on the map if you’re running NPCScan (addon) until you’re right up against the cave.
Buff tents are a new thing in Draenor. They provide a 10% stats buff like the rested bonus you get from staying in an inn and the effect stacks with other buffs. The tents are made by the leatherworking follower (Shelly Hamby from Shadowmoon Valley for Alliance) assigned to the leatherworking hut. They only stack to five though there are so many varieties of tents you could fill a bag with the variety available. They are account bound and can be sent cross server/faction. They can be used by level one toons. The buff drops off in dungeons and raids and if you logout. It doesn’t stick like most other buffs.
Bodyguards! Let’s hear it for bodyguards! Once you have a level 2 barracks you can assign a bodyguard to your barracks from the architect’s table. Pick up the bodyguard at the steps to the barracks. If you kill off your bodyguard you can unassign that one and assign another. The steward in the barracks sells a device that let’s you micro-size your bodyguard. The need for this will become clear once you start running with a bodyguard. Tormmok is enormous and Leorajh is only a little bit smaller. Oh, and get the addon BodyguardAway so you don’t get the annoying window up every time you accidentally click your bodyguard. One more thing on bodyguards. Their strength/survivability/damage/heals is dependent on your item level. You can take a level 94 bodyguard and s/he will do impressive things if your gear score is nice and high. If your gear score sucks, taking a 675 geared bodyguard is going to do you no good. Their effectiveness scales to your gear, not theirs.
Crafts and crafting . . . There are three methods of updating your armor in Draenor. For crafted items you can purchase the first upgrade pat from the trainer in your profession hut. The first three crafted upgrades require Savage Blood which is gotten from a level 3 barn. Until you’ve got your gear completely through the first three upgrades a barn is a must. Each upgrade takes 15 savage blood. Suck it up, build the barn . . . after you do Oralius’s quest (inn or tavern) and get the crystal. This is the on-steroids version of the Crystal of Insanity we all sought on Timeless isle. So, build the inn first, watch for Oralius, run Blackrock Spire (dungeon), get the crystal and replace the inn with the barn. All the other inn quests require Silver on the Proving Ground. That’s great stuff for later but to start . . . you just need the crystal and the quest and dungeon for that item don’t require heroic.
The second upgrade for crafted items requires a pattern purchased from the daily trader. Herb trader has alchemy and inscription pats. Ore trader has blacksmithing and engineering pats. Leather trader has leatherworking pats. Fur trader has tailoring pats. Dust trader has enchanting pats. The traders are on a five day cycle, herb-ore-dust-fur-leather. Excess raw mats can be traded to the traders for primal spirits and the traders will all have a handover quest for 25 primal at a cut rate. So if you’re a leatherworker and have collected stacks of ore and herbs and dust (from DEing your gear) visit the right trader and swap it for primals to boost your production of your profession’s soulbound mat. Sweet!
Garrisons! There’s so much going on here there’s no way I can adequately cover it all. The internet is a great resource and wowhead rocks. You can visit another person’s garrison to use their huts or the daily trader. Go to the dungeon eyeball, click premade groups, custom groups and type in the search box. You can find someone with an enchanting studio and disenchant all your soulbound gear for the mats (once you join the group click your picture and view leader’s garrison) or use their enchanting follower’s enchant effect on your weapon. When you’re done visiting you’ll want to leave group, then click your pic and view your garrison. If you don’t you’ll get chucked out way past the Bling rock and have to hoof it back.
