Garrison: Barracks

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Garrison Barracks guide.

[Iridar 80]

I feel like Barracks are one of the less useful buildings, at least from the standpoint of raiding.

 

From what I have seen so far, you don't really *need* lots of followers. The main goal behind missions seems to be leveling followers to lvl 100 to maximize their performance when you make them work for you in profession-related buildings to boost the crafting output. 

 

Other than that, tne only point in doing missions seems to be to get gold/garrison resources. Occassionally you might get gear missions, but maximum ilvl I've seen is 615, which is kinda pointless when heroic dungeons drop 630 gear. 

 

There is probably a tiny chance to get an extra hard mission that would get you a 640 epic gear piece or something else useful, but you don't really need barracks for that, though having 5 extra followers would probably result in higher chance of success.

 

Having barracks will make leveling followers slightly easier and that's all. 

 

Bodyguard out in Draenor is a nice touch, but borderline useless, and it's not like there's much to do out in the world anyway. 

 

I haven't done an in-depth analysis, just an opinion based on my thoughts and observations, so take with a grain of salt.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Iridar

[Iridar 80]

I've learned two important things since I wrote the post above:

 

1) Companions can sometimes go on epic missions and get you pieces of raid-level gear, and that gear will be one raid tier above your current raid difficulty, e.g. if you're raiding on heroic difficulty, the mission will get you mythic level gear piece. 

 

To get these kind of missions you need to gear up your companions. Dwarven Bunker / War Mill and Salvage Yard will help you do it faster. 

 

To have a higher chance of actually succeeding on this mission you need leveled up companions, and the more companions you have, the higher will be the chance that you actually have companions with the right abilities for that mission. 

 

2) You can't use stuff from Gnomish Gearworks / Goblin Workshop in raid or challenge mode dungeon, so this building is absolutely worthless for raiding, as all other large buildings except for Dwarven Bunker / War Mill. 

 

So for those looking to get the most useful buildings for raiding should use Dwarven Bunker / War Mill and Barracks to level up and gear companions faster, and send them on epic missions. 

[Guest Crozz]

It's worth noting that you don't have to do the 50 patrol mission necessary to qualify for the level 3 barracks on a single character.  They are pooled across all characters on the account just as the collection of stone and seeds are for the mine and herb garden respectively.

[Damien 1,514]

It's worth noting that you don't have to do the 50 patrol mission necessary to qualify for the level 3 barracks on a single character.  They are pooled across all characters on the account just as the collection of stone and seeds are for the mine and herb garden respectively.

I do say that the achievement is account-wide.

[Iridar 80]

I got a question: does it matter what level my bodyguard is, whether he's green/blue/purple, and what itemlevel he has?

 

In other words, if I intend to use a companion only as a bodyguard, is there any reason for me to level/gear him at all (to make him a better bodyguard)?

[Akwater 3]

Iridar,  It does not seem to really affect his DPS/Stats,

 

I went from a body guard with a 600 ilvl to 634 and his hp still sits around 100k and his dps has not really went up.

That being said the body guard has been lvl 100 the whole time, so I'm not really sure if it scaled. 

Also to note, which is REALLY annoying is the fact the bodyguard does not take a group slot, meaning unless you set him as a focus you have to click him running around.  (Very annoying as a healer, plus, seriously wtf, I've got 200k hp and a lower Ilvl then him and yet he is a DK and takes damage like crazy...)

[Fouton 266]

If you take a lowbie bodyguard out, they scale to your level immediately, so there is no requirement in leveling them up before using them.