Resource Follow-up.

The Commandojack

It's a little bit later and there are results to go over in regards to my experience trying to up my garrison resource production. Some useful lessons have appeared.

Upgrade Your Lumber Mill ASAP

I built the level one lumber mill, accomplished the first few quests related to that, and then promptly stopped finding any lumber I could harvest. It was frustrating. The mill sat idle for several days during the holiday weekend when my runs through the world turned up little I could harvest, and my brief forays to generate lumber were also unsuccessful.

Prompted by some guildies, I upgraded to the level 2 mill and found a ton more trees to mark. I also found the Nightmarsh of Shadowmoon Valley to be a fast respawning place to collect two or three days worth of lumber work orders. This is how I imagined the mill was supposed to work.

Scavengers Need Development

We spoke of how follower with the scavenging trait looked to be among the best ways to generate materials. I ata d by that, but find more work is going to be needed for that pay-off.  As noted before, the only way to get a scavenger on your team will be to headhunt one. But any follower brought on board this way is going to be level 90 and thus unsuited for many potential supply runs at the outset. She is going to need leveling, so pair her with training bonus followers and keep her busy even if she's not chasing supplies right away. And on the downside, your scavenger will have other abilities that may or may not make her suited for particular missions. This is a crapshoot and would support hiring one or two others. But more on the foibles of hiring more followers is below. I think I went out and hired my first scavenger immediately after I wrote this and since then, she is underperforming. First, she was too low level to go on the right runs. Then, she most frequently didn't have the right counterskills to bring home the bacon. Third, very few of the resource reward missions have more than one character to assign, so unless something changes, I don't see much opportunity to stack that scavenging bonus either.

Follower Problems

I've reached my 20-follower capacity already and will have to deactivate some to make room for others which seems troublesome. It's hard to pick and choose who to leave on the field since I don't feel like I have my needs covered as it is. And it's hard to find redundancies.

I dislike the uncommon, rare and epic designations of these followers. Obviously, we want them all to be epic, but it feels more like a penalty to have non-epic followers than it does a privilege to have epics. Since they can all level up to epic, it feels like there's a time-sink penalty on any greens. And sadly, it's them I'm looking at to bench first.

The other problem with benching is that it's difficult to compare abilities and traits in the standard UI. I'm probably going to need to make a spread sheet for this job. Which, ugh... Is probably easier than the character stat sheets I've used in the past, but is still a problem. 

I have a follower called Shelley Hamby working in the tannery who says unbelievably rude things every time I click her. As a 95 Green follower, she'd be ripe for the bench, but as a leather worker who is greatly speeding my burnished hide production, she is absolutely invaluable.

My new favorite follower is Leorajh, a Saberon shaman, who is rare and has the bodyguard trait. I thought this would get old quick, but so far I am wrong. Having a bodyguard is the BOMB! Leo produces an appreciable increase to DPS, can heal, and is a huge, hulking presence by my side that I swear seems to disturb other players. He also contributes to my personal RP, often asking, "What learning does Commander bring?" Which makes me think of him more as a protege in shamanism than anything else. Once I build up reputation, (bodyguards have reputation) he'll also be able to give me access to the mission table back at base from anywhere in the world.