WoW Warlords of Draenor: The system of followers

The most recent expansion to the World of Warcraft introduces dozens of heroes into the game, who can be recruited. These are AI-controlled characters but, to a limited extend, you can issue orders. Each one has a name, a backstory, race, class, and special abilities. The majority of the followers progress in experience, just like you do, they may be at levels between 90 and 100, i.e. it is the same as in your case. They also gain experience by completing missions and, as soon as they gain enough of it, they progress to the next level. With time, they can also obtain new abilities, which come in handy during missions, and which make them more versatile. After a follower reaches level 100, you can give him gear that bolsters his power even more.

As you can see, it is best to dispatch this follower in the party from Daenea, against Arakkoa. She can also be assigned to one of your buildings.

It is worthwhile to have a closer look at the abilities of your followers. The most important category is "abilities". We will take a closer look at "Traits" later on.

The abilities determine which attacks can be countered by your follower, which is tightly connected with the missions that you dispatch him on. It is a good idea to focus now on what the missions look like. Each mission is to dispatch between one and three followers against one, or several opponents. Each of the opponents has one, or several, special abilities, e.g. Danger zones. What you need to do is dispatch the follower that has the ability to counter such attacks. Usually, one attack can be countered by several different abilities of your followers. In the case of the Danger Zones, the ones in question are e.g. Sprint or Heroic Leap. Fortunately, in the followers selection menu, you learn which of the characters have the required ability. Things get much more difficult later into the game, when you, e.g. want to complete 8 missions, but you do not know how to distribute the followers, to tip the scales over to your side.

This follower has the Bodyguard ability, thanks to which he can accompany you throughout the game.

The situation is even more complex, if you want to learn about the traits of your followers. To make things easier, I have put them into three categories:

The first one is the divisions into the followers with and without the Bodyguard ability. What does make it so important? It determines if a follower can accompany you, while completing the quests in Draenor, i.e. if they can aid you in combat. To use this ability, you first need to upgrade the Barracks to tier two. The function of the follower, in the party, may vary, depending on his class. He may be a tank, a healer or an assault. In each of the cases, however, he is much needed help.

The second group are the traits connected with professions. Some of your followers may have abilities such as Blacksmithing, Tailoring or any other, directly connected with a profession. Such followers can be assigned to individual buildings, whose main functions are connected with that profession. You receive the option to assign a follower to a building after you upgrade that building to tier two. If, e.g. one of your followers has Mining, you can assign him to the garrison mine, which additionally profits you. You need to remember though that the assigned followers cannot be dispatched on missions.

The third group of traits are the ones connected with profits to mission success. Thanks to some of them, your follower is more proficient at killing a specific type of enemies. Thanks to other traits, you receive a bonus after you dispatch the follower on a jungle mission, whereas there is a completely other trait to determine interracial relations. If you dispatch, on a mission, a dwarf with the Gnome-Lover trait, and a Gnome you receive an increased chance of the mission's success. In truth, however, such traits and factors are so plentiful that they are, probably, impossible to grasp. Additionally, their effect on the chance of success of the mission is so low that waste a dozen-or-so minutes to assemble the entire party.

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor

November 13, 2014

Rate It!

• Overview
• Guide