Introduced in World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, players in control of a garrison can assign their followers to complete missions that vary in duration. Once assigned to a mission, followers become unavailable for its duration and proceed unaccompanied. At the conclusion of a mission, players can learn the outcome by returning to the garrison, where a mission report will be waiting. If successful, the report encloses a small reward that generally scales with mission duration and difficulty.
Following the launch of World of Warcraft: Legion some missions have had their rewards changed (i.e. gold to garrison resources) and bonus experience rewards were removed.
One of the main uses of followers is to send them on missions. Missions are special undertakings which the player can send groups of followers to fulfill, ranging from 30-minute quests to day-long raids featuring a full party of three followers. Successful missions can reward resources for developing the garrison and crafting reagents, as well as actual player loot usable by the character. In addition, missions serve to earn followers experience, slowly increasing their level and improving their abilities.
Each mission has its own name, follower level (similar to player instances), specific duration, group size requirement, and other characteristics. Players can view available missions through the interface and choose which followers to send on a mission. Some missions are unlocked through having specific buildings. Missions are specific to the garrisons feature, and are not related to any playable content.
Mission types[]
Players can choose to send their followers on three different types of missions:
Battle[]
Battle missions, marked with a pair of crossed swords, are the standard type of mission, and reward XP, gold, [Garrison Resources], and character equipment. Mission duration can run from 30 minutes to 8-10 hours for normal missions and up to 23 hours and 55 minutes for a few special rare missions.
Patrol[]
Patrol missions, marked with a spyglass, are unlocked after building the Barracks. These missions offer higher-than-normal follower experience.
Treasure Hunter[]
Treasure Hunter missions, marked with a money roll, are unlocked after building the level 3 Lunarfall Inn or Frostwall Tavern. These missions offer bonus gold.
Level 100 missions[]
Level 100 missions are split into several categories, based on the average item level required for the mission.
Item level 600 missions reward item level 615 character equipment and tokens to boost follower item level to 615
Item level 615 missions reward item level 630 character equipment and tokens to boost follower item level to 630
Item level 630 missions reward item level 645 character equipment and tokens to boost follower item level to 645
Item level 645 missions reward a [Cache of Highmaul Treasures], which, based on the controlling character's progress in Highmaul, will award a Normal-mode (item level 655), Heroic-mode (item level 670), or Mythic-mode (item level 685) piece of loot from the raid.
(Patch 6.1) Item level 660 missions reward a cache of [Blackrock Foundry Spoils], which, based on the controlling character's progress in Blackrock Foundry, will award a Normal-mode (item level 665), Heroic-mode (item level 680), or Mythic-mode (item level 695) piece of loot from the raid
Item level 675 missions reward various loot
Rare[]
Rare missions can be any of the above types, but they are available less frequently. Completing rare missions awards [A Rare Mission] and [Keeping It Rare].
Loot[]
Successful missions will yield a variety of loot, including follower-specific gear, usable player gear and bonus follower experience. Player gear available will include some normal mode raid pieces and maybe a few heroic raid quality items towards the end of the raid tier.[1] Mythic raiders will be fine without making use of their garrisons.[1]
Counters[]
To increase the likelihood of mission success, the player can select followers who are able to counter the abilities of the mission's target enemies. By default, followers can counter the specified threats. When hired or upgraded in quality, followers may gain additional counters. Additionally, through the use of a Follower Re-training Certificate, all abilities and traits may be rerolled, in which case this table no longer applies.