Answering your Shipyard and Tanaan Jungle questions

Patch 6.2 brought a lot of new content to World of Warcraft, and where there’s new content, there’s room for confusion. So instead of a new WoW Rookie guide this week we’ve taken your questions about your garrison’s shipyard and Tanaan Jungle content. Not quite sure how to make your shipyard go (or why you should care)? Not convinced of the necessity of heading into Tanaan Jungle? We’ve got the answers to your patch 6.2 questions right here.

We’re used to the standard garrison upgrade process, in which you quest, level your garrison, or get achievement to unlock blueprints which, when acquired, let you construct buildings or upgraded buildings from the table in your town hall. But the shipyard, for as much as it’s part of your garrison… isn’t really part of your garrison. If you go looking for upgrades in the same old place, you’ll see that the shipyard isn’t even on the map — which can be a stumbling point.

However, leveling your shipyard is actually really easy, if not necessarily the way we’re used to doing things around the garrison. Upgrading the shipyard to level 2 and then level 3 is just a quest chain — when you finish the quests, the upgrade automatically happens. There’s no visual change when your shipyard is upgraded, instead you just move on to the next quest. Out of quests? Then your upgrading process is over. Here’s what you should look for:

• Upgrading the Fleet (Alliance) / Upgrading the Fleet (Horde), which requires you to complete 15 naval missions as well as turn over 1000 garrison resources and 1000 gold. If you’ve had your garrison for a while, the resources shouldn’t be a problem, but finishing the naval missions — which can take a couple of days per mission — can take a while.
• Naval Domination (Alliance) / Naval Domination (Horde), which requires you to complete 25 naval treasure missions as well as turn over 2500 garrison resources and 2500 gold. Like the last stage of this, it’s the missions that are likely to slow you down.

At level 2, you’ll be able to have 8 ships and learn how to build submarines. You’ll need a shipyard that’s at least level 2 to complete the legendary questline in this patch. At level 3, you’ll get 10 ships and learn how to build carriers.

In short, just keep questing: you’ll get your upgrades, but you’ll need to be patient in order to get through those naval missions.

Though the shipyard is out and out required to tackle certain pieces of game content — notably, access to the Tanaan Jungle zone and completion of the latest phase of the legendary quest — that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to keep grinding away at it any more than you need to keep grinding away at follower missions. If you find it a fun type of gameplay, you should keep at it — but if not, don’t.

As they stand right now, I feel like naval missions aren’t quite as rewarding as ordinary garrison missions, which offer many similar rewards in terms of gold, gear, crafting materials, and apexis crystals — only naval missions take longer and amassing a fleet with all the appropriate counters takes time (and plenty of grinding through Tanaan to collect the right ship equipment). All in all, it feels like more effort to get similar rewards — but if you thought follower missions were dull and uninvolved, you’ll certainly find these more engaging.

However, while the time/reward ratio may feel off, the rewards aren’t bad. The gear rewards start at ilvl 650 (the same “baleful” gear you’ll find in Tanaan), which can be great for gearing up to start Hellfire Citadel LFR if you aren’t already there (and you haven’t quested through Tanaan enough to collect a whole set yet). On top of that, you can find naval missions that reward treasure chests with epics ranging from ilvl 685 to ilvl 735 — better than you’ll get in ordinary follower missions. The downside, however, is that you’ll need to sink some time into building an armada that’s appropriately geared to counter all the naval threats on the board — and unless you enjoy naval missions, heading into LFR (which rewards ilvl 685 gear) will certainly be quicker.

But on top of the gear there are some rewards that are unique to the shipyard — if they strike your fancy, you’ll probably want to focus on running missions until you manage to pick them up.

• Heirlooms rings for strength, agility, and intellect
• The Mudback Riverbeast mount
• The Left Shark battle pet
• A quest to access to the Black Market Auction House from your garrison, via the Waterlogged Manifest

If any of those rewards seem worthwhile to you, then the shipyard is worthwhile. If you’re not concerned with them, however, you can carry on disregarding the shipyard.

Though I dare say this questioner already knows the answer, it’s a good point to bring up to shipyard neophytes. If you’re struggling with your shipyard — especially the long missions — or having trouble meeting the apexis crystal demands for new gear in Tanaan, the best thing to do is add a Mage Tower (Alliance) or Spirit Lodge (Horde) to your garrison. Once you’ve built one, you’ll start collecting Ogre Waystones when you defeat Draenor Ogres in combat. You can use these for transportation, but once you level your Mage Tower/Spirit Lodge to 2, we think they have a better use: you can turn in 5 of them for a stack of apexis crystals and the chance to get Mission Completion Orders. These orders let you instantly complete any mission, but they’re most useful for speeding up your shipyard’s sometimes long missions (though mission length has been decreased in a recent hotfix, so you may not feel this as essential).

The only problem, really, is choosing which large building you don’t need in order to make room for the Tower/Lodge. With only two large plots, it can be a tough choice — but if you want to speed up your naval progress, it’s worth making the space (and spending some time farming ogres).

While much has been made of Tanaan’s Timeless Isle-style gear and treasure drops, which can speed your way to ilvl 650 to start on Hellfire Citadel, there’s more to do there. However, just like the shipyard question we discussed earlier, whether it’s worth doing is really going to depend on your game goals and what you consider to be fun. Even if you’re only interested in your raid game and not in any cosmetic items or toys, there’s a few things of interest in Tanaan: the latest incarnation of Kazzak and a non-consumable version of the augmented rune. Here’s a full list of what you can find in Tanaan beyond gear:

• If you’re interested in the shipyard, Tanaan offers gear for your ships as well as new ship blueprints through drops or reputation. To get very far with your naval progress, you’ll want to head through Tanaan.
• Even if you’re geared up, you might be interested in fighting Supreme Lord Kazzak, whom you’ll find at Throne of Kil’jaeden. He drops ilvl 705 gear.
• If you enjoy the game’s story, you’ll find a new chapter of the garrison campaign here — if you’ve already completed the previous campaign quests.
• If you’re into pet battling, there are new pets to collect as well as new legendary battle challenges.
• Tanaan’s four new reputations (three for each faction) offer not just gear, but pets, mounts, and the Empowered Augment Rune, a permanent version of the augmented runes you’ve probably already been using if you’re raiding.
• Beyond reputation items, there are lots of drops that you may be interested in even if you don’t need gear, including toys (like Jewel of Hellfire), and transmog items (like the Fel-Proof Googles).
• If you want to learn to fly in Draenor, Tanaan Jungle isn’t optional: you’ll need to raise three of the new reputations to revered in order to get Draenor Pathfinder.
• Tanaan is the only place to get Felblight, patch 6.2’s new crafting material — though you could skip collecting it yourself and pick it up on the auction house instead.
• Hunters can tame the Felbound Wolf.
• There are two titles to collect here, “Predator” and “of the Jungle.”

If any of these things interest you — and considering the amount of ground they cover, there’s likely at least one of the above that strikes your fancy, then there’s something for you in Tanaan.

Have questions that aren’t answered here? Ask them in the comments and you might find them answered here next week!