Why I Love WoW’s New Follower Dungeons

I’ll get straight to the point here, folks: I think the new Follower Dungeon mechanic introduced to World of Warcraft in Patch 10.2.5 is genuinely my favorite feature added to the game in a very long while. If you’re so inclined, stay awhile and listen as I do my best to effectively and concisely explain why that is. I had quite a bit more I wanted to say about this addition in my first article on Patch 10.2.5, but I cut all that out for the sake of brevity.

If you don’t know what I mean when I say “Follower Dungeons,” let me bring you up to speed. You can now play through all eight Normal-difficulty Dragonflight dungeons by yourself or with a group of up to three friends, provided you and any potential group mates are all between level 60-70. If you’re flying solo or if your group is missing a tank, a healer, and/or any damage dealers, those roles will be filled by NPC followers who will delve into the depths of your current dungeon alongside you.

If you’ve gone through Exile’s Reach as your chosen starting zone for any new characters on either faction, you’ll likely know all the possible followers you could be grouped with inside Follower Dungeons. Captain Garrick, a Paladin, serves as the tank if your group needs one; Crenna Earth-Daughter, a Druid, is the default healer NPC; and Meredy Huntswell (a Mage), Shuja Grimaxe (a Shaman), and Austin Huxworth (a Hunter) will assume the roles of any damage dealers you might need to fill out a standard dungeon group.

It seems to me as though a good deal of thought has gone into developing the AI for these NPC followers. The AI isn’t perfect, of course, but I think it’s pretty good so far. I haven’t personally participated in a very large sample size of Follower Dungeons yet, admittedly, but I have completed at least one such dungeon as a tank, a healer, and a damage dealer. I now have at least a little experience in each role, so I hope that makes me at least somewhat qualified to discuss my thoughts on how well the NPCs perform.

For instance, Meredy Huntswell and Crenna Earth-Daughter will automatically cast Arcane Intellect and Mark of the Wild on the entire group, respectively, both as soon as you load into the dungeon and in the event that anyone in the group happens to die before you complete the dungeon. Meredy will also conjure a Refreshment Table at the start of each dungeon run so that you can grab plenty of conjured food to heal up if you need it.

Each time you load into a Follower Dungeon, you’ll see a button that lets you toggle between instructing one of the NPCs in your group to lead the party through the dungeon, allowing one of your human friends to take the lead if you aren’t flying solo, or telling the NPCs to follow your lead. You can freely toggle between these settings at any time. Having one of my NPC allies take charge has been a huge help for me so far considering I don’t know my way through any of the available dungeons just yet.

I also quite like the fact that the followers who have access to healing spells aren’t afraid to use them whenever necessary. I’ve seen Captain Garrick heal group members and herself with Flash of Light if things start getting dicey, and Shuja Grimaxe often does the same with Healing Surge. Most of the possible followers also have means of resurrecting any fellow NPCs who might die in battle. Heck, even Austin Huxworth carries Expedition Jumper Cables that allow him to help with that if necessary.

However, the NPCs won’t resurrect you or any other players in the party if you die, so you’ll have to release your spirit and regroup at the start of the dungeon. It seems Blizzard even decided to make it appear as if the NPC followers “rage-quit” on you if all human players in the dungeon group die: You’ll see messages stating that all NPCs have left the instance group in such cases, but they’ll reappear again right away once you release your spirit.

I’d say there are currently three main reasons I enjoy Follower Dungeons so much. For one, even though the AI isn’t totally flawless, at least I can be sure that no followers will shout at me for underperforming in my assigned role. I have what I would describe as a borderline irrational fear of being yelled at by anyone in a group activity alongside me in WoW, so I don’t have the words to express just how nice a feeling it is not having that worrying possibility in the back of my mind.

For two, doing Follower Dungeons gives me a good source of gold, experience points, and appropriate gear for my level and class specialization. There is the unfortunate caveat that you receive 5% less experience for each NPC in a dungeon group with you (so 20% less experience than normal if you’re flying solo), but that’s a price I’m more than willing to pay for all the amenities this system offers players like myself who are very hesitant to do group content with other players. I can also complete dungeon quests by doing Follower Dungeons, which is really convenient.

Lastly, Follower Dungeons allow me to practice my skills as a tank and/or a healer in a dungeon environment without aggravating that deep-seated anxiety I have about making any other players mad at me because I don’t heal efficiently enough or can’t manage to properly hold enemy aggro. I can tell I’ve still got a lot of improving to do as both a tank and a healer, but I can finally “come out of my shell” and stop playing exclusively damage classes in dungeons. It’s quite liberating to not be relegated to either “smack thing with a weapon” or “cast damage spells at thing” ad infinitum.

I’d like to conclude by sharing my personal “wish list” of changes and additions I’d really like to see made to the Follower Dungeon system as it matures. Most of all, I would absolutely love to be able to complete dungeons from past (and future) expansions via Follower Dungeons so that I can fill in the gaps in my knowledge of each expansion’s story. Heck, being able to do Timewalking dungeons with NPCs for the relevant repeatable quests would be wonderful, but I get the feeling Blizzard wouldn’t consider implementing that.

I also hope Follower Dungeons are made available for dungeon difficulties higher than Normal. I’d like to think I understand why Blizzard would be hesitant to add this feature to Mythic+ dungeons, since I’ve always gotten the impression that Mythic+ dungeon runs are supposed to be as much of a social affair as they are a test of skill (especially among players in the same guild), but I think adding in the ability to do Heroic and “regular Mythic” Follower Dungeons would be fantastic.

At the time of writing, there’s currently a limit of ten Follower Dungeons per day. I have no idea if that limit is per-character, per-account, or what, but I’d still like to see this limit either raised or removed entirely at some point. I’d imagine one reason Blizzard implemented this cap is so that players can’t power-level from 60 to 70 within a day exclusively by doing Follower Dungeons, but I still think the cap is a bit unfortunate. Even so, I wouldn’t be surprised if Blizzard does end up adjusting or ditching any limits on Follower Dungeons eventually.