How to use follower dungeons to improve your gameplay

A new feature introduced in Warcraft patch 10.2.5, Follower Dungeons allow solo or a small group of players to queue into normal 5-player dungeons where the rest of the party will be filled with AI controlled NPCs. Follower Dungeons will fill the party to cover any missing roles to a final party of one tank, one healer, and three DPS. There is a fixed pool of NPCs for the AI to draw on, and the composition of the AI NPCs will depend on which roles you select when joining the group. If you change roles mid way through the dungeon, it will disband and reform the group with the same current dungeon progress, remaking the party to the fixed tank/healer/three DPS composition.

Want to know more about patch 10.2.5? Check out our guide to all of the major features in Dragonflight patch 10.2.5: Seeds of Renewal!

The possible followers include:

• Captain Garrick, Human Protection Paladin (tank)
• Crenna Earth-Daughter, Tauren Restoration Druid (healer)
• Austin Huxworth, Worgen Beast Mastery Hunter (ranged DPS)
• Meredy Huntswell, Dwarven Fire Mage (ranged DPS)
• Shuja Grimace, Orc Elemental Shaman (ranged DPS)

It is a mixed faction group, and all the AI DPS are ranged, allowing them to stand back. They will buff and generally behave as ‘good’ party members (Meredy will put out a mage table, for instance). You have the choice on whether you set the pace for the instance or if you’d prefer the NPCs to show you the way, by toggling the Dungeon Assistance zone action button between modes. If all player controlled characters die, the party will disband, and respawn when you resurrect.

How to access Follower Dungeons

To enter the Follower Dungeons you need to queue using the Group Finder. It’s a different, special type of dungeon queue similar to holiday and timewalking dungeon queues.

You can queue a group up to 4 players, with a minimum character level of 60, but no minimum gear level requirement. The queue should pop almost immediately, but can take a minute or two if the instance server is full. As usual with Group Finder, your entire group will need to be in a party together before queueing, everyone will need to choose a role, and will need to set their character to that role when you enter if you aren’t already in that spec.

Why would you use Follower Dungeons?

When Follower Dungeons were announced, the first question I had was, “can you use follower dungeons to teach you how to play a new class or role?” I have come to the conclusion that the answer to this is no.

Within my guild it has been a running joke that despite having played World of Warcraft since launch, I do not tank, and asking me to tank is a very very bad idea. I have played every other role in the game at some point and have a fairly broad cast of somewhat abandoned alts while continuing to largely play my Druid main. Learning to tank has been on my to-do list for a while and I thought this was a great opportunity to see if this would be useful.

I tried. I tried setting the instance to myself setting the pace, or setting it to an NPC pulling. I was awful in every way, and beyond deliberately over-pulling to a ridiculous extent, I couldn’t wipe the party. Even when half the adds were on the NPC players, they didn’t die. It might be different playing a healer, but to be honest there was essentially no jeopardy at any point during the instances, so there is no external pressure to improve.

When you trigger a boss encounter, one of the NPCs will make a comment as an emote in the chat window explaining the most significant mechanic of the boss fight, but it’s on you to notice this. They never provide any feedback on things you do right or wrong, meaning any improvement has to come entirely from you critically examining your play-style and effectiveness, and researching how to do better. It’s important to make the distinction between can I learn how to play a new class or role, versus will it teach me. Teaching someone a new skill requires active assistance from the teacher, directing your progression and providing constructive feedback so you can improve. Follower dungeons will not do that.

What Follower Dungeons will do is it will let you practice and improve your skills with a class or role you are not familiar with, and give you the opportunity for self-directed learning. It will give you an opportunity to explore the instance and get a feel for the boss mechanics and the path through the dungeon before joining a regular LFG party.

Note that Blizzard have announced that on launch of 10.2.5, there will be a 10 dungeon per day limit per account. Meaning that while you may be able to get a leg up on levelling a new character this way, you won’t be able to power level to the level cap using this feature.