In need of some points to complete this months Traveler’s Log I decided to try out a new feature in World of Warcraft, the follower dungeons. This allows players to experience dungeons solo with the rest of their party being comprised of NPC’s. This new feature doesn’t really come as a surprise to me as almost all the content in the game can now be experienced by just about any skill level. I assume this is why Looking For Raid exists, to allow people to at least see the content without having to go through the process of finding a group. Does WoW actually need four different raiding levels? That’s for another discussion.
My motivation for trying the Follower Dungeons was definitely different than their intended implementation. I wanted to complete the dungeon as fast as possible so I could get my Traveler’s Log points and be done for the month. This is not what these dungeons are for.
My first run I went tank and chose Ruby Life Pools. I figured I could pull the entire first floor and be done quickly. Oh man, the computer players get caught up on one mob and they won’t move until it’s dead. With their DPS alone it takes quite a while. This is to be expected though so not a huge issue. The other runs I went damage spec (Retribution Paladin) and was able to manage much easier. I’d help them clear the bottom floor because I couldn’t take the dragon to the second if they were in combat. Once up top I could solo charge into the key mobs and solo the bosses to finish the dungeon. Each run took about 7 minutes. With this very narrow experience of the follower dungeons let me share my thoughts.
The Good
- Used lusted on the boss!
- The Hunter runs around jumping while shooting which is 100% on brand of the class.
- Know when to mount.
- Sort of know the boss mechanics?
- This mode lets players experience dungeons that otherwise might not.
- Tank will taunt mobs off you.
The Not So Good
- Get hit by boss mechanics, although it doesn’t really matter.
- They move slowly and focus on one mob at a time. There is no chance they group up mobs like normal players. This is expected but feels very weird from normal wow groups.
- Slow pulls and low dps. Again, probably not a real issue for the audience this feature was created for.
I haven’t spent any time looking into why Blizzard actually created this game mode and who the audience for it is. I know it’s not for me and that’s okay. World of Warcraft is a very large game with lots of systems and aspects that not every utilizes. I think there is a small portion of the community who might enjoy this and that’s what matters. For me though I’ll only utilize it when I’m looking for last minute Traveler’s Log points.