World of Warcraft Players Report Characters Battling Bosses Autonomously After Disconnects

There are few things more frustrating in a World of Warcraft dungeon than disconnecting right in the middle of a challenging boss fight. When that happens, I’m instantly hit with a wave of guilt. I’m no longer contributing! I feel like a huge burden! Not only am I missing out on dealing damage at a crucial moment, but I’ll likely just die, forcing my teammates to waste time reviving or healing me. We’ll be slowed down, and if we’re on a Mythic key, our timer will lose precious seconds. It’s a real downer, and I start to think I should never step into a dungeon again.

But it seems I’m not alone in this frustration. Players have recently noticed something peculiar after the latest WoW patch. Instead of characters freezing or disappearing when their players disconnect in dungeons, those characters appear to keep fighting on their own, without any player input.

This has been reported by several players following the big Curse of Ula’tek 12.1 update. One player shared an experience where an Evoker disconnected about 39 seconds into a boss fight. In the video, you can hear them mention the disconnect, yet the Evoker continues to cast spells and engage in combat. The original poster claims this happened twice in different dungeons, and others in the comments have backed up their experience, saying it happened to them or their friends too.

“Okay cool, thought I was confused,” reads a top comment. “This happened today to my brother while he was on his warrior. We were on Discord and his client crashed. He hung there through almost the entire boss fight, and then about 30 seconds into his DC, his warrior charges the boss and starts hitting it. My brother was actively narrating his re-login. According to him, his game hard locked, froze, and he alt+f4’d and relogged in.

“Suuuper weird.”

Other players have speculated about what might be going on. One theory is that the player is actually botting, but that seems like an odd thing to fabricate. Another possibility is that the game’s newer one-button rotation feature could be queuing up actions in advance, allowing the character to continue executing commands that were set before the disconnect. I’m not an expert, but I’m not entirely convinced by that explanation, especially since the Evoker in the dungeon (look for the character with dragon wings) keeps moving after the disconnect. But since I don’t play Evoker, I might be missing something.

A more appealing theory suggests that players who disconnect are temporarily transformed into “followers,” a mechanic that usually allows players to complete easier dungeons with NPC companions. The idea is that a sudden disconnect would let NPC AI take over briefly, executing a roughly optimal rotation and trying to avoid mechanics, giving the player a chance to log back in and regain control. If this is true, it would create a buffer for those who accidentally disconnect, helping them avoid situations where they might take damage, fail mechanics, or otherwise disrupt their group through no fault of their own.

However, such a feature could easily be exploited. If it were intentional, it seems odd that such a significant change would be implemented without any announcement, making it more likely that this is a bug that will be fixed soon. We’ve reached out for clarification on whether this is a real feature and, if so, how it works.