Scott Johnson

It's like very, it's a power fantasy that's a little out of control if I'm honest. But see that my secret thinking is because Chris has one and because he was there at the very beginning and probably had a lot to do with that class. They're not going to change it. They're not going to nerf it because, you know, they can't do that.

Yeah. Don't worry about it.

Yeah. I love that about that class. And I'm just having fun with it. I rolled a Zandalari troll because I think they're cool and tall and they're not all hunched over.

i get a little purple skin you know just looking like a badass um and i'm having and so did you use follower dungeons to teach yourself how to tank then well so here's so here's what happened i'm like i am in the world doing world quests and all this stuff with a tank spec which is usually slower for most other classes it's a it's the slower choice you're not gonna tear through them i tried that a little bit with a demon hunter years ago and

Everything took longer, even though I kind of enjoyed the rotation of a tank. But I was always like tank tanking in this game, healing in this game, for that matter. Those two things intimidate the hell out of me, partly because I've been playing this game since early access friends and family beta in 03. All right. A long time. During that entire run, DPS only. Never tanked. Not once.

I had some tank, you know, like a warrior, but Fury or something. So this time, finally, after all these freaking years... I thought, well, there's no harm in me going into a follower dungeon in tank spec to just, let's see what this is. Let's just try it. I'm going to have to have some of these mechanics figured out.

It's not that hard, I'm sure, anyway, but I can do it without the pressure is the point. I don't have to be with some randos with higher expectations than I can deliver or some DPS who thinks every time he dies, it's my fault and everyone mass leaves the group or whatever. All of these things that sometimes are just... Old stories of toxicity and it carry through the wow time, right?

These are just, they're stereotypes of wow and they stuck. And this was one of them for me is like, you don't want to tank. You're going to be miserable in there. But here's the part. Okay, so that part, I get in there, and guess what? No problem. I can tank. I can do it. It's not a big deal. It's a video game, it turns out. You can wrap your head around it.

But here's the big takeaway that I didn't expect. I may have mentioned this somewhere else. I hope this isn't redundant for somebody. But I came out of that first dungeon experience kind of elated because it wasn't just that, oh, I can tank. And yes, it's easier, right? The follower dungeons aren't meant to be super hard.

You're supposed to feel like you're having a decent time in there and you're not dying all the time.

Yeah, way lower. And that's fine. That's good. I don't think their goal here is to make that some sort of hardcore part of the game. Although I have questions about Delves, but we'll get into that in a minute.

So I get in there and I realize for the first time in my WoW history, which is deep and distant... I actually noticed where I was and what was going on. And so I realized even before I was tanking or before I wanted to learn how to tank, I had a problem in dungeons no matter what. If I rolled in there with the hunter or the lock or anyone else, I always was like, okay, everybody doing their stuff.

Okay. Oh, we're running. Are we moving this quickly? I got to hurry and get loot. Okay. Grab loot. Okay. Go to the next wing. Okay. Where's the boss? Shoot. I didn't look at it. You know, like you're always doing that and it's, and you're not on your own timetable. You're on somebody else's. These things made me slow down and literally smell the roses. Maybe not literally.

I couldn't smell anything. But I saw things I'd never seen before. I paid attention to voiceover and story. I walk into a cave, and I'm suddenly like, oh, my gosh, look at the work they did on the stuff hanging from the ceiling. Yeah. that's amazing. Like this environmental art is incredible. And I can't believe they got these textures to work. And this boss design is crazy stuff.

I never got to do because I wasn't able to take that kind of time. either like the first time you see a dungeon and you run it, let's say back in BFA, you're just trying not to get killed and you're trying to understand what the mechanics are and you're whipping through there fast.

Maybe you saw a YouTube thing, but once you have it on farm, you're also not really paying attention because now it's just a thing you got to hurry up and get in there and do and get the F out. This was this moment of like, let's dip my feet back into the fantasy of this experience. It's a dungeon. It's as old as the fantasy trope itself. You want to go in there.

It's mysterious and dark and weird and you don't have all the answers and you're not quite sure what to expect.

It's also my favorite thing about World of Warcraft. I think I may have said this in the interview with Chris and it got cut, but my favorite thing is the world. The world's the character. The world is the place. The world is the game. So when I go in there,

i love i think the reason i leaned so much into solo play and i think a lot of players are like this is that you get the thing to yourself and you get to pay attention and really soak it in if you're constantly being forced to play a role within a group especially with strangers you don't always get that experience and so i know there are some players who look at follower dungeons and go that's for weenies who are afraid to have a group

I don't suppose I can change their minds, but I would at least address that by saying, I understand the sentiment, but this is one more way they're letting me get in there. And it turns out that exact same dungeon that I breezed through on follower mode, saw, loved, was like blown away by. Now I'm excited to get back in there with friends. Now I want to do that. And then I want to go higher.