World of Warcraft players claim characters keep fighting after disconnecting

Reddit threads are filling up with odd clips from World of Warcraft after Tuesday's Curse of Ula'tek 12.1 update, with players saying that a disconnect in a dungeon does not always end combat. In some cases, the character seems to keep acting for a few seconds, continuing to cast or even move toward the boss.

The reports started with a Reddit post from Stuperstrong, who said a party member playing an Evoker disconnected about 39 seconds into a boss pull. In the linked clip, you can hear the player say they have disconnected, but the character keeps moving and casting spells. The poster said it happened twice, in two different dungeons.

Other players quickly chimed in with similar stories. One reply described a warrior whose client crashed during a boss fight, leaving the character standing still for most of the encounter before suddenly charging the boss and attacking after the disconnect. The player was still narrating the relog process at the time.

One theory suggests the game's relatively new one-button rotation feature may be queuing up actions before the disconnect happens. Another idea is that disconnected players may briefly become "followers," an NPC AI mechanic that normally lets players finish easy dungeons with computer-controlled companions.

For now, the explanation is unclear, and Blizzard has been contacted for comment on whether the behavior is real and how it works. Until then, the idea of a disconnected character still fighting raises a simple question: bug, hidden feature, or something else entirely?

Have you seen a disconnected character keep fighting in World of Warcraft, or is this just a bizarre bug?