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Comment by Steiner14512

It seems that every class has access to 4 different Combat Allies, being able to assign one of them at a time for 50 Order Resources, helping you while outdoors in the Broken Isles. You can freely switch them around, unassign them to send them on missions etc., but assigning one will always cost Resources.
You can level your followers by assigning them as Combat Allies (at level 110, every quest and world quest gives 150 xp).
Combat Allies can be put in 3 categories:

Bodyguards: Pretty much the same as the bodyguards in WoD.

Will show up when you're on the Broken Isles (not in Dalaran or your order hall) and accompany you permanently.
Depending on the champion, will either be a pure dps, a tank (taunting every few seconds, but not necessarily holding aggro all that well), or a dps who will also heal you occasionally.
Classes without a tank spec don't seem to get tanking champions, I assume the same goes for non-healers.
Ranged dps will stand still while fighting, but they don't pull additional mobs even if they patrol right across them.
When bodyguards get killed, they will simply show up again seconds later with full health.
They will start attacking only when you attack something. If you get attacked by a mob, they will not automatically intervene. If you switch targets, they will switch a few seconds later. They will stop attacking cc'd mobs, e.g. disoriented.
Summonable allies: Can be summoned on a cooldown to help you for a short time.

If you have one of these assigned, you will get a button (Combat Ally in the middle of your screen. You can drag that button to your action bars, same as the garrison abilities in WoD.
Will damage / debuff your enemies and/or heal you once or for a few seconds before they despawn.
"Random" allies: Will show up "randomly", but really when the internal cooldown is up and you meet a certain requirement (e.g. taking damage, so they will only show up while you're fighting).

When you're in a zone where the ally can show up, you will get a buff reminiscent of his ability.

None of the combat allies can be used while fighting a world boss.
Whenever you come near a world boss, bodyguards will disappear (but respawn when you move a few yards away). The random ally's buff will disappear and the summonable ally's ability will have no effect.

When you let your combat ally do most of the work and don't contribute enough dps, you might not get loot.

Rough dps/hps numbers for shaman allies (single target):

Name	Type	dps	hps	Notes
Duke Hydraxis	Summoned	0	14k	2 min. cd (follower tooltip says 3 min.), when you use Boundless Quintessence he shows up, heals you with Boundless Quintessence and disappears. It takes about 2s between using the ability and the heal coming through. You can use it while stunned, but the heal did not remove the stun for me. I assume he simply removes all magic/curse/poison/disease effects. -> Full on demand heal+dispel every 2 min.
Farseer Nobundo	Random	5.5k	26k	When you take damage, he shows up for 30s with a cooldown of 90s. He will cast Riptide on you immediately, then alternate between Lightning Boltx2 and Healing Surge. He will heal you even if you're at 100%, so not taking damage will not increase his dps. He will deal about 500k damage and 2.4m heal during the 30s he's active. -> Good healing and decent burst dps with a 33% uptime.
Stormcaller Mylra	Bodyguard	20k	0	Casts Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst and Earth Shock at your target plus Stormbeak Assault for 130k AoE every 2 min. Because of Stormbeak, burst dps is higher than sustained, especially for multiple mobs (~40k for a 20s fight against 3 targets). -> High burst dps (for ST and AoE) every 2 min., otherwise decent ST dps.
Rehgar Earthfury	Bodyguard	26k	0	Uses enhancement abilities to damage your target in melee and Crash Lightning for 25k AoE every ~12s. Also grants you Spirit Pack, meaning you run about 35% faster as a spirit wolf than on a mount when you're not infight. Also seems to work as a spirit. -> High sustained ST and AoE dps plus a big movement speed increase.

All this has been tested by killing a few mobs (the same ones for every champion, no damage taken buffs etc.), so no big sample sizes. Char ilvl was ~840, follower ilvl 760 except for Hydraxis (830). All were common except Hydraxis (rare). I don't know if any of these factors influence dps/hps.

tl;dr: Seems like Rehgar is the best choice for a permanent dps bodyguard, whether you have a tank with you or not. Nobundo is a good alternative if you're playing solo and want some healing.

Comment by sushibar

I finally retired this guy.. He keeps pulling mobs that I haven't aggro'd, and aren't even close to us.. If he was a dungeon or raid group member, he'd be kicked before the first boss.