Saved Instances and You - A quick reference

[Shadowwolf]

Ive been asked a lot about saved instances and raids and I still think that there are many who do not understand this concept as they are used to 5-man instances that can be reset by the group leader or automatically when you join a new group. Blizzard also doesnt do such a good job explaining this concept so Im going to attempt to simplify it as best as I can.

Raid instances and Heroic Instances work a little differently. In order to limit farming of raids and heroics, Blizzard saves each one to your individual character once you kill a Boss inside or if a boss has been killed before you zoned in.

Getting Saved to a Raid/Heroic:

You become saved to a raid instance if you participate on killing a boss inside that raid, or if you join a raid which has killed a boss and zone into the instance. You remain saved to that raid instance until it is scheduled to reset.

To further illustrate:

Lets say you have a level 70 Mage and you raid Karazhan on Tuesday with the Kara A group and kill a boss or 2 inside. Your Mage is now saved to that instance and you cant take your mage back into a different raid in Karazhan on Saturday such as Kara B. If you try to join a new raid in the instance while you are already saved to a different one, you wont zone in with the other raid participants on Kara B.

Another way you can become saved to an instance is if you zone in after having been invited to a raid that has already downed a boss inside. For example: If you get invited to help kill Nightbane on Kara A, even if you are unable to kill Nightbane with that group, you are still saved to that instance the moment you zone into Karazhan as part of that raid group. You will see a little note appear in your chatlog the moment you zone in that says "You have been saved to this instance". This can also happen with Heroic instances. Lets say you get invited to a group that is doing a heroic daily and they have already killed the first boss but are unable to kill the second and you are invited to fill in for someone who left. Once you enter that instance, you are now saved to it until it resets, meaning, if you are still unable to down any other bosses, you will still need to wait until the instance resets to start over again.

Instance saves are a per character save only. This means if you have multiple level 70 characters, they can be saved to different instances.

The Raid Leader/Party Leader sets the way

If your Raid Leader or your Party Leader is saved to an instance, the moment you enter that same instance you will become saved to it as well. For example: If you are running a PUG heroic of Botanica and you accidentally zone into the Mechannar, if your Party Leader had just finished killing all the bosses within The Mechannar an hour before, you will now be saved to that instance with them and be unable to run Heroic Mech until it resets.

You can not become saved to any of the same instances as the Raid or Group leader until you zone into those same instances. Simply being in a group with them either in a different instance or around the open world will not save you to their instances.

How to see what instances you are saved to:

You can look at your current character's saved instances by 2 ways. First you can hit the Social Tab on your game menu or press the "O" key on your keyboard. Then select the "Raid" tab at the bottom, and click the "Raid Info" button on the upper right of that window like shown below:

[attachimg=2]

The other way is to type /raidinfo in your chat box and that will also open the Raid Info tab. As you can see in the above image, if you are saved to any instances, they will appear listed in the small box on the right as well as the "ID" and the time until it resets again. The "ID" is sometimes good for identifying what raid you might be saved to as the game doesnt label Karazhan runs like we do as "A" "B" or "C", it simply says "Karazhan". The "ID" is the group of gray numbers next to the title of each instance you are saved to.

If this button is grayed out, this means you currently are not saved to anything.

Raid/Heroic Reset Times

Each instance or raid has a specified reset interval it follows before it wipes all saved information and you can start it over again. Unlike normal 5 person instances where you can have the group leader manually reset it, Raids and Heroics have to follow the preset Blizzard reset time. When you enter each instance that is on a reset timer, you can see immediately when you zone in how long is left before that instance is scheduled to automatically reset as shown in the image below:

[attachimg=1]

You can also see the reset times on the instances you are saved to by following the steps I outlined above with the Raid Info tab.

Heroic instances, at the time I am writing this little guide, are set to a 12 hour reset period. Exactly when this 12 hours starts I believe is based on when the server is turned on again after Tuesdays weekly maintenance. Basically this means you could conceivably run the same heroics 2 times in 1 day if you planned around the reset time.

Most Burning Crusade raids reset on maintenance day (Tuesday) of each week. There are exceptions to that for some raid instances, but almost all follow the 7 day reset period.

Raid Instance Name	Reset Interval
Karazhan	7 Days
Serpentshine Cavern	7 Days
Tempest Keep: The Eye	7 Days
CoT: Mount Hyjal	7 Days
Gruul's Lair	7 Days
Magtheridon's Lair	7 Days
Black Temple	7 Days
Zul'Aman	3 Days

For Pre-Burning Crusade Raid instances, the schedule is similar:

Raid Instance Name	Reset Interval
Zul'Garub	3 Days
Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj (AQ20)	3 Days
Molten Core	7 Days
Blackwing Lair	7 Days
Onyxia's Lair	5 Days
Temple of Ahn'Qiraj (AQ40)	7 Days
Naxxramas	7 Days

You can also look via the web at any time to see the reset schedule of all the raid instances on the blizzard website at the following address:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/calendar/

Timer Reminders and Instance Reset

While you are inside an instance, you will receive a notification on your chat box of the reset time left every hour on the hour. Once you reach 15min before the impending reset, the alerts will happen more frequently. If you find yourself inside an instance during a reset, the game will automatically hearth you to your hearth location and reset the instance.



I hope this is of some help to those of you who were having trouble with understanding how raid instances save people and why its important for you to be aware of what instances you might be getting saved to. If anyone has any other questions about raid saves, please feel free to ask.

Just remember that once you are saved to an instance, there is nothing you or anyone else can do to remove yourself from that saved ID until the next automated reset. GM's will not help you at all, even if it was an accident, so its very important you are aware of what instances you can potentially be saved to before you zone into them.

[grunkatze]

Thank you shadow for taking the time to right down all those informations

[Rocknlock]

Isn't gruuls a 3 day reset?

[Shadowwolf]

Nope, 7, just like all the rest except ZA.

[Gutboy]

I have a related question: Sometimes when I join a group with someone, even to do a quest or trade items, I get a message that dungeon difficulty has been reset to Heroic (or Normal). Is this just something that's in effect while I'm grouped with that person, and what does it actually mean?

GB

[fiere redfern]

I've found that if someone in my group doesn't have all the heroic keys yet, that notification will pop up, saying that the dungeon difficulty has been set to Normal. Also, until I had all my heroic keys, the dungeon difficulty default was Normal, while nowadays it sits at Heroic. Aside from that, it doesn't have any effect at all on your being saved to any instance.

[Nefalkus]

It is really well explained. My cat was sitting on my desk and it understood as well! 

Thanks Shadow!!!

[Shadowwolf]

You can set the default dungeon difficulty for when you start groups by right-clicking your portrait and selecting the difficulty out of group. Once you set it, every group you start will default to that difficulty level. It also stays at whatever difficulty level was the last group you were the leader for (normal or heroic). When someone changes the difficulty setting on the group, be it when you join a new one or they do it after the fact, it will automatically reset all resettable instances.

The problem with that is if you are inside an instance already, it will try to reset it with you in there and sometimes it will pop the message up that you will be ported as you are no longer part of that instance. Sometimes that doesnt happen until you zone out and back in again though. Ive seen it happen both ways.

[Shadowwolf]

Those of you who were saved to Gruul last night, please take the time to read through this.

As far as Gruul runs go, we treat Gruul and Mag as essentially 1 full run even though its technically 2 instances. Because of this, if you manage to get yourself saved to one but not the other, if I have to sub you with someone else, the person subbing gets priority on both instances and I am not going to make them sit out for the one you are not saved to just so you can run it. For example, if you are saved to Gruul but not Mag, im not going to invite someone to do Gruul in your place then kick them when its time for Mag, thats extremely unfair. If you and whomever is replacing you wants to work it out so you both agree to do that, fine, but that is something you can negotiate on your own.

Its your responsibility what raids you get saved to.