Lockout

Raid Information window (as of patch 10.0.0)

Lockout is a game system that prevent the repeated clearing of instances over and over to repeatedly farm bosses in a short period of time. Lockouts were initially only for raids (and are often still called "raid lockouts"), but the system was extended to Heroic and Mythic dungeons, and world bosses.

Raids, world bosses, and Mythic Dungeons have weekly lockouts. Heroic dungeons have daily lockouts. Heroic dungeons queued through the dungeon Finder, Mythic+ keystones, and normal dungeons have no lockout. During WoW Remix events, affected dungeons, raids, and world bosses have daily lockouts rather than weekly.

Players re-entering an instance will find that bosses killed in previous visits to the same instance stay killed until the timer resets. The other implication is that the players associated with the instance have a time limit in which to complete their activities before the instance is reset. This time can be extended (from patch 3.2.0) with the Instance Lock Extension feature.

To see which raids and boss encounters that the character is saved to, type /raidinfo or press O to open the Socials window, go to the Raid tab, then click the Raid Info button.

Lockout types

There are three lockout types, but only two are in widespread use: loot-based and ID-based.

Loot-based

Defeated bosses

Used for: All Raid Finder raids, all Normal/Heroic raids starting with Siege of Orgrimmar, and Timewalking-modified raids like Firelands

• Characters can kill a boss as many times per week as desired, but only loot it once per difficulty.
• Bosses are never locked to the character, and characters can always go back and kill them later even if they've skipped them by joining a group that had progressed further.
• Raid sizes can be anywhere from 10 to 30 players, and difficulty automatically scales to match.
• Bosses may be killed on each difficulty independently.

ID-based

Used for: All raids from Molten Core through Sunwell, Heroic difficulty raids from Wrath of the Lich King through Throne of Thunder, and all Mythic difficulty raids.

• Progress is tied to a fixed instance ID. Once tied to an instance ID, characters may not enter any other versions of that raid of that difficulty until the raid lock resets.
• If other players complete that instance while the character is absent, the instance will be empty for that character as well, because progress is tied to the instance, and not the character.
• It is not possible to swap between 10- and 25-player difficulty Heroic raids

Flexible boss-based

Used for: Normal difficulty raids from Wrath of the Lich King through Throne of Thunder.

• Characters can only kill a boss once per week, and may not enter an instance where a boss is alive that the character has already defeated that week.
• Characters can move from group to group during a week as long as they're joining instances that don't have bosses alive that the character has already killed.
• If a character enters an instance that has killed more bosses than the character is saved to, they will be saved to all bosses up to the current progress point.
• Bosses can be killed on Normal or Heroic difficulty, but not both.
• Characters can move between 10 and 25 raid size, given these constraints.

Instance timers

Since patch 1.9.0, instances are reset according to a fixed calendar. This was decided by Blizzard to be fairest to most and replaces the previous system of resetting raid instances based on the absence from the instance of the raid members.

Raids and Mythic dungeons reset with the weekly reset in each region on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Heroic dungeons are reset every morning at 9:00AM (7:00AM EU).

Gallery

• 

  Pre-patch 10.0.0 interface
• 

  Defeated bosses (Pre-patch 10.0.0 UI)

Patch changes

Retail

• Hotfix (2013-09-13): The raid leader's boss progression in the raid instance now determines which bosses are still available when starting a Flexible Raid.
  
• Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): Flexible boss-based lockout mode added.
  
• Patch 1.9.0 (2006-01-03): The raid-lockout system has undergone a significant change. The new system will have all instances reset at a certain server time, regardless of when you were actually saved to the instance. The reset schedule is as follows:
  • Molten Core: Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly maintenance.
  • Blackwing Lair: Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly maintenance
  • Onyxia: Every 5 Days
  • Zul'Gurub: Every 3 Days
  • Temple of Ahn'Qiraj (40-man): Every 7 Days, resetting during weekly maintenance
  • Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj (20-man): Every 3 Days
• All resets will occur during off-hours, when the least amount of raids are active.
  
• Patch 1.3.0 (2005-03-07):
  • "Raid lockout" is fixed. If the leader of your raid group is saved in a different instance than you would otherwise go to, you are added to your leader's instance.
  • Added /raidinfo command showing remaining time on saved raid instances. Also shows an ID to compare with other players (if you have the same saved ID as them, you will go into the same instance)
  • Added a chat window message when you are first saved to an instance.
    

Classic

• Hotfix (2020-05-05): Fixed an issue that caused players to immediately accept a Zul'Gurub instance lockout if they were in a party with a player who defeated Gahz'ranka.