Useful Raid and Dungeon information:
Raid Changes
Blizzard is redoing their raid difficulty system and applying Flex tech to more difficulties:
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Normal and Heroic raids will no longer be 10 or 25-player mode, instead they will have Flex scaling so players can pick any size in between. Blizzard is very happy with how Flex scaling turned out and even LFR will have Flex scaling in case someone has left the group.
Mythic difficulty is for 20-player cutting-edge progression and will not have Flex scaling. Some 10-heroic guilds will be unhappy about this, but one size for progression going forward is better in the long term. There are a lot of mechanics Blizzard can't implement when they're scaling an encounter down to 10-player mode, and this offers more creativity.
Each difficulty is on a separate lockout, and you cannot switch difficulties during raids.
Lockouts are now loot-based. If you already have loot but want to help out a friend, you can kill the boss again.
The more players you have in a flex-style raid, the more loot you will see drop. The raid leader can decide if loot should be Master Looted or awarded personally.
You can raid Normal and Heroic with Real ID or Battle Tag cross-realm friends.
The first available raid will be Highmaul. This has seven bosses and is planned to open the second week of the expansion. Blackrock Foundry will follow several weeks later. All difficulties will be available at first, except for LFR which will open at a staggered pace as usual.
Siege of Orgrimmar will be converted to the new raid system in 6.0--Flex will become Normal and won't be going away.
Raid Finder and Matchmaking
Blizzard would like to encourage players to move away from Raid Finder--at this point, it's not considered a real raid format:
Raid Finder was referred to as "tourist mode"--something to be used as a last resort when your friends aren't around.
To entourage users to queue with friends, "Stacking the Deck" is a new buff that rewards bonus Valor for queueing with friends or requeueing with random groups.
Blizzard is creating a group finder that will be browser-based and let you find groups not only for raids, but for all sorts of content.
Dungeons and Scenarios
Many players wanted more dungeons in Mists of Pandaria and Blizzard is delivering more:
Six new heroic dungeons are planned for launch, along with a revamped version of Blackrock Spire. The new dungeons are Bloodmaul Slag Mines, Blackrock Depot, Auchindoun, Arakkoa Spires, Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, Iron Barracks.
Heroic Dungeons in Warlords of Draenor will require the completion of Silver Proving Grounds for your role (tank, healer, or dps) to queue up with randoms.
Max-level heroic dungeons are planned beyond Warlord of Draenor's initial release. This is in contrast to Mists of Pandaria which had no additional dungeons.
Normal-mode max-level dungeons are back and heroic-mode dungeons will be harder than MoP heroic dungeons were.
Warlords LFR will be tuned around people starting in gear from normal 100 dungeons, not heroic 100 dungeons.
Warlords of Draenor will have new challenge modes, and they will have additional vanity rewards like transmogrifiable weapons.
The current 9 challenge modes will not be available when 6.0 hits, due to the difficulties in retuning them. Existing achievements will be moved to Feats of Strength, and the rewards will no longer be available.
There is tech in place to scale a character's gear down to make old raids more challenging, but it's still being worked on.
Normal and Heroic scenarios are planned for launch, as well as World Bosses.
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