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Whoa -- did you just experience a Random Act of Uberness?
In the age of LFR, it's those times another player lights up your night with precise play, a wicked sense of humor, or unexpected generosity that your login on World of Warcraft becomes something to remember. That's why we're relaunching the feature that lets you send a shout-out or kudos to a fellow player who's made your day in WoW: Random Acts of Uberness. We know you can't always remember player names or realms, and that's OK. Tell us what you do remember: what day of the week it was, what time of day, your own home realm, any details you recall about the other player, where you were and what you were doing in game. If the players involved read WoW Insider, we're betting they'll recognize your story! Send in your shout-outs and kudos now to lisa@wowinsider.com. Need an example of what we're looking for? It's short and simple. Take a look at this story of appreciation from way back in 2010: "I'm not to proud to admit it: when we're short on tanks, my husband and I will let our kid tank for us -- our just shy of seven-year-old, who diligently (and with trade chat disabled and parental controls on, his toon parked in our friends-and-fam guild instead of the casual raiding guild our mains are in) ground his teeny gnome warrior up to 80," writes Haelmari of US Eonar-A. "Tonight, we and some guildies needed a random. He wanted to play. Win/win, right? "We lacked a healer, so we sucked it up and joined LFG ..." The uber resolution of Haelmari's situation, after the break.
How long is too long for a raid?
I remember the year I spent in Icecrown Citadel. I'm not really exaggerating - it was from December to December, so about a year total. It was about the longest time I spent on a raid, including the days of Molten Core - for comparison, Molten Core was the only real endgame raid besides Onyxia's Lair from November of 2004, WoW's release date, until July of 2005, so roughly eight months. Interestingly, the Shadow of the Necropolis patch (patch 1.11) came out in June of 2006, so in the year between the first and last raids of classic WoW we saw MC, Onyxia, BWL, Zul Gurub, Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, Temple of Ahn'Qiraj and finally Naxxramas. All of these raids released between July of 2005 and June 2006. Not all of these raids were replacements for previous ones - Blackwing Lair and AQ 40 were considered 'sidegrades' from each other, at least until one killed C'thun, who until the release of Naxxramas had the best gear in the game. The two 20 man raids, ZG and AQ20, did not replace BWL or evn MC gear, they just provided another place to go. Because of the way raids were structured back then it's a little misleading to compare classic's raid release schedule with our modern one. Raids were something a very few players overall did - there was no parity between smaller and larger raid sizes, no LFR, no flex (although by the time Naxxramas came out, some guilds were running MC, Onyxia and even BWL/AQ with smaller raids to maximize gear acquisition before heading into Naxx) and the only way to gear up for raids was either to be carried through said raids by geared groups and handed all the stuff they didn't want or need anymore, or to start on the ground floor and run the level 60 dungeons. The design wasn't structured around raiding being accessible or allowing a larger group of players to see these fights - raiders got to see them, and if that was 10% of the people playing the game, that's what it was. It's interesting to look at how players react to raid content now. A commonly expressed sentiment is that Throne of Thunder, a raid first released on March 5th, 2013, has been around too long and players are eager for new content. This is a raid that has been around for six month, and will be superseded around the time it enters it's seventh. While hardly the shortest time a raid has ever had to be run through, it's not much longer than the initial tier of Mists raid content, either. Mists of Pandaria released on September 25th, 2012, meaning that from October 2012 to March 5th 2013 we only had MSV, HoF and ToES - a time of about five months. What makes five months acceptable and seven months unacceptable? Are two months that much longer to raid a zone?
A legendary for all, courtesy of Wrathion
It's confirmed -- everyone does indeed get a legendary, if they manage to finish Wrathion's expansion-long chain of requests. However, unlike any prior legendary to date, Wrathion's offering won't be a new set of weapons to wield ... and that's making some players a little irritated. Rather than the usual arming with weapons, Wrathion has instead chosen to give everyone legendary-quality cloaks, enhancing the cloaks received in patch 5.3 with some extra power -- and a little orange text -- in patch 5.4. Yes, some may have been expecting weapons -- but really, Wrathion's offering makes a lot more sense in terms of gameplay, balance, and possibly Wrathion's true motives in this little endeavor as well. In fact, the legendary offered in Mists of Pandaria manages to break every single perception we had about what a legendary is to date.
Have you ever been vote kicked?
Applied with discretion and thoughtfulness it's a useful tool, but in the hands of an overly snarky or bad-tempered group it can certainly be abused--we are talking, of course, about the group vote kick option. Most of the time when I run group content I don't even remember it's there, but occasionally there's that one person who won't stop butt-pulling adds before the tank is ready, or who just can't seem to resist spewing a never-ending stream of gross and offensive epithets, or someone logs off and just doesn't ever come back online. When that happens I'm very, very grateful for vote kicks. Sometimes, unfortunately, it gets applied less sensibly; I've heard of players being kicked for every reason from their choice of toon being disliked to not having "enough" heirloom gear equipped, and situations like that can be infuriating. When I stopped to think about it, I realized that I have never myself been kicked from a group. I'm sure this is mostly due to the fact that I'm not a huge dungeon runner, so I'm not in random groups very often, but also at least partially because when I do run group content I tend to play a healer. Kicking a healer, while sometimes necessary, can also occasionally result in a very bored group sitting around for a while waiting for a new one, which is no fun. Sometimes people don't believe me that I've never been kicked, but I've met plenty of players who also say they haven't, either, so I've never thought myself particularly unusual, but I still I count myself as being lucky in this respect. How about you, though? Have you ever been kicked? And, perhaps more importantly, was it deserved or were you the victim of a trigger-happy kicker? %Poll-83117%
The Queue: Rifts and scenarios
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Return of the RIFT character header images! Run away! MikeLinton said: I have to seriously question the "super positive response" that you are seeing to scenarios. I only see my small slice of the WoW community, of course, but what I'm seeing tells me the opposite. The only people I knew that ran regular scenarios were for either daily valor or guild gold, and they didn't like doing it. Heroic scenarios are a little better because Blizzard made the rewards awesome and forced people to go in with a full group. If Heroic 5-mans were the same way, then they would be far more enjoyable to heroic scenarios. I know this isn't a question, but I feel a need to respond to it. What I tend to see personally is that people who play only healers or only tanks dislike scenarios for the most part. People who primarily play DPS (like myself) enjoy them quite a bit. As a DPS player, queues for dungeons and raids are (were?) so absurdly long that I stopped bothering. Scenarios didn't have that problem, plus they give me much more freedom in how I played. Scenarios had me digging tools out of my belt that were never relevant in the tank/healer/DPS tinity, but made a big difference in scenario performance. Not being locked into the trinity is refreshing.
Off-spec loot options, are you using them?
As we've mentioned before, one of the biggest changes to patch 5.3 is the ability to get off-spec loot in LFR. It has the potential to be a real game changer for players who occupy a critical non-DPS role. This means if you queue up for LFR as a tank, you'll be able to get DPS gear instead of tanking gear. And for tanks this is especially important, as they always seem to lag behind in DPS gear (while this might not help for a heroic tank having to go DPS, for everyone else it's a boon). Last night Ghostcrawler tweeted the following: Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget 5.3 loot spec. It was a common request. Right click on your name plate to change. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) May 23, 2013 Honestly, Ghostcrawler's tweet raises an eyebrow. Why did he do this? Without reading too much into what he's saying, I think it's obvious that to some extent it's because he feels not enough people are aware of it or are using it as they should be (otherwise why say something). I'm wondering if Blizzard has preliminary stats already about the number of people using off-spec loot and it's not where they want it. One of the reasons for that is it's tucked away in the menu options, somewhere that is relatively hidden from the visual crawl (where you move your view around the window/UI and look for options). Even as a veteran WoW player I occasionally forget that something is in the player menu, and I know there's been a few times when I'm suddenly surprised something's there. I hope that players are using this to their full advantage; run LFR as a tank and get DPS gear is a pretty sweet deal. What's your use of the function so far, or are you waiting until the weekend to start your LFR runs? For more of the really important things about 5.3 you might have missed, check out or post listing 'em.
How long are you willing to wait for a group to form?
In the leveling homestretch, I tend to follow a pattern. My main goal is to boost my ilevel as soon as I hit 90 to get in on Raid Finder. Although, once I get there, I end up feeling bitter because waiting in a Raid Finder queue isn't fun. Even if you're not into Raid Finder, WoW presents players with plenty of opportunity to wait around at some point -- battleground and dungeon queues, or even sticking around for a PUG to come together. As a tank on my main, I groan when thinking of entering Raid Finder, mainly because of the wait. There are only two tank roles, after all. With the new loot specialization coming to 5.3, players looking to win tank gear have hope of a less painful wait in a DPS role, at least. Even if you're used to the long wait, everyone has a limit. I remember waiting as a tank in a Raid Finder queue for an hour and forty minutes. I'm not usually willing to wait that long. I'm relatively comfortable with waiting about thirty to forty minutes before moving on. When it comes to PUGs, I'm quite patient, usually waiting longer than I probably should. In a PUG, I tend to have a personal connection to at least one of the other players in the group, so I'm not quick to leave. How long are you willing to wait, whether it be for a dungeon, Raid Finder, battleground, or a PUG? While in queue, how do you pass the time? I usually find myself completing dailies or battling pets. But at what point do you throw up your hands and leave?
Things that were harder before
I did a post this week about raiding in previous expansions and in vanilla WoW, and how people often say those raids were harder and my opinion that it is easily demonstrable that current raids are if anything more complicated than they have ever been. I frankly believe there is almost no room for comparison between the game at 60 and today in terms of raid complexity and difficulty. Part of this stems from the many different variations on what the word hard means in this context. Something can be harder because it is conceptually or executionally more complex (the difficulty can stem from how much is required to successfully complete its mechanics) or it can be hard because it is laborious and/or time consuming. Was raiding with 40 people in classic WoW more laborious? Absolutely it was. It wasn't mechanically harder, but it was more time consuming and took a great deal of effort to organize and plan. It's the difference between working out a complex multi-stage math problem and carrying five thousand pounds of rocks from point A to point B. But there were some points worth addressing. It absolutely has never been easier to level, even without heirlooms, than it is right now. Vanilla leveling to 60 took more time and effort than leveling to 90 does today. Even without heirlooms, one can easily and without much stress reach level 20 in a few hours, level 40 in less than two days, and be level 60 within a day of that, and this isn't spending all day staring at the screen either. This is a fairly casual leveling pace. I leveled a blood elf warrior to 35 in two days of rather casual play, an hour on followed by a half hour reading websites or having a snack or even going for a long walk. It's also far easier to do the following things: Get a dungeon group. You can queue for dungeons at level 15, and from that point on, all you ever have to do to run a dungeon is hit that queue. If you're playing in the tank or healing role you can effectively chain dungeons all day, and even leveling as DPS there are stretches where you don't even need to quest or do anything but dungeon. Run a battleground. While you could argue that doing well at BG running as you level up and at max level takes some time and effort, if you want to risk queueing in whatever gear you have, it's simplicity itself. Getting ready to raid at max level. The game now has catchup mechanisms in place for players who start later. If you just got your alt to 90 and are switching to it for raiding, deciding to give raiding a try for the first time, or what have you it's not the case that your raid group is compelled to run you through previous raids for attunements and keys, much less gearing you through older raids to get ready for the current content. Find something to do. You could even argue that there's too much to do, or that it feels too mandatory. But you can't argue you don't have options - if you don't want to run dungeons, raid, or PvP there are pet battles, daily quests and scenarios you can do. So the question then becomes this: is it better or worse for the game that these things are easier? For that matter, are they easy enough?
Throne of Thunder: Pinnacle of Storms Raid Finder bosses in 5 seconds
Huzzah! Pinnacle of Storms, the final wing of Throne of Thunder Raid Finder, is open this week, and that means you're almost done. If you're just venturing into ToT Raid Finder, we recommend you head over to our 5-second guides for the first, second, and third wings. This wing is mostly downhill in terms of difficulty, especially after the Durumu pre-nerfed maze business, but can still prove to be a challenge to Raid Finder champions clueless on strategy. And just for you, we've put together a quick guide for the final wing. We accept cookies and high fives. (Thanks Zhonya for the help!) Iron Qon Tank swap at two stacks of Impale. Stay off of fire, ice, or lightning lines on the ground throughout the fight, reposition the boss as needed. During the lightning phase, move out of and away from tornadoes once sucked in. Move the boss to the back of the room. Stay spread out during lightning phase. During ice phase, move to hit the boss on his unshielded sides. Stack in his final phase for healing.
Navigating the loot
While perusing Wowhead's blue tracker the other day I stumbled across this thread on the EU forums about the LFR loot system, its frustrations, and potential alternatives. Community manager Draztal is pretty active in the thread, which is nice to see -- there is plenty of back-and-forth and, despite player accusations of just parroting Blizzard policy, Draztal has a lot of good points to make about the nature of effort and reward. The truth is that WoW has never consistently rewarded players for running dungeons or raids. I still get a little involuntary curl to my lip anytime I think about Burning Crusade-era heroics, particularly Magister's Terrace, and how often I ran them trying to get some piece of gear, and how often my groups wiped and nothing I needed dropped anyway (and all those useless PvP gems). I agree it's frustrating to run LFR and only get gold, though I did have to sit down and think about why, in particular. After all, I killed Saurfang in Icecrown for probably upwards of three months before I finally got the Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff. During all that time it never occurred to me that my failure to receive loot was an indication that the entire system needed an overhaul. After a couple minutes ruminating, though, I think the answer is pretty obvious: loot is the only real reason to run LFR (with the exception of just experiencing content, for those who may not have the opportunity to raid otherwise).
Throne of Thunder: Halls of Flesh-Shaping Raid Finder bosses in 5 seconds
The third wing of Throne of Thunder Raid Finder was unlocked this week after a short break from the last one. After our previous 5-second guides to the first and second wings, how could we abandon you now? You've almost made it through. If you thought the beasts in the Forgotten Depths were rough, just wait until you meet your new friends in the Halls of Flesh-Shaping. Here's a quick rundown to quickly share with your Raid Finder buddies (thanks for the help Lucid guildies!). Durumu the Forgotten There will be a tank swap, taunt at around 4 stacks of Serious Wound. Step into Life Drain to intercept. During phase two, the raid should split itself between the yellow, red, and blue cones. Move each cone around until the three fog adds are revealed, and kill them. Move out of Force of Will and pools on the ground. During the third phase, be patient and navigate the purple maze while keeping ahead of the death beam. In the maze, stuff on the ground hurts, so stick to the cleared melee or ranged path. Tip: Point your camera downward to better view the cleared maze pathing. Primordius Kite the boss to prevent him from picking up too many Living Fluids, and kill them. Tank swap at around seven Malformed Blood stacks and avoid dragging him over the purple Volatile Pools. Only tanks should stand in front of the boss. Collect the red Mutagenic Pools on the ground dropped by Living Fluids to become mutated, DPS the boss. Avoid the red pools when you are mutated.
Why aren't more healers queueing for the Raid Finder?
While writing the Azeroth Ethicist article on whether it's ethical to "cheat" the Raid Finder's loot distribution system, I linked a post from The Grumpy Elf about the lack of healers in the LFR queue and the effect it's having on queue times. There was an observation there about how LFR healing may actually be more stressful than its normal counterpart: No matter what, you name it, everything in the LFR when done wrong screams "the healers will fix it". Dropping the bad where it should not be, no worries, the healers will fix it. Not using your defensive cooldowns, no worries, the healers will fix it ... even in the LFR if you do not follow mechanics it hurts and puts all the pressure on the healers. There are a lot of reasons why the LFR queue is so long these days for the average player -- ilevel requirements (though Blizzard's made it easier to get gear from older raids to address this), the sheer popularity of new content, and, as Ghostcrawler pointed out, tanks and healers who queue with their guildies -- but I think Grumpy Elf has a point. While I've mostly tanked in Mists of Pandaria, I healed my way through the Raid Finder in Dragon Soul, and the number of players who took unnecessary or avoidable damage was depressingly high. You expect that with anyone who might be new to the instance, but it wasn't fun seeing a raid with lots of people in normal or even heroic tier 13 ignoring, say, the players trapped in Hagara's Ice Tombs. So for the healers out there, here's a question: Are you queuing for Raid Finder raids? If you are, is the job noticeably more difficult or stressful than it is with your guildies? If you aren't queuing, why not?
The Azeroth Ethicist: Is it cheating to trick the LFR loot system?
Before I write anything else here, the issue to be discussed in this article will no longer exist in patch 5.3 if the changes announced in the PTR patch notes from May 22 survive. For the record, I think this is one of the best changes to come along in a while, as it should reduce queue times for the Raid Finder significantly, while also being a great quality-of-life bonus for anyone trying to gear an offspec. However, it's still a problem at the moment. After reaching level 90, I ran heroic after heroic obsessively in order to scrape the ilevel needed to enter the Raid Finder. After a few drops and the generosity of a guild leatherworker, I cheerfully queued as a tank for Vaults, and then went off to do dailies, figuring that the wait might be a little longer than normal given the popularity of new raid content, but it probably wouldn't be too bad. 30 minutes later, I shrugged and thought to myself, "Well, everybody's running LFR now." 52 minutes later, it occurred to me while yanking pink turnips out of the ground that I had been a little overoptimistic about wait times. Oh well. The farm wasn't going to tend itself. An hour and 20 minutes later, I tabbed out of the game to check the forums, wondering if others were complaining about queue times, or if I'd just had a stroke of really bad luck. Nope. Wait times for tanks through LFR, as a legion of enraged forum posters screamed, were through the roof at the beginning of the expansion. Right now, it seems like DPS players are getting the lion's share of agony. Rather than wait it out, many -- perhaps most -- tank players chose to exploit a loophole that allowed them to get a raid more quickly on a less easily-filled role.
The Queue: Vicarious adventures
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. If you're the sort of person that likes mobile games, pick up Dungeon Village. Build and maintain a village to attract adventurers, who will spend their hard-earned gold pieces on your fine wines and steaks! It's fascinatingly fun in the same way that Recettear turned out to be. Patrick asked: So...why did Blizzard not have an April Foolz prank this year? Was it just a matter of focusing on their work? I'm actually totally fine with that, but it made me sad.
Throne of Thunder: Forgotten Depths Raid Finder bosses in 5 seconds
The second wing of Throne of Thunder Raid Finder was just unlocked this week, so get ready to queue. After our last 5-second guide to the first wing, we couldn't just leave you hanging without a second! After being thrown down to the Forgotten Depths, you'll be introduced to a few beastly bosses -- be prepared. Here's a quick rundown perfect for sharing with your Raid Finder comrades (thanks for the help Thugmuffins!). Tortos One tank on Tortos, the other on Vampiric Cave Bat duty. Don't stand in Rockfall. Healers be ready to top the raid after Quake Stomp. Kill priority is bats, Whirl Turtles, then boss. Be sure to kick one of the turtles into Tortos to interrupt his Furious Stone Breath. Although you can mostly survive the breath on Raid Finder difficulty, make your healer's life easier by interrupting. Megaera Note: You will have to kill the three Eternal Guardians around the cave and ring their bells to spawn the boss. Tank the two active heads facing away from the center, and don't tank the same head twice in a row to avoid debuffs stacking too high. The raid should stack in the center during Rampage for AoE heals. Kite the beam out of the raid if you're targeted with Torrent of Ice. Run out of the raid for a Cinders dispel. Run away from the Acid Rain. Kill order of the heads in this difficulty isn't too important, just rotate -- green, red, blue will work fine. See Ji-Kun's quick strategy after the break!
Tanks to have some hope of getting DPS gear in LFR
Ghostcrawler tweeted an interesting reply today concerning the ability of tanks to get DPS gear through LFR: @jkoviack We hope to provide a better option next patch or two. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) March 18, 2013 This is a major problem for tanks -- they're not able to gear up effectively in LFR for anything other than tanking. And with the daily-centric approach to MoP this leaves those that choose the best spec to be left on the side of using blues and whatever other scraps of gear they can get. For people who raid normal/heroic modes all the time it's not a huge issue thanks to getting off-spec gear, but it's still a problem. Hopefully this option Ghostcrawler is speaking of applies to all off-spec gear, but we don't want to speak for him. Of course as with everything you hear on Twitter and everywhere else about future WoW stuff, take it with a grain of salt. Things can and do change, features get pushed back and discarded for whatever reason. And just because Ghostcrawler and his team want to do something, it doesn't mean they'll be able to do something. Don't go nuts if it doesn't happen -- but keep in mind something might happen. Keep your fingers crossed with me.
What if all raids were end game raids?
Sometimes the forums come up with some interesting discussions. Poster Locomonkey over on the EU forums posted this doozy of an idea, which Taepsilum then responded to in detail. They both have me thinking about the idea as well -- what if every raid, from the original 60 raids to the Cataclysm level 85 raids, was updated to level 90? What if, when the next expansion came out, all the Mists of Pandaria raids as well as all those previous raids were in some fashion made current with level 95, or 100, or whatever current endgame happens to be? What are the pros and cons of this idea? I'm not going to dredge over every point already made, you can go read Locomonkey's original post, and Taepsilum's well reasoned list of what the pitfalls to avoid in such a system would be. Instead, I'm going to speculate on how you could address those pitfalls. How do you make a system with so many potential raids tuned and balanced, deal with all the updated loot from those instances, and keep from drowning raid groups in choices? My suggestions are as follows:
Throne of Thunder: Last Stand of the Zandalari Raid Finder bosses in 5 seconds
The first wing of Throne of Thunder Raid Finder has opened this week, so it's time to slay a few bosses. Maybe you're ready to queue up right this second. In fact, with the staggered release schedule, you're probably very ready. No time to read through our full guides, or need a short explanation ready for other players? Here's a quick reference perfect for copy and pasting into chat, because we love you. Jin'rokh the Breaker Tanks have a swap, watch out for the Static Wound debuff and be ready to taunt. Everyone else stand in the pools unless they're electrified, step out and stack near the boss during Lightning Storm. If you're targeted by the Focused Lightning, run away, and don't electrify the pools. Horridon One tank on the boss, the other on adds -- switch after each door so Triple Puncture doesn't stack too high. The adds cast debuffs, so healers be ready to dispel. Stay away from Horridon's head and tail. Kill Dinomancer adds first and stay out of stuff on the ground. Click the Orb of Command when it appears. After the door phase, War-God Jalak will spawn. Off-tank and burn him, continue on the boss. Council of Elders Tanks focus on swapping Frost King Malakk before reaching 15 stacks of Frigid Assault. Prioritize killing adds: Loa Spirits and Living Sands. If there are no adds, DPS the empowered boss -- it'll be big and purple. Offing Sul first is usually easiest. Priestess: interrupt Wrath of the Loa, kill spirits. Frost King: stack on the player with Frostbite. Kazra'jin: avoid charges, use damage-reduction cooldowns on Overload. Sul: interrupt Sand Bolt, kill adds, don't stand in Quicksand. If you want a more in-depth look of the bosses in the first wing of the Throne of Thunder, check out our complete guides: Jin'rokh the Breaker Horridon Council of Elders
Officers' Quarters: Casual raiding's demise?
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. Cataclysm's introduction of the Raid Finder, or LFR, has certainly affected all levels of raiding. But will it eventually bring about the end of small, casual raiding guilds, as one officer fears? Or does it mean that he needs to change his approach? Hey Scott, I'm an officer in a small, casual raiding guild. By "casual" I mean we only raid two nights a week from 9-12, and typically we run a 10% nerf behind when it comes to clearing content. Our niche has always been as a "friendly community that offers members the chance to experience content in a laid-back atmosphere." Here's my question . . . what do you see as the impact of LFR (and to a lesser extent, LFG) on casual raiding guilds such as ours? Personally, I've always viewed it as a negative. LFR erodes the need for community in the game. Meanwhile, for the casual raiding guild, the biggest draw we can offer to players on our realms is our sense of "community".
Throne of Thunder raid release schedule announced
Today marks the launch of patch 5.2, and along with it comes a new raid to conquer. We have confirmation of the Throne of Thunder raid schedule, and staggered release of raid difficulties. As it stands right now, Normal Throne of Thunder launches today, with Heroic ToT and the first wing of LFR next week, with a new LFR wing released each week after until mid-April. Throne of Thunder Raid Schedule With the release of Patch 5.2: The Thunder King, the vast Throne of Thunder raid will become available. As in previous raid tiers, Raid Finder wings and availability difficulties will be staggered. To access the new Raid Finder wings you will need a minimum average item level (ilevel) of 480. This is our current schedule based on a planned patch release date of March 5. If the patch is delayed, or if we determine any change is needed, we'll update this article. March 5 – Normal Throne of Thunder March 12 – Heroic Throne of Thunder and LFR Wing 1 "Last Stand of the Zandalari" March 19 – LFR Wing 2 "Forgotten Depths" April 2 – LFR Wing 3 "Halls of Flesh-Shaping" April 16 – LFR Wing 4 "Pinnacle of Storms" source
