How does “saving” work in WoW raids

Question

I'm a bit confused with how saving to an instance works in WoW. For instance, say on Tuesday I clear 5 out of 8 bosses in Dragon Soul. The next day, my group isn't around and I'd like to finish the last 3 with another group. The other group hasn't cleaned any of the content up for the week. Will it screw them up if I join them? I understand I won't be able to loot the first 5 boss drops that I already dropped that week, but can I still join them to get the last 3 if they're going for all 8?

How exactly does "saving to an instance" work?

Answer 1

I think you're confusing two different systems.

One system if the way being saved to a boss works for LFR groups. If you join a LFR group that is yet to defeat bosses that you have already defeated that week, you will not be able to roll on loot from those bosses. Once you reach bosses that you have not defeated, you will be able to roll on loot once more. These restrictions only applies to LFR bosses.

The second system is how lock outs work on Normal raids. If you defeat five bosses on Normal, you can then only enter instances for raids that have reached up to that point or later. You can join raids that are on a later boss than you reach up to, i.e. the seventh or eighth boss, but if you are there for a successful kill of that boss you will also be locked for all the bosses leading up to that boss.