Joe “jwbarry” Barry returns this week for the fourth installment of his developer diary series for The Lord of the Rings Online detailing the new changes coming to instances in Volume 3: Book 2. The latest diary details the changes and upgrades to the old raiding zone of Helegrod, which has gone through quite a few changes to allow for scaling in the new update.

Helegrod was a raid area that required a fair sized time commitment, but with the new changes players will be able to tackle the raids in 4 wings: drakes, spiders, giants, and Thorog. Each wing can now be played in roughly 45 minutes with only 12 players. However, Thorog will still require a 24 person raid, so the overall process has been broken down to require less people and less time.

Raid locks have been removed and the new block put in place is a deed that will require players to defeat the bosses of the other three wings before they can face Thorog.

We ripped out all of the raid-locks, and instead there is now a deed that is completed by defeating the bosses of the three 12-man wings. Each character must have this deed completed before they are able to fight Thorog. It is a one-time personal gate. Once completed, that character can always access the dragon fight. In addition, once the dragon is unlocked you can play him as often as you wish.

Check out the full developer diary for more details.