Starting with next week's scheduled maintenance, Blizzard is changing Nebulous Voidcore Bonus Rolls so they can only be used when your character is still eligible to receive normal loot from that encounter.
In practical terms:
You will no longer be able to repeatedly kill the same raid boss on the same difficulty and spend another Voidcore each time.
If you have been saving Voidcores to repeatedly roll Heroic Ula'tek until she finally hands over the item you actually want, the clock is ticking.
The casino is introducing a one-visit-per-week policy.
Bonus Rolls Will Require Normal Loot Eligibility
Blizzard announced the change in an official Raid Bonus Roll update.
Beginning with next week's weekly maintenance, Bonus Rolls can only be used on raid encounters where the player is still eligible to receive loot.
That means your first kill of a boss on a given difficulty works normally.
You kill the boss.
You receive your normal opportunity at raid loot.
If you have a Nebulous Voidcore, you can also use your Bonus Roll.
But once that boss has been killed and your character becomes loot-locked for that difficulty, killing it again during the same week will no longer produce another Bonus Roll opportunity.
Right Now, You Can Kill the Boss Again and Roll Again
This is a meaningful change from how the system currently works.
Under the existing rules, being loot-locked from a boss does not necessarily stop the Nebulous Voidcore window from appearing.
A player can kill a raid boss, spend a Voidcore, then join another group and kill that same boss again.
There is no second normal raid drop opportunity.
But there can still be another Bonus Roll.
That created a powerful strategy for players targeting one specific item.
Instead of spreading several Voidcores across different encounters, you could repeatedly attack the loot table that actually mattered.
Next week, that strategy ends.
Heroic Ula'tek Is the Obvious Loser
The change is particularly important for players targeting Heroic Ula'tek.
Season 2 deliberately makes loot from Nebulous Voidcores equivalent to the Great Vault reward for the difficulty where the roll was used.
That means a Heroic raid Bonus Roll can produce Myth-track gear.
And because Ula'tek sits at the end of The Venomous Abyss with some highly desirable items on her loot table, she is one of the obvious places to spend saved Voidcores.
Under the current system, getting a Heroic Ula'tek kill opens the possibility of repeatedly killing her during the same week and using additional Bonus Rolls.
After the change, you get your opportunity on the loot-eligible kill.
Then you wait until next week.
Ula'tek has discovered lockouts.
You Can Still Roll the Same Boss on Different Difficulties
There is an important distinction here.
The restriction is based on loot eligibility on each difficulty.
Killing Heroic Ula'tek does not automatically make you loot-locked to Normal Ula'tek.
If you are still eligible for loot from the Normal encounter, a Normal kill can still offer its own Bonus Roll opportunity.
The same principle applies across Raid Finder, Normal, Heroic and other eligible raid difficulties.
What Blizzard is stopping is repeatedly farming the same boss on the same difficulty after your normal loot eligibility has already been consumed.
That is a much more specific restriction than simply saying you can only Bonus Roll a boss once per week.
Blizzard Says the New Rule Better Matches Normal Raid Loot
Blizzard acknowledges that this is a change from Season 1 behavior.
The developers say requiring normal loot eligibility more closely matches the way raid loot generally works and should be healthier for loot acquisition overall.
There is an obvious logic to that.
Raid lockouts normally exist specifically to stop players from repeatedly farming the same boss for unlimited chances at its best items.
Nebulous Voidcores effectively created a second reward system sitting outside that restriction.
You could not loot the corpse again.
You could, however, keep feeding currency into the machine beside it.
Blizzard has decided those two systems should follow the same lockout.
This Makes Every Voidcore Decision More Important
The timing is interesting because Season 2 has otherwise made Nebulous Voidcores substantially more attractive.
We previously covered how Blizzard cut the cost of raid Bonus Rolls from two Voidcores to just one.
And this week, eligible players finally gained the option to take a Nebulous Voidcore directly from the Great Vault instead of unwanted gear.
Those changes made targeted farming substantially easier.
The new lockout rule pulls in the opposite direction.
You can still target the boss containing the item you want.
You just cannot keep targeting that same difficulty repeatedly during a single reset.
The Knockout System Still Matters
Bonus Rolls are not completely random copies of normal raid loot.
The system uses a knockout mechanic.
When you successfully obtain an eligible item from a Bonus Roll, that item is removed from that character's Bonus Roll pool for that encounter and difficulty until the available pool has been exhausted.
That gradually improves your chances of reaching another desired item.
The important part after next week's change is that progressing through that loot pool will take more weekly lockouts if you are concentrating on a single raid boss.
You cannot simply arrive with a pocket full of Voidcores and repeatedly clear the encounter in one afternoon.
If You Have Saved Voidcores, This Week Is Different
Blizzard says the restriction begins with next week's scheduled maintenance.
So the existing behavior remains in place for the current reset.
If you already have several Nebulous Voidcores and were specifically planning to use them repeatedly on one raid boss, this is the final week where that strategy works under the current rules.
That does not mean everybody should immediately burn every Voidcore they own.
A guaranteed Great Vault upgrade can still be worth more than another targeted roll, and you may want the currency for a different encounter later.
But if your entire plan was:
Kill Heroic Ula'tek until she gives up the good stuff...
you should know that Blizzard is about to put a weekly limit on that conversation.
Bonus Rolls Are Staying — The Spam Strategy Is Not
This is not the end of Nebulous Voidcores.
You can still choose them through the Great Vault.
Raid rolls still cost only one Voidcore.
Bonus Roll loot still benefits from its targeted knockout system.
And the system remains one of Season 2's best tools for chasing specific gear.
What changes next week is how often you can attack one raid loot table.
One difficulty.
One loot-eligible kill.
One opportunity to Bonus Roll before the lockout takes over.
So enjoy the current system while it lasts.
Next week, even the Bonus Roll has to respect the raid calendar.
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