Healer LFG

10 Ways to Speed up your Raid

Getting the most out of the time your guild has available to raid can be a major challenge. Especially when those farm content nights are sluggish. You want more time for learning that new boss and secretly believe what’s taking you two nights can be squeezed into one with more efficiency.

My guild does a thing we call “trash speed clears” its not for everyone and we have our off nights where it backfires on us, but here are some tips for getting the most out of your time.

1. Have one person assigned to pull and a back up if they are AFK. Hunters and Tanks work best. They should be someone who is aware of the status of the raid at all times: healer mana, deaths, etc.
2. Have your Main Assist be your top single target DPS and make sure its well known who the main assist is. Everyone in our raid knows to “Assist Vinq” and that he is the one to beat on trash as far as damage.
3. Give all your tanks and CC their own marks and “Assistant” in the raid. This way your raid leader knows everyone is ready because all the marks are up. No more wipes due to that sheep that never happened. If a mark isn’t up within a reasonable amount of time, assign your MT to “double tank” and pull.
4. Stop announcing “I am pulling!” unless needed. Careful with this one as people get used to it People should always be ready to go and there should be very little downtime between pulls. Try and keep relatively the same timing between pulls so people get into the rhythm.
5. Maximize your healer group. Resto Shaman, Shadow priest + 3 other healers.
6. Use Cooldowns on Trash. Got a bad pull? Use Herosim/Bloodlust to try and get through it if you are more than 10 minutes away from a boss. Give that Shadow Priest in your healer group Innervates and Mana Tides on cooldown, it will keep those healers’ mana bars full while the others can drink when needed.
7. Keep going unless more than 4 people are dead. You don’t need your raid 100% alive and buffed for most trash.
8. Don’t take AFK Breaks. Make it understood that only one person per role AFK’s at a time. In healer chat if I have to afk and see a shaman say brb, I wait until I see them back and healing before I go.
9. When someone says they have to AFK 10+ minutes have them log out and have someone else, if available, head to the raid. This way if you reach a boss you can replace them if necessary and not get the dreaded “Instance is Full” message. This also discourages pro-longed AFK’s and helps those who do have something important to take care of not feel as though they are holding up the raid.
10. Make it fun! Once you get a good quick trash clear down play some music on vent (make sure its someone who can quickly recognize when to turn it off if something goes wrong). Praise people highly for getting through a rough pull, or for clearing faster than “last week”.

Please bear in mind these tips apply to farm content; trash your raid is very familiar with. Although some can be applied all the time, not all should be used unless everyone has a general idea of what’s coming at all times

I feel doing trash this way has made our raid better. Let’s face it, no one really likes trash, going quickly makes it a little more interesting and challenging while also getting it out of the way in less time. Its also taught everyone to react a little quicker to bad situations and think for themselves instead of waiting for the raid leader to start yelling “AMG SHEEP X” after it has already killed 4 healers.

Hope these tips help some raid leaders, and if you have any ideas for making those trash clears quicker and more bearable, please comment with your own!