First Impressions of the PTR

This week has been pretty exciting both on the live server and the PTR. 

My guild on Draenor-us is progressing along nicely, and still having fun while at it. Gear is all in order, and consumables are also in order. Group 2 for our 10 man groups downed Mimiron last night.

Though that is not what this post is about. This post is about the PTR.

Several people from both Dark Evolution of Draenor US, and Several guilds on Azuremyst US have banded together and made a guild over on Broxigar.

I suppose that my first impression would be flying into the Argent Tournament Grounds and going "oh my god" upon seeing the completed coliseum. I did make a quick stop on my priest to check out the new Crusaders Quests at the argent tournament, since my druid never actually did those quests, and the pre-made toons weren't automatically given max faction with the 4 alliance cities, and the Silver Covenant.

I've had a taste of several different types of toons including two of my own. I acquired a pre-made Paladin, and a pre-made Druid. I wanted the extra druid aside from my own which I copied over form Azuremyst, along with my Priest from Draenor. 

The Paladin is rather fascinating, I've never been able to level one myself, but was able to figure out most of the skills needed to play both Retribution and Protection. I feel that the Paladin still needs adjustments, a friend of mine was playing a holy paladin spamming heals and his mana was going up instead of down. The mana regen issue is a little skewed with them.

I've played around with a boomkin druid as well, the boomkin is cooler than I thought. If you've browsed my blog previously I had posted Thuradin's video from Youtube. Druids are a really good class regardless of the form.

I took some time this afternoon to try out the new Battleground. Sadly, as cool as the BG seems, the PTR was probably not the best place for me to try it. Though I did have fun ripping horde apart, I never really got past the base.

Raid Efficiency - Revisited

I decided to revisit the topic of Raid Efficiency the other day when my raid-leader commented on how long it takes us to go from full wipe to next pull. I remember timing one of my last guilds in Tempest Keep and being shocked at how long it took us to go from raid being formed to Loot Reaver, it was almost an hour, I was shocked.

I figured it was time to revisit Raid Efficiency.

1) Buffs and Dying on Trash:

• On trash you're not going to need any more than your own self-buffs. It's trash.
• If you die, release and run back, in Ulduar this is made extremely easy by teleporters scattered throughout the instance, if you're running back, this gives us the ability to pull faster, which in return means more time for bosses.

2) Pre-Raid Preparation:

• Most raiding guilds have off days, if your time is limited you'll need to use these days wisely, take time out to farm the mats for your flasks, and food, do some dailies so you have repair money. Even as a holy priest dailies are extremely easy in Wrath of the Lich King, and if you choose them right they only take 30 mins to get 100G or more. 

• Dailies: One of my huge pet peeves is people getting raid invites and then dropping raid to finish their dailies, this goes with my point above of using your time wisely. As soon as you get your raid invite you should be making sure you are completely repaired and have the necessary reagents as outlined by your guild, and then heading directly to the raid instance.

• Cigarette, Snack, Drink and Bio: This should be done prior to the raid, you should not hold up the raid simply because you need to get a drink, go to the store, bio, smoke or whatever. If your raid pulls at 5pm server, then you should be at your keys, drink in hand and whatnot ready to buff and pull.

3. Ventrilo

• I know how much everyone likes to talk and socialise, and I'm just as guilty as the next man. But during raid vent should be clear except for the necessary people: Tanks, healers and the raid leader. As we have all seen/heard that if a healer goes down, or gets caught in some type of void or hand or flaming sporran of hellfire it's extremely important that other healers and tanks know that a healer is currently incapacitated. 

• DPS - your role is extremely important, but we don't need to know that you died. We already know this as healers, and the tanks only really focus on keeping the aggro of the boss so said boss doesn't eat us all alive. Unless you have a special job, like rooting constructs, or kiting mobs, we don't need to hear your voice.

• Calling out for healing - this is extremely taboo, do not do it because we're already on it. By the time you call out, heal me heal me we're already half way there, and it makes us not want to heal you EVER.

4. Wipes

• If a soulstone/DI/ankh or whatever is used, there is an optimal resurrection order that should be followed. Rezzers, Mana users, Tanks. This order if followed means that the raid can get back on its feet much faster.
• Once everyone is up and in the area, then buff. Not only does this save time, but it also saves reagents.

5. Loot

• Most bosses are fairly close together so the master looter can loot to you even if you're not in the immediate room, so everyone except the master looter should move to the next pull immediately after a boss (barring first kill screenshots). 

These are a few suggestions in speeding up raid time and being able to down more bosses.