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Blood Pact: Zone into Pandaria with 85-90 leveling tips
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill delights in getting off her night-shift work at 3am Eastern -- just in time for Pandaria leveling! There are things I'll do and things I won't do when it comes to playstyle and gear advice. I'm not going to tell you that there's a best spec for leveling. There are many ways to level and Mists of Pandaria is all about doing what you want to do, so following what I do may not be best for you. I'll have you know that I think leveling is far too easy still, so I tend to pick the inefficient or harder ways of doing things on purpose just to keep it interesting. I'm also not going to debate which faction first with people. The gear choices are as varied as the leveling choices, and are meant to be mixed and matched as your drop luck will do for you. I will, however, point out the reputations you'll want to at least reach for reasonable raiding preparations.
A video guide to faster raiding
This video is entitled "Pull! A Guide to Faster Raids," and it's been produced by Kyth, of Fusion (US-Turalyon H). Set to the backdrop of (part of) a Naxxramas speed run, the video presents some easy tips for raiding faster. It's mostly addressed towards raid leaders, but I certainly plan on bringing some of the concepts here forward in my next raid. You should watch the video - it's well made and fun - but here are some bullet points I've taken away from it: Pull fast. Have impatient pullers, have your plate DPS off-tank trash if need be, and don't wait for rebuffs if one or two people die (just do it on the fly). Loot fast. Whether you use /roll, DKP, or loot council, make someone in charge of it, and do it fast. Set high expectations. Initially, your raiders might have difficulty keeping up with an increased pace if they're not used to it, but within a night or two they'll get used to keeping moving all the time, and you'll have more fun because you won't be standing around constantly.
15 Minutes of Fame: PvE players on a speeding frenzy
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. This subject of this week's 15 Minutes of Fame officially rates a mere five minutes of fame – they just blast by that fast. Not that you'd have time to notice. Fusion-H of Turalyon (US) has zipped onto the record charts for speed runs of PvE instances, along with a growing number of U.S. and European guilds that are bored with taking things at the same old pace. Karazhan 11/11 53 minutes, 17 seconds -- Slashcry, EU Kazzak Zul'Aman 6/6 29 minutes, 27 seconds -- Pugnas Rache, EU Alleria Mount Hyjal 5/5 1 hour, 7 minutes, 20 seconds -- Showdown, EU Kazzak Black Temple 9/9 1 hour, 48 minutes, 15 seconds -- Clarity, EU Ravencrest Gruul's Lair 2/2 5 minutes, 57 seconds -- Fusion, US Turalyon Sunwell Plateau 6/6 2 hours, 15 minutes, 52 seconds -- Pugnas Rache, EU Alleria Heroic 16 5 hours, 21 minutes, 52 seconds -- Equinox Prophecy, EU Al´Akir It all started with a speed-run thread on the EU forums, where players devised set rules for 10-man, 25-man and all-heroic content. Then the speeding frenzy spread to the US servers. We caught up with Bazz, GM of Fusion, which holds the current record for clearing Gruul's Lair in a ridiculously brief 5 minutes and 57 seconds, for peek at how one of WoW's top speed-demon guilds makes short work of PvE instances.
Five tips to minimize raiding downtime
I'm a rather avid raider, putting in a solid 20 hours a week on my Warrior. One of the major things about the time spent raiding is that it can be very precious. There is only so much time that 24 other people, plus appropriate class substitutions, can be available each week. It's critical that the time spent raiding is used well.Unfortunately, using raiding time well is about as much of a challenge as is downing Illidan. In preparation for this article, I've spent the past three weeks keeping track of the down time in raids. We raid Sunday through Thursday nights, from 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. We experience a downtime of about 51 minutes for each raid, which is about 20% of the time. Down time is defined as the time that my character is standing still, not attacking, not moving, and not being MDed to.Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not really sure. Tip #1: Chain pullingPersonally, I do my best at the main tank to chain pull and push the trash through as fast as possible. This works out 99% of the time, however the 1% of the time it doesn't work out can grind the raid to a halt. Case and point: The trash to Supremus isn't too bad, and is a lot of packs where the MT, OT, and Pally tank each have some mobs to tank. There are also some ranged dragons that the Warlocks tank. These pulls can go very fast, and are very predictable. Pulling slowly we can do this in about 40 minutes, while chain pulling each group, we can push through in 15.Tip #2: Fully self buffed, all the timeIt doesn't take much to buff yourself. Every class has some buff they can apply to themselves, be it food buffs, spell buffs, or shouts. The key here is that you can find a minute or two to always buff at least yourself, if not others. Although, it might not always be possible to buff others as you're going along - and that's okay with most raid leaders for trash pulls.
