I joined in on a Blackwing Lair raid for fun last night. We went through the instance, got some lower level toons some pretty purples, and got the achievement for a bunch of people. It reminded me of my first raiding toons and why I became a raid leader.
I was sure I had highlighted this earlier, but WoW.com had a video guide to faster raiding. What takes time in raids is not the fights, but the dead time. It’s the time you spend waiting for people to find their way to the instance, waiting for someone to regain that last tenth of a percent of mana, or debating who gets the latest shiny object that kills your momentum and leads to people wandering away to take a nap. I had gotten sick of slow runs, which is one of the reasons I became a raid leader. As a tank, I had the bonus ability of pull whenever I felt ready.
The current heroics are a great way to get practice for speed runs. If you’re the tank, just keep pulling if your healer has over 50% mana. As a healer, let the tank know you’re fine with chain pulls. As DPS … play well so that the healer doesn’t waste mana on you, I guess?