Hey everyone, long long time reader, first time poster.
I feel like I have something to add to this conversation because we've recently run into this issue that our guild gets extremely lazy on trash.

I read all the discussion about risk vs reward and things like that, and I hope that a blizzard developer is reading this thread because there are lots of great ideas such as the time-trial trash thing, where theres more rep or a reward at the end of a fast trash pull.

On the topic of "spicing up trash pulls" though, we've found a few pretty fun methods.

Firstly (which doesn't specifically relate to trash although, but I still felt like mentioning it.)
We have a betting pool set up with different rewards each week. We have everyone submit their loot predictions for every boss from Hyjal through Shade (which is what we do in one night) then Teron through Illidan. (Night Two) Rewards being a free BT gem of your choice (we bank them for T6 gear, and they are not readily available for all members).... or having officer permissions for a week (seeing o-chat and gkicking friends as a joke (which happens a lot, haha)).

5g entry fee, in-game mail to our guild master who runs the whole thing and keeps track of it via spreadsheet.
The pool ends up being 150g+ after the entire guid bets on it, and its actually really fun to keep track of peoples predictions. Our guild also has a terrible history of drops such as double vanquisher for 4 weeks in a row, or healing leather and retribution plate. Its a fun topic to talk about on vent.

Which leads me to another point.
Vent conversations are fun and a good way to blow off steam. We tease eachother and joke around and have fun during trash. I often find myself having more fun on trash than on a boss, even when I'm not giving my 100%. I know I'm not giving my all, but I'm probably typing or talking on vent and socializing. Afterall, this is a SOCIAL game in the end. I sign on every night to talk to my friends, if I wanted to play a fun game by myself I'd play a final fantasy.

Finally, we have other significant trash pulls that revolve around betting (surprise!) and often its more funny than serious.
For instance, the giants between RoS and BloodBoil, akin to AQ40 trash they have a Meteor ability. To spice things up, we have a select group of players that especially like to have fun, and they play a sort of "Russian Roulette" with the Meteor. Standing away from the raid in hopes that the trash will summon the Meteor on his head and leads to his 1-shot and a repair bill. It's funny to joke around on vent and have 2-3 people bicker at eachother. Sometimes if the situation is epic enough, the losers (dead people) pay the winners. YES this leads to slight slow downs as we have to res people, but morale is ultimately higher because everyone is having more fun... which I feel is more important. (Discussed Later)

Occasionally we also have two "teams" compete to dps down two sets of mobs. For example, Supremus' room. There are two sets of mobs, flying and ground. Often we mark them up and compete Melee dps VS Ranged dps (Attacking the ground / air mobs). Have a pair of officers go through and pick people, sort of like dodge ball from 3rd grade. One at a time. This is a double measure to let the last few people to be chosen know that they aren't the highest on DPS... as the most geared/best players will be chosen first. (Side Note: This was always a motivator for me to try harder, as I didn't want to be picked last).

It's all about competition for us, and while that MIGHT not sound very fun, after reading this.. try to start something up like this in your raid tonight and see what people think. It takes the edge off, dulls the corners so to speak.. loosening things up so people have more FUN. (ITS A GAME, REMEMBER?)

As I said earlier, I feel high morale is important. Last night we had the end of our first 2-day clear of Hyjal and Black Temple. Thats right, two nights. 4 hours each night. (Hey! I'm proud! We killed Illidan mid-december, so it hasn't been very long to master these fights!)

Nearly 1-shots for every boss, and if it wasn't a 1-shot, it was a slight goofup and a partial re-set. The other significant part, which I feel ultimately lead up to this 2-day clear is that we all had a ton of fun doing it.(More than usual!) There was no tension, we were all joking around on trash while still getting our job done and discussing the next boss and our loot predictions. "Ohh it will be double Vanq again, damn druids have every single set of off pieces... we're giving T6 to that new rogue because no one else needs it.. "

So remember if you feel like your guild hit a wall, or is struggling on trash, or morale is low. Try some different methods to get everyones spirits up. You'd be surprised how fast trash goes down when you make two groups compete over bragging rights on which group can dps down a mob faster. This might be seen as misleading, especially if blatantly stated "hey lets get this trash down faster, group 3 vs group 4"... don't make it out like your ultimate goal is faster trash... make it look like you're legitimately trying to have some fun (even if you ARE trying to kill trash faster).

Hope this helps-
-Sudius

One thing that members should keep in mind is that when you rez someone, you toss them their standard raid buffs. Don't tell them "just wait till we get to the boss" if there is more trash left. There's no excuse to deny all the benefits to someone to improve their survivability and output to contribute on getting trash done for the measly cost of some mana and cheap reagents. WhisperCast is sadly a thing of the past (please correct me if I'm wrong) and I'd really rather not have to whisper anyone to do their job.

The struggle is to make Trash fun. Or to use it effectively as a "warm up" prior to pulling the boss. If you can implement that mentality, it helps remove the atmosphere of drudgery surrounding Trash.

We have a chat channel for caster DPS that was originally created to boast about one's Trash performance. We compete on each Boss' set of Trash to top the meter...of course if a person gets themselves killed it is impossible to recover in the standings, so the game polices itself in terms of death-by-epeen. I think competitive Trash (and the chat channel) has contributed to our improved raid speed and efficiency.

One thing I do privately is needle those prone to dying on Trash. I try to do it in a humorous way that isn't too annoying or cruel...though I bet it does annoy the person. I think it is important to let them know that someone is watching and noticing that they're suiciding and slowing down the raid. It seems to be working, as those most needled either improve their survivability or quit raiding.

I think the "screwup pulls" are by far the most interesting trash pulls.
The room before Bloodboil for example, "Oups, we got both the Behemoth and the 2+many pack", that actually requires some focus from people if you want to live through it.

Frankly, I think the problem, especially in BT, is that the trash is just too easy.
It's very plentiful, and also very easy, that doesn't make for a focused raid, and is a stark contrast to the above mentioned triple draknoid packs or Anubisaths between Huhu and the Emperors.

Being a tank, I can't slack all I want, but shit knows I want to sometimes, after killing the millionth fel orc that doesn't really post any kind of serious threat to the raid.
A triple green pack of wyrmguards on the other hand, now that was dangerous even after you started out gearing BWL, people knew this, so they paid attention accordingly.

I am currently trying to make a walkthrough/pull guide for BT. It is hard to piecemail information on the trash mobs from sources like wowwiki and wowhead. I was wondering if any of you could point me to a guide. My guild is current working on Hyjal and will start BT in the next week or two.

While the desire to write a guide for BT trash is commendable, I think the best way of going about doing it is to pull the trash yourself and find out. Other than a few notable mobs, nothing in there is special or raid-wipingly bad. Awake healers and alert tanks will get you through 100% of the the trash in the zone never having seen it before or knowing anything about it.

I'll gladly agree that clearing trash effectively can indeed shorten down the span on the raid. To me, there are two different sorts of trash pulls: The ones that are "just another pack", and the ones that require a great deal of attention (thinking of the sorts before Akil'zon in ZA, where the objective is to get through as fast as possible, the scouts in ZA before Jan'alai, murlocs in SSC, etc.). Personally, the only raid I lead is ZA, so that is my only basis of experience on that point. I do feel, however, that issues on trash can quite easily be a result of the raid leader.
We have some quite effective raid-leaders in our guilds, in my own opinion, in terms of counting down on packs where multiple mobs needs to be CC'd, and the likes. I personally find that this helps keep up attention during the trash, and lessen the amounts of wipes. As it has said before, raid leaders have a unique and effective position when it comes to clearing trash in an efficient manner. Not that I'm very good at it myself, but that's a different point.
I find it a quite valid topic, this one though. If your raid is experiencing a lot of difficulty for whatever the reason in an instance they do know quite well, what is the effect when you reach the boss? It most certainly affects the morale of the raid, in the sense of "is trash is going this bad, how are we supposed to get the boss down?".
All in all, it's probably a matter of the conclusion that "trash really is boring". Trash doesn't drop loot, and it isn't an epic challenge in itself (not that I don't think that trash can't be a great challenge, but the feel of a boss isn't nearly the same as the feel of a boss). This might very well be what causes people to lose focus, which I may admittedly do myself. Then again, if people are forced to focus quite deeply for the entire duration of a raid, what is the effect of that...? I'm not arguing for whipes here, on trash, simply that having a more 'relaxed' mood between bosses might, in the end, be desirable.

If you aren't already doing this, an easy and fun way of clearing Hyjal trash is to have a well equipped paladin tank available. We first cleared Hyjal with warriors tanking 2-3 adds each, getting a few down then starting to AoE the rest, which would mostly lead to pulling agro and creating anxiety for the whole raid.

Some may argue anxiety is a good thing for a guild, as it keeps people alert, but I believe that having fun can act in pretty much the same way. Basically, what you get from a paladin tank is just that - fun while clearing those waves for the billionth time. You get one or two mobs down by single target DPSing, then turn to the pack that's by now perma-glued to the paladin and just unload trinketed SoC's etc at them without a care in the world. Things die faster, numbers are bigger, players stay focused, bosses appear faster, you clear Hyjal half an hour faster than before and maintain high guild spirit, which is essential when it comes to trash and achieving progress in less tangible ways than killing a new boss used to be.

Playing a whole raid with focus is what my guild stands for basicly. No time screwing around, just focus to get the most done in the least time ( we raid 10 hours a week , yet cleared all content ). Now I cant remember the last wipe on trash Ive had with them.

On the other side , Ive also been in a guild where wipes on trash happened once a week or more.

Now people say that playing with focus isnt fun, but I dare to say different : When everyone pays attention to clear the instance fast , Im actually having more fun, no stress at all , no frustration at all and time enough to even do a ZA run after raid ( while still being in 10 hour raid schedule ).

So its kind of an upward circle : Focus gives less stress, more fun, making it easier to focus, etc.

This doesnt mean however that our vent is too quiet, there is enough time to make jokes, silly comments etc, but as soon as things get more serious again everyone knows perfectly well to shut up and focus on the job until the boss is dead.

Personal Anecdote:
Nearly every "bad" trash scenario that I have faced in multiple guilds is immediately followed by the realization that the raid should have taken a 10 or 15 minute break before moving on to the next trash clear. While getting raiders excited to push their performance on trash has everything to do with their own personal state of mind and the general atmosphere of the guild (excitement or lack thereof is usually a group thing), poor performance, afk players, deaths, wipes, lack of execution, etc., has everything to do with the pacing of the raid and the ability of its leaders to recognize when it is time to take a break. An over-simplification? Perhaps, but one that has been borne out over and over again in my personal experience.

Theory:
A well paced raid is relaxing, comfortable, fun, full of goofing off AND excellence on both the bosses and the trash, exciting, nerve-wracking, energizing, talkative, focused, and may other adjectives. It is usually not all of these at once, but that is where pacing comes in. Taking advantage of momentum, recognizing raid wipe focus slipping, rewarding success and being realistic in the face of failure, all help mold a 4 hour chunk of time into an enjoyable experience. The time that it takes or the lack thereof are not the true measure of a successful raid, but rather, the quality of the time spent.

TLDR : A successful trash clear (successful = enjoyable) has everything to do with a raid leader's ability to pace the group. A well timed break is the difference between finishing early and wiping for 2 hours.

These are really fun ideas, myself i'd like to adopt them in our guild...sadly i don't think they would care enough...

On a side note; trash pulls can be very boring after what? 5-6 months of doing them... i understand that being effective on trash is better in the long run since it provides shorter time overall clearing the whole isntance but it is indeed really hard to keep people focused on stuff like trash, specially with my guild that is well....extremely bored with tier 6 content....

WTB fun trash pulls.

I like proper positionin on trash pulls, and keepin it consistent, say MT1 goes to the left always, MT2 goes to the right always and MT3 goes forward/back middle, sure you get the idea, I also hate trash afk'ers

Dunno I might be a nazi or simply too square, but I wholeheartedly loathe slackers/afk'ers on trash. IMO you got 3-4 yours of designated raidtime per night, and I would rather spend the most time on the bosses then making up for someones dps or rebuffing/summoning dead dudes who got killed while MC'd.

As for further trash "buffs" or changes I dont know honestly! Blizzard has a thing for trash that is apparent the amount of junk you have to wade trough till you reach the boss is insane. I would rather keep my raiders diciplined than get punished yet again on trash by blizzard.

Our guild seems to have a semi unique marking system for trash.
Pulls are marked Red, orange, yellow, green in the order they'll be killed. This lines up with the tank targets.
The bottom tank target gets red, the next up orange etc.
Blue, purple, moon are for CC targets. Skull is used only for things that need to die right away. (dogs on pre akama trash come to mind).
This means that for any pull dps knows who to kill, and who they'll be killing next. Tanks know what order they're mobs will be dieing in so can position them correctly.
Marking doesn't really delay us because as a tank once most of the mobs are dead I can have the next pack marked, or the hunter who is pulling can do it.
For single/double pulls it isn't as required, but packs like the groups of six before council or blood boil it's nice.
The biggest issues we've had is that many people don't seem to know the rainbow.

I have to laugh at this. It certainly helps, god knows I have tons of fun boosting my ego and over inflated value of self-worth during Hyjal, but my guild is slowly becoming complacent and bored in Hyjal...because I can, and frequently do, tank everything on the ground from every wave (excepting infernals). Even in BT, I significantly speed up and reduce the difficulty of most trash pulls, simply because there isn't a need for more tanks and I can hold anything 'over in the corner' until DPS can get to it.

Given this though, as my threat gear builds up, AoE DPSers are getting slack and I see the Seeds flying past me over my shoulders as I am still casting Holy Wrath, mages running up right behind me to start opening up as soon as they see my first consecrate tick. It is slowly causing problems because of it, but I have been working to keep them on their toes, including suddenly backing up behind the mages or canceling the Holy Wrath, or bubbling for ~5 seconds once I am holding everything and DPS has opened up.


And this is the most effective and efficient role paladin tanks can continually deliver on. Smoothing out trash on the way to bosses, so trash isn't as big of a drain on resources, durability, moral, and energy.

We are a method of crowd control...as long as we have the gear to allow healers to keep us up.