It's a fascinating set-up. You have to have casters, because if you don't, then the shadow smashes will target the melee and that's no good, not to mention the mark of the faceless (that heals him based on how many people are standing around the person affected) that shouldn't be aimed towards the melee.
But overall, things went very well. I've now got some properly decent Ulduar level 219 tanking gear (mostly) and even a few pieces of dps gear too. My dual spec may really come into play before too long, because our awesome druid OT is also an awesome feral cat, and there may be some hard modes where we will need the extra dps she puts out.
So, from a warrior perspective, here are some things you might need to know about the bosses in Ulduar, I'm starting with the Siege of Ulduar bosses.
Flame Leviathon: Ok, not much to this, it totally depends on which vehicle you're in, and very little on your class. The only catch is if you're dps specced, you may be put in the gunner's chair in a Demolisher to be launched onto FL to overload him (and stop him from moving for a while and remove the buff that stacks to increase his speed).
Chopper:> You have 2 jobs. 1 - every cooldown, speed in front of FL and drop tar. 2 - whenever someone is launched, you need to go pick them up after they've killed the turrets. That's really it. If you're bored in between times, use your attack. A little extra dps never hurt anyone.
Siege Engine:> You have 2 jobs, which change based on which seat you're in. If you're in the driver's seat, your job is to 1 - interrupt Flame Vents every time FL does it. In order to do that (and that's really the important one) you need to be right up on the back of FL unless he's chasing you. If he's chasing you, then your job is 2 - don't die. You have a speed boost you can use to help kite him. If you're in the gunner's seat, your jobs are to 1 - shoot down the pyrite barrels, and 2 - cannon the tar on the ground when possible. The only other thing you should ever do, is notice when your driver is having a hard time getting away from FL and use your shield to help out.
Demolisher:> You have 3-4 jobs, which change based on which seat you're in. If you're in the driver's seat, your job is to 1 - put up to 10 stacks of pyrite onto FL and keep them on. The debuff lasts 10 seconds, so you can use the cannon 2-3 times between shots to help it last longer, 2 - stay away from FL. You are ranged, so act like it. You don't want to be anywhere near the guy if you can help it, 3 - if you start to get low on Pyrite (say 30/50 or so) you have to drive closer to Pyrite barrels, and finally 4 - you need to launch your passenger onto FL when it's time (basically 6-8 stacks of the buff, and when you're not the one being chased) and then stay the heck away from the guy and try to make your pyrite last until the cannons come down. Once they do, FL will be stuck into place and this is a good time to make sure you top off your 10 stacks of Pyrite. If you're in the gunner's chair, then your jobs are 1 - shoot down Pyrite all the time, your cannons don't do a lot of damage, don't worry about them, the Pyrite is a lot more important, 2 - whenever your driver gets you close to a Pyrite barrel, pick it up, 3 - if FL starts pursuing you and it's close, hit the speed boost and then go back to job 2 to fill up the Pyrite again, and finally 4 - when your driver tells you to, use the last button to hop in the catapult and go up and smash the cannon you're on.
If everyone in the vehicles (and there should be pretty much a mixture of them. In 10 man 2 each, in 25 man, 5 each) does their jobs, this fight is pretty simple, even though it seems at times like it's just not going your way. Get good at the basics, and you can start leaving towers up.
Razorscale(optional): Ok, back to typical fighting stuff. You may have 3 rolls, MT, OT, or DPS. The only difference in MT and OT is whether you're tanking Razorscale or any Sentinals or other adds still up during the ground phases. In 25 man, you will probably have 2 OT to deal with adds, one specially for pulling out the sentinals, and the other just for the adds since there will be more adds left up when Razorscale drops.
Razorscale starts out in the air, and tunnelers (like the ones the dark iron Dwarves come out of) pop up and bring adds. If you're a tank, you're grabbing these adds and moving them into a central location (since there will be more than 1 tunneler) if you're DPS you'll be waiting until they're collected and then going in and mowing them down. First DPS priority will be the sentinals (big guys) the OT will typically pull them away from the rest of the adds so they can be single targeted by the Ranged dps or any spare melee. Several waves of these will spawn until deadly boss mods will announce that the turrets are ready. (You won't care about this. Someone else is in charge of these.) During this time the main thing to watch out for is the fire shots. There are two colors of fireballs that Razorscale launches at you. The blue and orange ones hit for barely any damage at all, and can be ignored, since you can't avoid them anyway. The pure blue ones, however, hit and then spawn a blue flame "void zone" on the ground where they hit. Avoid these at all costs, no matter who you are. Keep this up until the turrets are ready. Once the turrets are ready, they'll be shot and Razorscale will be brought down in reach of your viciously cool axe (or sword, I'm not prejudiced). If you're MT, you'll be grabbing Razorscale, if you're OT you'll catch the adds left up. If you're DPS at this point, you switch to Razorscale. The object here is to do AT LEAST 25% damage to her. While she's on the ground during these ground phases, she will not shoot the fire out, so everyone can burn dps like there's no stopping. At some point she'll lift back off, and the next air phase will begin. She'll keep doing this until she's at 50% health. If you want the fight to go quickly (and who doesn't) you will want to get the first 25% on the first ground phase, and get the second 25% on the second ground phase, afterwhich she won't go back up again, and we'll enter the second chapter of Razorscale. If you don't make it, then you'll end up with at least one more air/ground switchoff. To facilitate this speed dps, make sure that you have SUNDER at 5 stacks always (improves EVERYONE's dps) and make sure that you use big cooldowns early on in the first ground phase so that if you're lucky you'll have them to use again somewhere in the middle of the second one. I'm talking about Deathwish/Recklessness, and then Whirlwinds, I'm talking Rend, Shattering Throw and then Bladestorm, all that stuff. If you're tanking, you don't need to do anything but try to help keep your targets in place. Keep sunders up so the dps don't have to, keep Demoralizing shout up to help you live longer, etc. these phases aren't tests for you, they're for the dps.
Once you have her below 50% the MT and OT will basically dual tank Razor. First the dps should mow down any remaining adds to free up the OT for this. Razorscale will begin dropping more of the lovely blue flames, and will also put a debuff on the tank. The MT and OT will need to be aware of this debuff and taunt Razorscale off whenever 2 stacks are present. Basically 1 is acceptable, but as soon as it hits 2, the other tank needs to taunt. Each stack reduces armor by 20% and movement speed by 20%. As if that wasn't enough, the tanks will be trying to move her so that the dps don't have to stand in the blue fire puddles she's dropping everywhere. This is the part of the fight that tests you as a tank. The good news is, no more surprises. That's about all there is to worry about. She should go down pretty easy once you get the hang of that.
Ignis(optional): Ok so either you're a dps here and you can sleep through most of this, or you're a tank and you're going to pull your hair out. This fight will need either 2 or 3 tanks, depending on 10 or 25 man raiding party.
The fight from a MT perspective. You have one job: positioning Ignis. Ignis will need to be moved in a square/triangle/etc to give specific burn points for the OT's to use and you'll need to move anyway to keep from getting burned. Ideally, you will make this cool geometric figure in such a way that the dps can all stand directly in the middle of the room and never have to move.
The fight from an OT perspective. You are in charge of the iron construct that will be activated. If it's 10 man, you'll need to watch both sides, in 25 you can watch only one side. There are three tips I can give you. 1) each time Ignis activates a construct he'll say "Arise Soldiers!" and throw a spark up into the air that will arc towards whatever construct is being activated. Get him, but don't stray too far from the middle, because that's where you need him to come anyway. 2) Shockwave, Concussion blow, or having a druid that roots them in place will save your healers a ton of mana. You want them in the fire (preferably the most recent fire that was laid down) and you don't want to be in it. 3) when the constructs become molten, you'll see four things: first, they'll turn orange, second, they'll speed up, third they'll drop aggro and go for whomever, and fourth they'll hurt a lot more in an AoE. As soon as they go molten, you have to reacquire aggro and kite them to the nearest pool of water. Once you run into the water (and stay in the shallow part) announce to he dedicated ranged dps that you have a brittle construct and then get the heck away. It sounds simple until you try to do it.
the fight from a DPS perspective. Yawn. dps the heck out of the guy. The worst thing that can happen to you is that you might be put in the slag pot. If that happens, make sure you have some kind of something you can do to mitigate the damage he's going to do, even though it's not as bad as it was. I.e. equip a shield, switch to defensive stance and use shield wall, drink a potion, use enraged regeneration, etc. You can also be healed while you're in there, but bandages won't do you much good (as you're suffering from a dot). This used to be worse, and is now not as bad as it was.
XT-002: This guy is fun. The majority of the difficulty here rests on the healers. If you're MT, your job is to hold XT in place, and it feels like a basic tank and spank. We have found the best placement for XT is on one of the sides (we use the left) right between the two scrap piles. This way only the far two scrap piles spawn adds instead of all of them. If you're dps just whack the heck out of the guy. Save your cooldowns for the times when his heart comes out. The only time you have to be careful there is if you don't want to kill the heart (hard mode) in which case, you want to curb your 4K dps enough to keep the heart barely alive. If you're OT, then you're going to get a bunch of pummelers that you have to keep aggroed. And you can kite them, and you can play with them. Just have a good time. The only thing to continuously watch out for as dps is that there are types of "bombs" that XT casts on you, in either case, you need to run away from everyone else. each of them does damage to you, but does damage to everyone around you also. If you're the one with the bomb, you just get at least 20 yards away from everyone else, and the healers can keep you up no problem, if you don't, they have to try to keep everyone up, which is tough. There will also be tantrums that will cause raid wide damage that must be healed through. During these tantrums, if you have potions or something you can use to heal yourself (like enraged regeneration, Lifebloom, potions, etc) doing so will make it that much easier to keep you alive.
And a few phases of heart in/heart out and he goes down.
I'll post up some info on the Keepers of Ulduar later.
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