Posts
As some of you may remember I posted a bit ago about our troubles transitioning back into a more serious and challenging raiding environment. Well we simply didn't do it. We could have succeeded, but not on the terms that we were willing to as a guild. It would have involved a rather significant purging of people that had been with us for a significant amount of time in their own rights and so instead Shades of War closed it's doors.
What does this mean for me?
Well I have logged on a total of twice since the disbanding happened late Saturday night. Both times I poked around, said hi to a couple old friends and realized that I still didn't want to do anything but raid with my friends. I'm not particularly interested in finding a new guild to settle into and to be honest the game had been taking up more of my life than was necessarily healthy. I was planning to take a break from raiding this week to focus on my summer classes, so the timing is good at least.
I've downloaded a few free trials of other games, Spellborn was a bust. Unfortunately for them their combat system (which is really fantastic) doesn't save laggy servers, bland surroundings and quests so tedious that they make WoW look like a vibrant playground without grind.
Puzzle pirates is disturbingly addictive. I lost about 5 hours of my life just exploring and learning the various puzzle games. I think that fact is why I won't play it. I can't justify losing that much time like that. Also the disabling of chat when you're mid puzzle is irritating. I would be happy with just the auto message that you're busy, but often I can chat while puzzling away and I just wound up using aim to chat instead.
Currently I'm playing WAR. As much as I wanted to avoid the stigma of playing one of the touted "WoW killer" games after playing warcraft, I must admit it is the first of the three trials that convinced me to subscribe for a month. I've lost track of time playing, but I've also successfully played in small doses of an hour or so. The pvp is what tipped my decision though. Playing one of the scenarios I felt like I was playing pre 2.0 BGs again. The hectic pace and just general fun was there. No one was shouting down anyone not at the level cap, in fact there was only one player at the cap in the scenario and he was having a blast steamrolling us. Even then no one seemed to mind past organizing to take him down before he killed too many of our team.
Possibly the different attitude stems from the overlap in the scenario cutoff points, the first teir goes up to level 11, but the next one starts at 10. So you can't queue up at level 11 and garauntee you're going to get in with a bunch of lowbies to steamroll.
Another game I've been hearing good things about is Runes of Magic. I'm wary of any F2P mmos, I dislike the idea of tying real world money directly to in game progression. One of my old guildies is enjoying it and a couple of real life friends that quit WoW after raiding through vanilla and most of TBC have spoken very well of it. If WAR doesn't hold my attention I'll be trying that one next.
This blog will likely stay quiet. I don't see myself playing any game again to the extent I played WoW, but really my time with warcraft is at an end. I was going to quit the game back 2 years ago when I was invited to join this guild. I decided that I wanted to see the end of Karazan before I quit so I joined the small raiding guild that wanted to break into 25s. I got much more than I expected and made many friends. As sad as I was to see the end of my guild, I'm pretty grateful for the experience it gave me. Before this I considered getting close to people online as something only the worst shut ins did, but I found myself quite close to a number of people, even meeting some of the ones reasonably close to me geographically. Now that the warcraft guild is dead, we still stay on our forums to talk about what's happening, who's playing what and generally keeping in touch. It's funny how your perception changes with experience.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Culture Shock
I've been thinking a lot lately about just how much of a Warcraft culture there is. I mean I don't just log in to play in my off time, I have this blog, I lurk around theorycrafting sites, I conduct my own experiments, and lately I got myself a copy of FRAPS and have been playing around with making videos.
And I'm not remotely alone.
Tons of blogs, countless machinima, and numerous forums are all dedicated to Warcraft and activities around it. You can get tutorials on how to do anything even several steps removed from actually playing the game itself.
I will say that while Warcraft is not the only mmo I have played, it was certainly the game that finally pulled me into the genre and it is the only one I still play. You'll have to forgive my ignorance of the cultures around mmos of the past. I understand that AC and UO had rabid fan bases and strong cultures, but if you weren't involved in these game communities you generally didn't encounter them.
If you look at the sheer number of blogs and videos based around WoW and then look around at other mmos, you'll notice a huge different in both quality and quantity. For some reason Warcraft really inspires people to talk about it and put in alot of time outside playing the game itself. Whether this is because Warcraft is so incredibly pervasive or if it is why it is so pervasive I'm not sure. What I do know is that whenever I play other mmos it's the lack of that community that eventually has me going back to WoW.
The most interesting aspect to me is the large amount of social theory going around for effectively managing large groups of people that have no real obligation to do what you want them to. As this part of the community becomes more established I do wonder how long it will be before discussing volunteer experience managing people in an mmo environment is no longer considered taboo in an interview. I think that will largely be a generational change if the mmo trend continues, but it is interresting to consider that now there is essentially an easily accessable management simulator as a meta aspect of this game.
Only 10 gold to get your guild charter!
And I'm not remotely alone.
Tons of blogs, countless machinima, and numerous forums are all dedicated to Warcraft and activities around it. You can get tutorials on how to do anything even several steps removed from actually playing the game itself.
I will say that while Warcraft is not the only mmo I have played, it was certainly the game that finally pulled me into the genre and it is the only one I still play. You'll have to forgive my ignorance of the cultures around mmos of the past. I understand that AC and UO had rabid fan bases and strong cultures, but if you weren't involved in these game communities you generally didn't encounter them.
If you look at the sheer number of blogs and videos based around WoW and then look around at other mmos, you'll notice a huge different in both quality and quantity. For some reason Warcraft really inspires people to talk about it and put in alot of time outside playing the game itself. Whether this is because Warcraft is so incredibly pervasive or if it is why it is so pervasive I'm not sure. What I do know is that whenever I play other mmos it's the lack of that community that eventually has me going back to WoW.
The most interesting aspect to me is the large amount of social theory going around for effectively managing large groups of people that have no real obligation to do what you want them to. As this part of the community becomes more established I do wonder how long it will be before discussing volunteer experience managing people in an mmo environment is no longer considered taboo in an interview. I think that will largely be a generational change if the mmo trend continues, but it is interresting to consider that now there is essentially an easily accessable management simulator as a meta aspect of this game.
Only 10 gold to get your guild charter!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Shameless Plug
Shades of War (my lovely guild) is recruiting not just one but several class/roles! We are currently working on Yoggsaron as well as hard mode versions of earlier bosses. For a more thorough look at our current progress here's our Guild Ox link.
Currently we are in need of a resto shaman, one resto druid, a dps DK (blood or frost preferred), and a DK tank. Other classes/roles are welcome to apply, but may be declined depending on the status of our current raiding roster.
Positive attitude, sense of humour and willingness to wipe (I mean work) on hardmodes a must! Gear is a big plus but don't sell yourself short! Gear is the most easily fixed variable in an applicant. Demonstrating that you are driven and enjoy the game is better than linking an armory of full best in slot with an'invite nao' note.
Interested applicants may impress us over at the SoW forums. Getting the right fit for both our guild and our new members is important to us so feel free to ask any questions you may have either here or over on the Shades guild forums.
Thus ends my shameless plug. Ta-ta and have a great weekend!
Currently we are in need of a resto shaman, one resto druid, a dps DK (blood or frost preferred), and a DK tank. Other classes/roles are welcome to apply, but may be declined depending on the status of our current raiding roster.
Positive attitude, sense of humour and willingness to wipe (I mean work) on hardmodes a must! Gear is a big plus but don't sell yourself short! Gear is the most easily fixed variable in an applicant. Demonstrating that you are driven and enjoy the game is better than linking an armory of full best in slot with an'invite nao' note.
Interested applicants may impress us over at the SoW forums. Getting the right fit for both our guild and our new members is important to us so feel free to ask any questions you may have either here or over on the Shades guild forums.
Thus ends my shameless plug. Ta-ta and have a great weekend!
Friday, May 29, 2009
High Noon Parser Duel
Like too many of my projects this got away from me a bit. I've been uploading to World of Logs, WoW Web Stats and WoW Meter Online since my last post and finally feel like I have a grasp of each one's strengths and weaknesses. Last night we had problems with our Steelbreaker tank exploding on contact and so this morning's log dissections really brought out the differences of each parser.
(For those curious, a 32k melee hit on the pull is super lame. I doubt we'll ever figure out the entirety of that particular fail.)
I'll start with the old stand by WWS.
WWS is a very functional parser. All the information is in there, but it is very basic at the surface. The other parsers have adopted the drop down menus for different fights for a reason, it's good design and pretty universal. Anyone familiar with most computer programs won't have an issue using this. Try using a website that doesn't do decent drop down menus and you appreciate the ones that do it right.
The who heals whom and who hits whom chart are the 2 major features that could keep me using WWS. They are both a little difficult to understand at first glance, but provide critical information when you need to find out why that tank died or who was hitting the wrong target and wouldn't fess up. Unfortunately for WWS, WMO has better readability on these charts.
Overall: very usable and mostly intuitive. Definitely could use an update and some of it's competition's features. Digging through logs is no fun and is all too often the answer when using WWS.
WoW Meter Online:
I like what they're trying to do, and I am consistently impressed by the level of involvement their development team has with the community. The site and parser can be difficult to navigate, but much of this I suspect is a bit of culture clash. I'm not used to looking to the right hand side for most things and usually when I'm frustrated trying to find something it's over there.
The big feature that seems to be getting WMO's name out is their absorb counters on healing meters.
Due to combatlog limitations I understand this is probably as close as we'll get to knowing actual absorb amounts until Blizz gives us another overhaul. Some things confuse me though, For instance I'd like to know how they determine when PW:S is cast. It is obvious that it isn't based on Glyph heals since the numbers don't coincide, but then how does it decide I cast PW:S 61 times but only have the glyph activate 41 times?
I'd love to know if anyone has read the answer, I was unable to find it myself. I will have trouble trusting WMO's absorb numbers until they sort out obvious issues like that and holy priests giving DA (though that seems to be a bug on Blizzard's side).
WMO also has the who heals whom and who hit whom charts which is lovely. These don't do the focus which means you can't look at one line to see if the healer was on raid or tank assignments just looking in one row, but I can think of only one time when the focus numbers were something I grabbed while digging through a log. I would say that overall WMO does a better job at these than WWS, just for having lines there so it's easy to tell who's numbers you are looking at from left to right. The big black box of WWS can make me go cross eyed.
Overall: WWS with a face lift. The calendar style for browsing logs is a significant improvement and I wish them luck in their ambitious attempts to work out reliable absorb data, and I have no doubt this is the most accurate effective absorbs counter currently available. I am confident it is more accurate than recount guessed absorbs, which is still nice to have on the go. Finally, the engrish sprinkled through WMO never fails to put a smile on my face (who hited whom indeed).
World of Logs:
After using both the other logs to examine last night I wound up returning to WoL just because of how easy it was to get the information I needed quickly.
Like WMO, WoL uses the lovely calender organization for browsing logs, and I can't talk about that enough. If there's one thing WWS can do to make itself look better it's grab that. I don't bother labelling my logs anymore except the WWS upload.
The charts are fantastic, this was the best way I had to examine healing during these attempts, since I needed to know how healing was on the tank that kept dying first, I couldn't get particularly useful info from the more general WWS and WMO logs. With WoL I could not only look at the chart for incoming healing on this target, but I could overlay different attempts and see if healing lagged and where the damage spikes were, all while knowing exactly when the tank I was concerned with died. The user friendly log search function also easily let me look up instances where Steelbreaker had a Rune of Power.
Overall: Still my favorite. I think WoL does the best job of the 3 for user friendly design and providing the information in an intuitive way that lets you effectively recreate the encounters for analysis. I would like to see them make the who heals whom and who hit whom charts similar to WWS and WMO's, so I'll be using at least 2 parsers to keep my bases covered. Most likely I'll have to keep up all 3 until more people are comfortable with the other 2. I've noticed even requesting that others use the other parsers, most will go to WWS and not leave their comfort zone.
Update: Uploading logs today to WoL, suddenly absorbs have appeared on the healing meters. They have even more difference between the number of PW:S cast and the number of times my glyph procced. I'm starting to think that the # there is how many hits have been at least partially absorbed after I cast PW:S on a target, 2-3 times the number of glyph heals would make sense in that context. The estimated absorbs on WoL are way higher than those from WMO. Not what I expected since the WoL guys stated they were going to try for underestimating absorbs a bit. I think some tweaking is in the pipe.
(For those curious, a 32k melee hit on the pull is super lame. I doubt we'll ever figure out the entirety of that particular fail.)
I'll start with the old stand by WWS.
WWS is a very functional parser. All the information is in there, but it is very basic at the surface. The other parsers have adopted the drop down menus for different fights for a reason, it's good design and pretty universal. Anyone familiar with most computer programs won't have an issue using this. Try using a website that doesn't do decent drop down menus and you appreciate the ones that do it right.
The who heals whom and who hits whom chart are the 2 major features that could keep me using WWS. They are both a little difficult to understand at first glance, but provide critical information when you need to find out why that tank died or who was hitting the wrong target and wouldn't fess up. Unfortunately for WWS, WMO has better readability on these charts.
Overall: very usable and mostly intuitive. Definitely could use an update and some of it's competition's features. Digging through logs is no fun and is all too often the answer when using WWS.
WoW Meter Online:
I like what they're trying to do, and I am consistently impressed by the level of involvement their development team has with the community. The site and parser can be difficult to navigate, but much of this I suspect is a bit of culture clash. I'm not used to looking to the right hand side for most things and usually when I'm frustrated trying to find something it's over there.
The big feature that seems to be getting WMO's name out is their absorb counters on healing meters.
Due to combatlog limitations I understand this is probably as close as we'll get to knowing actual absorb amounts until Blizz gives us another overhaul. Some things confuse me though, For instance I'd like to know how they determine when PW:S is cast. It is obvious that it isn't based on Glyph heals since the numbers don't coincide, but then how does it decide I cast PW:S 61 times but only have the glyph activate 41 times?
I'd love to know if anyone has read the answer, I was unable to find it myself. I will have trouble trusting WMO's absorb numbers until they sort out obvious issues like that and holy priests giving DA (though that seems to be a bug on Blizzard's side).
WMO also has the who heals whom and who hit whom charts which is lovely. These don't do the focus which means you can't look at one line to see if the healer was on raid or tank assignments just looking in one row, but I can think of only one time when the focus numbers were something I grabbed while digging through a log. I would say that overall WMO does a better job at these than WWS, just for having lines there so it's easy to tell who's numbers you are looking at from left to right. The big black box of WWS can make me go cross eyed.
Overall: WWS with a face lift. The calendar style for browsing logs is a significant improvement and I wish them luck in their ambitious attempts to work out reliable absorb data, and I have no doubt this is the most accurate effective absorbs counter currently available. I am confident it is more accurate than recount guessed absorbs, which is still nice to have on the go. Finally, the engrish sprinkled through WMO never fails to put a smile on my face (who hited whom indeed).
World of Logs:
After using both the other logs to examine last night I wound up returning to WoL just because of how easy it was to get the information I needed quickly.
Like WMO, WoL uses the lovely calender organization for browsing logs, and I can't talk about that enough. If there's one thing WWS can do to make itself look better it's grab that. I don't bother labelling my logs anymore except the WWS upload.
The charts are fantastic, this was the best way I had to examine healing during these attempts, since I needed to know how healing was on the tank that kept dying first, I couldn't get particularly useful info from the more general WWS and WMO logs. With WoL I could not only look at the chart for incoming healing on this target, but I could overlay different attempts and see if healing lagged and where the damage spikes were, all while knowing exactly when the tank I was concerned with died. The user friendly log search function also easily let me look up instances where Steelbreaker had a Rune of Power.
Overall: Still my favorite. I think WoL does the best job of the 3 for user friendly design and providing the information in an intuitive way that lets you effectively recreate the encounters for analysis. I would like to see them make the who heals whom and who hit whom charts similar to WWS and WMO's, so I'll be using at least 2 parsers to keep my bases covered. Most likely I'll have to keep up all 3 until more people are comfortable with the other 2. I've noticed even requesting that others use the other parsers, most will go to WWS and not leave their comfort zone.
Update: Uploading logs today to WoL, suddenly absorbs have appeared on the healing meters. They have even more difference between the number of PW:S cast and the number of times my glyph procced. I'm starting to think that the # there is how many hits have been at least partially absorbed after I cast PW:S on a target, 2-3 times the number of glyph heals would make sense in that context. The estimated absorbs on WoL are way higher than those from WMO. Not what I expected since the WoL guys stated they were going to try for underestimating absorbs a bit. I think some tweaking is in the pipe.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
New Parser?
I've been playing around lately with World of Logs and enjoying it immensely. I think the make or break point with it versus the old standard WoW Web Stats will be in how fast they update for new content and changes to the combat log system. WWS makes me glad I don't pay for the service every time it stops working and they don't even update their forums about the issue.
You could say that if more people paid for it then the service would get better, but I like to see how well a service functions before I buy into it. I have no problem with paying for something good, but if I think "well at least I'm not paying for this" then odds are I'm not about to subscribe.
While it's still in beta, I think I may just be willing to pay for World of Logs if they did introduce a pay service. If they don't I might have to throw some donation money their way instead.
Right now I'll admit I'm a sucker for a well designed GUI. The graph feature means I can overlay the information I want and compare numbers in a fast intuitive way. Their forums are busy (especially compared to those over at WWS) and the developers seem to be quick to respond to most questions.
I'm quite optimistic about it, parsers are typically ugly and clunky so good job to WoL for breaking that mold. I'm hoping they come out successful because I love what I see so far, it's all very polished.
As a bit of fun, here's the average healing on our Mimiron attempts last night (we got him down too, yay!).
Can you guess where phase 2 is?
You could say that if more people paid for it then the service would get better, but I like to see how well a service functions before I buy into it. I have no problem with paying for something good, but if I think "well at least I'm not paying for this" then odds are I'm not about to subscribe.
While it's still in beta, I think I may just be willing to pay for World of Logs if they did introduce a pay service. If they don't I might have to throw some donation money their way instead.
Right now I'll admit I'm a sucker for a well designed GUI. The graph feature means I can overlay the information I want and compare numbers in a fast intuitive way. Their forums are busy (especially compared to those over at WWS) and the developers seem to be quick to respond to most questions.
I'm quite optimistic about it, parsers are typically ugly and clunky so good job to WoL for breaking that mold. I'm hoping they come out successful because I love what I see so far, it's all very polished.
As a bit of fun, here's the average healing on our Mimiron attempts last night (we got him down too, yay!).
Can you guess where phase 2 is?Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Growing Pains and Stumbling Blocks
No I haven't totally forgotten about this poor blog. Truth be told I have been raiding a lot since my last post, and while you'd think that would give me tons of material for here that hasn't been the case.
I think it is because while we've been having lots of progression and new content the guild is experiencing a fairly new and unique issue just now. Namely that about half our current raid team has never really even been challenged in the game. As old players got burnt out on the old content we kept a reasonably steady stream of new recruits, like any stable raiding guild will. We opened our doors wide, the low level of content and excess of available gear meant that we could get the people that seemed the best candidates socially for our guild. After all, the content was the shallowest of learning curves and we could give the new guy those drops instead of sharding them every week.
Now we've been in Ulduar for a while and discovered several unpleasant truths. Guild discipline had slipped to all time lows through the lax practises all through tier 7 content, when the raid leader has lost control of the raid you might as well call it a night as soon as there is a challenging encounter. Player skill was suddenly not where we needed it to be. We were pretty on top of our raiders, running drills and keeping active theory crafting threads in our forums. These activities seemed like a waste through tier 7 content, you could sleep your way through the majority or Naxx and it wouldn't matter. Of course as soon as we hit the more difficult bosses, the ones that require everyone to pay attention and follow the raid leader's plan we hit a wall. Raids dissolved into bickering enough that attendance began to suffer, raids were no longer fun.
We have had this problem in a much smaller form every time we have gone up a tier in content. We inevitably have a group that resents the change from farming a large number of bosses to wiping on a few all week, usually those that join us when a tier is mostly on farm status take the change the worst. Once the new push begins so do the complaints about how we should just go back to the old content and how we don't progress fast enough (usually a gquit will follow the latter complaint). Luckily nearly everyone is too sick of Naxx to suggest we go back there to farm old bosses instead of going to Ulduar (aside from the really fresh recruits). That is a nice change from previous cases of tier angst.
So we've been building back up to where we need to be. First goal was restoring discipline in raids. Reminding the guild that while we love feedback on policy decisions, mid raid in vent is not the right time or place for such debates. Secondly our raid reps have been pouring over parser reports, finding the weak links and working to make them better. Player skill can absolutely be taught, if both parties are willing to work. As a back up measure we adjusted a couple policies on how our recruitment works and brought in a large batch of new people. With a steady waitlist it is easier to enforce good raid behavior and to separate those that want to raid and will do their best from those that want to coast to see neat stuff and get gear.
Next on the list is to get some hustle back into people. Through tier 7 our raids tended to go at a leisurely pace, even when we dawdled our hardest we would clear all content in 2 days, even if we ended early both nights. Now that we want to optimize our time learning new bosses the downtime will have to be minimized. We're using a lot of the suggestions here to reach that goal. Hopefully by the time we reach Algalon we will be a fine tuned efficient raid learning machine.
I think it is because while we've been having lots of progression and new content the guild is experiencing a fairly new and unique issue just now. Namely that about half our current raid team has never really even been challenged in the game. As old players got burnt out on the old content we kept a reasonably steady stream of new recruits, like any stable raiding guild will. We opened our doors wide, the low level of content and excess of available gear meant that we could get the people that seemed the best candidates socially for our guild. After all, the content was the shallowest of learning curves and we could give the new guy those drops instead of sharding them every week.
Now we've been in Ulduar for a while and discovered several unpleasant truths. Guild discipline had slipped to all time lows through the lax practises all through tier 7 content, when the raid leader has lost control of the raid you might as well call it a night as soon as there is a challenging encounter. Player skill was suddenly not where we needed it to be. We were pretty on top of our raiders, running drills and keeping active theory crafting threads in our forums. These activities seemed like a waste through tier 7 content, you could sleep your way through the majority or Naxx and it wouldn't matter. Of course as soon as we hit the more difficult bosses, the ones that require everyone to pay attention and follow the raid leader's plan we hit a wall. Raids dissolved into bickering enough that attendance began to suffer, raids were no longer fun.
We have had this problem in a much smaller form every time we have gone up a tier in content. We inevitably have a group that resents the change from farming a large number of bosses to wiping on a few all week, usually those that join us when a tier is mostly on farm status take the change the worst. Once the new push begins so do the complaints about how we should just go back to the old content and how we don't progress fast enough (usually a gquit will follow the latter complaint). Luckily nearly everyone is too sick of Naxx to suggest we go back there to farm old bosses instead of going to Ulduar (aside from the really fresh recruits). That is a nice change from previous cases of tier angst.
So we've been building back up to where we need to be. First goal was restoring discipline in raids. Reminding the guild that while we love feedback on policy decisions, mid raid in vent is not the right time or place for such debates. Secondly our raid reps have been pouring over parser reports, finding the weak links and working to make them better. Player skill can absolutely be taught, if both parties are willing to work. As a back up measure we adjusted a couple policies on how our recruitment works and brought in a large batch of new people. With a steady waitlist it is easier to enforce good raid behavior and to separate those that want to raid and will do their best from those that want to coast to see neat stuff and get gear.
Next on the list is to get some hustle back into people. Through tier 7 our raids tended to go at a leisurely pace, even when we dawdled our hardest we would clear all content in 2 days, even if we ended early both nights. Now that we want to optimize our time learning new bosses the downtime will have to be minimized. We're using a lot of the suggestions here to reach that goal. Hopefully by the time we reach Algalon we will be a fine tuned efficient raid learning machine.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Ulduar Impressions
Well let me start by saying that I have managed to make time to attend every raid this week. Not something I thought I would do, but I'm having fun and it's been a while since I enjoyed raids this much. Suddenly I'm willing to lose some sleep to make up that study time I'm losing to raids.
Progression seems to be going at a lightning pace again, but with hard modes still untouched (for us), I'm content with this. I think if Blizz actually threw t5 grade content at us after months of mindless Naxx farming many guilds, mine possibly included, would dissolve under all the tears. So while I look at the week and think 'wow, 4 bosses just by us already, we may break our record for guild first kills,' I get to stop and remember that we haven't touched the hardmodes yet. That makes me very happy. The part of this game that I love is getting beaten down, going through logs, and figuring out how to change our strategy to fix it. It makes victory taste so much sweeter.
Our guild has a couple 10 man groups that have been exploring during off time. I'm not part of them due to my limited time just now, but I do get some serious jelousy when I see the lovely things that are dropping there. It's like every trinket I wanted or didn't know I want drop there. My trinkets are terrible, I swap between my blue regen trinket, badge trinket and a pvp trinket according to what the fight requires, none of these trinkets are quite itemized the way I would want.
So, my impressions so far:
Flame Leviathan: Very easy, I would really like to see the difference his hard modes make. Once we got it sorted that - yes, you actually have to aim now, no more auto hitting things according to the numbers on your character sheet - he went down very quickly. Getting to know the vehicles is a good excuse to take your guild into Wintergrasp for a bit of fun. Do the new vault boss while you're there!
Ignis: I didn't get too much of an impression of Ignis yet, we haven't tried him since the first buggy night. This fight seems to be all about timing and positioning. It seems that it is the healers and tanks that need to be on their toes more than the dps. I hope this is the case, I like fights that make me think instead of just hitting a button with the tank targeted.
Razorscale: To be honest we just kind of stumbled through this one. Very chaotic fight that boils down to don't stand in stuff, pick up adds and get those harpoons fired. We had our raiders that do alot of heroics manage the harpoons as this is the same mechanic you see in Utgarde Pinnacle. Shoot enough, drag the boss to the ground. Don't stand in front of the dragon unless you're the tank. Most of the time in this fight I just ran around madly trying to not stand anywhere that would kill me and staying on my tank. My tank made this as difficult as possible by charging about across the field picking up his adds.
Deconstructor: Oh I love you Deconstructor! We wiped and wiped and wiped on this guy, and I love him for it. I levelled engineering, ran to gnomer and got the pet bombling pattern just to bring with me to this fight (I'm such a nerd). We wound up positioning in a few loose groups in an arc around the boss, similar to Felmyst positioning. This way if someone got the bomb they knew which way would be clear for them to run. Once we got the positions down and people stopped blowing up the raid we nailed it. Make sure not to forget to kill those adds. We had several attempt where we wiped after getting him sub 10% because people would get so focused on the boss they'd forget about the adds. He heals, he lives longer, he enrages. QQ.
Protip for the uninitiated: Yes killing his heart starts hardmode, but when he exposes his heart he takes alot of damage - think Curator evocate phase - You do want to dps his heart, just don't kill it if you don't want hard mode.
Kologarn: Currently my favorite. He is massive, trust me if you haven't seen him yet you are in for a treat. A+ to Blizz designers for him. I give you guys a pass on the ugly helms that were everywhere just for this guy and the legendary mace.
We had our melee stand in tight against the boss, they focused on dpsing the right arm (on your left). Standing so close to the boss meant they wouldn't have to worry about getting eyelazers, a serious issue when you pack so many melee that 3 are dead before you know who is getting targeted.
The ranged stood in a line across the middle of the space. This way any ranged targeted by the beam just had to run back and then across the empty aisle of space behind the raid to kite the beam. We focused all dps on the right arm because it was randomly doing 80k damage to those it gripped. We decided that it was worth a longer fight to keep people alive. The arm grab actually puts a debuff on it's targets! I set up a notification in my grid for the "Stone Grip" debuff so I could help the grip healers with some bubbles.
Every time the arm dies it spawns adds that must be picked up and tanked away from the raid. The adds need to be dpsed down asap by ranged as they stack a debuff on the tank and do alot of aoe damage.
Speaking of stacking debuffs, you also need 2 tanks for Kologarn himself. Once one tank get 2 stacks the other needs to taunt Kologarn to prevent the first tank getting gibbed. Kologarn doesn't hit too hard, but it's enough to give you a fright if the tanks forget to call it out and suddenly one of them goes to 40% health!
So that's Ulduar so far! We'll be trying Ignis again tonight, just to see if the kinks really are finally worked out.
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