Boss Strategy

**Munch** Thu May 07, 2009 12:11 pm

Introduction
Ignis the Furnace Master can be found in the Colossal Forge. He guards the outdoor forges of Ulduar and is the chief smith for the constructs of the Iron Army since the destruction of the Forge of Wills in the Halls of Stone. He is an optional boss, and actually proves quite difficult despite his location early in the instance (raids need to just defeat Flame Leviathan to be able to reach Ignis' forge and fight him).

Melee strikes vary widely but can hit for upwards of 30k on plate or plate equivalent in the absence of debuffs on Ignis. Ignis is tauntable.

Ignis's room contains 20 deactivated golems called Iron Constructs, and two large pools of water on each side. These are meant to play a significant role in the encounter. Iron Constructs that attack the raid during the Ignis encounter may be handled through a raid mechanic that mimics the real-life process of blacksmithing.

*Note on Tank Gear
The gear demands on the MT are high for this fight - Ignis hits incredibly hard and sometimes has a buff that increases his damage by +15% or +30%. Because of this, it is recommended that your most geared physical damage tank play the MT role here, typically either a protection warrior or feral druid. Make sure that, whoever tanks, the improved "Demoralizing Shout" debuff is available along with the -20% attack speed debuff common to all tanks.

Ignis Abilities
- Scorch: Fires a jet of flame, burning all enemies in front of the caster within 30 yards, dealing 2357 to 2643 Fire damage every half-second for 3 sec. Additionally, the ground is scorched by this effect causing it to catch on fire, dealing 3299 to 3701 Fire damage every second to all enemies within 13 yards. Iron Constructs within this radius will begin to heat up, eventually becoming molten.

- Flame Jets: Stomps the ground causing geysers of flame to erupt under all enemies. These geysers deal 5655 to 6345 Fire damage, knocking the targets into the air and interrupting any spells being cast for 8 sec. In addition, the targets take 1000 Fire damage per second for 8 sec.

- Slag Pot: Charges and grabs a random enemy target, tossing them into the caster's slag pot. The target is unable to attack the caster and takes 3500 Fire damage every second for 10 sec. If the target survives, they are imbued with the magical slag, increasing their haste by 100% for 10 seconds.

- Activate Construct: For every second that a construct is in a Scorch area it gains a stacking speed buff. At 20 stacks it will turn Molten. When Molten it will gain extra haste and deal 2357 to 2643 Fire damage to enemies within 7 yards. Running the construct into water while Molten will turn it Brittle, stunning it, increasing its chance to be critically hit, and causing it to shatter if hit for more than 5000 damage in one attack.

- Strength of the Creator: Increases damage done by 15%. One stack of this buff is applied each time an Iron Construct is summoned, and one stack is removed each time a Brittle Iron Construct is shattered.

Adds
The fight gets slightly more complicated when Ignis activates an Iron Construct. For every active Iron Construct (even Molten ones), Ignis gains a 15% damage bonus. No more than a couple of these should be kept up at any time.

Process For Killing Contructs
1. Turn it Molten
2. Turn it Brittle
3. Move it far from the raid to 1-Shot

Turning it Molten: To kill an Iron Construct, it needs to stand inside of a Scorch area until it becomes Molten. You can kite them through the scorches over and over, stand in the scorches and take additional damage, or CC them inside of it using entangling roots, a pet, or frost nova.

After about 20 seconds inside of scorch, a construct will become Molten. Once molten, they will have 100% move speed and a powerful AOE fire aura that deals about 7000 damage every 6 seconds. Since you can no longer kite them safely, they need to be dragged immediately to one of the water pools on the sides of the room so that they turn Brittle.

Turning it Brittle: Brittle Iron Constructs are a dark purple color and are stunned for 20 seconds; at which point they become Iron Constructs once more with 100% health.

Killing It: Brittle Iron Constructs have a 50% increased chance to be critically hit and will shatter if 5000 or more damage is done in a single hit; an AOE explosion occurs if they are shattered, dealing 20,000 damage in a 10 yard radius (only ranged DPS should be used to destroy it). Not only will you alleviate pressure on the raid from the adds, but shattering a Construct will also remove one stack of Ignis' +15% damage buff.

Raid Roles & Strategy

Tanking
Choosing tanks
For all modes, you will need a Main Tank to kite Ignis, and either an off-tank or a very skilled kiting DPS (probably two or even three on 25 man). If you attempt to turn the Iron Constructs molten and destroy them, you'll probably prefer an off-tank because of the mitigation and large buffer of health compared to a DPS. However, if you are going to simply DPS him down immediately (you will need to average about 3500 dps on 10 man for all 5-7 DPS), you can get away with a player who is able to aggro, dodge, and CC the constructs (prot warriors, prot paladin, mages, hunters with a pet, warlocks with a voidwalker, or a druid). Also, the constructs can be snared into place so any kind of druid is the best option.

How to tank
As the main tank, have a hunter misdirect the boss to you, or simply run up and get aggro on him immediately. You should choose and make known which direction or area of the room you're going to kite him so the rest of the raid knows where to position themselves. Some groups choose to strafe him left to right (either across the room, or length wise near the constructs), around the entire room, or around one half of the room; note that he should never be tanked in front of the water if you are going to be destroying the constructs, as scorch will be dispelled. However, this is the optimal location for tanking him to reduce damage on the tank, and keep everyone in the same position throughout the fight.

The second way to tank him is to bring him to the direct center of the room. Have the tank turn him away from the raid and when he scorchs the ground, turn him to the left or right and keep the melee DPS where they are. Then, after then 2nd scorch run aross the boss and tank him in the opposite direction so the 3rd scorch goes to the right or left and the melee DPS can stay where they are. After the 3rd scorch comes, the 1st one should be down by now and you go back to the starting point. If done right, no one should take any damage from contrucsts blowing up nor should they lose Heat stacks. The off tanks should be ready to taunt them to water when they go molten and get out of the way of them blowing up.

Main Tanking - what to look out for
Naxxramas geared tanks (item levels 200 and 213) can take upwards of 25000-30000 damage per hit from Ignis' melee strikes. As the fight goes on, his melee strikes will gain an additional 15% damage from each Iron Construct that is active (eventually, if left unchecked, it will get to the point where you are one shotted). His scorch is a cone that will damage anyone he is facing, so your back should always be away from the raid. Flame Jets will throw you into the air briefly, but since you aren't a caster, your abilities should not become locked. After a scorch has landed on the ground around you, strafe out of it quickly to avoid taking damage and get your melee DPS into a safe spot as well. You should not aggro any constructs unless you wish to cause additional stress to your healers.

Off-tanks and kiters
For the first 15 seconds of the fight, DPS Ignis. He doesn't have a cleave, and scorch won't be fired until 12 seconds into the fight (and you can stand behind him safely). When the first Construct appears, grab aggro and begin moving away from it. The most important thing is that the Constructs become Molten as fast as possible. The more constructs that are up, the faster they move so eventually they will outrun you if you don't do anything about it. Off-tanks should only take about 1-2k damage per swing, so the damage they deal is negligible, however, since this affects your healers, if you can do something about it you should (as a prot warrior, you can charge constructs and then run past them, or intervene to a close ally to get away from enemies). If you're kiting them and you're not a tank, CCing abilities are vital to your group's survival. Frost Nova, Frost Traps and pet tanks, Void Walkers and destruction warlocks' AOE stun, and druid roots and travel form are all possible solutions, however they tend to only be effective for a few minutes. If your group is going to be destroying the Constructs, make sure you have a healer that can either heal you through scorch, or you have good CCers that can keep the constructs in the flames of scorch long enough to heat it up (moonkins and mages are very handy for that).

Healers
Healers need to be on the ball to keep the main tank healed because of the significant melee damage dealt by Ignis. Casters, particularly healers, should take care to stop casting before Ignis uses Flame Jets, otherwise they will be locked out of their spells for 8 seconds. Because of how Flame Jets interacts with cast time spells, all healers should have Ignis set as their focus target so they can see his cast bar. While instant heals and shields are always fine to cast, healers should be ready to cancel spells with a cast time if Flame Jets is about to interrupt them. This makes the healers' jobs harder, but since Ignis does not melee while casting Flame Jets the MT should not be in danger of death.

All players should make sure to move out of Scorch areas. Random players will periodically be charged and placed in the Slag Pot attached to Ignis' stomach. Whichever player is charged should be healed through the DoT (they gain a debuff to help identify it on your raid frames). You should instruct your raid members to stack on you for AOE healing.

DPS
As a DPS, your job is to not stand in scorched areas, to call out when you are inside of the Slag Pot, and stand behind Ignis at all times (preferably stacked on your healers for AOE healing). Ranged DPS should be used to destroy Brittle Iron Constructs if your raid decides to kill the adds (only powerful abilities like Chaos Bolt, Frost Fire Bolt, Pyroblast, Aimed Shot, and Starfire should be used to beat the 5000 minimum damage requirement). If you survive being stuck in the Slag Pot, you should use the haste buff as best you can (10 second duration) to fire off your slower, more powerful attacks. Since this fight is heavily reliant on DPS, every DPS member of the party should have a minimum of 3500 DPS (4000+ group average recommended) for the duration of the fight.

Positioning:

Wrap Up
The keys to this fight are:

1. A well geared main tank
2. An incredible healer team
3. Construct squad execution

If you have the first two and can master the third (which does take a good bit of practice from your off tanks) then you'll have no trouble with Ignis and you'll be well on your way to all of his molten loot.