Ignis the Furnace Master 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).
Important Note: This fight is currently very buggy on the live servers due to Slag Pot charge malfunctioning. This is described under the Slag Pot ability, and can make the fight far more difficult than intended if a raid is particularly unlucky. Many guilds are skipping Ignis for the time being because of this issue. Blizzard has stated that they are looking into these bugs and they will hopefully be fixed soon.Raid Composition and Gear PreparationNormal raid composition for Ulduar is fine for Ignis. One main tank (MT) and two off tanks are recommended for this fight along with 6-7 healers. Everyone should be geared with standard Naxxramas level gear appropriate for entering Ulduar. In particular, 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 The Furnace Master's AbilitiesIgnis melees for between 25-35k on a very well geared protection warrior or feral druid. He swings every 1.7-2.5 seconds. He has 24 million hit points on Heroic Mode.
Scorch - Ignis casts this at his current target every 25 seconds. This jet of flame burns all enemies in a frontal cone in front of of Ignis out to 30 yards, dealing ~24,000 damage over 3 seconds. The area in a 13-yard radius around the target also erupts in fire, dealing ~8,000 damage per second to anyone caught in the blast area. The Scorch fire will also heat Iron Constructs standing in it - more on this later. Scorch fires last for 45 seconds.
Slag Pot - Every 15 seconds Ignis will rush to a random target in the raid, grab them, and throw them into the Slag Pot hanging from his belly. He will return to the main tank after doing this - getting back into position if he is a little off center is generally pretty easy. The Slag Potted person will take 7,500 damage per second for 10 seconds and needs to be healed or they will die. They can still act while in the Slag Pot and should definitely use consumables or cooldowns to stay alive if necessary (healers are assigned specifically to watch for and heal this person, described below). If the person survives the Slag Pot, they gain +150% haste for 10 seconds and drop from the Pot onto the ground underneath Ignis. The player should immediately get out of the way in case Ignis casts Scorch soon. Slag Pot will not target Ignis' MT nor any person tanking an Iron Construct.
This is the buggy part of the fight right now. When Ignis "charges" towards his Slag Pot target, he will occasionally melee them. This bug means that the raid can potentially lose up to one person every 15 seconds if Ignis chooses all low armor targets and melees them every time. It is nearly impossible for a non-plate class to survive a melee swing from Ignis without incredible luck or a dodge or something. Blizzard has stated that they are working on fixing this, but it is proving difficult to work out on their end.Flame Jets - Ignis casts this 2.7 second cast-time spell about every 20 seconds. The Flame Jets knock the entire raid up into the air and deal ~9,000 fire damage. This spell cannot be outranged. In addition, everyone in the raid takes 2,000 fire damage per second for the next 8 seconds. Finally, anyone casting a spell when Flame Jets finishes the cast will have their spell interrupted and that spell school locked out for eight seconds. Needless to say this is very bad and players should cancel their spells if they are about to be interrupted by Flame Jets.
Strength of the Creator - Ignis will summon an Iron Construct on a variable timer with a cooldown of 40 seconds. He can wait quite a while to do this after the cooldown is up; it appears to be random like Kel'thuzad's Mind Control or similar abilities. When he activates a Construct, he gains a stack of Strength of the Creator which increases his damage done by 15%. To remove the stack, the Construct must be destroyed. This buff can stack on Ignis as many times as there are Constructs available - even two stacks can easily be deadly.
Iron ConstructEach Iron Construct summoned by Ignis has 5 million hit points and is very hard to kill off normally. They melee for about 2.5-4k every 2 seconds on a plate tank - almost a trivial amount of damage.
Iron Constructs can be in one of three states once they start their cycle: Heated, Molten, or Brittle. Each follows the other and is brought about by sitting the Iron Construct in a Scorch fire and then, once it is Molten from a full 20-stack of Heat, moving it to Water which will cool it and make it Brittle.
Heat - Iron Constructs that stand in Scorch fires become Heated, gaining a stack of Heat every second. Each stack of Heat grants 5% movement and attack speed. It stacks to 20.
Molten - Iron Constructs that gain 20 stacks of Heat become Molten. Molten Constructs turn bright red and can be easily seen. They retain their +100% attack and casting haste, and also erupt in a 7-yard-radius fire nova every second, dealing ~5000 damage per second to anyone near them (including their tank). This ability tickles a little bit: don't stand near Molten Constructs! If you are a DPS class for some reason near where a Molten Construct is, get out of the way quickly. The Molten Constructs tank will take a few ticks of this, but should be on his way to the water as soon as Molten hits, meaning that he won't be taking the nova for long.
Brittle - Molten Constructs that come into contact with the water of Ignis' forge instantly become Brittle, stunning them. In addition, spells and attacks on Brittle Constructs have a +50% chance to crit.
Shatter - Brittle Constructs hit by a single spell for 5,000 damage or more will Shatter, dealing 20,000 damage to any player within 10 yards (there shouldn't be anyone) and removing their stack of Strength of the Creator from Ignis.
Raid StrategyThe PullTo pull Ignis, the MT should simply run towards him and pick him up while flipping him around into the center position on the diagram. His aggro radius is not very large, so the raid should largely be in position by the time the MT has Ignis flipped away from the raid.
Fight OverviewThis fight has several elements that all need to be handled in order for the raid to succeed. Firstly, a squad of players is assigned to deal with Iron Constructs. This squad consists of the two off tanks, two healers, and two warlocks or mages. Their assignment is described in detail below - their job is to tank, heat up, and then shatter each Iron Construct to keep the Strength stacks on Ignis down to 1 or 0 at all times. Meanwhile the other healers in the raid must simultaneously deal with massive damage on the Ignis MT, on every person tossed into the Slag Pot, and the raid damage from the frequent casts of Flame Jets. And while all this is going on, the raid should be DPSing Ignis down as fast as possible. There is no raid damage to avoid or move out of on this fight - the only thing to watch for is the Flame Jets cast, which can potentially interrupt DPS casters and spell-lock them. Casters with cast-time spells should be watching for this and make sure to not get interrupted when Ignis uses Flame Jets.
Note: The tank will be moving Ignis around to avoid standing in Scorch fires, but this is described below and should
not affect the DPS classes at all.
The bulk of this fight's difficulty is on your healers and your Construct Squad, who are described next.
Healing AssignmentsAssign two full time healers to Ignis' main tank, with additional backup from druid HoTs as well if possible. Assign one healer to each of the Construct off tanks - while the Constructs don't deal much damage from melee, their Molten Nova and the Scorch damage the off tanks will take makes this a very demanding job. Finally assign one full time healer (a discipline priest or holy paladin works best here) to healing anyone who gets Slag Potted. The rest of the healers are on raid healing and backup duty, covering weak spots on MT or Slag Pot healing and topping off the raid after every Flame Jets.
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.
The Construct SquadTwo off tanks are assigned to the construct squad. Their job is to pick up a new Iron Construct, drag it to the newest Scorch fire, and stand the Construct in the fire (while taking as little damage as possible from the Scorch themselves). This is a very tricky proposition but the most important thing is that the Constructs become Molten as fast as possible. Each off tank has a dedicated healer just to compensate for the possibly of lots of fire damage from Scorch and Molten Nova and they should not shy away from taking a little damage if they need to.
Once a Construct is Molten, the tank should immediately drag it to the nearby water. Since Ignis is tanked (see diagram) directly in between the water pools, these pools should be close. Make sure to get there fast so that Molten doesn't accidentally kill any DPS who get too close! Once in the water, you'll have a Brittle Construct. This is where the warlocks or mages on your team take over. The two casters assigned to the Construct Squad should immediately wind up their largest spells on the Construct - either Pyroblast for a mage, or Soulfire or Immolate + Conflagration for a warlock. One of these spells is bound to crit (thanks to the +50% crit debuff) and hit for well over 5k, instantly Shattering the Construct. By this point, the tank should be long gone from the pool and the Construct will Shatter, removing a stack of Strength from Ignis. Congratulations - you've just saved the MT from an untimely death to a 50,000+ damage melee swing.
The Construct squad repeats the above process for the entire fight. The casters assigned to the squad can DPS Ignis if there are no Constructs ready to be Shattered, but blowing up the Constructs as soon as possible is their top priority.
Tanking IgnisTanking Ignis can be a harrowing experience, but there isn't very much a tank can do about his melee damage except pray for awake and attentive healers. However, the tank does need to be aware of Ignis when he casts Scorch. On the positioning diagram for the fight, three Ignis and MT positions are given. When Ignis begins to cast Scorch, the MT should immediately move to one of the new spots. Ignis will not turn until he has finished his Scorch cast, leaving a flame patch on the ground where the MT was. Then Ignis turns to face the MT in the new spot without really moving much. This way the raid doesn't have to readjust all the time due to Scorch patches and the melee can basically stand still and DPS for the entire fight.
Wrap-UpThe 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.
Mer 22 Avr 2009 - 20:53