The third wing of Blackrock Foundry LFR; the Iron Assembly, opened up on March 10, 2015. Blackrock Foundry is the second raid instance in Warlords of Draenor and features four wings and 10 different boss encounters.

This wing of the instance consists of three bosses: Beastlord Darmac, Operator Thogar, and the Iron Maidens. Please keep in mind that you will need an item level of at least 635 to queue up for any wing of Blackrock Foundry LFR.

Beastlord Darmac

The first fight players will encounter in this instance is with Beastlord Darmac. Upon entering the room you will notice that, true to his name, Darmac has a collection of beasts in his stables. Since instance bosses don't fight fairly, it will come as no surprise that these beauties will also be entering the battle.

When the battle begins players will face Beastlord Darmac alone, unmounted. While not on a mount, Darmac has several abilities. He will occasionally cast Call Pack which summons beasts. These mobs are nothing more than an annoyance and will be easy to take down. The other notable ability that players will need to watch for is Pin Down.

When using this ability Darmac will toss spears at random ranged players. A circle will appear on the ground indicating where the spear will hit. Ideally, players should move out of the way to avoid the spears. If hit with a spear, you will become impaled and be totally trapped until the spear is killed by other players.

Of course, you won't be just worrying about Darmac during this battle. The Beastlord's pet mounts will enter the fight at 85%, 65%, and 45%. Darmac will mount the closest beast to him when he reaches these three thresholds. Each mount in the room has a unique set of abilities and will need to be defeated before you can damage Darmac again.

When a mount dies, Darmac gains a new ability taken from that mount. He will also continue to use the Call Pack and Pin Down abilities. To make the fight easier, it is recommended that your raid attempts to summon and kill the mounts in the following order:

Cruelfang

Uses Rend and Tear, in which Cruelfang leaps to a target and causes a bleed effect on any enemies within 7 yards. Players should spread out when this mount is active to reduce damage from this ability. Cruelfang also uses Savage Howl, an enrage effect that increases attack speed and inflicts physical damage. Classes that can dispel such effects should do so. Darmac gains the Rend and Tear ability when Cruelfang is defeated.

Ironcrusher

Another instance where players will want to be spread out, Ironcrusher casts Stampede. When using this ability Ironcrusher will stomp, rush towards a distant enemy, and then stomp again causing damage to any nearby enemies. Besides Stampede, Ironcruser will also use Tantrum. This ability will cause raid wide damage that is unavoidable and just needs to be healed through.

Finally, tanks will need to watch out for Crush Armor; this ability reduces the armor of the tank by 10% for 15 seconds and stacks. Tanks will need to swap after gaining two stacks of this nasty debuff. When Ironcrusher is defeated Darmac will gain his Tantrum ability.

Dreadwing

Dreadwing's main ability is Inferno Breath. Inferno Breath is an ability that does exactly what it sounds like. Inflicting an initial burst of fire damage plus an additional amount of damage over 3 seconds, this is one nasty ability. To avoid large groups taking damage, players should be spread out. Any Conflagration should be dispelled as quickly as possible. Upon Dreadwing's death, Darmac gains the Superheated Shrapnel ability that mimics Dreadwing's Inferno Breath.

Operator Thogar

This battle will take place in the unlikeliest (and most dangerous) of places; the middle of four separate train tracks. Besides dealing with the boss, players will need to be aware of Moving Trains that will be coming down each track as the fight goes on.

While Operator Thogar is the boss here and the adds can be a real pain, the real threat here is the trains. Getting hit by a train is bad, very, very bad. I know you might be thinking that dodging a train is going to be easy but, just like the Fel Reaver in Hellfire Peninsula, these things have a nasty way of sneaking up on you. Be vigilant, be prepared, and avoid trains at all costs.

Besides avoiding trains you will also need to worry about their cargo. While many trains will simply be passing by, others will bring even more pain and suffering by dropping off loads of adds. When these mobs are unleashed, they become the priority and DPS should focus on killing them.

Priority on these adds is as follows: Firemenders > Man-at-Arms > Iron Crack Shots > Iron Raiders. Ranged DPS should be aware of any cannons that are located on the trains. Use AOE abilities here to defeat adds while still retaining some DPS on the boss.

Besides adds and trains, players will also need to be aware of a host of nasty things on the ground. These are pretty easy to spot and players simply need to relocate to avoid them. Bombs, blue stuff, and more, the key is to avoid it all.

Finally, Tanks in this fight will need to pay special attention when tanking this boss. Thogar will cast Enkindle on the tank who currently has aggro. This is stacking debuff that inflicts fire damage and increases damage taken. Tanks should swap Thogar after gaining 2 stacks of Enkindle.

Iron Maidens

In the Iron Maiden fight players will be pitted against three bosses; Admiral Gar'an, Marak, and Sorka. These bosses do not share a health pool and they will need to be defeated each in their own right. To start, your raid should DPS the bosses down as evenly as possible.

Ranged players (DPS and heals) can and should stack up during this fight. This will help to avoid and deal with the various abilities of the bosses. The abilities players can expect during the fight are:

• Blood Ritual – Marak targets a random player and inflicts shadow damage to all players in a cone in front of him. Players targeted with this ability should move out of the stacked group and have a tank intercept Marak.
• Penetrating Shot – Gar'an lines up a shot at the vitals of her target inflicting a butt ton of damage. The shot will appear as a line on the floor. Players can stack up on the line to split the damage and make this ability manageable.
• Rapid Fire – Admiral Gar'an tracks a player with her rifle, firing a barrage of rounds. This ability will target one player who should move away from the group and kite the barrage until the cast is complete.

At certain intervals of the fight (1:00, 4:20, and 7:40), another wrench will be thrown into the works. The boss with the lowest health will move onto the nearby ship. When this happens six players (1 tank, 1 healer, and 4 DPS) will need to take the initiative and click on the now clickable hooks and board the ship themselves.

Players who board the ship must kill the Deckhand mini-boss there as quickly as possible. Once the mini-boss is dead, click the ammunition at the front of the ship to return to the main platform. This needs to be completed before the main cannon warms up. If not, the main cannon will fire Obliteration blasts directly at players which will kill them.

Players that do not go on the ship will be faced with Bombardment Patterns. A host of bombs are fired at the raid. The landing places of these bombs will be indicated by red circles. Avoid these red circles. An initial wave of bombs will land to start, once these bombs have landed, more bombs will be thrown out.

To avoid damage; wait until the first set of bombs have gone out. Once they are on the ground, stand on top of them. The second wave of bombs will follow shortly after. The first set of bombs should start to glow red (indicating they are close to exploding). Move off these bombs onto the second set of bombs. Once the first bombs have exploded, move into the empty spaces they have left while the second bombs explode. This will continue until the Deckhand is defeated or the raid wipes.

When all players have returned to the main platform, the Bombardment Pattern will end. The raid should continue to DPS the bosses evenly, until another ship phase. Once one of the bosses dips below 20 percent health the Iron Will phase of the battle is triggered. Iron Will binds the bosses together, raises them to 100 Iron Fury, and increases their damage by 1% every 20 seconds after. At this point the raid should kill one boss at a time, with range taking down any turrets, until all three of the bosses are dead.

Want more Blackrock Foundry information? Be sure to check out our guides for The Slagworks and The Black Forge to be sure you are prepared to take on all currently open wings of this raid instance. The final wing of Blackrock Foundry is set to be released on March 24^th.