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Ignis the Furnace Master is a fire giant who is one of the optional bosses in Ulduar.  He is found at the Colossal Forge which is located just past the Flame Leviathan.  Ignis is a single phase fight that, while simplistic in design, is complicated for many groups to perfect.  In order to defeat him the raid must deal with the fire damage he causes, the awakened constructs and the dreaded slag pot.

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Health

10 Person Raid: Body – 5,600,000 health

25 Person Raid: Body – 19,600,000 heath

Abilities

Scorch – This ability launches fire in front of Ignis dealing 4,000 fire damage per tick (2,500 in 10 player raids) to all players in his front arc for 3 seconds.  Once he has completed the 3 second cast, a 15 yard circle of fire will appear in front of him that deals additional fire damage to everyone in it at any point in time and heats up any awakened constructs in it.  The scorch effect lasts roughly 1 minute.

Flame Jets – Ignis occasionally stops to stomp the ground causing flames to erupt underneath all players.  The flames do roughly 10,000 initial fire damage (6,000 in 10 player raids) and place a DOT on the player that does an additional 1,000 fire damage per tick for 8 seconds.  When hit by the flame, any casters in the middle of a cast are interrupted and locked out of casting for 8 seconds.

Slag Pot – Occasionally Ignis will choose a random non-tank target and charge them.  Once he reaches them, he grabs them and places the player in his slag pot, worn on his waste, and then returns to the tank.  A player in the pot suffers roughly 5,000 fire damage per second (3,500 in 10 player raids) for 10 seconds at which point they will escape.

Activate Iron Construct – Every 30 seconds (40 in 10 player raids) Ignis will activate one of the Iron Constructs in the room.  They have just under 4 million health and their own threat table.  When in a scorched area the construct gains a stacking buff that increases its attack speed until it reaches 10 stacks, at which point it also gains a fire damage aura that hits all nearby players for roughly 5,000 damage per second (2,500 in 10 player raids).  Once molten, they reset their threat table, and if dragged into water become brittle.  While brittle they become stationary and subject to being shattered, they remain brittle for 10 seconds.  To be shattered they need to suffer a single attack that does at least 5,000 damage.

Strength of the Creator – While an Iron Construct is active, a stacking buff will be applied to Ignis.  The buff increases all damage that Ignis causes by 20%.  One stack of the buff will be applied for each Iron Construct that is still active. style="font-weight: bold;"> style="font-weight: bold;">

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Strategy

Ignis is found in an alcove at the far end of his room and needs to be pulled to the tank to start the fight.  Position throughout the fight is important due to the scorched areas, constant agro resets on the constructs, and healing agro.  To complete this encounter your group will need a tank to hold Ignis’s attention, an off-tank (or two in 25 player raids) to  hold / kite the Constructs, and an assigned shatter person who can consistently hit for over 5,000 damage in a single attack on demand.

Positioning Ignis is critical so that the scorch only hits the tank when being cast and the scorch effect left on the ground is in a good position for players to avoid.  DPS and healers need solid positioning with as little movement as possible so that they can heal and DPS more efficiently.  Lastly, the off-tank will want to know where they are going to be all the time so that they know where they need to take the Constructs.

There are many positions that work for the fight. The most common, however, is a three point rotation along the water on one of the sides of the room.  The tank starts the fight by positioning themselves with their back to the center of the water on either side of the room, and has a hunter misdirect to them.  They then turn Ignis to face 90 degrees to one side of the water until he completes his first scorch, then turns him 180 degrees to face the opposite way to drop the next scorch, then 90 degrees facing him into the water for the third.  The scorch that drops in the water will not stay on the ground for more than a few seconds.  Each time the tank faces him to a side they need to back him up so that there is a clear portion to stand in between the scorch effects. A good way to judge this is to back up until you are off of the center tile pattern on the floor when ever you turn sides, this way the center tile should always be clear.

This pattern allows all players other than the tank and off-tank to stand smack dab in the middle of the room, on the row of tiles that connects the two pools of water, and hardly move at all the whole fight.  This makes it very predictable where the Iron Constructs will go when they awaken or when they reset agro.  The tank’s job is simply rotating through the three facings and keeping Ignis in one spot the whole fight.

There are several other ways to position and fight Ignis, and most of them work well. The other common way is to keep Ignis in the center of the room and have the tank turn to face him to the four corners of the room in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation.  This forms a four point pattern of scorches around the center of the room, and DPS and healers can stay right in the middle under Ignis.

[protip]One very clever way to position Ignis is for the tank to position him with his back along one of the side partial walls where the constructs are located.  All non-tank players make their way onto the wall going up the ramp portion found in the water.  They can safely DPS and Heal from there.  Once an Iron Construct turns molten and resets his agro table they will agro the healers and make their way into the water to get onto the wall up the ramp.  At this point they cause themselves to become brittle.  This means that they will always be in one place when becoming brittle and the off tank should not need to worry about picking them up and dragging them there.[/protip]

The off-tank in this fight actually has a much more difficult job than the main tank, since they have to pick up the Iron Constructs that awaken throughout the fight.  This is more difficult because they will start from random locations and immediately agro the healers, so need to be grabbed quickly.  Once the off-tank has threat, they then need to drag them into one of the scorched areas on the floor and either kite them back and forth through it or tank them in it until they become molten.  Once molten, the Constructs reset their agro so need to be grabbed again, and then dragged into the water to become brittle, at which point the off-tank needs to notify the assigned shatter player.  Sound like a busy job?  Well, that’s because it is.  Very few Ignis groups fail because of the tank; they fail because the off-tank had issues with the constructs or the shatter player couldn’t shatter them.

Death Knights and Druids are by far and away the best off-tanks for this fight.  Death Knights can Death Grip the Constructs into the scorch and then chains of ice them to slow them while kiting.  Druids can root them in place and then agro them from range.  The Druid can be almost any spec and still manage this easily. 

If you are using a Warrior or Paladin off-tank, expect to have some issues since they either need to stand in the scorch and suffer damage as well, or rely on another player’s assistance.  Hunters can assist with traps, Death Knights with chains of ice, Shamans with totems, and Druids with roots.  The choice with how to deal with the adds comes down to healing or DPS.  If you have lots of healing available many off-tanks choose to simply grab the adds and stand in the fire and absorb the damage.  If raid healing is an issue then seeking some outside help may be the best choice.

[protip] If you are having issues with the Ignis encounter or just learning it, I can not recommend a Death Knight or Druid off-tank enough.  Many groups spend a lot of time learning the fight and getting frustrated. Simply by getting one of those two classes to off-tank will make the whole encounter much easier to learn.  Once you have the encounter successfully completed a few times, then worry about using whatever your normal off-tank is.[/protip]

Once the off-tank has kept, or kited, the Construct through the scorched areas long enough they will become molten.  At this point they re-agro them and pull them back to the edge of the water near the tank, but one of the corners at least 10 yards away from the tank.  This is due to the AoE damage caused when the Construct is shattered.  The off-tank then notifies the assigned shatter player.

The shatter player can be any player that can cause big damage hits from range.  The Constructs do a large amount of damage to anyone within melee range when they are destroyed, so while a plate wearing melee class could shatter them and live, you would eventually cause mana issues for your healers.  Good choices are Mages, Warlocks, Boomkins and Elemental Shamans.  Most groups like to pre-assign a backup as well, just in case when a Construct becomes available to shatter the primary shatter person has been placed in the dreaded slag pot.

Now that the three special roles in this fight have been discussed, what about everyone else?  Don’t worry, you all have a lot to do as well.  Everyone needs to watch a few things throughout the fight, the main two being to avoid the scorched areas on the ground, and if you are a caster to stop casting while Flame Jets are being cast. All players also need to watch the Iron Constructs and be ready to either drop threat or help kite them into the water, or shatter them if called upon.

While the fight is going on, Ignis will also be charging around the room grabbing people and putting them into the pot of molten slag he has hanging on his belt.  Because of the damage you suffer from being place into it, and its rather low location on his body, players dread being placed in the pot.

Healers need to be aware of all the raid damage going on, and especially of anyone thrown in the slag pot.  Players in the pot will need significant healing to survive.  Even once they come out, since they are dropped out, they need to have enough health left to be able to re-position while potentially suffering fire damage.

The whole fight sounds very complicated to most players and is one of the most dreaded encounters for PUGs.  Really however, once you understand it, the fight is a fairly easy encounter that simply relies on coordination and teamwork.  



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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Byron has been playing and writing about World of Warcraft for the past ten years. He also plays pretty much ever other Blizzard game, currently focusing on Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, while still finding time to jump into Diablo III with his son.

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