Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Ulduar10: Ignis, Razorscale

So, my guild initially skipped these two, wanting to instead put our time into the harder bosses. Then a competitive streak filtered in, and we realized that we'd be tied for top 10-man progression on our server if we stopped by and kicked these two over on our warpath through the instance. They're both dead now.


Ignis the Furnace-Master: "Insolent whelps!"

Big guy with a molten codpiece. Usually, a fight like this would be rather frightening for a plant with all the fire and such, but this battle is probably a place where we shine the most: lots of aoe damage and snap-heals. The strat my raid uses is to cluster the ranged/casters in the center of the room between the two water pools, and have the MT kite-tank the boss in circles around us, always keeping the boss facing away. The OT ran around picking up adds as best he could (a good resto druid is SUCH an aggro magnet) and running them through the fire and water, calling dps as needed to shatter them (a single ranged player was in charge of shattering the adds on the OT's call, and if he was in the slag pot, then he designated someone else to get it until he was free).
  • Heals: Keep full stacks of LB on both tanks, if necessary (given strengths of cohealers, etc), once things really get rolling with the adds. It'll eat up your mana, but if your dps is good enough, you'll be able to manage it with an innervate and a mana pot and have the boss dead before you're completely OoM. Aside that, WG the raid as needed, keep a helping of rejuvs ticking around to offset the raid-wide damage and provide for Swiftmends, and don't get caught casting nourish or regrowth (or a non-NS'd HT) when the flame jets go off.
  • Slag Pot: Ignis will periodically grab someone and hold them in the molten pot chained around his waist. People inside need to pop barkskin, shields, etc to help shield from the damage, and as a healer you should help keep them alive. You cannot attack from within the slagpot, but you can still heal people, and yourself, while you are in the slag pot. If a healer is in the slag pot, they CAN HEAL THEMSELVES and should do so. For tips on quickly finding the victim of this ability, refer to this post.
  • Flame Jets: Do not be caught casting a spell when this ability goes off, or you'll be spell-locked for 8 seconds. It also causes a knock-up into the air (resistable), and deals raid-wide damage. Yay Wild-Growth and Rejuv.
  • Scorch: this is the big burning spot he puts on the ground on the tank, and what the tank will be kiting him away from so the tank doesn't stand there and crisp themselves. You shouldn't stand in it, either. The OT will have to run through it to debuff the adds, and should call out when he's entering the "scorch" so that you can be alert of when he'll need extra healing, especially if your LB's dropped due to range.
This fight has no phases, aside a continuous stream of adds. If you get aggro on one, alert the tanks immediately, because it can kill you. The MT can pick it up off of you temporarily if the OT is too far away. Target the add to assist their taunting it off of you.


Razorscale
: "Rawr!"

A pretty proto-drake, though it is sad to see what has become of her after Loken captured her with Thorim outside in the Storm Peaks (Sons of Hodir questline). Akin to the protodrake in Utgarde Pinnacle, you must bring her down using harpoons. As a healer, all you have to worry about is bouncing around avoiding fireballs and keeping those in range of you alive until the group brings her down, and then it's just a tank-and-spank, with some minor kiting to get out of the patches of fire. My guild initially attempted the "v strat" as discussed on wow-wiki, but ultimately decided to just stay out of the big red circle (for the most part) and split up as two separate parties (closer to the 25-man strat), each party on either side of the circle with a tank, a healer, and mixed ranged/melee dps.
  • As a general rule, don't stand in front of the boss when she's on the ground.
  • Devouring Flames (P1): this is a large patch of blue fire she spits at whoever is closest to her while she's flying. With our organization of the groups, we assign a hunter or warlock to act as the "tank" for this, where he was nearly constantly on the move to stay closest to her while trying to shoot the mobs to assist in dps, or sent his pet in to tank it when she went off to a far corner. This ranged tank doesn't have to be attacking Razorscale while she's flying, he just has to be the closest person to her, or else have his pet be the closest. It worked out really well, and he didn't take much damage, but I did make sure to always keep a rejuv on him and keep an eye on him and his pet when he went out of my range.
  • Fireball (P1): she spits these at everyone, and they do hurt for a chunk of damage. I have read that you can dodge them, since while she casts them AT a specific person, they do not CHASE that person as they travel. Keeping on the move constantly is one of our strong points as druids, so make use of your strengths. Regardless, these fireballs are why you want to keep everyone topped off, particularly the "squishies" such as mages. If you'd prefer, you can keep Razorscale targeted so that you can see who she is casting them at.
  • Adds: these spawn out of tunneler vehicles in various locations, and are what your group is killing while Razorscale is in flight. Make sure you keep your party up, particularly when they grab the "big guy" who spawns in the center ring. Be especially mindful of healing your tanks when Razorscale lands (or rather, gets dragged out of the air with harpoons) and everyone moves behind her in the center circle, as the tanks will likely be turning their backs on several mobs while doing so.
  • Harpoons: designate one or two players to fire off the harpoons as they become ready. Once 2 have been fired (in the 10-man version), Razorscale will be dragged down to the ground where the raid can commence beating on her. When this happens, all dps on adds should be stopped in favor of damaging the proto-drake, so I recommend holding off on the second harpoon until there are few adds remaining, and before the next wave spawns. Razorscale herself will do an aoe knockback when she gets loose from the harpoons' chains after a dazed period.
  • Phase 2: at 50% health, she'll stay grounded. Keep behind the proto-drake and sorta off to the side, out of the way, and watch where your tanks might turn her as she's kited. This is a simple phase compared to phase 1, provided she is kited to get the tanks and dps out of the fire patches. Do not stand in front of her unless you are a tank. You may get bored as a healer in this phase and start pew-pewing, but make sure to keep rolling hots on the active tank amidst the wraths and moonfires. Tanks themselves will need to swap who is currently tanking to keep from getting more than 2 stacks of the Fused Armor debuff, which slows their movement.

2 comments:

Eagleshadow said...

On ignis if you get agro from add be sure to pop nature's grasp, it saved me from being killed by add few times ;)

Kae said...

I tend to just throw a fit over ventrilo and pop barkskin :D I've had problems before where a rooted mob will turn and attack the mage/priest/misc. squishy standing next to it, or the tanks have trouble picking it up because they need to kite it elsewhere (and thus need it moveable).

NG is an option in a pinch, though, if you can get it rooted where it won't be able to reach others :)