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The Iron Council (25 Man) Strategy Guide |
| by Jackmason |
| This is the main guide for this boss. We will attempt to keep it up to date, so feedback is appreciated. This is copyright material. Please respect the work of the author and ourselves and do not copy it. |
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 The Assembly of Iron guards the knowledge and power of Ulduar - they bar passage to the titan city's nerve centre and repository of knowledge, the Archivum. Steelbreaker, Runemaster Molgeim, and Stormcaller Brundir are the lords of the Iron Dwarf armies, and any raid seeking to discover the secrets of the Titans must defeat them to win through to the far chamber.
Raid Composition and Gear Preparation
This fight requires three tanks and between 5-6 healers. Standard Naxxramas level gear is appropriate for tackling the "easy" and "medium" modes of the fight, while the hard mode is designed to require very strong healing, DPS, and tank gearing on four tanks who are all equipped with maximum mitigation gear. Additionally, raids attempting the "medium" mode of the fight should bring at least one frost-spec mage with Improved Blizzard - this single ability (in addition to Frost Trap) makes the last stage of the fight incredibly easy. Standard consumables can be used here, and occasionally players may find that a Major Nature Protection Potion is more useful in mitigating incoming damage than a normal Runic Healing Potion would be.
Raid Composition and Gear Preparation (10 Man)
As with the Heroic version, an appropriately geared raid with Naxxramas gear should be able to tackle the easier modes of the Assembly of Iron fight. The fight requires two tanks and two healers - although there are three mobs to be "tanked", in the 10 man raid they can be handled somewhat differently and don't hit nearly as hard. In particular, a 10 man raid with a warrior (either tank or DPS) will find the fight significantly easier to manage.
Fight Summary
The Assembly of Iron is a trio of iron lords (giant, vrykul, and dwarf) who can be defeated in any order. The choice of which Iron to kill last determines the difficulty level of the fight, and the loot rewarded at the end. In addition, raids seeking to uncover the secrets of Algalon the Observer must defeat either Runemaster Molgeim or Steelbreaker last, revealing the quest line to open the Observatory and save all of Azeroth from the Titans' flame.
In order of difficulty, the three available fights are:
1. Easiest: Kill Stormcaller Brundir last.
2. Moderate: Kill Runemaster Molgeim last.
3. Difficult: Kill Steelbreaker last.
Each of these methods will be detailed below and the strategy of the fight changes somewhat depending on the order.
 Boss Abilities
Each of the three Irons has a set of basic abilities, and they gain in power and acquire new abilities as their partners are slain. Also, each Iron has 10 million hit points, and are healed to 100% when any of the other Irons dies. The abilities and basic tactics for dealing with them are described below, and will be expanded upon in the strategy section depending on which fight mode is chosen.
All of the Irons have this ability:
Supercharge - Each Iron gains a +25% damage done buff when another Iron dies. This means that after 1 death, the remaining 2 Irons deal +25% damage, and the final Iron will deal +50% damage.
Note For 10 Man Version
Each of the Irons has 3 million hit points on Normal mode instead of 10 million. Their Supercharge-linked abilities remain the same as on Heroic mode, with changes to each individual spell given below.
Stormcaller Brundir
Brundir deals very little melee damage and should be tanked by a protection warrior (due to the available stuns and interrupts). His main abilities are all castable damage spells, all of which are interruptable (and need to be interrupted so he does not deal massive damage to the whole raid).
Chain Lightning - This deals 8,000 damage (5,00 in 10 man) to a random target within 100 yards. It then jumps to a nearby target (within 10 yards) and increases damage by 20% on each jump. This ability can be extremely deadly if the spell cast is not interrupted - it can potentially chain large portions of the raid and kill a lot of people. Shield Bash, Kick, Counterspell, or another interrupt are essential on this ability which is why Brundir should be tanked by a protection warrior or have a rogue assisting the tank. Brundir will cast this every 5-10 seconds.
Overload - Every 60 seconds, Brundir will become immune to stuns and cast Overload, which has a 5 second cast time. The entire raid needs to run out of range - Overload deals 25,000 damage (20,000 in 10 man) to any player within 35 yards, as well as knocking them back. No one should ever be hit by this ability, including the Brundir tank.
Lightning Whirl - This is a secondary ability; Brundir gains this when one of the other Irons is dead. Similarly to the Arcane Flurry ability seen in Halls of Lightning, Brundir begins to spin and shoot bolts of lightning at the entire raid. These deal 7,500 damage per bolt (5,000 in 10 man), and he fires 3-4 bolts per second at completely random members of the raid. The full whirl lasts 5 seconds, but Brundir needs to be stunned immediately when he begins this ability. Note that only a real stun can break the Whirl - normal interrupts do not function. This ability is cast every 30 seconds.
Lightning Tendrils - This is his Ultimate ability; Brundir gains this when both of the other Irons are dead. Brundir will lift off into the air and shoot lightning in a frontal semicircle, damaging anyone in front of him as he pursues his current aggro target. He can be Taunted (but not stunned) while in Tendrils, and must be to be controlled by tanks alternating Taunts if he turns toward the raid group. Anyone caught in the Tendrils area of effect (in front of Brundir) will take 5,000 damage per second (3,000 in 10 man).
Runemaster Molgeim
Runemaster Molgeim can be tanked by any tanking class. He deals reasonable melee damage (around 10k per swing) but not enough to be truly dangerous to any decently geared tank.
Shield of Runes - This shields Runemaster Molgeim from the next 40,000 damage (20,000 in 10 man). In addition, if this shield is destroyed by damage, Molgeim gains a buff that causes him to deal +50% damage for 30 seconds. This needs to be dispelled immediately. Shield of Runes is cast around every 30 seconds.
 Rune of Power - Molgeim will cast and create a blue Rune of Power on the ground which increases the damage of anyone standing in it by 50% - either another Iron, or the raid. Molgeim initially casts this on another Iron, and that tank should move their Iron out of the rune as soon as possible while raid members shift into it. In particular, Steelbreaker's tank should focus Molgeim so he knows in advance if Steelbreaker is about to have a Rune of Power spawn underneath him. Rune of Power has a 5 yard radius, lasts 35 seconds, and is cast every 30-40 seconds. This means that two Runes are occasionally up at the same time, but not for very long.
Rune of Death - This is a secondary ability; Molgeim gains this when one of the other Irons is dead. Molgeim will create a huge green rune on the ground that deals 5,000 damage per second (3,500 in 10 man) to any player caught within it. Note that 5,000 DPS is the base amount; since Molgeim is also Supercharged at this point, it deals 25% more than the tooltip states. Players should immediately move out of this Rune to avoid dying - it has a diameter of 24 yards and is much larger than most "move out of this" effects. Rune of Death is cast every 30-40 seconds and persists for 30 seconds. Rune of Death and Rune of Power have separate cooldowns, they will both be cast and are not linked in any way.
Rune of Summoning - This is his ultimate ability; Molgeim gains this when both of the other Irons are dead. Molgeim will create a purple "shadow fissure" graphic on the ground. Between six and eight storm elementals will spawn out of this fissure, and move to attack random players in the raid. When one of these elementals melees their target, they will explode for 15,000 damage (12,000 in 10 man)to all players within 30 yards. To deal with this, frost mages and hunters should lay improved blizzards and frost traps on the Rune of Summoning before the elementals spawn, and the raid should AoE them down as they are summoned (each elemental has only ~25,000 hit points (12,000 in 10 man)).
Steelbreaker
Steelbreaker hits incredibly hard and should be tanked by the best-geared available tank, preferably a death knight if one is available.
 High Voltage - Steelbreaker's presence deals 3000 damage (1500 in 10 man) every 3 seconds to every raid member in the room. This aura cannot be outranged, and increases in damage (due to Supercharge) as the other Irons die.
Fusion Punch - Every 30 seconds, Steelbreaker will cast Fusion Punch. This deals 30,000 nature damage (20,000 in 10 man) to the tank and puts on a DoT debuff that deals an additional 20,000 damage per tick (15,000 in 10 man). This debuff needs to be cleansed immediately. If a death knight is available to tank Steelbreaker, they should use their anti-magic cooldowns as frequently as possible to mitigate this spike damage.
Static Disruption - This is a secondary ability; Steelbreaker gains this when one of the other Irons is dead. Steelbreaker will fire a bolt of energy at a player at least 8 yards away (if no players are at range, he will fire it at a melee range player or his tank). This bolt of energy explodes, dealing ~8,000 nature damage (5,000 in 10 man) to any player within 8 yards and adding a debuff which increases nature damage taken by 75% for 15 seconds (this debuff cannot be cleansed). Because of this ability, the ranged DPS and healers in the raid should be spread out if Steelbreaker is not killed first.
Overwhelming Power - This is his ultimate ability; Steelbreaker gains this when both of the other Irons are dead. Steelbreaker grounds an immense amount of power into his current tank. The tank will deal +200% damage, but will explode after 25 seconds (60 seconds in 10 man, which makes a big difference), dealing 30,000 damage to any player within 15 yards. Steelbreaker will acquire a new target and then cast Overwhelming Power on them. This means a tank rotation is necessary to replace each dead tank as they explode. Steelbreaker will cast Overwhelming Power on each new primary aggro target he has - when a new tank (or, God forbid, a DPS) gets aggro, they will gain Overwhelming Power within 2-4 seconds of being debuffed.
Electrical Charge - This is another ultimate ability; Steelbreaker gains this when both of the other Irons are dead. Each time any player dies during Steelbreaker's "ultimate" phase, he gains a stack of Electrical Charge, increasing his damage done by an additional 25%. This means that in addition to the +50% buff from Supercharge, he gains +25% per tank that dies, as well as for any player that dies to incidental damage such as the High Voltage aura or Static Disruption. These stack additively, meaning that with +50% from Supercharge and 3 Electrical Charges Steelbreaker will have a total of +125% damage dealt.
General Raid Strategy
Position your raid initially as laid out in the first positioning diagram. This positioning may change slightly depending on which mode of the fight you choose - individual adjustments are described in each section as necessary. The basics of this fight do not require any strange execution from individual raid members - the goal is to kill each Iron in the chosen order while avoiding death from the immense amounts of nature damage present during the fight. Individual assignments are given, again, in the sections devoted to each particular Iron.
Note for 10 Man Version
Except for tanking, and a few small notes about the fight's hard mode (killing Steelbreaker last), the Heroic mode strategy for this fight remains exactly the same when attempting the 10-player version. See the note at the end of "Easy Mode" for the tanking tips.
Easy / Medium Mode
"You will not defeat the Assembly of Iron so easily, invaders!"
If you choose to kill Stormcaller Brundir or Runemaster Molgeim last, you should start by killing Steelbreaker first. Positioning is exactly as given in the diagram: Brundir tank and healer in the back, far from the rest of the raid, and Molgeim on the front left with his tank and healer. The raid positions themselves in the front right third of the room and kills Steelbreaker.
 Since Steelbreaker does not yet have any extra abilities, and the raid is out of range of Brundir's Overload, this part of the fight is quite simple. Steelbreaker's tank and his healers should be aware of Fusion Punch spike damage and one paladin or priest healer should be assigned to cleanse the debuff immediately. Since Fusion Punch has a cast time, this should be very simple to do. Also, the Steelbreaker tank should watch for Runes of Power and slide Steelbreaker out of them, allowing the rest of the raid to gain a damage boost from the Rune while denying it to Steelbreaker and his already massive damage output.
Inexperienced raids should use Heroism / Bloodlust during this phase of the fight to kill Steelbreaker and his High Voltage aura as fast as possible.
Easy Mode
"Stand still and stare into the light!"
A raid who wants to kill Stormcaller Brundir last should now kill Runemaster Molgeim. The entire raid should reposition around Molgeim (these positions are noted with the transparent dots in the diagram) and kill him. At this point, Steelbreaker's tank should move over to help Brundir's tank interrupt his new Lightning Whirl ability while the rest of the raid focuses on Molgeim.
Healing at this point becomes somewhat lighter on the raid because High Voltage is no longer present. Instead, those healers should focus on other key tasks:
1. Shamans should be ready to purge Shield of Runes as soon as Molgeim casts it, or else the shield will be broken by damage, increasing Molgeim's damage by 50%.
2. Other healers should be watching for Rune of Death and help quickly heal players caught in the Rune as they move out of it.
The entire raid needs to be aware of the cooldown (30 seconds) on Rune of Death and move out of the Rune immediately once it is cast. Players who do not immediately begin to move when the Rune appears - it has no cast time to react to - will probably die. Other than this new element, the fight is still quite simple - find Runes of Power if available and DPS Molgeim until he dies.
Once Molgeim is dead, the raid can now switch to Brundir, who has gained Lightning Tendrils and lifted off into the air. At this point, Brundir is a lot like the AQ40 boss Battleguard Sartura - he resets his aggro table constantly and is very difficult to control. The raid should position themselves in the south half of the room, while each tank takes up position in the north half of the room. If Brundir turns towards the raid, one of the tanks should immediately Taunt him, turning him back towards the (empty-except-for-tanks) northern portion so his Tendrils will not slaughter the entire raid. Ranged DPS can and should still attack him while he is in flight, and healers should focus on healing anyone who gets caught in front of Brundir and takes Lightning Tendril damage.
Brundir alternates between his hard-to-control Tendrils/Flight phase, where he does not use any other abilities, and being "grounded", when he returns to his normal combinations of Chain Lightning and Lightning Whirl and the fight is - temporarily - similar to Phase 2 again. He is still stunnable and the more often he is stunned, the more difficult it is for him to take off again into his Lightning Tendril flight phase. Rogues, paladins, and protection warriors should chain stuns into Brundir while the raid uses their DPS cooldowns to burn him down. If you have experience with the fight, it's a good idea to save your Bloodlust / Heroism for this portion rather than using it on Steelbreaker or Runemaster Molgeim. Brundir deals very little damage at this point while on the ground, so healing during this phase is quite light.
Tanking In 10 Man
Tanking is more complicated because most 10 man raids bring only 2 tanks, and so the Heroic mode strategy doesn't work as well. Here are three options for handling tanking with a 10 person raid group:
1. Bring a hybrid player whose second spec is a tanking spec. They can DPS for most of the raid and then swap into tanking gear for this encounter.
2. Use a DPS spec death knight or DPS warrior to tank Stormcaller Brundir. His damage on Normal mode is incredibly low and both death knights and warriors have the necessary interrupt tools to control his casts.
3. Use one tank (preferably a warrior) to tank both Stormcaller Brundir and Runemaster Molgeim. Since neither hit very hard, one tank can easily take the punishment from both of these Irons on Normal mode.
 Medium Mode
"Face the lightning surge!"
If a raid wishes to kill Molgeim last, then the above order is obviously reversed. Once Steelbreaker is dead, the raid should move to the north half of the room and begin DPS on Brundir. Interrupts for his Chain Lightning and Lightning Whirl should be plentiful. However, as in the Easy Mode strategy, Molgeim still has Rune of Death and the raid should be aware of the Rune and ready to react to it even while DPSing Brundir and running out for Brundir's Overload ability, which is still cast every 60 seconds during this phase and requires the entire raid to run out of range or explode, as discussed in the ability section above.
Once Brundir is dead, things start to get interesting.
Now Molgeim is fully buffed, deals significantly more damage, only casts Rune of Power on himself, and also gains his Rune of Summoning ultimate ability. His Runes of Death deal significantly more damage due to Supercharge and healers should be aware of who is caught in them when they spawn. Everything from the Molgeim section in the "Easy Mode" strategy applies.
However, now you must also deal with Rune of Summoning. Every 60 seconds, Molgeim will summon a purple shadow fissure pillar as described in the ability section. Immediately the entire raid should clear a large space around this pillar, repositioning as necessary to avoid Rune of Death and also give the Rune of Summoning a wide berth. Also, an assigned hunter should run and drop a Frost Trap on the pillar while the raid's frost mage begins chain casting Improved Blizzard on the rune. Once elementals begin to spawn, they should immediately be slowed or frozen - good use of Water Elementals for ranged Frost Novas is also very helpful here. Note that these lightning elementals are immune to nature effects - Entangling Roots, Earthbind Totem, and Improved Hurricane are all useless here. The slowed elementals should be killed quickly by the raid's combined AoE spells, and the raid can then go back to DPSing Molgeim.
The key to this part of the fight is for the raid to quickly react to each new Rune and be able to manage healing and target switching while also repositioning dynamically as the situation changes. Master this, and Molgeim will die quickly and the lightning elementals will never touch the raid.
 Hard Mode
"You seek the secrets of Ulduar? Then take them!"
Hard mode of this fight consists of killing Steelbreaker last. This version of the fight is much, much more difficult than the previous two versions and should only be attempted by a raid with nothing but the best available Ulduar gear from normal mode fights. In particular, the raid needs four geared-to-the-teeth tanks who can successfully tank Steelbreaker during the final phase of the fight.
Before the strategy for the final phase, we'll describe the first two phases with notes about each.
1. Kill Runemaster Molgeim first, as described in the section on Easy Mode. Rune of Death will not be present, and Molgeim should die quickly. This part of the fight is easy (use the positioning given by the translucent dots on the diagram).
2. Kill Stormcaller Brundir second, as described in the section on Medium Mode. This differs from the Medium Mode kill though, because instead of Rune of Death, Steelbreaker's secondary ability of Static Disruption is active. This means that the raid should be spread out as much as possible while attacking Brundir, and healers should be focused on the melee stack, who will all be hit by repeated Static Disruptions if the raid is unlucky. Also the raid should be careful to not clump up unnecessarily as they run out of Brundir's Overload range every 60 seconds. Due to the exploding Static Disruption charges and increased High Voltage damage (from Static Disruption and Supercharge) the raid healing during this phase is quite intense.
3. Now move to killing Steelbreaker. This phase is quite challenging for all players in the raid and is described in detail below.
Steelbreaker Survival
Once Steelbreaker is the only Iron left alive, he becomes incredibly dangerous. A single mistake or extra player death probably spells a wipe for the raid. As such, survival is the main priority.
The entire raid should be spread out around Steelbreaker, who should be moved to the centre of the room, leaving space immediately to the south of him for exploding tanks to run safely. No raid member should be within 8 yards of any other raid member - this ensures that Static Disruption will only hit one player at a time. Note that Steelbreaker will not fire the ability at players in melee range.
Every player should be responsible for their own survival here - anyone who takes a Static Disruption is immediately in danger of dying from High Voltage, which will suddenly be ticking for over 8,000 damage on that player until the debuff wears off. One healer should be assigned exclusively to watch for Static Disruption debuffs and heal those players. Additionally, those players should be ready to use a health or Nature Protection Potion or use a healthstone if they get below 10k hit points.
Steelbreaker's tank will need three dedicated healers chain casting heals at this point, meaning that not much healing is left for the rest of the raid, who are all taking 4,500+ High Voltage ticks. Raid healing should be assigned to maximize efficiency here: assign groups or areas to specific healers to improve their overall output. Both healer assignment and gearing are key here.
Steelbreaker Tanking
Steelbreaker starts this phase with +50% damage done. By the end, he will have +150% damage done or more. Because of this and the Overwhelming Power debuff, the fight requires 4 incredibly well geared tanks capable of tanking Steelbreaker and surviving his massive damage and Fusion Punch.
Each tank in succession will get Overwhelming Power. This increases their damage by 200% (a big help to threat) but causes them to explode in 25 seconds, dealing 30,000 damage to any player within 15 yards. That means that, five seconds before the debuff wears off, the next tank in order should be in position and Taunt Steelbreaker, giving the previous MT time to run out towards the entrance door where he can safely explode without killing anyone in the raid.
Since each tank is only tanking for between 20 and 25 seconds, they should use all of their available cooldowns to help survive: Layering Shield Wall, Last Stand, etc. gives a huge bonus to survivability against a boss that is liable to one-shot-kill even the best geared tank. Three dedicated healers should be assigned to chain casting heals on the current tank, and the final tanks should be given a cooldown rotation (using Pain Suppression, Divine Guardian, Guardian Spirit, and so forth to help them survive).
One final option is to Combat Resurrect fallen tanks. If a death knight tanks Steelbreaker initially, he will be the first tank to die. If this is the case he should not use all of his cooldowns immediately (since Steelbreaker is only somewhat dangerous at the initial +50% damage phase) but instead save them. A druid in the raid can Combat Resurrect the DK tank once he has exploded and he can be rebuffed while the other tanks are tanking each successive +25% damage phase. Finally, the DK tank can be the last tank to Taunt the boss and layer all of his cooldowns to help survive the +125% or +150% damage portion of the fight, when Steelbreaker is at very low life. This helps add a tank to the rotation and is useful if the raid is short on DPS (or has brought extra tanks and healers at the expense of DPS slots).
If everyone pays attention and stays alive, and the tank rotation is done correctly, the raid should be able to use Bloodlust / Heroism on this portion of the fight and win fairly easily if they are well geared enough. Beating Steelbreaker last will drop a quest item that begins the Algalon quest chain The Archivum, leading to the Hard Mode boss of Ulduar.
Hard Mode Notes For 10 Man
Killing Steelbreaker last is much easier on Normal mode than on Heroic mode. The DPS check is much more forgiving and, most importantly, Steelbreaker casts a different version of Overwhelming Power that lasts 60 seconds instead of 25, meaning that the fight can be done with just the two available tanks (as opposed to the four or so necessary for Heroic mode).
It is important to note that sometimes Steelbreaker has been known to cast Overwhelming Power on targets who are not the MT (this only occurs on Normal mode). It is not known what causes this, but the effects are the same: the player gets to do double damage for 60 seconds and then needs to run away from the raid before they explode. Enjoy your free buff if this happens to you - if we discover whether this is intended or a bug, this guide will be updated to reflect it!
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