Iron Council – “I Choose You, Steelbreaker!”

The requirement for this achievement is to kill Steelbreaker last when killing Iron Council Hard Mode. In order to do this you absolutely MUST have the following:

• At least two tanks that can take major hits
• At least one or more priests
• A reasonably high amount of raid dps

This fight is not as complicated as many make it out to be, and it is significantly stressful on the healers. Begin the pull by assigning your best big-hit mitigation tank to go after Steelbreaker, and your other tank to take care of the remaining two.

Begin the pull and dps in on Runemaster Molgeim. Molgeim is a preferred dps target over Brundir as you will not have to worry about moving the bosses out of the Rune of Power. It is a tossup, however, if you are extremely ranged heavy and have very alert tanks. Upon Molgeim’s death, Steelbreaker will begin casting Static Disruption occasionally. This is typically inconsequential on dps as long as you are properly interrupting lightning whirls and running out of overloads, but it’s important to keep an eye on nonetheless.

Upon Brundir’s death it will become a significant dps race. It is vitally important to save all CDs for Steelbreaker, as you are very limited on time. Steelbreaker places Overwhelming Power on the current agro target, which behaves similar to Burning Adrenaline (for those who have done Vael in BWL). A 200% damage increase will be active, and a 60 second instant-death timer will be active. The instant death will cause AoE damage to all players within 15 yards, so obviously in the few remaining seconds, the tanks must transition and the soon-to-die tank must run away from the raid.

At this point there are two very different ways to finish this fight. First off, an MS affect (Furious Assaults, Mortal Strike, Aimed Shot, Wound Poison, etc.) should be placed on Steelbreaker. In either case, there will be several constants.

One mechanic that you will quickly notice is that upon any raid member’s death, Steelbreaker will heal 15% (7.5% with MS effect up) of his maximum health and gain a 25% damage increase. This means that it is vitally important for all raid members (and tanks) to be topped off at all times. Due to the damage increase, there should be a life-saving rotation going on for fusion punches. The first tank on Steelbreaker has a choice, in method #1 he will save his CDs and method #2 he will blow them as soon as the first fusion punch (following Brundir’s death) occurs. Only 1 CD per fusion punch need be used, any more than that will lessen your chances of tanks surviving through the entire Overwhelming Power duration. After the tank’s CDs are gone (and depending on how close he is to instantly dying) the priest should use Guardian Spirit, pallies can use Divine Sacrifice, bubble + Blessing of Sacrifice, and so forth. The two different methods for
finishing the fight both depend on the group’s composition.

Method #1: This strategy involves having at least one druid in the raid that can Rebirth the first tank after he has died, and allow one more possible tank transition.

Method #2: This strategy is a much riskier one, and has several different possibilities. If there are only two tanks and no druids available for Rebirth, the dps must be high enough (feast, flask, etc.) in order to kill Steelbreaker before he second tank dies. It is worth noting that this approach typically requires a shaman for Bloodlust/Heroism.

Optional: This option is extremely helpful if you have a skilled enough dpser to pull it off. During a tank transition, have a ranged dps purposely pull agro and have the tank taunt the boss back to him once the hunter gains the Overwhelming Power debuff. Once this is done your ranged dpser will do a tremendous amount of dps, but will die and heal the boss if he is not killed in time, so again this is a very risky move, but can pay off if executed correctly.