ToC25 - Faction Champions

[Azunai]

Ok, just creating a thread for more info's even though there's little to say in great detail about the fight. As we changed our approach tonight we can now confirm that key to this fight is locking down the healers and taking them down one by one. Here's a bit of text from Tankspot that makes alot of sense to me:

We had War, DK, Rogue, hunter, lock, mage, Shadow priest, priest, shaman, paladin (priest sham pala healers). Thats 4 dispells that had to be kept locked initially until they where killed.

We put all our effective CC into non diminishing return tandems and each tandem rotated between the priest, the spriest, and paladin. We lead in with CC and deathgripped the shaman into our melee and burned the shaman with lust while all CC focus was on ANYTHING that could heal or dispell (we banished the lock pet also). Totem killing plays a huge role and must happened immediately as well especially grounding and tremor.

We had 1 DK tank constantly taunting/gripping/Chainsing the rogue. Our hunters constantly laid frost traps to help our soft targets kite out when focused etc. At times several NPCs will start hitting a single target randomly and that person needs lots of attention.

We killed shaman, paladin, priest, spriest, mage, warlock, hunter, rogue, war DK. Once you get by the healing and dispells it becomes much less hectic and much more systematic, and your CC tandems can just CC whatever is loose but must NEVER stop communicating. Since we did not put constant CC cycles on most of the dps we ran 6 healers and spread our raid out in a large area covering the middle 3rd of the arena and kited as needed past traps etc. Less clumping also helped our DK assigned to the rogue a much easier time finding him and pealing him off soft targets. The mage warlock and hunter can pump out serious damage and require lots of dispelling and raid healing on thier CC and damage types.

You have to look at this fight in a arena pvp mindset. Early CC chains + bursting down the other forces key assets are the only way to get an advantage. We altered our strat as the night went on after literally every attempt until the last 2 (our last attempt was 15 minutes before we end our raid when we killed it). With this pattern of all focus on systematically locking down all heals/dispells while burning the 3 healers in sequence quickly turned this fight around. Only 1 time all night did we get more than 2 NPCs down, in 3 hours of attempts, before our actual victory. Once everyone got on the same page and our CC tandems got thier targets locked this quickly turned into an easy victory with only 2 deaths.

Focus targets, lots of raid heals, COMMUNICATION, and reliable raid awareness are all vital pieces to beating this.

Goodluck everyone!

And more, specifically for warrior tank (note, he is talking about a ret paladin I think). We can try this too, putting the warrior tank on an off healer target while the other tanks try to multitank the 3rd melee. Warrior can then come and assist once first healer is deaded:

This was a very entertaining fight. We found that prot warriors on non focused target healers was extremely useful and that prot warriors could also tank/kite/stun/silence the dk, paladin, and warrior with a fair amount of efficiency. I started off on the holy priest, interrupting, stunning, and silencing while the rest of my raid dps focused the Druid. Once the druid target had been downed, the raid then prioritized the holy priest at which point I moved to the paladin, employing every trick in my tool bag. For the paladin, I would acquire as much of his focus as I could pulling him to the complete opposite side of the arena with taunt. I would then hamstring/bash the paladin and eventually lose focus. The paladin would slowly make his way back to the raid at which point I would use charge/intercept/intervene/conc/sw to attempt to slow him down until the taunt dr was cleared. After the taunt immunity was cleared, I would start the cycle up again. Some observations relating to controlling the paladin:

    * Spell reflect is amazing. This should always be on cool down. If it is not, you are wrong.
    * The farther away from the group the paladin got, the more attention he paid to me and less to other targets. At one point, he seemed to stick to me until a fellow raider was feared back to me.
    * PvP trinket. Have it.

Hope this helps!

[Deminion]

And more, specifically for warrior tank (note, he is talking about a ret paladin I think). We can try this too, putting the warrior tank on an off healer target while the other tanks try to multitank the 3rd melee. Warrior can then come and assist once first healer is deaded:

Quote:
This was a very entertaining fight. We found that prot warriors on non focused target healers was extremely useful and that prot warriors could also tank/kite/stun/silence the dk, paladin, and warrior with a fair amount of efficiency. I started off on the holy priest, interrupting, stunning, and silencing while the rest of my raid dps focused the Druid. Once the druid target had been downed, the raid then prioritized the holy priest at which point I moved to the paladin, employing every trick in my tool bag. For the paladin, I would acquire as much of his focus as I could pulling him to the complete opposite side of the arena with taunt. I would then hamstring/bash the paladin and eventually lose focus. The paladin would slowly make his way back to the raid at which point I would use charge/intercept/intervene/conc/sw to attempt to slow him down until the taunt dr was cleared. After the taunt immunity was cleared, I would start the cycle up again. Some observations relating to controlling the paladin:

* Spell reflect is amazing. This should always be on cool down. If it is not, you are wrong.
* The farther away from the group the paladin got, the more attention he paid to me and less to other targets. At one point, he seemed to stick to me until a fellow raider was feared back to me.
* PvP trinket. Have it.

Hope this helps!

Also what i tried to do with the warrior, but with ppl all over the arena it's tough to keep his attention. And i do use all i can with stuns, charge, intercept and disarm.

[TeaLeaf]

As Az said, this fight is absolutely about control not brute force dps.  Priorities include often under-used abilities like:

Chain crowd control (DR allowing)
Focus interupts & Stuns
Purging & Spellstealing (e.g. the druid HOTs)
Dispelling and counter- attacking (e.g. their heroism and countering with yours)

It's always feels a slow fight, but in essence the trick is to lock down their abilities and then gradually knock them out one by one.  The tricky bit is remaining patient as people often forget their priorities 30 seconds into the fight the first time they get hit by something.

Panic not and the fight will be yours!

[Grimnar]

This encounter is much like an arena match between you and 10 (6 at 10-man) quasi-player NPCs. Before even attempting this encounter, your raid will need to assume a PvP mindset. The enemies you will face in this encounter act very much like a good arena team does and some (but not all) PvP mechanics are applied to these NPCs. For example:

• The NPC healers will switch to spam healing your DPS target(s) and should be Crowd Controlled when possible, or stun-locked by a Rogue(s).
• The NPC damage dealers will gang up on a single raid member and focus fire him dead
• All NPCs, including healers, will use player crowd control abilities like Polymorph, Fear, Hex, and even Banish - Tremor Totem and the like are very useful here.
• NPCs in this counter are affected by the same diminishing return rules for player-cast crowd controls as other players are
• Resilience does not reduce damage taken by the NPC enemies
• Faction champions do more damage than typical players, have drastically more health (2.4 million on 25 man), and cast enormous heals - the druid champion's rejuvenation, for example, heals for more than 50,000 per tick
• The NPCs cannot be mind controlled. All other forms of crowd control seem to work, but are subject to Diminishing Returns - after 3 casts, the NPC will be immune to that Crowd Control effect for that fight.

As with any arena match, picking a damage target and focusing it down is critical. While one target is picked to be killed, all other enemy combatants should be controlled by whatever mechanics are available, including player CCs and focused distractions (e.g., keeping a warrior on the rogue NPC to disarm, hamstring, intercept, stun etc.). The NPCs appear to indiscriminately pick their own targets and they will gang up on a single raid member - healers do not appear to be disproportionately targeted as they often are in real arena combat. The NPCs generally cannot be tanked.
As a result of the chaotic nature of this fight (especially early on when all 10 NPCs are alive), every raid member needs to be fast on his feet. When one or more of the melee champions targets a soft target, that target needs to run, fear, snare, escape, stay alive. To facilitate these maneuvers, it is best not to clump together. Every second that a champion is traveling to its target is a second that it is not doing damage to any particular target, so the more you can keep them moving the safer your raid will be.
Another aspect of this encounter at odds with an arena match is that all of your opponents and their classes are known ahead of time, so it is possible to create a variety of control macros that target specific roles by name. This is strongly recommended. It is often very difficult to pick your control target from within the crowd while also performing your other role. Every class with a control ability should be using it as often as possible, including healers. Because of diminishing returns, as the fight goes on, your crowd control target will become actually or effectively immune to your ability, so don't be afraid to use control on any active target that is not the current focus fire target.
The fight becomes exponentially easier as each champion is killed, so getting the first one down as soon as possible greatly increases your odds of winning. All cooldowns, including Bloodlust/Heroism, should be used immediately to facilitate a speedy kill on the first target. The target you pick will be dependent upon your raid makeup, but for the majority of groups the most effective strategy is unsurprisingly to kill the healers first.
 
 

The four healers are a restoration druid, a restoration shaman, a holy paladin, and a holy priest.

• The restoration druid casts Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Nourish, and Regrowth. Two of these can be interrupted, and three of these must be dispelled.
• The restoration shaman casts Greater Healing Wave, Lesser Healing Wave, Earth Shield, and Chain Heal. Three of these can be interrupted, and one of these must be dispelled.
• The holy paladin casts Flash of Light, Holy Light, Hand of Freedom and Divine Protection. Her Divine Protection will be cast when she is at around 25% health and should be broken swiftly (by Shattering Throw or Mass Dispel) so the Holy Light which she inevitably starts casting afterwards can be interrupted.
• The holy priest casts Greater Heal, Flash Heal, Renew, and Power Word: Shield. Two of these can be interrupted, and two of these must be dispelled.

The most effective healer is the restoration druid. As with arena combat, they are very difficult to kill by themselves. In this encounter, in addition to the restoration druid healing himself, the other two healers will also focus heal while your raid focuses damage; this is true regardless of the target you pick. However, because the druid casts three very powerful healing-over-time effects that must be dispelled (as opposed to one from the shaman and two from the priest), if you leave the restoration druid up, a small interruption in chain dispelling from another champion's control abilities, such as a fear bomb, can quickly undo a great deal of damage progress. While focussing the restoration druid from the start, use as many stuns and interrupts as possible, use your longest-duration crowd controls on the other two healers, and burn him.
If you have competent warlocks and can keep the druid banished, you may have better luck burning one of the others first. Remember that your banishes will be subject to PvP limits and diminishing returns, so unless you can kill one of the healers before the druid becomes immune to banishes, you may find yourself chewing through druid heal buffs on your kill target, which may greatly slow your kill time.
After the restoration druid is dead, choose either the shaman, the paladin, or the priest. The shaman will use a powerful earth shield which makes him slightly more dangerous than the priest; in addition, he casts Hex on your raid. The shaman cannot resurrect himself like a player shaman can. The paladin will use Divine Protection on low health which should be broken swiftly so her Holy Light can be interrupted, and will use Hand of Freedom to break her allies out of Crowd Control effects.
After the healers are dead, the next highest priority should be the melee DPS. The rogue is probably the most dangerous followed by the warrior, the retribution paladin, and the death knight; the rogue is also a softer target than the plate wearers and will consequently die sooner. The enhancement shaman is the weakest of the melee champions and is weaker than most of the ranged. It is safe to kill him last.
Once the three healers are dead the fight becomes several orders of magnitude simpler and boils down to a burn phase. Keep the DPS champions chasing and your healers alive. Players assigned to distraction on various enemies should continue distracting until their target is picked for the kill. One of the primary jobs for distraction players will be to watch their target's target and call out who they're pursuing.
Two of the most important abilities in this encounter are offensive dispelling and spell interrupts. All of the champions are susceptible to spell interrupts, and offensive dispel is critical to cut through the healers' effects. Another strong ability to remember is mass dispel, which can cut through Divine Shields and Ice Blocks, both of which will be used by enemy champions. Mortal Strike and Wound Poison will also greatly aid you in taking out the healers early on. The death knight and rogue will use disease and poison effects so Cleansing Totems should be down.
Your PvP trinkets will come in handy in this encounter as well, as you will be constantly controlled throughout the fight. For all but the most elite raid groups, you can expect this fight to last close to 10 minutes, so you will use your trinket several times throughout the battle.
 
 

To avoid healers being overwhelmed with switching targets to try to heal those being focused, reserve anyone who can crowd control melee and casters to remain on that target until they are dead.

• Any tanking class will be able to taunt their target to fixate it away. Taunts are still subject to DR. Fixate taunts like Hunter's Distraction Shot do not work on bosses. Death Knights are perfect for pinning down melee (warrior, retribution paladin, rogue, death knight) with Chains of Ice, Dark Command, and Death Grip. Warriors can spam Hamstring, Shockwave, and Charge stun the warrior and the rogue to prevent them from moving. Rogues are able to keep casters (mage, shadow priest, holy priest) on lockdown with constant stuns and interrupts. If you are on the mage, he will blink when stunned so unless you have Throwing Specialization try not to do it while rooted. Vanish, Cloak of Shadows, Improved Sprint, and Killing Spree will dispel the Shattered Barrier and Frost Nova. A combination of warlock and balance druid is able to chain Cyclone and Banish on the restoration druid, switching off every time the CC chain cannot continue due to DR.
  
• Fear bomb if enough champions reach their target.

[gijs]

Oke so its best to kill the tree druid first it seems.
 
Nice tacts summery Ice thx

[Bellanie]

Very Nice Ice, very detailed write up thanks:) also on a side note, get in the BG's People and get a trinket:) ans also practice your pvp skills:)

[JonnyAppleSeed]

Stone Keepers Shards buy you one also. Pop to the vendor in Wintergrasp.

[Lexander]

Very Nice Ice, very detailed write up thanks:) also on a side note, get in the BG's People and get a trinket:) ans also practice your pvp skills:)

Best thing is to do a premade group and start farming BG's, easy honor and marks. 100 times faster than doing it alone.

[Azunai]

Merged for forum wins!

Like Ice's write-up also makes clear: Control, control and some more control. Then when that's done, we do some control and after that we execute a very important strategy: Control.

[Sithvid]

Thanks for the write ups, makes it sound less daunting. :boxing::boxing:

[TeaLeaf]

I did this on heroic with Eluo the other night.  The same tactics apply in normal so here's a summary of what we did.

Firstly, do not gimp yourself too much with PVP gear.  Our priests & shaman tended to use some PVP gear for the stamina boost only, but very few dps did.  

Specific Danger Mobs
The Rogue & Warrior dish out some serious damage and certainly on heroic can kill a caster in a second or two.  They have to be looked for and avoided.  In particular, as the fight progresses be aware of where these two are and stay away.  You will notice that sometimes they might focus on you, but if you are far enough away or move away from them as they approach/shadow step toward you then they willl re-focus on another target and lose interest in you.  

1:1 CC
Have a 1:1 CC plan for every mob.  Make sure that everyone who needs it has a focus macro for their focus fear/sheep/hex/interrupt/stun etc.  Sustain the CC throughout the fight (people get 1 minute in and seem to forget what their prio was).

Lock down the rogue & warrior with a couple of DKs.  Chain them up & grip them back etc when they move away.  Keep them out of the middle of the room and away from others.  Prot warriors also work, but recovery of a running mob is slightly more difficult.  The idea of 'being aware of where the rogue & warrior are' is one that should be stressed and the DKs can always call for a BOF/BOP on the ToT if they 'lose' their target.  Paladins need to be prepared to do this.  Consider setting aside an area of the room for this purpose to keep the danger mobs away from everyone else.

The shadow priest & mage are usually controlled with a CS rotation only and limited use of polymorph due to the number of breaks it gets. You can also assign a shaman to this if needed but range is shorter.

Assign a rogue (or other interupter) to the holy priest for interupts and stuns etc.

The Pull
"Cheap" pvp tricks like using hungering cold from frost DKs, ranged novas from frostmage elementals etc are truly amazing in this fight. They are evne more effective when used at the pull as this gets the NPCs to use their PVP trinket immediately and makes later CCs/stuns far more effective.

Dispelling, Purging, Cleansing, Stuns, Interrupts etc
Dispelling (I'll include all the cleansing type spells in this category) is vital to this fight and you need to keep on top of it or the healing gets real nasty.

Purges, interrupts and stuns are vital to keep the kill target locked down. Focused target interrupts from for example shamans will also ease up both healing from the NPCs and incoming damage from casters.

When they blow heroism you need a mass dispell to get rid of it, then blow yours to counter.  Consider NOT using heroism early on as they might do the same to you unless the priest is locked down.

Make sure grounding totems are used every CD!

CCs
CCs will be better as the fight goes on, at the start cleanses from the npcs on eachother and diminishing return makes pretty much everything but cyclone very weak at the start.

As the fight develops and the NPCs have less cleansing available and the area becomes less populated then sheeping and hexing targets, particularly when they are in an area on their own, becomes very much more successful.  Earlier in the fight things tend to get dispelled very quickly so it is almost not worth it at that point.  

Movement & Positioning
Assign an area of the room for your 'danger mobs' and always be aware of where they are, be prepared to kite them until they focus elsewhere.

Healers and squishy ranged in particular, HAVE to use the outside of the room (the middle tends to get bunched up).  If you are in the middle and you get focused you will go down immediately, so stay on the outside and keep range!  Whilst on the outside, move if you get focused, the mob will generally lose interest and leave you alone after a short chase.

Kill Order
The kill order can vary from fight to fight, but if you have the CC and interrupts right then you can ignore the Rogue & Warrior at the start and focus down a couple of the healers first.  Then you can take out the dangerous dps (rogue/warrior) and then gradually take down the rest.

As a footnote, we found the resto druid very hard to kill and it was far easier to take out the other healers first and simply purge the HOTs from the kill target.  So make sure you have someone assigned to purging the kill target!  If the druid heals what you are not killing then it does not matter!

Raid Leading
It is seriously important that once the fight starts everyone follows one voice and focuses their dps whilst keeping on top of any CC/interrupt assignments.  Having each target called (and then the next) keeps everyone focused on the objective.

Hope this helps.

[Bellanie]

just a update

The Faction Champions encounter in the normal 10-player and normal 25-player Trial of the Crusader instances have had a number of spells and abilities altered which should result in less overall damage.

from a blue post:) should help for when we do it:)

link for the full list of game fixes:)
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19820412001&pageNo=1&ST=US-1592018-ItI15bd6Rndlf9FMckMg6raLXRyrvz4gP0n