Factions Champs 25

[Gwaeni]

We got this fight easy in 10 man, and had a very very rough go of it in 25. Anyone care to share their strat?

[Kyth]

We have our mages and warlocks each take a CC target. e.g. as a mage, I sheep 3x, then counterspell, then let it run around, then sheep again. A nice lock might notice the running part and fear it in between there (ditto me noticing their target running aorund while I'm not sheeping mine.)

We use symbols to designate that.

For kill order we did the warrior first, then the other heavy hitters like the rogue. The shaman is good to get rid of so you don't have to keep killing that windfury totem every time it pops up. Left the healers until last because we were CC'ing them.


We may switch it up this week though and do the priests earlier since they fall over so fast as they just wear cloth. It's pretty funny watching a bunch of melee try to take down high AC targets on their own .


Our strat probably sucks though, since we haven't had to get good at the fight yet. Tomorrow we'll hopefully get to it on hard mode which means we'll have to get better at it, so I can post more then.

[Beckykins]

We've only had two attempts thus far but we've been focusing on downing the Holy Priest (assuming it's in the makeup), then Hunter next... we had major problems one night and figured out it was due to the Hunter. Once we nailed the Hunter, it went alot smoother.

The thing I highly suggest after having success with it and watching 2 DK Tanks also succeed alot was DGing / CoI on the Rogue, Warrior and/or Shaman. Chains of Ice seems to have no diminishing returns during the fight and after I took out the holy priest (me = unholy DK DPS), I spent the rest of the fight CoIng the Rogue and DGing it out of the clothies.

Highly recommend: Priest to mass dispel Heroism from their Shaman. Warriors to CC/interrupt the Druid. Warrior DPS to /assist your main DPS (I recommend a Ret Paladin or Unholy DK w. Ghoul for pet stun) to keep up Mortal Strike constantly on the main target. We also had our Warlocks spreading out their pet types, Felhunter seemed to be an added benefit to the raid.

In 10s and 25s, we've concentrated on trying to down the weakest Healer type and quite possibly the Resto Druid to minimize the longevity of the rest of the fight. With 2 healer's on their side down, it leaves one healer to heal their side but considering we have constant CC/interrupts on said healer, it makes the rest of the fight alot more manageable.

Sorry for the stream of thought, couldn't sleep and am just ramblin' on.

[Menphisrains]

we have a warlock and a mage Poly and fear 1 healer the priest its not holy is disc. has instant sheilds and pennance alot. keep it cced all the time. we have 1 elemental shaman ME inturpting there paladin healer. as many holy lights as possible. warstomp and thunderstome as much as you can. we NUKE the shaman healer. have a rogue or 2 interupt him and keep up mortal strike or rogue poisions to stop casting speed and reduces healing. we have another elemental shaman SPAM PURGE on the target being nuked incase the others out of CC get bubbles and hots on the nuke target. we have hunter rotation disarm on the warrior and we then have 2 other warlocks fear the DK. we then use all others warlocks Howl of terrr and priests aoe fear and warrios aoe fear if the melee get close to cloths. have priest mass dispell there bloodlust. once the shaman is being spam purged and nuked to hell we switch to the priest again spam purge him and the mage and lock can fear and poly morph any other targets. ow and eaither banish there warlcoks pet or have paladin turn it wit his holy fear. once the priest and shaman are dead nuke warrior, DK, rogue. then one by one all other dps the paladin because he is such long cast time on holy light i keep him inturupted for the whole fight he might get 10 flash of lights back off but once the other 2 healers are dead we have 1 rogue move to assist me on the paladin to make sure he is interupted.

[Gondlem]

We kill the healers first, at least on normal mode. We choose one healer to kill first, and CC the other(s). Usually a mage on each healer we want to CC with everyone else backing up when sheep is on DR, with stuns or fears or whatever they've got.

We also assign tanks to manage melee NPCs as much as possible. It's really quite easy for a prot warrior (for example) to keep a melee under control with a variety of stuns, the occasional fear, and most importantly taunt, which works pretty well to control where a melee NPC is standing, even though it won't do anything once the actual debuff wears off.

Other than those direct assignments, everyone with low-maintenance CC should be ready to use it when they can. HoJ something, throw out a random fear, keep a frost trap down near healers or cloth DPS, everything that will reduce incoming damage on the raid helps. Try and spread the NPCs out a bit so they aren't cleaving down your raid with AoE fears and well-placed taunts, and have your healers dispel constantly. That's about all I can think of, just focus on control.

[Puddn]

We had much better success when we stopped thinking at it so hard. This will likely change tomorrow night when we start Hard Modes (assuming we get that far), but on Normal we just gave up on CC and assist trained it down. We gathered the healers for FoK interrupty goodness, banish/cycloned the tree the week we had it, and killed the DPS in our best estimation of most to least dangerous (Warrior absolutely must die...so much the better if you can chain some stuns on him to try to delay whirlwind). Tanks put on their DPS gear and went to town.

Even once FoK's interrupt ability goes away, being able to mass spread crippling and mind numbing is amazing utility and cuts the incoming damage by a ton. Another crutch we'll have to learn to live without if Hard Mode is hard enough to require effective CC chains.

[Zerstorung]

So hard mode is out, anyone have any solid tips?

We had one attempt where we downed the priest first with no deaths, but after that we'd be losing 4-5 people trying to replicate the strat (maybe we were all tired, it was 12am).

What melee classes can pull the most CC? Two rogues on the hunter for dismantle and stuns, a prot warrior on (blank?), etc?

I was having very low success on sheeps. They seemed to trinket/dispel the first very quick, then they'd be taking direct cleave dmg (glyph of sheep removed debuffs, but they'd still get owned). Another question, how many healers (and what class/spec) have you been most successful with.

[Kyth]

Yeah stop using cleave.

Your raid needs to not use any AE effects, they need to not tab-dot, not use ground dots, not use stuff like living bomb.

You can't CC when there's AE going out constantly.


We have the most success killing the highest-DPS first (after the shaman). Other guilds swear by the healers first.

Mostly it's an 'endurance' fight. Your raid needs to keep an eye out for people in trouble and help them. And, yeah, don't break CC. As long as you don't die, the faction champions will die -- it may just take a while.

[Zerstorung]

So we've been clearing ToC heroic but FC causes us more attempts than any other fight.

What class combos do you use to best CC each mob? We can use a mage and warlock to alternate fears and sheeps on targets. However, choosing which targets is what we're not sure of. A deathknights can handle either the warrior or the dk. What about rogue and hunter?

[Rochaid]

We have found that CC doesn't last nearly long enough to be worthwhile so we just keep the melee locked down as much as possible as for the most part, the ranged alone can't burn down anyone before they get healed, it takes melee help. We use plate classes to handle all the melee. Our normal warrior tank always takes the rogue, he can keep the rogue slowed and anytime it gets a BoF, he can stun it. One DK takes the warrior and keeps it slowed and can pull it away from people as needed. Then we have another warrior and dk take whatever melee is left. Normally we prioritize Enhance>Ret>DK. Whoever is locking down the target calls out who they are targeting so that they can move away. We have found that CC doesn't last nearly long enough to be worthwhile so we just keep the melee locked down as much as possible as for the most part, the ranged alone can't burn down anyone before they get healed, it takes melee help.

The only CC we use is our feral will instant cyclone the hunter and our resto druids will occasionally cyclone/root stuff that is chasing them. We had originally tried to CC stuff, but after having problems week after week, we just stopped using it and switched to our lock down strat and normally 1-2 shot it every week.