Strategy

How should my guild approach the encounter?

The challenge on Heroic difficulty will be keeping your raid alive. Go in with the mindset of keeping everyone alive first and foremost. The burst damage in the fight is much greater, and while learning, it will constantly feel like someone gets killed before you can react. With experience, these gibs will slowly stop occurring and their causes will become more obvious (generally, poor spatial awareness).

To beat this encounter, you'll need to take out enough of the faction champions that no one is at risk of dying anymore, with enough of your raid alive to finish the encounter. Typically, this means all or most of the melee are dead, and you have 10-15 people alive. There are several kill orders and different ways of attempting this. I won't be suggesting a single way, i'll point out all of the issues you'll encounter in the fight and different ways of solving them.

Assign specific roles to people. Take people completely off DPS for certain jobs. Asking people to "CC whenever you get a chance" will unlikely be effective, due to how chaotic the fight is. Assigned people can also call who is being targeted by their assigned mob. DPS will not likely be your issue if you managed to get through Heroic Beasts, you can afford to take people off the main target.

It is often called a "PVP Fight". In some elements, that's true:
• Communication becomes far more important. There are a lot of things people need to be aware of. Make sure everyone knows to share critical information and minimise useless talk.
• Your raiders need far more spatial awareness than they need on any other encounter. Make sure your raiders take note of what's going on near them. People who arent aware and die constantly might need scolding. Dont play it solo, if you can help someone else survive, do so.

After every failed attempt, find out why people died, or why DPS was slow. Whatever the problem is, you can likely fix it. Ignoring it and not discussing it will cause it to continue to be an issue. Recount is useful because it can track healing taken by the faction champions and produce death reports for people.

Meet the Faction Champions

MELEE

Rogue
(H) Irieth Shadowstep / (A) Maz'dinah

Warrior
(H) Shocuul / (A) Narrhok Steelbreaker

DK
(H) Tyrius Duskblade / (A) Gorgrim Shadowcleave

Enhancement Shaman
(H) Shaabad / (A) Broln Stouthorn

Retribution Paladin
(H) Baelnor Lightbearer / (A) Malithas Brightblade

RANGED

Hunter
(H) Alyssia Moonstalker / (A) Ruj'kah

Shadow Priest
(H) Brienna Nightfell / (A) Vivienne Blackwhisper

Moonkin
(H) Kavina Grovesong / (A) Birana Stormhoof

Warlock
(H) Serissa Grimdabbler / (A) Harkzog

Mage
(H) Noozle Whizzlestick / (A) Ginselle Blightslinger

HEALERS

Resto Druid
(H) Melador Valestrider / (A) Erin Misthoofe

Resto Shaman
(H) Saamul / (A) Thrakgar

Holy Priest
(H) Anthar Forgemender / (A) Caiphus the Stern

Holy Paladin
(H) Velanaa / (A) Liandra Suncaller

So what changes in Heroic?

Their health and damage is increased a lot. The melee are particularly far more dangerous than their normal counterparts.

They are also immune to taunt on heroic.

And finally, they have a "PVP trinket" ability, which clears all snares and CC. 2 Min cooldown. They tend to use it on the first CC that's used on them. Try and make them blow it early so they dont use it when you actually need it. Be wary, it will come up multiple times during a fight, keep your eye out for when CC breaks.

THIS FIGHT IS SO RANDOM! Why do the Faction Champions do what they do?

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/index.php?rb_v=viewtopic&f=...

This explains most of the AI of the faction champions. It is worth reading in its entirety, but here's a quick summary of what you need to know:

The Melee pick targets based on 3 things. How close you are to them, how much health below maximum you are, and how much armor you have. This is why the melee will often target clothies, and "gib" people with low health. The ranged will also target you based on your health. Keep everyone's health up, and the amount of "zerging" will be kept to a minimum, People who are zerged need to keep moving and healers need to top them up ASAP.

So the best advice?
• RUN AWAY FROM THE MELEE. Don't stand near them, even if you're not their current target.
• DON'T LET YOUR RAID'S HEALTH DROP BELOW 100%. People below 100% are likely to be targeted, and killed because they weren't full. DoT's can often cause people's health to drop if not taken care of quickly.

They also use aggro tables (can be seen on Omen). Feign Death, Fade, Vanish, Invisibility, Mirror Images, Soulshatter (provided the second person on the list has more than half the warlocks aggro), will all stop the Champions from attacking you.

Controlling the Faction Champions

The amount of "RNG" you encounter in this fight is entirely up to how much control you exert over the Faction Champions. Use too much however, and you might not have the DPS to take them down before the RNG that remains still kills enough core people to wipe you.

I'll talk about the different ways you can control the melee, ranged, and healers. When in doubt, use more CC rather than less.

The Melee

The melee are very dangerous. Sitting in melee range of one will likely result in your death. Snares will likely be the main way you control the melee. Pay attention to the rogue and warrior in particular, because they can charge/shadowstep long distances.

Who should CC the Melee?

• Death Knights are ideal. Chains of Ice is the snare of choice. If you have a DK in your raid, you'll likely want him sitting on a melee. Chains is ranged, unlike most snares, easily re-appliable, and the DK comes with a Death Grip in case his target gets away.

• A Prot Warrior is also a good choice, as he can use Hamstring, and has many many many many stuns at his disposal.

• A Frost Mage can work, abusing Frostbolt, Frost Nova, and Deep Freeze, along with Polymorph.

• Druids can use Entangling Roots and Cyclone. Rotating Entangling Roots and Cyclone on their own is nearly enough to completely lock down a melee. A feral druid will also have access to Feral Charge - Bear and Bash and Infected Wounds.

• Hunters are not good at controlling melee, but placing Frost Traps in good places can allow people more time to get away from pursuing melee. Get your hunters to drop Frost Traps in fixed positions to maximise the radius.

Issues with snares:

The Rogue and Warrior can Charge and Shadowstep getting around whatever snare is on them. This won't clear the snare, and a person is likely able to simply move away out of range of them, but people with low health, poor reaction times, or are CC'd in some manner may have no way out. Backup abilities like Stuns, Cyclone, Death Grip, Polymorph, need to be saved for moments like that. Keeping it controlled for a few seconds is generally all someone needs to leg it away to safety.

Hand of Freedom will also be cast on the melee. We have a great shaman, who by simply hearing us call out what raid icon we put on the mob that gets freedom, will dispel it near instantly. If dispelling Hand of Freedom is poor, it does not make them immune to Stuns or Cyclone or other CC. Try and keep it CC'd until Freedom wears off.

The melee will also choose to attack one of your melee. A Faction Champion standing in the middle of all the other melee is dangerous. Melee need to leg it as well if targeted. Death Grips are useful for getting them away from the melee huddle. Even if they're interrupting, a few missed heals will only slow you down, not wipe you. Getting killed as an interrupter will likely cause problems if not a wipe.

If you can manage it, only assign one person to each melee. We personally put two people on the Rogue and Warrior (A DK to Snare, another class to CC), as it causes less problems if one of the CCers gets zerged, and those two are more difficult to control solo.

The melee will likely kill people regardless of how many people you assign, especially while learning the fight. Dont be disheartened by 4-5 deaths while you're killing the first few Faction Champions. Excessive deaths via melee should be looked into whether the assigned people are CCing properly.

Tips:

• Let them run around with a snare as much as possible. Save using CC and Stuns until they're getting close to someone. If you just try and chain CC your target, your diminishing returns will not be up when you need them. After you using a CC for 10 seconds, and again for 5 seconds, save the 2.5 seconds cast for an emergency. 2.5 seconds is all someone needs to move out of the way. For the Rogue and Warrior, save such abilities until after they Shadowstep/Charge, or in case they get a Hand of Freedom.

• Call out on vent who the melee are targeting! Let the people know early they need to move and play defensively. It saves lives! Call out when your target enters the cluster of melee. Melee will have less time to run and need to be warned if the champion might turn and whack them.

The Healers

The different healers can be CC'd differently. We personally use interrupters over actual CC, although I believe some guilds CC the healers instead.

• The Druid is best controlled with a Warlock, no question. Using Fear and Banish, it should stay locked down. It may get HoT's off. You will need a dispeller on the main DPS target. You may want to consider not killing this target till later in the fight if your CC is good.

• The Paladin doesnt have a lot of instant casts. A single rogue or prot warrior can pretty much keep it from casting anything but Holy Shock. You may want two interupters. This is also a target you may want to skip killing till later.

• The Shaman is bothersome in that he drops a healing stream totem. Due to the bother of killing the totem, and how much it can heal left unchecked, he's often killed early. You may want two interupters. Again, dispelling his Earth Shield and Riptide is important.

• The Priest has lower health than the other healers, and a lot of instants. He's often picked first for that reason. Interupting Penance can be diffcult. Psychic Scream will also be very bothersome, especially without a tremor totem. You may want two interupters.

The Ranged

Once your other CC has been assigned, look into what you can put on the ranged targets. The Mage and Hunter are the highest priority. The CC on the others apart from the Hunter and Mage doesnt need to be 100% uptime. It's just to keep the stress off the healers. The Hunter and Mage dont need 100% either, but keeping them controlled over 50% of the time will be noticeable.

Ummm... Which do we kill first?

You have 3 options:

Killing the DPS first:

The sooner you kill the DPS, the less likely you are to lose critical people to random deaths. However, you'll need enough people on the healers to stop them from healing. If you lose any of the people controlling healers, you might end up in trouble.

The Rogue, Warrior, and Hunter are most dangerous and are probably the targets you should pick first.

Killing all the healers first:

Once all the healers are dead, you free up all the people assigned to them, and their instant cast heals are no longer an issue. However, it takes time to kill 3 healers, during which you can lose important people which could cause a wipe.

In order of what I feel are the best to kill first:
Shaman ---> Priest ---> Druid ---> Paladin

Killing some of the healers first:

Some of the healers are more annoying than the others. The Druid and Paladins are much easier to control and no annoying spells, unlike the shaman and priest. If DPS is a problem, but you cant kill all the healers in time, consider just killing 1 or 2 of the healers and moving onto the DPS.

Kill the Shaman and priest if they're in your make up, then move onto the DPS.

"Tanking the Faction Champions"

It is possible to tank the faction champions.

If you read the above linked guide, you'll understand they follow certain rules in which people they target. These rules can be exploited in a way that causes one person to become the focus of all the champions.

Our guild has done this several times, usually with me tanking, I don't think I can completely explain it, but i'll try.

More important than anything, they'll pick targets with low health. If you can get a tank to get low health (any lower than half is risky), they should eventually start targeting that tank. I've had success the past two weeks simply charging in at the start and using an AoE threat ability (They follow normal tanking rules for the first few seconds of the fight).

Once all the champions are on the tank, no one else in the raid should be taking any damage (or minimal, which healers should correct quickly). This means the tank is the only one with any health deficit. If the tank drags the melee to a wall, the tank will be the only person in close proximity to the melee, making them less likely to target anyone else.

A couple of the champions might change targets time to time, but they'll eventually come back to the tank.

If the tank is topped up too much, and someone else takes damage, the faction champions may disperse and act as they normally would. If you can get your tanks health low again, you can likely start the tanking over again. If you kill too many of the champions, incoming damage might be too low and it will be impossible to tank them, but at that point, you've probably won.

To finish

It will take trial and error to find the right combination of who to assign to what duties on this fight. You'll likely heavily customise this strat in a way that works for your guild. Identify problems quickly and you'll save yourself a lot of wipes. Check that all the healers are under control, the melee are CC'd properly, and that the raid's health is kept very high, and the rest should come down to practice.

Best of luck with this very annoying encounter!