Coliseum Faction Champions (Hard Mode)

[Osiris90]

Just trying to uncover a bit more on the mechanics of this fight.

I've searched throughout the interwebs for any documentation on this, but are the champions known to have PC level stats - mainly in regards to avoidance?

So whereas normal PvE raid bosses have a certain hit cap for example, do the champions -specifically the melee have higher levels of avoidance?

I ask because on our recent attempts our melee have been reporting a large amount of miss, parry and dodge, while being generally at the usual hit/exp cap (aside from hard expertise capped for dodges).

Also, resistances; are we to assume that as it is a PvP style encounter the champs will have a specific amount of resistance. For example a paladin giving a shadow/fire aura, albeit hidden.

[Turqoise]

We downed the 10 man Faction Champions (Hard mode) for the first time last night using the following raid set-up:

Resto Shamam (me)
Disc Priest
Holy Paladin
PVP Destro Specced Lock
Ele Shaman
Assassination Rogue
Unholy Dk (dps)
Fury warrior
Boomkin
Feral Dps

We were up against:

Resto Druid
Disc Priest
Enh Shaman
Rogue
Mage
Lock.

We had reached this boss encounter for the first time last week and hadn't managed to make any real progress, mainly (I believe) because we had no lock in the raid to deal with the resto druid and therefore we had tried to burn down the druid at the start (without any Mortal Strike debuff). We found we were losing people almost straight away to the rogue, especially if one of the ranged was on the rogues target also.

This week we switched a raider onto his alt lock which he respecced pvp-destro. He was able to pretty much take the resto druid out of the picture (The druid managed a measly 3k HPS and was the last kill). The fury warrior was on the priest the whole fight interrupting etc. and our boomkin was cycloning / rooting the rogue.

Our first kill was the enh shaman who we burned with heroism, the second kill was the rogue and then having removed the melee dps the fight was pretty much over. Our disc priest was spamming Mass dispel a fair amount of the time to keep HoTs off the nuke target as well as cleansing other debuffs on them and us, this seems a much more effective method than purge spam by a shaman as it cleanses the nuke target of HoTs but also dispels a myriad of other debuffs / buffs from both us and the enemy.

If you are facing a resto-druid I would strongly recommend taking a lock as it pretty much changes the fight from 10 v 6 to 9 v 5. Put a rogue or a warrior on the second healer and you are down to 8 v 4 and those odds look a whole lot better.

Any shaman you have in your raid should be dropping grounding totem every cd, as whatever it absorbs will be worth the gcd it costs and earthbind totems also help until you have cleared up the melee dps. Whilst the enemy healers are being largely neutralized a Mortal Strike debuff on the nuke target should be maintained if at all possible and if the enemy team has a shaman the totems should be stomped asap. I found it quite easy to just run round meleeing the totems as a healer as it doesnt really interfere with the decursing/cleansing that i was spending most of my time doing.

Another thing that should be made clear to the raid members is that each players priority is to stay alive, they can't expect to be healed through damage and should use any cc abilities they have to help keep themselves alive, unlike on normal mode when you see a melee dps running towards you, you can not expect a tank to taunt it away and you should either cc it, or more probably run away.

[Casper7526]

Somethings have been said but I will pop some of the most useful tips for heroic FC there is alive, and if you can't down it using some or hopefully all of these strats, I'm not sure you can.

Get DK'S!
Get your DK's to spec into HC + Glyph.
Have Prot warriors do the patented - safeguard+PC+imp spellreflect
Have mages go frost (this is about survival not a dps race)
If you have SMEXY pallies, have them be prot/holy, they will not be considered healers and therefor will have alot better time actually dispelling/healing.

It will take almost if not more then a minute to kill the first target, prepare for a long fight of drawn out survival.

Assign people to every mob to CC.
Assign a healer to target of target heal off of each melee.

And the last, but one of the best.
Assign 1 dps with a MS effect to constantly attack a pet, this will draw heals to the pet and away from the npcs.

SURVIVE SURVIVE SURVIVE

[blackwave]

our time is hard in FC we down it last time but this time the setup was

They are
resto Shaman
priest disc
DK
paladin
boomkan druid
rouge

we are
paladin holy
warlock
enhn shaman
mage
druid resto
dk blood
rogue
priest disc
warlock
reti pala


we always wipe
at this stratge

Kill priest-shaman-warlock-others get cc
kill paladin-rogue others CC
kill shaman-priest others CC

What should we do any advice

[kallen]

Splug whats the frames in the top left hand coner used for in the fight?

[Splug]

Splug whats the frames in the top left hand coner used for in the fight?

Those are the assist and tank targets. Really, for that video we didn't give them much dedicated purpose beyond the fact that everyone should have been on the same target Stingray was. However, anyone with assist's target's targets showing would be able to see who was getting focus-fired. We started using that tactic later, and calling out the focus victim to give them some time to run. Using multiple players who are all controlling different targets reduces the chance of calling the wrong player if one or two of the NPC's break off the main target, which they will do while rooted (where the standard AI will cause the highest-threat target in melee to be targeted instead).

-Splug

[Elgoran]

This thread is a good source for trying to master the fight. I compiled a breakdown for my guild, but hopefully it is useful to more people. Feel free to comment or add.

List of abbreviations

AoE = Area of Effect
AotD = Army of the Dead
AS = Aimed Shot
CC = Crowd Control
CoE = Curse of Exhaustion
CoI = Chains of Ice
CS = CounterSpell
DG = Death Grip
ER = Entangling Roots
ET = Earthbind Totem
GCD = Global CoolDown
GT = Grounding Totem
HC = Hungering Cold
HoT = Howl of Terror
IS = Intimidating Shout
MD = Mass Dispel
MS = Mortal Strike
NG = Nature's Grasp
PS = Psychic Scream
SF = ShadowFury
TT = Tremor Totem
WP = Wound Poison

When 'burn target' is mentioned, it means the boss currently needing to die. When 'prio duty' is mentioned, it means the role a class should fill preferably. [1] Should be the preferred duty unless there is a surplus of players with the same duty, or a lack of another duty.

Burn order
The order in which the bosses need to be taken down is very dependent on raid setup and player experience. If there are able lockdowners in the raid, the order should be Melee > Ranged > Healers. If the raid struggles with that, Healers > Melee > Ranged is preferable. Experiment with different approaches. For instance, if you have one or two warlocks and/or druid(s), you can keep the resto druid boss pretty much out of the fight by banishing and/or cycloning it. With someone else locking down the other healer, you should try taking out the melee first.

Things to be aware of

• Survival has priority. Do not stand still if a melee dps closes in on you. Do not finish casts but run away immediately. Snare or CC the chasing boss if you are able to.
• The burn target must have a MS, AS or WP healing debuff on it as long as possible. This makes a warrior, rogue or hunter presence close to mandatory.
• AoE is doing 75% less damage against these bosses, it is best to avoid it. This fight is all about taking down one boss at a time anyway.
• Ranged dps and healers should spread out in order to be better able to see if melee dps comes for you.
• Lockdown abilities like CC and snaring generally only work for 3 seconds. Diminishing returns is 15 seconds, so having raid members alternate targets is a useful tactic if they can coordinate.
• Taunting does NOT work at all in Grand Crusader, as opposed to normal Crusader.
• Pets can be taunted, if only shortly for the same 3 seconds described above. If they receive damage, boss healers will try to heal the pet as well. It might take away healing from other bosses like the burn target.
• Equip a pvp trinket (like Medallion of the Alliance) that removes lockdown debuffs.

Boss specifics

• Restoration druid boss can be kept in check by a warlock (banish + fear), support from a druid's Cyclone is a good addition.
• Rogue boss should be the first melee to die. Can 1/2-shot cloth wearers and has less armor.
• Shaman boss totems need to go down asap. Raiders on debuff/buff removal and healing duties can do this with melee weapons.
• Warlock boss will cast Hellfire AoE if 2+ raidmembers are in range. Move away or interrupt.

Class breakdown

Death knight
Good for interrupting healers or locking down enh shaman, warrior and death knight bosses. Avoid trying to lock down rogue and retri paladin. CoI and DG fail a lot due to rogue boss cloak ability and paladin boss cleansing/bubble. HC is useful for rushing in at the start of the fight and ice blocking all. Even if it does not hold, it is likely to have forced the bosses to use their pvp trinket. AotD should be used at the start to help dps the burn target.
Prio duty: [1] lock down melee, [2] lock down healer, [3] dps on burn target

Druid
Good for lockdown (Cyclone, ER) and debuff removal. Do not forget NG if a melee dps is chasing you.
Prio duty: [1]dps on burn target OR debuff removal + heal raid, [2] lock down melee and/or healer boss

Hunter
Good for AS debuff and lockdown abilities. Help with keeping melee dps bosses off cloth by using frost traps, concussion shot and wing clip. Freezing trap is less useful because of all the random (AoE) damage.
Prio duty: [1] dps on burn target (AS!), [2] lock down melee

Mage
Preferably use Frost spec for lockdown and defensive abilities. Use CS on the burn target when possible. Polymorph is less useful because of all the random (AoE) damage.
Prio duty: [1] dps on burn target, [2] lock down melee

Paladin
Should go protection or retribution while on debuff/buff removal duty, they will not be considered healers and have less chance of being targeted. Use HoP and HoJ for emergencies.
Prio duty: [1] debuff/buff removal + heal raid, [2] dps on burn target

Priest
Unmatched debuff/buff removal abilities. Discipline spec is excellent due to quick boss target save abilities such as PW:S and Penance, plus near-insta MD. PS should be used when too many bosses reach their target.
Prio duty: [1] debuff/buff removal + heal raid, [2] dps on burn target OR heal

Shaman
Should use heroism at the start of the fight. Using GT every time it is off its cooldown is worthwhile, as is ET for lockdown. TT might be useful if Fear is a problem. Purge and ES are useful for buff removal and interrupt.
Prio duty: [1] buff removal and interrupt healer, [2] buff removal and dps on burn target OR buff removal on burn target + heal raid

Rogue
Excellent for locking down healers. If no warriors and hunters are present, should be on the burn target to keep WP up.
Prio duty: [1] lock down healer, [2] dps on burn target (WP!), [3] lock down melee

Warlock
Good for lockdown using Fear and Banish (when resto druid boss is present). SF, when specced for it, is also a great help, as is CoE. HoT should be used when too many bosses reach their target.
Prio duty: [1] lock down restoration druid boss, [2] dps on burn target

Warrior
Being MS specced is a pre, having improved MS is even better for keeping it up on the burn target. Also good for interrupting healers or snaring melee dps. If there is also a death knight in the raid, the lockdown target should be rogue or paladin boss (see Death Knight entry). Being MS specced and shield equipped is good when on those duties. IS is a good fight opener, allowing raidmembers to focus more on the burn target for a few seconds. It can be used later on in the fight when too many bosses reach their target.
Prio duty: [1] dps on burn target (MS!), [2] lock down melee, [3] lock down healer

[Khue]

It may strictly be a coincidence but we've noticed that the first target to engage the encounter is usually the one that the mobs consistently turn back to. Knowing this, we have a Tank dk build up runic power and run in and blow his global ice block. This causes all the mobs to blow their trinket affect and then target the dk first. Heavy heal rotations start on the dk and everyone breaks down and starts dealing with their own responsibilities. It's made things fairly manageable for us.

[Nerzhal]

May I ask what kind of setup you were using?

[Fledern]

Resto druid on the opposing team is a nonentity if you haven an offensive dispeller (we prefer to use shammy purges). Burn target is spampurged and even 50% interrupts on the other healer should get you your first kill easily (i'm talking 10man).

Pets reset aggro very quickly but yes they can be taunted. I would actually suggest NOT killing them as they seem to be priority healing targets and can be used to waste healing time from the healers. taunt, smack a few times & they'll get a full set of hots

[Nerzhal]

May I ask what kind of setup you were using?

[Ruanamok]

My raiding 10-man had out first successful completion of ToGC over the weekend. We had a little trouble with the FC since we had the rogue and Moonkin for the first time. Used a DK MT and Pally OT along with DPS DK for AoD. FC seems like allot of running around blindly, but as is said above it is about survivability. We'll have to try the idea of engaging the pet more to see how much that keeps heals off the main target.

Now to take my Paladin into 10-man heroic so I can feel like a noob again.

[dotJEM]

This night i was as war tank and i had all mobs on me for a lot of time...

It is normal or i had luck?

We had the same exprience, but we turned the tactics a bit upside down... (havent read through all here so don't know if others done the same)...

Basically the way we was successful in 25 man HC was to have all melee/tanks go in and try to focus them all into one spot and then just heal like hell...

There is allot of damage going on this way, but it is mostly centric on the melee group, so it really lets the healers focus much more... i barely had to move the entire encounter and we only lost 2 members i think during the fight (which was CR'ed fast)...

Virtually no CC's btw. (a few, but really not alot)

(ill give some shots of the numbers later)

You may actually call this a Zerg ^^